Back to school blues

This should be such a happy time. Last week we did new clothes and backpacks and haircuts; today after hunting down the school supply lists, I bought all their school supplies. I discovered pens are expensive AF. Mind you, I’m still excited for return to school and the support and steadiness school brings, and with our school being full of leftie science believing rule followers, I’m not very concerned about health risks. Everyone is masked, everyone will be distancing, everyone is tested every week. However, the mood in the country is one of high anxiety around kids in schools and the havoc that may soon descend upon us; this will be nothing like last spring. Now we’re all in real danger. If I think about it enough, it’s pretty horrifying. I’m under no illusion that my kids won’t finally succumb to coronavirus this school year, bring it home and infect us even with our vaccines, and the F with his smoker’s lungs may not survive it. Yes, these things are all possible as the kids start school on Monday.

Also possible, and talked about more and more lately although mostly referring to places that won’t enforce mask wearing, is schools shuttering again. I’d like to say LAUSD will be immune to that, but who knows? I’ve given up making predictions at this point. The kids will either be fine at school or they won’t. The schools will stay open or they won’t. As usual, nobody knows anything. Is it the end of my world if schools close? Not really. Again, I have the extreme privilege of working from home without actually working - kids being home again only means I don’t have to wake up hella early and shuffle them into the car with shoes and socks on. But I worry for people who don’t have this privilege. How much more of this can they take? 

I hid from my email all weekend and then took a deep breath and opened it up Monday morning and dove head first into processing what has now been 330 refund requests. I’ve spent all week on it and am now caught up, but the requests continue to trickle in, and I’m not even halfway there. Nobody has been rude although some people just send an email saying “refund” with no name or anything...I guess it’s my job to figure out who the fuck they are...but just when I think those people are mad at me, when I write back to tell them their refund has been issued they usually write again telling me how sorry they are. Just goes to show you can’t read tone from an email. Equally amusing are the acquaintances who send me long paragraphs telling me how much they admire me and what a force I am in the dance world...and then ask for their money back. I say amusing because this is exactly what I would do in their position. I feel like writing back, “sure, I’ll take that lousy $160 out of my children’s mouths that you paid in February of 2020 and give it back to you if it’s so goddamned important, sure...” but I doubt they’d get the dark humor. 

Also kind of wishing instead of writing a lengthy soliloquy on the impossibility of running a large indoor event in my cancellation email I had simply emailed everyone, “we’re canceling because y’all motherfuckers nasty”, but again, not sure if anyone other than me would get the joke. 

So now I just wait and see what’s left after the carnage. I’m seeing a decent number of donations which is good, and of course transfers to next year. But I’m sure I’ll be refunding at least $70,000-$90,000. And remember some of that money was made early in 2020 as people are sick of deferring passes year after year. One bright spot is I may get another grant in a couple of weeks and a state one in October. So those may really save my ass this year. 

Now I pick up the kids from their cheap little Rec center camp that they’ve actually really been enjoying. I’m going to miss these simple summer days. This school year is going to be a rollercoaster.