End of July

Our group camping trip last weekend was super sketch. I was invited by a friend who wanted a couple of families to come help celebrate her daughter’s fourth birthday. It ended up being a strange, disorganized camp site on someone’s horse ranch literally at the border with Mexico (it was across the street - about 50 feet away); with dogs that pooped and peed all over our camp site, tried to sleep in our cars and tents and begged for food; a filthy port-o-potty full of black widows; and despite our best efforts, no real way to keep the kids from socializing with the other five kids, nor ourselves from their parents. We spent our days dodging unmasked people frolicking in beach towns. The whole thing was pretty risky and ill advised. I am just going to cross my fingers for the next two weeks. Ugh. 

However, the good parts of it was the kids had an absolute blast playing with a large group of children their age - I’m sure they’ve really missed that. And after driving around aimlessly for a whole day we did end up at a lovely beach with low rolling waves and had a great time boogie boarding and swimming. So as much as it started horribly and was a bit of a mess, we did end up having a good time. 

Now we’re home for two weeks before our next adventure, this time to the Kern River. I’m working steadily each day on my virtual event and it’s slowly coming together. Each day I get up, make breakfast, get the kids dressed and teeth brushed, then go for my daily hike in the hills past the kids’ school, then get out the computer and get some solid work in for a couple of hours, then pretty much lie around and watch TV the rest of the day. The BF makes the kids lunch and dinner and takes them out for some kind of physical activity. If it’s hot we get in the pool. And that’s pretty much it. I wish I could get motivated to work on crafts or projects...but I’m just not. And with school starting soon I know my leisure time is counting down. But with the virtual event looming ahead of me I’m reluctant to commit to anything else.

The kids have been campaigning for a dog. Apparently our cranky middle aged kitty is not much of a pet for them - she sleeps all day and has zero interest in interacting with them. I’m not opposed to a dog...but I want to make sure I know what our lives are going to look like before committing to a high-maintenance animal like that. Is the BF going to go back to work and I’m stuck home schooling two kids and taking care of a dog all day by myself? Is the addition of a dog going to send our poor kitty into a tailspin of anxiety and misery? I’m skeptical.

School daze

Today the BF went up to the school to pick up the boys’ yearbooks. In looking through the pages, it made me profoundly sad to see all of the kids and teachers and parents, the fun activities and events we were part of last year (the annual pancake breakfast in September, the Halloween Carnival), not to mention the well-rounded education the kids were getting in actual school - drama, music, gardening, field trips, etc. I can guarantee anything this fall is off; winter probably too. Spring? Maybe?

On everyone’s minds is what our lives are going to look like in three weeks. LAUSD says there will be roll call and accountability; but what does that mean, exactly? Are we going to have to be on computers at 8 AM (please god no) - are the teachers going to interact with the kids more? Are we going to be tied into a certain schedule? For selfish reasons I kind of want things to be the way they were last spring - as long as you hand in all your work at the end of the week, that’s enough. And just one 10AM zoom meeting a week. I don’t want to be dragged out of bed early and I want us to still be able to go on mid-week camping trips through September and October. But I know both of those things will probably not go the way I want, so I’m prepared. We camp this weekend and last night I booked one last hurrah Kern River camping trip during the week before they start school. Taking full advantage of two kids off school and two parents out of work for as long as both things last. 

Lots of good news about future vaccines...the BF thinks we could have something available by winter/spring. However, many people I know are already saying they won’t get it. I know the rushed nature of the vaccine is scary...I’m not a fan, either. But. We will be getting it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when there is a vaccine...all the crazy that that new element will bring out and create...and decisions that business owners like me will have to make. Will you only allow vaccinated people on your premises? Will it matter? Will everything be normal again and this year of hell forgotten? Can I have an event in 2021? Will anyone come? The questions never end. 

I’m still waiting for about 75 people to contact me about refunds. I anticipate about $60,000 refunded out of my pocket, which isn’t terrible. I hope they offer a second round of PPP loans; that would really help me a lot. Still don’t know what to do about my car lease ending in November. I’m thinking just buy the car, but I’m afraid of what even that will cost. I think my dream of an electric car is a few years off now. Sigh.

The boys are enjoying days of unbridled video game playing and gamer video watching. I would say it’s not good for them...but...they’re really ok. I think we break it up enough with outside jaunts and camping and pool days that they seem to have balance in their lives...? They seem happy and secure and well-adjusted. Bobby is going through a very sweet phase and I dread the tween years (possibly) turning him into something unrecognizable - as I’m sure it did for me at that age. Theo is a ball of energy and is overwhelming at the best of times...is it a younger brother thing? The older sibling always cautious and serious, the younger brash and fearless? This seems to be a true dynamic for many siblings I know. Is it because the older child gets the mother’s anxiety and the younger gets the mother’s exhaustion? I prefer to think of it as the older child gets the mother’s enthusiasm and the younger gets the mother’s experience. In the end it’s probably a little of both.

Birthday glamping trip, pt II

So we arrived at camp around 5 pm in this area loosely called Maricopa. It was just as isolated as I’d hoped - in the middle of dry, rolling hills, with no one else anywhere. My first thought was “we could run around naked!” and I do confess I went topless or bottomless a few times just because I could. It was indeed as advertised - water tank fitted with a bed and loft bed, picnic table, outhouse, and metal tub that we immediately filled with warm well water and jumped in as the evening came on. It was wild. 

Before the sun set we climbed up the hill nearest us and I got to do something I’ve always wanted to do ever since I moved here - walk along the top of these endless rolling hills just to see what’s up there. As it turned out, lots of giant bunnies with long ears (the term “jackalope” kept creeping into my mind), lizards, and other fascinating flora and fauna and incredible views. Next to some places I visited in Cambodia, I felt like I’d never been somewhere so remote and isolated. 

We cooked dinner and then had a rousing game of Uno, and thankfully slept in the tank without being interrupted by critters (I was worried about rats and scorpions and spiders, but nothing bothered us thankfully). By this morning we were enjoying it so much I was tempted to try to book one more night - what, indeed, do we have to come back for? - but we were out of food and drinks and clean clothes, and it was time to go. My heart stung a little bit. That’s a good sign - it’s a sign that something a little magical happened; that a place touched your heart. And this place did. I definitely would go back. 

And so we packed up and drove the two hours home. 

I am definitely fascinated by all these crazy independently owned camping spots and the creativity that goes into them. I got a lot of ideas for if I ever wanted to attempt something like this myself...but I do have hesitations. One, it seems like a massive financial commitment, more than I had thought. Also, it means being a landlord hundreds of times a year, and people are horrible. So, not a fan of that. But still...the idea lingers.

For our next adventure I am positively dying to take us out to stay at a Navajo-run eco space in Arizona I found - I think it would be incredible. But with the stoopit school year in the way I don’t know how we can pull it off - maybe Thanksgiving break, but it’ll be cold. The kids and I can hang, but I know dealing with cold is the BF’s cryptonite - so this may have to wait as long as spring break, which makes me want to cry. I wish I had a rough-and-tumble girlfriend I could escape with, but I don’t know anyone who would be willing to go quite that far into rough adventure as me. Oh well, it can wait. In the meantime I can painstakingly plot out an awesome trip for us and pull the trigger when we can actually go.

In the middle of all this, the BF and I celebrated five years together, and I turned 48. This is definitely the age I had feared when I was younger as that moment I might look back and so wish I had had children - here I am on the other side of this experience, experiencing option 2, life with children at 48. And it’s great. Sure, they complained a lot and were always too loud and rambunctious and Theo seemed to have forgotten how to wipe himself or hold his pee pretty much any time, but in the end I do these things as much for them as myself, and I’m relieved when I see how easily they put down the iPads and join us for a long sweaty hike or a card game, and both said their favorite part of the trip was when we played games together. 

Now we pack up to go camping with friends one last time next weekend and then it’s all-virtual event, all the time, plus school for the kids again, for August. My plan now is I’m going to happily return to my fasting diet and walks after this week of horrid food, and start buckling down for what may be the toughest fall and winter in US history. 

Birthday glamping trip, pt I

So I have just returned from my almost week-long “glamping” trip, and what am I doing? Watching a TV show about surviving in the wild (Alone, on Hulu). Wilderness survival shows have become a bit of an obsession for me - as have vintage teardrop trailers, as has camping and outdoorsmanship in general. Right now there’s just something about all this free time, the existential dread of the current pandemic bringing an end to life as we know it, and the inability to safely do much of anything else, that is fueling my obsession. My only obstacles to spending even more time in the outdoors is the impending school year, and money. Oh, speaking of which, LAUSD has announced no return to in-person school next month. Thank god they are doing the right thing and the decision to keep the kids home has been made for me. Now, on to our trip:

On Monday we took the long drive up to Monterey area (technically Aromas) where we spent two nights in a yurt. The yurt itself was great - power and warm and comfortable, and as always I enjoyed the outdoor shower and cooking. But the entire setup left a lot to be desired - we had to park at the bottom of a steep slope where a repulsive stinking port-a-potty was our bathroom; halfway up from that was an unshaded picnic table, which meant leaving all our food and kitchen stuff in the car, which meant a lot of trudging back and forth up hills with all our food and cooking materials, which was such a huge pain that we ended up only cooking breakfast each day. The restaurant situation in that area was a nightmare - lots of places that said they were open but weren’t, and some of the worst Chinese food I’ve ever had in my life. I started to get annoyed that I was spending a small fortune on horrible expensive restaurant food twice a day when we had brought so much to cook. We had one very unpleasant day of driving down Big Sur from Monterey which should have only taken a couple of hours but ended up taking about six, with Theo falling asleep and peeing his pants and us almost running out of gas in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception. Yeah...that was not a good day. 

After two nights, we packed up and headed to Paso Robles to a much glitzier glamping site with real bathrooms, power, and running water. Here it was warmer and sunny and the vistas from the “ranch” we stayed on were stunningly beautiful. And for me as kitchen manager, the freedom to cook with all my tools and food just a few feet away made a huge difference. We finally started making the lunches and dinners we’d planned. The first night we went to a super sketchy local hot springs, which I thought was fine - the BF couldn’t get over how run down it was and how weird it was swimming in dark muddy hot water. I don’t know if it’s an East-West thing or what, but in my experience people in CA have much higher expectations for cleanliness and convenience than people I knew on the East coast; the whole time I was thinking, “are you kidding me? I swam at Coney Island in the 80s; it was like that scene in the trash compactor from Star Wars!” while the BF told me he couldn’t think of anyone he’s dated who would have been into swimming there (except one ex-wife who, wait for it, was from NY state).

We went to Cambria where I snuck off to an antique mall and delighted myself with buying some vintage cards and an archaic weaving tool called a “weave it” (can’t wait to take a deep dive into using this in the fall when my love of fiber arts always returns).

Then on my birthday we packed up and headed to the most questionable of my camping choices, the water tank in the Cuyama Badlands. We got there late because I knew it was going to be wicked hot - and only stayed one night because I thought that plan could be a big mistake. Boy was I wrong! Continue to part two next! 

Camping pod

Our Malibu Creek camping trip was the shiz. We ended up inviting the family we camped with last time - officially our “camping pod” - so the kids had friends to play with, and we had a lovely hike to the (supposedly closed) Rock Pool which we then got to swim in. I know this doesn’t sound that exciting, but considering how rare it is in California to find a “swimmin’ hole”, I was entranced. 

This is indeed a strange time. So many parents with nothing to do except focus on their families. It makes me sad when I think how much life *should* be like this. Just caring for your family and creating memories, to the exclusion of most everything else. Of course in the long run I don’t know how satisfying living like this all of the time would really be - I definitely am missing my dead-and-buried singing career and of course my event, although that one less so as it’s still kind of “on” with lots to do for the virtual event. 

I’ve become obsessed with getting a 1930s or 40s teardrop trailer, and late last night mapped out the perfect trip to Zion National Park utilizing various earth homes/trailers/sheep farm spaces to stay in. I don’t know when we’d be able to do something like that - the season ends in September for most of these places. But if the BF is still not working and school can be done at our own pace...? Maybe! If not, next year! 

All any parents can talk about is what’s going to happen with school next month. I’m glad I’m not the only one obsessed with this. I am seriously leaning towards no school even if it’s offered. But I just don’t know yet. So much can happen in the next five weeks. My prediction? Nothing good. 

We leave for my birthday trip on Monday - unless of course stay-at-home orders are brought back. These days nothing can be counted on - you have to know that any plans can be crushed at any time. I’m so used to endless little losses I don’t even really care anymore; so my birthday trip gets canceled, so what. Add it to the list of disappointments. I’m definitely not the first. 

Happy 4th...?

As my Facebook feed has been curated to pretty much nothing but the ultra-woke, nobody appears to be celebrating today. One, we couldn’t celebrate if we wanted to; two, there’s not much to celebrate right now, and three - surprise, white people, guess what? This country has sucked for everyone except you for hundreds of years. So I’ll use my favorite California phrase here - “yeah, no”.

Tomorrow we leave for Malibu creek for camping until Weds. This will be the first time we’ve camped without another family with kids, so I’m a bit nervous we’ll be bored. It’s a beautiful spot with a beach nearby, though, and beaches will be open as of Monday. So hopefully we can occupy ourselves with that during the day. 

I’m nervous about my online event. I’m having a hard time getting pro-level competitors to sign up for contests - they are used to wandering in the day of and registering. So all of my pro level contests are in danger of being canceled, because the cut off has to be a month and a half out. I will continue to hustle and contact people directly, but it’s stressful. And of course everything is taking too long, people are not responding to emails, and time is running out. I still haven’t heard from 150 people who paid for the event even though I’ve now emailed multiple times. I have not been able to nail down a schedule that makes sense. Turns out it’s really, really hard to do something you’ve never done before...especially when no one else has done it before, either, and especially when you’re in the middle of a pandemic and everyone is scared, depressed, and lethargic. This is why I’m not charging for the event - I have no idea what the end product is going to look like. But right now it’s stressing me out.

The BF has ramped up his job search. I’m trying not to panic because he hasn’t even gone on an interview yet - but he made a comment this morning that if he does get one of these daytime printing jobs he’ll then go work at his other job on nights and all weekend. What? That’s not at all what we discussed. No, I am not going to be left in charge of homeschooling two young kids in two different grades alone all day, just to be stuck alone with them all night and all weekend while he lives here like it’s a fucking hotel. That is not happening. But no reason to lose my shit yet. As mentioned, he hasn’t even interviewed yet, and his other job can’t come back until the economy comes back and bars and nightclubs open to full capacity, which can’t happen until life is pretty much normal, which means kids will be in school (I’m assuming). But the fact that he even said that irritates the fuck out of me. I think there are going to be a lot of couples in our situation who for some months had a very present, helpful partner, only to see that person completely disappear and fall back into old habits the minute their job came back. Yeah, I’m not letting that happen quietly around here. He’s going to have to do what women are forced to do every day - sacrifice career opportunities for the sake of work-life balance. Welcome to our world. 

Covidlandia

We’re still in a bit of June gloom here. Mornings are overcast and cold, making me think about the long fall and winter ahead of us, and wonder what they will be like. Since before I had kids, I have not been in such a state of uncertainty before. I literally have no idea what the world is going to look like in six months. Other than my hair being six inches longer - I’m just going to go for it and be hippie middle aged woman with braids, fuck it - I’m at a loss.

Out of nowhere we got supply lists for each of the kids’ grades - including individual PE kits (balls, frisbee, etc) for Bobby’s grade - from the school. I’m hesitant to run out and buy any of it, though. I’m still skeptical there will be any in-person school this year, or even if they offer it, I’m not 100% I would even send the kids. If it were just Bobby it would be a no-brainer...but Theo is a lot harder to settle down for lessons at home. Sigh. A lot can happen in the next six weeks. We’ll see. 

LA has toggled back its re-opening, including closing beaches for the upcoming 4th of July weekend. We leave for another camping trip the following day, through Wednesday. For 4th of July we’ll just be at home, like everyone else. We’ll have a pretty spectacular show from our porch. It’s got to beat last year’s fiasco in which it took several hours to retrieve my purse from the bag check at the Rose Bowl, with two tired and miserable children and everyone losing their shit and threatening to sue. Yeah, things were better before COVID...but they also still sucked sometimes, too.

For now I’m working a little bit every day on my virtual event, refunding people, and trying to stay on top of things. The BF has spoken with a recruiter about potential jobs - which fills me with mixed feelings. His pandemic unemployment supplement runs out this month meaning hard times ahead...but if he gets a job, it means worse times for me, especially if he’s not around to help with the home schooling. It’s complicated. Right now I have a lot of freedom to go off on my own during the day, which keeps me sane - this will end when he goes back to work. For now I’m keeping my expectations low and just hoping we get this weekend’s camping trip and my birthday trip on the books - one or both could be cancelled by new restrictions at any time - and then when August hits, expect a lifestyle change. School will start in some form, I’ll have to really hustle to make sure everything falls into place with my online event, and something will have to give with regards to the BF’s work situation. 

Then we just sit, and wait. Wait for news on COVID numbers, wait for the election. It’s like being perpetually nine months pregnant. You’re uncomfortable and full of trepidation, you want your current situation to be over, and you’re so sick of it all that you just want to be able to think about something else for five minutes. And yet what you’re going to have to go through to get to the other side also fills you with terror. Yep. Welcome to Covidlandia.