My hurricane

So, many of you may be aware that California (and Mexico, and other Pacific Coast areas) were subject to my namesake hurricane over the weekend. Despite lots of worry on my part for our desert place (the fear of it getting flooded after finally being completed was very real), it did just fine. I kept a hawk eye on the washes along the back via our security cameras, and although they were fast and full for a few hours during the day, they never filled up again, which was puzzling. I think the desert areas to our west - Palm Springs, Cathedral City, etc, took the brunt of it. Honestly, we’ve seen and even experienced first hand far gnarlier storms out there. It was definitely a wake up call that we have to build some kind of berm along the west and north sides of our place - that’s where all the water pools. 

It’s been a surreal few days for a few reasons - one, Theo came home from school with a fever and a covid test on Thursday; tested negative, but was still feverish and not eating so I kept him home Friday and shuttled Bobby back and forth to school alone. Then Saturday he was recovered so they both went to their dental appointments, then we all went to see Raising Arizona at the new local art house theater (Bobby liked it, Theo was bored), then we hunkered down for the storm in the strangely humid and heavy weather. My penultimate Knott’s gig was canceled Sunday morning and I spent yesterday keeping an eye on the cabin and watching movies; then word came that school would be closed today. Even though the storm was over overnight, they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the school buildings at such short notice, so for the fourth day in a row I’m home with kids. At about 9 last night our power went out; by this morning it hadn’t been restored, and I scrambled to figure out how to keep kids entertained and fed all day with no internet or tv and not wanting to open the fridge. I was busily re-structuring my day when at about 11 the power came back, despite having spent over an hour on hold with the power department just to be told they had no updates. 

While I’m extremely grateful that our place(s) suffered no damage and our power is on and we’re all safe, I’m so rattled by a weekend of worry and two school days of having kids home when I didn’t expect to that I’m having a hard time focusing or being effective; I feel like my brain is short circuiting. Like…this wasn’t in the plans. Thankfully I’ve gotten a great deal of the most fidgety projects done in advance so there’s not a ton to do this week other than customer service, but there’s still lots of loose ends hanging, and I only have this week and four days next week and then we’re on. As always I’m convinced I’ve made tons of mistakes and have forgotten urgently needed things. In fact I keep finding mistakes, which doesn’t give me confidence. But hey, at least I’m finding them in time to correct them, right?

I’m very much looking forward to getting back to school routines, which reminds me of how unmoored I always feel without school as a grounding mechanism. It really is true that school is our co-parent. Even with shorter days and having to pick kids up so early, it’s still comforting to get up with somewhere to go and the understanding that I’ll have the house to myself for at least a few hours. Today I put the kids on wait lists for afterschool clubs that, if they’re admitted, will garner another hour before pickup one or two days a week. I don’t expect them to be admitted, however. They need to go together otherwise it’s pointless, and there just aren’t enough spots for everyone. I’m not going to hold my breath on that or the afterschool coming through for us. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to early pickups every day. It’s fine.