Mid-February updates

Theo went on his 6th grade trip to Catalina this week, which meant one crazy day of getting up at 5:30 AM to drop him at school with his suitcase, then returning home to get Bobby up and take him to school, then three days with no Theo. Taking just Bobby to school gave me an interesting window into what our lives will be like as of August - once, assuming, both boys are at the same school, which starts a half hour later than Theo’s current school. We drove a completely different route and got to leave about 15 minutes later. We find out sometime next month if Theo has FINALLY been granted a spot in the gifted program. I’m honestly going to be pretty pissed if he hasn’t. 

Theo seemed kind of “meh” about the Catalina camp - he said he enjoyed last year’s Astro camp more. But I’ve found he can be pretty fickle; one disappointing mac and cheese dinner in the mess hall and all of a sudden the whole trip is a drag.

I have to admit, the growing international horror at the slow unveiling of the **stein files at the same time as my youngest child being far away and unreachable this week was tough on my nervous system; I had quite a bit of anxiety about him being gone and clung to the occasional updates from staff members. I can’t imagine what survivors of sexual assault must be going through right now with all of this triggering shit constantly in the media, with (currently) no justice or resolution. It must be unbearable. 

I never heard anything from my credit card processing company - they deposited my money and that was that. Could it be I’m off the hook…? For now. So that’s a huge relief. Unfortunately the far worse problem, that of how to convince the hotel to reduce my contractually-agreed to room guarantee, is still pending. This has been dragging on for weeks now and I’d REALLY like it to be resolved. It’s very much the difference between making it through this year with enough money to live on or not.

The H and I both have had quite the medical extravaganza lately. He’s been utilizing his new insurance to have all kinds of tests done - he had a chest CAT scan on Wednesday to check his lungs, waiting on results. That’s a big one, because it could go one of many ways - the worst of course being they discover the thing that’s going to kill him; either that or they discover something that can still be treated that hopefully scares him out of smoking; or the sort of not-great possibility that everything looks just fine so he’s emboldened to keep smoking. For me, I had a Mohs surgery yesterday for this small, flaky skin cancer that took up residence right next to my right nostril a few months ago. I now have a giant dime-sized crater on my face that will need to be treated and bandaged every day for a month, very inconveniently right where I breathe and eat, so trying to keep a bandage on has already proved to be very difficult. I’m trying not to be too vain about it - everyone gets scars in this life - but it is a little difficult to picture this thing healing without being pretty disfiguring. It’s just such a drag that I have to constantly go through this. A friend recommended this chemotherapy cream that apparently you just rub on your skin periodically to attack early cancerous cells; I had never heard of this, so I’ll try to get a prescription next time I go in. 

For now, I’m enjoying the quiet after the storm - other than finalizing my teaching lineup and doing my taxes in two weeks, there’s very little to do on my event right now. I decided to shelve my Colorado summer road trip plans for a trip to Oahu instead and fully booked that, based on the fact that free flights and lodging will make it the most economical option, and honestly a summer Hawaii trip sounds like just what the doctor ordered right now.