Christmas week

Let week two of Christmas break commence. It feels like it’s already been years. 

For the most part, the boys have done nothing but alternate between YouTube meme collections and playing Yeeps on their VRs in fetid underwear and pyjamas while I occasionally throw food at them. I feel tremendous guilt for not getting them out of the house like I used to, but at the same time…they’re having a blast and don’t want to do anything else. As Bobby said, “I worked hard all semester and now I just want to relax”. Who am I to not listen to the wishes of this straight A student? Indeed.

I’ve been keeping up with my exercise (except cancelling my usual 9 AM Friday weight training because who the hell wants to get up at 7 right now - I’m barely out of bed by 10). I’m in terror of gaining tons of weight in the next two weeks before I start dieting again in January, even though I know I’d have to eat thousands of calories a day to gain more than 2-3 lbs in two weeks, and I’m definitely not doing that. But as of right now I’d be starting from a much better place than when I started last April, so I stand a much better chance of getting to my goal weight this time. Let’s just say it’s easier to lose ten pounds than eighteen. I’m pumped up and ready to go. 

We’ll have a nice Christmas at home and then in a couple of days leave for our road trip through Utah. It looks so far like the weather should cooperate for our Wave hike, which I’m excited about. I’m a little concerned I haven’t booked enough things for us to do - on a couple of days, our activities are over by early in the afternoon and then we’re done for the day - but there’s going to be so much driving and looking for places to eat, I don’t want to over schedule, either. I feel like our road trip life may be coming to a close, to be honest. I’m starting to tire of the intense planning, and we’ve pretty much seen everything within a reasonable radius. The H mentioned he’d like to try a cruise, and I like cruises, and suddenly the idea of just getting on a boat and having everything taken care of sounds incredibly luxurious (and believe it or not, is way cheaper than what we’ve been doing - road trips are hella expensive). I hope we can start to transition to international travel and cruises instead now, in the time we have left with these kids. I’d rather someone else handle the itineraries from now on.

It’s past the solstice, which means it starts to get brighter now. As much as I’m dreading the non-stop deluge of outrage and misery that’s coming under Trump (I can’t believe I’m even saying those words, ugh!), I feel like we’re already there - Trump and his First Lady Elon are already calling the shots and wreaking havoc; it’s like Biden doesn’t even exist (I find I have to remind myself that Biden is still president). I’m more than a little afraid that he will crash the economy and destroy my event this year - especially the year I’m adding a day and taking on all these expenses - but hey, if it happens to me, it’s going to happen to every other event and business, too. There’s a chance the H could start making significantly more money this year due to partnering up with his competitor and raising prices; boy would that be nice! But again, if Drumpf ruins the country, all of this is a moot point. I feel like Americans are being plunged into the kind of instability and corruption that many people around the world have grappled with for ages - well, I guess it’s finally our turn.

What a weekend

It was a WEEKEND. Started off with several shitty, triggering comments left on several of my podcast videos from someone who is clearly in the cult still. Despite having deleted the comments and hidden the channel from him, the comments still show up as the first thing you see when you click on the video. If you click on the comment, it’s not there, but it still comes up right under the video. Apparently this is just how it works. What the actual fuck is the point of being able to delete comments if you can’t actually delete comments??? Also, you can’t block people from seeing your content, either, just make sure any *future* comments don’t get posted. He can continue to view everything I post and keep commenting with no idea that he’s not actually able to. I’m so annoyed and have been really triggered and upset all weekend (especially because the gaslighting bullshit he posted was exactly the type of shit my mother used to say to me).

Then our fridge broke again, after being repaired just a few months ago, and of course, once again, none of us noticed until everything was literally hot. Even though last time I bought thermometers so we’d have more of a heads up this time, of course they got knocked over and pushed to the back because of all the crap in there. We had a frantic run to Home Depot to try to buy a new fridge - having decided we were sick of repairing this one - but then after buying it, got a hold of the repair guy who was able to come by and fix it after all (waiting on a part now), which is still way cheaper than a whole new fridge, and I had to call to cancel the order of the fridge, but the person told me I need to call back tomorrow to “make sure” the cancellation went through, but tomorrow will be too late for a refund, so now I’m worried about that.

In the middle of all this I had to run out and finance a new phone because my rickety old one wouldn’t even charge anymore, and it took over six hours on the phone with TMobile, Apple, and GoDaddy to figure out why my email wasn’t working (apparently I had to clear my cache).

I struggled to remind myself all weekend how grateful I should be for all the nice things in my life, because these things that happened are petty and have solutions and don’t really matter in the scheme of things. As of now most are resolved (except the YouTube issue which will continue to irritate me - I may just turn commenting off in the future). We didn’t have to fork out $2000 for a new fridge that was a step down from the one we currently have, and I have a kick ass new phone which, apart from the extremely irritating loss of a whole day trying to fix the email issue, works great. And paid very little for it, as we were able to use some promos and just stick the cost on my monthly bill. But STILL. 

We watched It’s a Wonderful Life Saturday night, an event we’d been looking forward to with the kids, but for me anyway, it didn’t go as I had hoped. The H promised the kids hot chocolate, not realizing we didn’t have any. So when we stopped the movie in the middle to make some, I hustled myself into the kitchen to make it from scratch, while being annoyed that I had to use things I was saving for other recipes to make it. To be fair, he offered to run out and buy some - I should have taken him up on this - but I figured I make this same recipe all the time for the kids so it shouldn’t be a big deal. But I was so exhausted from having had a late night gig the night before in Santa Barbara that it was a bit of an ordeal, and then to top it off later Theo said it “wasn’t very good”, despite having loved it many times before. Theo just has this way of hurting my feelings the way no one else can. I considered confronting him about how rude this was, but backed down because I’ve just had too much conflict lately and was already feeling shitty over the YouTube stuff and just didn’t want to make things more shitty. In the end, I think the kids were bored by the movie, and honestly after watching George completely go off on his family and make everyone cry, I kind of wished Clarence hadn’t saved him in the river. So George Bailey gets to verbally abuse his whole family, including his wife who clearly is and has always been the only one keeping everything together (renovating an entire house on her own while having four babies in rapid succession), and we’re supposed to be happy when the town comes to bail him out. Pffft. I’d like to see a modern version in which Mary leaves his lame daydreaming ass because she clearly doesn’t need his selfish abusive BS anyway. Now that would be a wonderful life.

Doing Christmas

We “did Christmas” yesterday. It’s one of those processes that kind of sucks when you’re in the middle of it - lots of stress and dealing with dusty picture rails and things falling and pine needles and glitter everywhere - but once it’s done, it’s nice. I order an ornament of our family photos every year, and there are so many of them now that they fill a whole shoebox. This is the beginning of the end of “Christmases with children”. It’s a weird thought.

I wonder what these kids will remember about their childhood Christmases? What presents will stand out, what moments? They probably won’t be the ones we think. For me, I remember best the year I got a tiny portable television after four years of not having a tv at all; the screen was about the size of an iPhone, and it was black and white, and I don’t remember using it much because you could barely get any reception on it (and not long after, we got an actual television). I remember Christmases at my grandmother’s place in rural Connecticut, and in those last years she was alive (she died when I was fifteen), I made the strange habit of waking up on Christmas Day before sunrise, sneaking outside and climbing a tree to take a picture of the sun as it peeked over the horizon. I have no idea where these pictures ended up. 

My kids will probably remember when they got a play station or a VR or an iPhone (some day). Which is normal. I’d love for them to remember all the invisible labor I put into making things magical for them - the big breakfasts, the planning, the candy making, the decorating - but…they’re kids. I certainly don’t remember my mother’s invisible labor; when I was a kid, she existed only as a person to acquire toys for me. The meals, clean clothes, clean toilets all just happened naturally. Right? Our parents don’t really become human until we become adults ourselves. Kids can’t, and perhaps shouldn’t, understand how much work goes into holidays. 

I’ve been giving the whole house a general glow up - mainly in moving pictures around and filling empty wall spaces. I got the kids’ room done (I ordered one more vintage pennant to put on their wall):

I had to find the pictures I took of them for their yearbook for 2020 when they weren’t in school, and print those out. I’m pretty pleased with how their year-by-year photo displays turned out.

I’ve also been rubbing down dirty walls, trim and light switches with a magic eraser, and dusting and rearranging things in general. I’ve ordered a jewelry box to keep my mess of jewelry organized, and will do a cull of my makeup as well. I’m also overdue for a closet clean out. 

The kids have two more weeks of school and then three weeks off - but we’re really only home for about a week before we leave on our AZ/UT trip, for which we all need long johns and snow boots. I’m pretty sure Theo can wear the ones I bought Bobby years ago that we never used, and mine should still fit, but Bobby will need new ones and we all need warm underwear under our clothes. It’s an expensive time of year. 

Thanksgiving in the free world

Another Thanksgiving week has passed, another one full of building ikea furniture, moving stuff around, and spending time in the desert. After I built the boys’ desk while blasting The Smiths all day on Monday, Bobby helped me build the rolling filing cabinet, I built the under-bed boxes, and we went up to ikea once more to get bed slats forgotten earlier in the week, and get some desk organizing items. The next two days were spent sorting and disposing of STUFF. 

Thankfully the H has a coworker with kids who loves our hand me down toys, so a living room full of stuff went to work one day and never came back. By Wednesday I was completely exhausted so took the day to record a podcast and get ready for our desert trip. 

We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at Spaghetti Western, a campy joint in the Morongo valley, which made me happy as I was able to get a nice small portion of spaghetti rather than having to suffer through heavy, rich Thanksgiving food which I can’t stand. We spent three nights and four days out at our place, finishing up the “shower corral” (getting the water tanks piped and in position will have to wait until another time). We went to a mural unveiling up in Amboy. We used our new pizza oven and made twice as much pizza as any of us could eat, but at least we have a fun dinner option out there now.

The boys played on their VRs outside, but also played in the dirt quite a bit, and we had an epic two hour game of Uno one night. It was too cold to stay out at night in hammocks, so we used the little space heater to warm up the downstairs so we could be comfortable in there after the sun went down.

We came home last night dusty and happy, my mind spinning with all the things I have to get done between now and the end of the year. My event planning is woefully behind, due to not hearing back from some instructors who may have conflicts but don’t know for sure yet. I suddenly have a backlog of podcasts I need to edit and release. And Christmas is upon us - we got home too late to do any decorating, so the tree and lights will have to wait until next weekend. Everyone needs haircuts and new shoes and winter wear for our big trip coming up at the end of the month. I’ve got two out of town gigs in the next two weeks, and no idea what to get anyone for Christmas. We’re doing updated VRs for both kids, and that’s kinda it. We’re finally at the volume of presents we should have been this whole time.

Tomorrow I’m going to make little photo displays of all the boys’ school pictures (they used to be haphazardly displayed in silver frames on their wall - I’m going to give that concept a little glow up) and hang the vintage pennants I bought. I hope they don’t hate it. But I think the room will look a lot less antiseptic with things on the walls. Bobby has really embraced using the desk, which is great. 

Bobby insisted on setting up his vintage style alarm clock to actually work as an alarm, but as I predicted, the immediately hated it. Those old school alarms are no joke. I think your mother coming in and gently calling you to breakfast in a fake Polish accent (for some reason) is a lot less jarring. 

I still have to find a home for all their books (I may bring them out to the desert - it’s the perfect place to read) and the giant garbage bag of stuffies that’s still in the living room. I’m hoping to maybe get them to at least pare them down. Even though I think it’s adorable that they still want them. 

Like many Americans, I’m pretty terrified of what next year will bring, so I’ve distracted myself with aspirational living - let’s say we (or I) do decide to be a full time desert person in my old age. I would still want to escape during the summer. What about enjoying the equivalent but in a place like Maine or Massachusetts or upstate New York? Just a small hunter’s cabin, off grid, preferably on a water front? I spent much of my childhood summers by and in the Finger Lakes or lakes by my summer camp in Maine; what a treat it would be to get to enjoy summers in places like that, again. The older I get, the more I find my thoughts drifting east…am I really just going to stay here forever? When am I going to go home? Maybe there’s a way to have a little of both, and the best of both worlds.