Week one of camp

Thankfully the volunteer camp the kids attended last week was a hit. Or not so much a “hit” as “tolerable”. Their only complaint, once the week was through, was that there was limited seating and no inside area with AC so they were hot. Both kids gave the camp a 5-6. So not in love with it, but didn’t hate it, either. It helped there were lots of older kids - I see plenty of parents don’t know what the hell to do with their young teenagers in the summer. Would I do it again? Probably, if only because I appreciated the mission of the camp - every day doing volunteering of some kind, whether building habitats at a local river bed or making toys for shelter pets - and it was shockingly cheap. I wasn’t crazy about having to make lunches every day or hustle out of bed early to get them to camp at 9 (and having to miss all my usual exercise classes that start at 9). But yes, I would consider having them go to this camp again. Who knows where we’ll all be a year from now, but I would keep it on my list of possible activities.

Next week we just have two days to kill before we leave on the cruise. So I’m in a bit of a holding pattern, not wanting to start any big projects or cook or buy food at the moment. I am planning on bringing my computer on the cruise, though - something I never do on vacations - just because most of the customer service stuff I’m required to do has to be done on a computer and I don’t want it all piling up. I’ll feel better if I can just complete a few minor tasks each day like I do when I’m home. 

It’s only weeks now until my event. Right now it still feels easy - I’m just plugging away at spreadsheets and group emails and customer service and small detailed decisions - it’s hard to picture how overwhelming it’s about to get. It’s easy to get fooled into thinking it’ll just stay like this.

Speaking of being fooled by things appearing a certain way, a friend of mine last night who works at a small floral shop told me she can see the writing on the wall of what’s about to happen in this country; their supplies are drying up, either from tariffs or lack of available labor, and her husband, who works at a plant nursery, says the same. Everything is running out. After heeding the call to “stock up” a month ago and yet seeing my grocery shelves still fully stocked every week, I had started to get skeptical that that tariff scare actually caused anything bad to happen (at least at the basic retail level - obviously small business owners feel it differently), but perhaps the worst is still ahead of us. Right now I feel like, at least in LA, the conversation has shifted from economic concerns to the ongoing terrorization of Latinos by masked ICE agents. That’s our main concern at the moment. The fear is palpable. I’m just so glad schools are closed for a couple of months so kids don’t have to go to school scared and there don’t have to be any more LAUSD-ICE showdowns. 

And the H just texted me that we just bombed Iran. Jesus Christ.