Los Angeles is reeling as the world epicenter of the virus, and my neighborhood, with its working class, multi-generational household, and service-job population, is one of the worst. We even have placards warning people who come here to be extra cautious. Can you see why I don’t want to leave the house? Vaccine rollout has been slow and frustrating, but I expect that logjam to break soon, within weeks. Still, frustratingly, several people I know have cheated their way into getting vaccines when they don’t qualify yet. Which I find abhorrent. They tell me I should, too. I judgingly tell them I’ll wait my turn, thank you very much. Other than a boyfriend who goes to work and stores and then comes home, my risk is exactly zero. Or let’s say 1.0 for our once a week In N Out lunch drive thru trip, and my touching of mail and Amazon packages.
So right now health care workers and some seniors are starting to get shots. A friend posted that teachers will start on the 30th, which is of special interest to me since that directly affects when kids will be allowed back at school. Still, our mayor said at this current rate it would take nine years to vaccinate everyone in LA. Ugh!
The thought of waiting six more months to get a vaccine, which is what some people are estimating, is unbearable to me. Still, there’s a little part of me that wants things to be definitively slow - slow enough to drastically reduce the virus by summer but not enough to allow for crowded indoor gatherings - so that I can get out of my hotel contract and not have to run an event this year. I think I can safely say that there is no way in hell in seven months we can have crowded indoor events, not without so many restrictions (constant mask wearing, drastically reduced attendance, no partner switching, constant hand sanitizing, etc etc) that the event would be physically impossible. The idea of having to throw the whole event together in just a few weeks or months is absolutely terrifying to me - and honestly, I think would end up being a bit of a disaster. I want our return to be triumphant and joyful, not half-assed and sad with everyone still afraid of getting sick. I can guarantee no money would be made. What’s the point? Tomorrow a dancer friend who is a doctor is doing a zoom meeting for all of us organizers looking for answers - I think I can predict that he’ll say what I’m thinking; that yes, there is a chance events will be allowed in some form by end of summer or fall, but only with certain restrictions in place. Which means the hotel and I need to have some hard conversations. Technically I owe them $200,000 if I cancel. Again. Sigh.
Right now I’m putting all my hopes on this new performance venue grant the SBA is soon going to be offering, which would solve all of my financial woes. There is no timeline for when it will be available and no guarantee I’ll get it. I keep an eye on it every day. It’s my only hope, at the moment.
We survived the second week back at school, and the boys are past their post-Christmas break wiggles. I ran into a parent of one of Theo’s classmates on my walk who said they’re looking at private schools for their daughter because they feel the education quality has suffered a lot. I disagree - I mean, they’re only in 1st grade, how much can it suffer? They’re writing and reading and doing math and science and art...if anything I’ve learned how much their full day of school is padded with things like lunch breaks and recess and other non-academic stuff. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; just saying now that I see them learning in real time each day I see how little of their day is spent on actual schoolwork. Theo is done with the teaching portion of his day in two hours and then has maybe an hour of work after that; Bobby is done by around 1 after a 40 minute lunch break (which means he really spends maybe three hours at actual “school”) and then has about an hour of independent work. It’s not a lot, but again with all the breaks and lunches and things it stretches into a full day - sometimes we’re not done with everything until 4.
With teachers maybe starting to get vaccinated in a week or two, I’m still holding out for a return to school by post-spring break (first week of April). Could it be I only have two more months of home schooling?? Could I for once in my life have a couple of hours of quiet in my own house? Is it possible the kids will return to school before fall?? Nobody knows.
In the meantime I am plotting a Mother’s Day weekend trip to possibly Cambria to a little cabin I almost booked for my birthday week. I am still holding out hope for a birthday Hawaii trip, assuming the BF and I have our vaccines by July (I think that’s a safe assumption). I don’t know what the plan would be for the kids - they won’t have access to vaccines by then, but will need tests, and many places won’t issue tests to anyone under 12. We’d have to figure it out. But I am borderline obsessed with Hawaii at the moment; I think about it all the time. I’ve convinced myself a destination wedding on Hawaii is the way to go - it would be a great way to cull the guest list down to the people we really care about (although that could backfire if none of them can afford to get to Hawaii) and thereby save money, while also having a gorgeous place to be (and maybe hop over to Fiji or some such place for a short honeymoon while someone watches the kids). Anyway. Have I mentioned how much aspirational living is my main indulgence right now, since current actual living is so bleak and crushingly boring? Yeah.
Here is a picture of Bernie at the kids’ school gate waiting for school to reopen. Bernie is all of us.
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