And now it’s fall

Like much of the west coast, we’re under a blanket of smoke at the moment. Relatively speaking it’s not that bad where we are - it rarely is here - but still bad enough that any outdoor activity is discouraged, and I wake up each day to the crispy smell of campfires, and my car is covered in ash (of our hopes and dreams, I wonder?).

The BF has started back at his old job, but only part time. When he asked if it was ok, after determining that it would be flexible and it would allow me for walks in the morning and having him home at night, I agreed to it. It’s time - it would be selfish of me to demand he stay home now that my event is over and clearly the kids’ school is manageable for one person. He needs something else in his life. And I’m ready to have him be somewhere else for a while. Just removing one person from this house reduces the chaos, mess, and noise by 25%, and I’m into it. 

So it looks like this will be our fall life. I have a few loose ends to tie up for my event - I still have to mail the dance contest awards all over the world, and pay a few stragglers - but mostly my work is done for the foreseeable future. Normally I would be hiring people and fleshing our next year’s details, ready to be announced in November...but with no registration opening in sight, there’s no point. I pretty much intend to put on a duplicate of this year, on the assumption that everyone will be available for me. So most of that work was done a year ago. My only job is to sit tight and monitor the Covid situation. I expect to be in this state of flux for at least eight months. 

In the meantime I intend to fill my life with cooking, knitting, and plotting out inexpensive camping trips. I’m trying to have one trip a month so I always have something to look forward to. We’re headed to Joshua Tree in two weeks, then we camp with our “camping pod” over Halloween, then we will hopefully hit Death Valley over Thanksgiving break. Christmas break, I have a few ideas...one of which is cashing in our free Hawaii trip on the assumption that we’ll be able to travel there as long as we get tested right before (supposedly they’re instituting this on Oct 1). But there are many problems with this idea. One - there’s no guarantee that this policy will be in place by late December, or that COVID won’t spiral out of control yet again over the winter (likely) and we’ll just have to cancel everything again. Two - do I want to subject my kids to being tested? What if they freak out? And what if the timing gets all effed up and screws up our trip? Three - what if the whole trip ends up being depressing and awful? Is this really how we want to see Hawaii, everything closed and masked and people hating on us for bringing our mainland disease to their shores? But then again - Hawaii! It’s a tough call. I’ll have to give that a good long think. But not too long, because once those floodgates open, watch out. 

Then we have a mountain cabin booked for January’s one three day weekend, and I’ll think of something for Feb. If Death Valley works out in Nov we can make that a regular getaway for the winter months. And then it’s spring, and who knows what will be happening then? School, my event open, new president? It’s sad that none of those things are a guarantee. I read today that LAUSD has stated there will be no school before November - which we all knew. I’m thinking no school before spring break, and even that’s a stretch. So right now I’m just taking everything in week and then month chunks. My biggest hurdle - my event - is done. Now the next big hurdle - the election. God help us all.