My sister flew in for a visit on Wednesday, and we had a big pool party with mutual friends and Brazilian relatives on Saturday. Sunday we dropped the kids at their sleepaway camp, a ritual I missed last year for obvious reasons. How were they? I’m not going to say enthusiastic, but not bummed out, either; I think sort of more quiet and shy. They asked if I would send them mail - I didn’t realize this was a thing, being as they’re only there until Saturday - but I could tell how much they wanted this, so I hastily scribbled off two Bowie postcards and dropped them in the mail the next day. Hopefully they’ll get them before they leave!
Yesterday was my actual birthday, and I had decided the thing I wanted to do most was (shocker) drive out to the desert, so my sister, H and I got in the car yesterday morning and headed out in the terrible heat (109° at times!). I was worried about the extreme heat, but we were mostly in the air conditioned car. We stopped at an antique store in Yucca Valley and I cleaned up - I got a desert survival guide, some 1950s UFO club magazines, a knife rack for the cabin, and some 1930s goggles. Then we did a scenic drive through Joshua Tree National park, then out to the cabin. I can’t say the contractors did a great job at the end - I think they were very anxious to get the job finished and couldn’t deal with any niceties, so there’s some siding left around in the sand that we have to clean up, and lots of bags of construction garbage inside the place that we have to somehow dispose of, and the paint job was very slap-dash and messy, which will require some touch ups on our part. Also the security shutters they put on the bottom windows don’t have locks so they’re far from secure at the moment. They also left all the upstairs windows open - good thing we came along or the place would be full of sand by the fall. I also am very skeptical of the wood burning stove installation - it looks like a total fire hazard and a mess. There’s no way we’re lighting that thing up until I get a professional in to make sure it’s safe. Maybe if our neighbor returns I can ask him to check it over. For now, though, with the insulation, I’m sure any winter cold could be tempered by our little propane heater like last year. Co2 monitor on and windows cracked, of course. I sort of knew the last visit with those guys would be a bit of a mess - they’d been out there so many times, and this last one in extreme temperatures, so I honestly can’t blame them for just wanting the hell out of there. In the end we achieved the impossible which was a finished, livable cabin, and I’m over the moon.
We had time to kill, so we drove up Amboy (pop 5) and then back to 29 Palms for a bougie dinner at Kitchen in the Desert, then a drive home. We got back about midnight, completely exhausted. I’m glad I have nothing to do today but take my sister to the airport later tonight; I’m wiped.
In other news, Stripe suddenly agreed to give me my money (after I finally supplied them with paperwork slapped together that they had been asking for), which is great…but this year isn’t the one I’m worried about, it’s next year. And they did say this is going to be an ongoing process in which they’ll continue to demand paperwork and withhold *up to* 100% of my money if they see fit. So I still have to look for solutions, which may involve only releasing my tickets in batches, which the customers will hate, but I may not have a choice. It just might be the only way to avoid red flags, and honestly I don’t even know if that will work. I don’t know what their threshold for withholding funds is - what if it’s not even based on income but instead on business model? So as much as I’m glad the current situation is resolved, it only opens up more questions about the future.
I think that’s kind of the mood of the day, now that I’m 51. What does the future hold for me? What’s going to happen to the business that’s held me afloat for 25 years, in this increasingly hostile environment - will it survive? What’s going to happen to these kids at this new school this year? What’s going to happen to me and my body as I relentlessly age? I had some spotting yesterday and thought it was a period two weeks early, but it wasn’t. Perimenopause is upon me, and I don’t know what to expect, and it’s scary. I don’t know how to keep my body fit and healthy at my age, but I know I have to figure something out because I’m now the heaviest I’ve ever been, none of my clothes fit, etc etc. La lucha continua. So I go into this new decade full of trepidation. There could be a lot of change headed my way, and most of it…isn’t good.
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