Photo dump

Our family photos are here!

No! vember

We’re gearing up for a big rain here, and I’m proud of myself that I remembered to turn off the sprinklers and put anything inside that needs to be. We’re supposed to head to the desert, but it’s going to rain all day Saturday. Which means everyone will be bored, and/or we might get stuck in the sand. We may have to reconsider that plan.

For now, I’m doing what I always do at this time of year, which is a) update my look (soft goth), b) take care of things that have been annoying me around the house (little repairs & upgrades & purges), c) plot out next year’s trips (road trip to CO in the summer, possible Hawaii in December), and d) generally take care of shit that my brain is too full of the rest of the year to deal with.

Updating my will has been a big part of this - since I first set up my will after Bobby was born, so much has happened; Theo was born, I got married, I bought the desert property. It’s been woefully ignored all these years (I did update my life insurance to add Theo as a beneficiary, but that’s it). I finally got off my ass a couple of weeks ago to dig out all my paperwork from 2012, and discovered much to my horror that I inexplicably never actually finished the process. I never had anything signed, never funded the trust, never had anything notarized. So basically I paid legal zoom $500 for a pile of worthless paper. I was horrified. I’m usually so good at paperwork - what the hell happened there? The only thing I can think is I had a new baby and just couldn’t deal. Fair enough. The good news is, so far I’ve survived, so I haven’t needed the useless pile of paperwork. I did some investigating and even though I’d sort of like to just completely start over with an actual lawyer, I don’t really want to spend the several thousand dollars that would take, especially when I basically have everything in place; I just need to make some adjustments. So I found on the legal zoom site that I could in fact do some revisions there for cheap. However, adding the desert property, which has no address, caused all kinds of confusion and phone calls and chat sessions and delays until I finally got the updated paperwork today. I still have a long road ahead - I need to find two witnesses to watch me sign things, I need to have some things notarized, and I need to work with title companies to move the properties into the trust. It’s a lot of work. But if I want to make sure these kids are secure and don’t have to fight through probate if I drop dead tomorrow, I have to get all this done and quickly. Again pretty horrified that I so badly dropped the ball on this, but I’ll give myself the grace that most people in their 40s and 50s aren’t thinking about wills and health care directives; at least I’m ahead of your average person in this regard. And I’ll get it done and won’t have to think about it again, hopefully.

I got a call from a realtor in the desert who I happen to know somewhat because he used to come to my event, telling me the guy who owns the 5 acre plot just south of ours is looking to sell. I was stoked. The idea of snapping up surrounding plots to ours thrills me to no end; I made a lowball offer. But I think he may have just been feeling out what he could get because it’s been a few days and I haven’t heard anything (it wasn’t an official offer). Right now these plots are selling for pennies, so he may decide to hang onto it unless he’s desperate for cash. I hope he negotiates, but I may just never hear from him again, we’ll see. 

I’ve been spending countless hours compiling all of our trip photos for the last five years into little photo books via google photos - I feel like we’ve done so many cool things since 2020 and I’m starting to forget them all. We all take so many photos these days but they all just stay in our phones, forgotten, unlike the days when it was a holiday ritual to look over family photo albums year after year. So I’m in the middle of that process, which is practically a part time job and will probably cost several hundred dollars by the time I’m done. But I feel like it’s necessary. Eventually I’ll go earlier than 2020 and do baby books for the boys and maybe one for my sister with all her visits over the years. I know these are books I’ll actually enjoy looking at. They’re very plain and limited in their design capabilities, but considering the fact that I have to get about 25 of them done in just a couple of weeks (I’m planning on them being a family Christmas present), I don’t have the time or energy to muck about. 

Halloween in the scariest year yet

Halloween went off well in our usual favorite trick or treat spot. For once, both kids got equal attention for their efforts - Theo delighted the little kids with his inflatable video game character, and millennials and below loved Bobby’s Napoleon Dynamite. I’m so glad he wanted to be that character. He doesn’t seem to have an issue with his  (still) flaming red hair - especially at a school that’s majority Latino/Asian, so he stands out. It shows how society has still progressed despite the current relentless regression; I once spoke to a woman in her nineties who said how when she was a kid you’d be bullied for having red hair or freckles or being tall or short; not to say those things don’t still happen, but I’d like to believe it’s getting better. 

So phase one of the holiday trifecta is in the books - I de-decorated the house yesterday and packed the costumes away (I re-purposed the Cruella DeVile costume I wore at my event), last night the time changed; it’s time to settle in to fall and the gradual darkening. In the meantime, everything is pretty chaotic and frightening - yesterday, SNAP benefits expired, and nobody knows if the orange turd is going to follow judge’s orders to re-fund them; the government remains shut down (I think we’re easily going to break the shut down length record, which happens on Tuesday); a good portion of the White House was illegally destroyed and there’s nothing anybody can do about it; and - and this directly affects us - healthcare premiums are about to go through the roof, so although I think me and the kids will be sort of ok, getting the H coverage after a year of no healthcare may now be impossible. Thanks, Republicans! 

But in better news, there are major, consequential elections happening the day after tomorrow, and I’m excited to watch. California should pass Prop 50 fairly easily, and Mamdani is set to be elected mayor of NYC. I sure hope he doesn’t turn out to be a disappointment. So, as per usual, despite all the current horrors and abuses, there may be some wins this week. Oh, and the Dodgers won the World Series (again) last night. So, there’s that. 

Three weeks until Thanksgiving, then three weeks until winter break. The kids are doing just fine. I’m still convinced Theo isn’t learning anything at school, so I’m interested to see how his parent-teacher conference goes, whenever that is. Should be this month. Part of me wants to raise hell about it - have him moved to another class, demand his teacher step it up and stop giving the kids entire days off of doing any schoolwork - but then I think, eh, it’s just sixth grade, who cares, and also, I could be totally wrong about all of this. Theo may not be the most reliable narrator on what goes on in his classroom. So we’ll see what it’s like when I meet his teacher. I’ll definitely ask if he’s getting any different treatment as one in a “gifted cluster” (my guess is no). Again I wonder if things would be different if he’d stayed at his old school, or if this is just the state of public education (I was in a very demanding private school from 5th-8th grade, so it’s hard to compare). I’ve been asking myself lately, if he gets in to Bobby’s school (which he should), should he sign up for all advanced classes out of the gate the way Bobby did? Or just stick with easy stuff so as not to overwhelm him? It’s a really tough call. Thankfully that’s a problem for another time. Once again, the determination that Theo got as “gifted” but not “highly gifted” like Bobby, means a lot of doors are closed for him, despite being a bright and studious kid. And like all kids, he can only rise to the level he’s presented. 

And then I think, does any of this even matter, in a world where AI will shortly take over all jobs and nobody under 50 will ever be able to afford housing or a family? These are the questions we have to ask ourselves in 2025. What future do these kids have? Will something step in and save us from this craven, willful self-destruction? The next year will definitely have some answers.