Countdown to school

It’s August. Which means we’re now in this pandemic going on five months, and things couldn’t be looking worse as far as infections, deaths, and people about to be evicted and/or lose their businesses forever. Good times.

There still is not a set schedule for school, but I’ve looked at both the teachers’ union proposed schedule and the LAUSD one and I feel like I can live with both. Bobby I’m not too worried about...Theo, in first grade...I don’t know. Is he going to be able to sit on a computer for four fifty minute segments in a day...? Other questions - when are they going to announce classroom assignments? When are they going to decide the class schedule? How do I normalize the start of the school year? When do we take up violin again (we’ve been on hiatus all summer)? 

Nobody knows anything and everyone is freaking out. 

To add to my stress and uncertainty, the BF is interviewing for a shitty, low-paying job in Chatsworth. It would keep him out of the house 10-12 hours a day and barely pay $2500 a month. No benefits, no nothing. I tried to convince him it’s a complete waste of time, but it’s hard to convince someone of that when the $600 a week Pandemic Unemployment just ended and there’s no replacement in sight. So far he’s just interviewing; he may very well come to the conclusion, too, that it’s not worth it and to hold out for a better opportunity. But I’m seriously considering waiving his rent just to try to keep him here this month through the two tough things I have coming up - school starting, and my virtual event. Once we get past the hump of both of those things I’ll be a lot less anxious. Until then, though - ugh. 

It’s been hot here so we’ve been in the pool pretty much every day. I’m waterlogged and spacey. I take a hot, sweaty walk up in the hills that are particularly empty right now because of the heat, then work on the computer, then get in the pool, then make and eat dinner. The days seem to fly and slide by at the same time. It’s August, which means the Big Bake is about to begin. No more marine  layer, no more foggy chilly mornings. It’s going to be relentlessly hot now until about Halloween. Dry as hell, too. Time to crank on the AC, take multiple showers, and drink lots of water. I dream of snowy sunny mountains this winter; the fantasy of child-free time and a Covid-free world in which I can ski during weekdays. But it is just a fantasy. My prediction? We’re in this mess until spring, at least. But big things will happen before then - an election, a vaccine perhaps. It won’t always be like this. But it will be for a while still.