Coming up on Halloween

It’s the beginning of the holiday trifecta. I had to remind the boys we missed a Saturday Halloween in 2020 due to covid - we went camping that year instead - and by the time Halloween is on a weekend again, they will probably be too old for it. Sigh.

I had been stressing about missing the return of the boys’ school Halloween carnival on Saturday because my band was scheduled to play a wedding, but just got word that the wedding was canceled due to the couple contracting covid. How awful for them! That was my worst nightmare with my own wedding, either for us or anyone attending or participating. Thankfully we dodged that bullet. I can’t imagine what that couple is going through right now! So…now I get to go to the carnival, but I also feel guilty that I’m not helping out in any way. I feel like these elementary school rituals are numbered, now, as next year will be Bobby’s last at this school, so I just want to be a part of everything before this time is gone forever. I spend way too much time thinking about this.

The exterior house paint drags on. They’ve been doing doors and thresholds all week, and part of last week, so it’s been an awkward time of doors being left unlocked and open, screen doors propped open so I’m worried about the cat getting out, and feeling generally unsafe and intruded upon. I find myself not showering until the evening, and not doing much around the house because I feel like I’m being watched, and not leaving the house because I haven’t showered. I keep thinking this will end in a day or two - but it keeps dragging on. Next week will be week four. Sigh. This is why I haven’t painted the house in 15 years. 

My general habits have really collapsed over the last few weeks ever since my event ended. At first I gave myself time to just lie around and be lazy because I felt like I needed the recovery…but unfortunately now it’s just become a habit. I’ve gained 5lbs since September (which now means none of my clothes fit…again), my body feels terrible with aches and pains, and I’m tired all the time no matter how much I nap. To be fair I have made myself get out of bed for rigorous hikes at least three times a week, and I get through them, but they just leave me exhausted and achy. Is it my unhealthy habits causing all this, or is it my stage of life? Every woman I know my age reports the same thing - the sheer exhaustion of life that can no longer be blamed on pandemic lockdowns and home schooling. Personally I think it’s hormones; last night’s book club was, as always, full of menopause talk. I don’t think my situation is dire enough to think about medical intervention - yet. But I do sometimes wonder what a little estrogen could do for me. Am I suffering needlessly? When I’m out and about I generally feel pretty normal and like I can accomplish everything I need to. I just feel like I’m slowing down in general. And boy do I hate how hard it is to lose weight. I don’t know. I suppose I’ll be revisiting this topic a lot in the next few years. 

October desert visit

This weekend’s desert visit was a bit of a mixed bag. During the latest storms, we had talked about how cool it would be to be out there during one. We got our chance on Saturday. And it was cool - until it wasn’t.

At first we were enjoying watching the gathering storm like we’ve done before (last time they never hit us). Then with a rush and a smash it collided into us and we barely had time to grab our folding chairs and run inside before intense winds and rain crashed into us. 

Then it got really out of hand - gale force winds so intense the H had us evacuate to the car “just in case”, and as we did, gum ball sized hail pelted down. It reminded me of our experiences in Utah last summer - a little scary and vaguely life threatening…? I don’t personally think we were ever in any real danger, but boy did I underestimate the weather out there! I figured the heat would be our biggest issue - but no. I forget how close we are to Arizona, and thereby are subject to those same monsoons. As the storm abated we had a moment of being trapped - the H wanted to drive to the community center bathroom but couldn’t because of flash flooding on our little dirt road. I wondered if we’d be trapped for the night and figured I could throw together some semblance of dinner from Mac and cheese, bagels, and eggs. Thankfully we had spent the sunny part of the day assembling the kitchen stuff I brought (much to my delight, everything I bought worked out great). As it turned out we were able to head to the Palms for dinner once the flooding went down.

I was SO glad we hadn’t done as planned and cut a hole for a window!! That would have been a disaster of epic proportions. The H also thought if we’d put a window on that side the hail could have broken the glass. Good idea to get some storm shutters. Hey, at least we never have to worry about power going out. 

A very worrying thing happened, though. We had a contractor come over - the boyfriend of the woman we met at the Palms last time - mostly for informational purposes, since he had already told us he’s too busy to do any work for us and charges too much. He wasn’t terribly helpful - as much as he was a nice guy and is a good contact to have out there, he mostly told us horror stories of county inspectors coming out and making people tear their places down because they’re not to code, and/or seizing their property and putting it up for auction. I’m starting to have ptsd flashbacks to my last real estate disaster that I’m still paying for (buying a four plex in New Orleans days before Katrina hit). Will this all end horribly? Will I end up in some extended drama with the county that will drag on for years and end up with my property being taken from me? Well, the only real problem is the height of the building, which the H and I both hate and never wanted - if we had just rehabbed the original structure as planned we really would have nothing to worry about. Now I’m wondering if it’s worth looking into taking that second story off just to avoid future troubles. The H thinks it’s a waste of time and money and I’m half in that camp, too. After all, we may never face this issue - or may not face it for many years, who knows. But it definitely gives me pause. Between the weather and this Cassandra, I came away from this weekend wondering, am I in over my head with this place…?

Despite the weirdness I have to admit I did enjoy this weekend, which went mostly exactly as I wanted. We set up the new kitchen and everything worked great. Rather than suffering through trying to put in a window ourselves we spent Sunday driving up to Amboy to walk the crater, something we hadn’t gotten to do last time we went there because it was too hot. We got to go to the Palms, and I think I *might* have a solution for our toilet issues - buying a camping cartridge toilet, which, while not cheap to buy and operate, still may be the only way to have a toilet out there (the contractor also warned us that any composting or pit toilet we put out there would be immediately overrun by maggots and flies…which…sounds truly horrible. If the kids are afraid to use it, what’s the point??). Having a close place to poo, that we don’t have to worry about being a code violation, would make a huge difference in our comfort level. 

Pumpkin patch and middle schools

We had a lovely meet up with the donor sibling sisters at our old pumpkin patch last weekend after two years off. It’s fun to see how the girls have grown and changed. For sure one of the girls is more like Theo and the other is more like Bobby. It’s interesting to theorize about, but I think most likely it has to do with siblings playing off of each other - “you be the introvert, I’ll be the extrovert”. We narrowly avoided a disaster as apparently you have to buy advance tickets to this place now - yet another post-pandemic change in policy I was unprepared for - but one of the moms rescued me by getting online to get us some as we were in an area with barely any cell service. I have to remind myself to double check everything I used to do in 2019 - everything has changed. 

It’s delightful to see kids still invested in child-like things - despite this pumpkin patch really being more oriented towards littler kids, they were all really into it, playing on the wooden trains and tractors and loving picking out pumpkins. They of course insisted on carving them right away and as of today they are completely rotten and in the bin. 

I think it’s easier for kids to be kids longer these days. When I was a kid everyone was in such a rush to grow up - dressing like adults, smoking, being too cool for school. I’m sure some kids are like that today, but with the rise of nerd culture, it’s also perfectly acceptable to be into stuffed animals and cosplay and comics much later in life; I’m hoping this will be the case for my kids. I mean, why not? When I was fourteen I was still playing with dolls. You have your whole life to be an adult. “When you grow up, your heart dies.” 

Middle school madness has begun - I went on a tour yesterday, and attended a zoom last night. In a couple of weeks I tour the eagle rock school I have my eyes on. I felt better after a zoom chat with that school’s magnet advisor - I asked for tips on getting into their gifted magnet and it looks like we’re on track for a good chance at admission. This year I applied for both Bobby and Theo. I hope I still like the school after I tour it. Pros are: gifted program, big school so lots to offer, international baccalaureate program, highly rated, grades 7-12 so kids can be together longer. Cons are pretty much only the downsides of being in a giant school. We’ll see what I think when I go there. But as I’ve been told and as I told a new couple on the tour yesterday - you really can’t go wrong with any of these schools. They’re all good. But with both kids having tested as gifted (yay) it would behoove me to get them into an actual gifted program I think. 

The H has finally taken the big step of telling his boss he needs to hire someone to do the catching up work he’s been doing so he can focus on his own printing work. It won’t show immediate results - it may be a while before someone is hired and trained - but the fact that he has made that decision, mostly from pure exhaustion, is huge. It could mean big changes for our family. There have been times this year when he’s worked 40-50 days straight, most often until 2 AM every night. It’s ridiculous. He takes time off for weekend getaways and things, but then has to work until 2 AM every night for two weeks just to make up for taking a Saturday and Sunday off. This is not sustainable for any of us. So I’m hoping this means things will finally change. 

This weekend we head out to the desert to stay in our place and I’m beyond excited. Goals are to set up a basic kitchen (build the rolling cart I bought) and hopefully put in one window. And then leave most of our stuff out there for future visits. If we can have all the kitchen stuff and blow up beds, then all we’d need to bring for each visit is bedding and clothes and batteries. I’m looking forward to maybe heading up to Amboy for their chili dog cookout. There’s something so charming about a lone business in the middle of absolutely nothing. 

Neighbors

On Monday my desert neighbor (the one who lives there full time) alerted me that there were some trucks out at the cabin. I immediately got on the security cameras and saw that there was a small construction crew erecting a shed-like structure at the concrete slab on the lot next to ours. They had it up in just a few hours and then left, and haven’t returned all week. To me from a distance it just looks like a small storage shed - maybe these people just want a place to store desert toys like ATVs. My hope is it’s not an Airbnb. It would be awful to have random people out there next to us every time we go out - or even worse, messing with our place when we’re not out there. I see the panic people feel when they buy out in these remote places with an expectation of privacy, only to have people move in right next to you and ruin everything. We’ll be out there next weekend so I’m going to go check it out (assuming people aren’t there-!).

I finally got the California grant today that I’ve been waiting for and stressing over for a full year (I submitted the application I believe around this time last October). Funds were deposited today. What a relief. This is the last of the free government money. I’ve had to remind myself of that, and the fact that I’m now back on a fixed income; whatever I make off the event is it, and I have to make that stretch a full year. I’m going to have to say no to things again and budget again. With trying to pay down the house aggressively and expenses with the cabin, plus how much the event budget has ballooned out of control, I may be in for a slim few years (especially after next year’s 25th anniversary passes). 

The house painters power washed the house yesterday, and the whole place has smelled of damp old wood since. They start scraping and painting Monday. I’m looking forward to this place having a fresh new start. 

I had a full medical workup this week, which included a varicella test to see if I’d ever had chicken pox (I swore I hadn’t) and thereby need the shingles vaccine. Bizarrely despite having zero memory of ever having had chicken pox, my blood work says otherwise. I was also pleased to see all my blood work still looks good; looking at graphs of past results, I see all my numbers were the worst during covid. It’s amazing what stress does to your body. So despite being older, eating worse and barely exercising the last couple of months, I’m in better shape now than when I was ten pounds thinner, hiking every day and fasting. Huh. Of course a simple blood sugar and lipid panel doesn’t tell you everything, but it is interesting to get a snapshot of how your body is doing over time. Got my mammogram yesterday. Got my flu shot and tetanus booster. Good to go.

My hair is falling out because of the covid in July - I figure it’s akin to post-pregnancy hair loss where my hair may get thinner but not really disappear; but it is a little freaky. I wonder when it’ll stop. Apparently it’s supposed to go on for months. 

The boys had picture day yesterday. Bobby’s wall is full, so I may have to loop around! It’s fascinating to watch their chubby little baby faces elongate and show such personality. Bobby has asked me to order him a bucket hat with cats on it - apparently all the 5th graders have started wearing wacky hats to school. It’s fun to see him participate in these pre-teen rituals. It feels so “normal” to have kids back at school again, bouncing off each other culturally. I can’t wait until they start talking about girls (assuming that’s their preference). I *promise* not to embarrass them. Leaving this here for accountability.

October

It’s October, which means my event is now a month behind me. Yesterday I wired the hotel the payment of their bill, which officially puts the event to bed. It feels like a million years ago now, even though not much has happened in the intervening weeks other than me getting the kids to school, getting them home from school, and sleeping and eating a lot. I’ve put on four pounds. Ugh. 

We’ve ordered the kids’ Halloween costumes. After much debate, Bobby is going to be the black knight from The Holy Grail (which delights me to no end), and Theo’s going to be an inflatable T Rex. I’m excited to have a (relatively) covid-free Halloween; last year half the houses didn’t participate due to covid fears. But with new variants on the rise again, who knows what it’ll be like a month from now? We also have the mid terms coming in a month, which I’m already calling The End of Democracy as we know it. We’ll for sure lose the House, which means Biden will never be allowed to pass any legislation ever again. We’re unlikely to lose the Senate, but if for some reason we do, Biden will be impeached and all hell will break loose. I’m trying to enjoy every minute of this perhaps last time ever of political quiet before everything goes pear-shaped. I’m so not ready to spend years with the kind of agitation that existed under Trump. But I have no doubt this is where everything going our way ends.

I’ve ordered a small propane cook top, a solar lantern, and a rolling cart with a metal top for use in cooking at the cabin. I’m determined to get a decent kitchen set up in there so that when we go we don’t have to bring all our camping stuff but just clothes and bedding. I’m going to go to ikea next week and buy some kitchen things - pans, mixing bowls, utensils - and leave them there in a plastic tub. 

We still have not figured out a toilet. I think the H thinks we can just build one ourselves - but I’ve looked at some videos and it looks pretty gnarly to me. If we had a full week to work on it every day, maybe. But one or two days a month? It’ll take a year to get done under those conditions. And it’ll get ruined while we’re not there and it’s half-built. Tbh I don’t really mind - I’m perfectly content driving to the community center’s port-o-potty once a day for my particular needs; but it’s not a permanent solution. I figure if we can go in two weeks we should really focus on windows and insulation so we can stay there in the winter somewhat comfortably. 

I’m forging ahead with getting the house painted next week, which also entails a long overdue, very expensive whole yard tree trimming. This place really went to shit during the pandemic so there’s a ton of catching up to do. The pool is a broken down mess - the heater hasn’t worked for weeks and the pool was full of dirt all summer so I never felt like swimming in it; I finally called the pool guy to figure out why it was so dirty all the time and he’s working on it, and the H will fix the heater with the help of the pool guy. All the paint is faded and peeling and wood is cracking; I haven’t painted this place in probably 15 years which is way too long. I hired a guy a friend with a similar house used and loved. I hope he works out. It’s a lot of money to entrust in a stranger; there were many things the last painter did that I didn’t like. But boy will it be great to have a nice clean fresh-painted house again. I’m not thrilled about strange men looking through my windows for weeks - it sure was nice not having contractors here for a couple of years. But maybe it’ll be a good excuse to get back to exercising. 

September desert trip

We made it out to the desert and had a swell time. Despite having to switch gears because of extreme heat (it was 100° plus all weekend) - I had to rent a place rather than stay at our place, and we couldn’t do any of the outdoorsy things I wanted so I had to scramble for alternate plans - we enjoyed it.

The main focus of the trip was to attend the Night Sky Festival which I’d bought tickets to months ago. Unfortunately we missed most of it because we got there so late - we arrived Saturday afternoon and missed all the lectures, so all we got to do was look through telescopes at the observatory, which, while mildly interesting, probably wasn’t worth it. It was a lot of stumbling around in the dark to wait on long lines to see the same blurry image of Saturn or Jupiter over and over. Theo was exhausted and bored. Again, if we’d planned better and spent more time at it it might have been worth it, but I doubt I’d spring for it again. 

The reason we were late on Saturday and didn’t come in Friday night as was originally planned was we had to pick up this 1800s cowboy tub from am eBay seller in Rancho Cucamonga Saturday morning. I’ve wanted one of these since I saw one at the Rose Bowl some months ago - they’re super light (30 lbs) so can be easily stored and then dragged out to the middle of the desert, filled with water, and then you can enjoy a cool or warm bath out in the open, dump it out, and drag it back to storage. I figure it’s the only way to have a bathtub out there without worrying about it getting stolen or vandalized. So we picked that up in a Bass Pros parking lot and ferried it to our shipping container. 

Sunday we went for brunch at the Palms and had the serendipitous experience of meeting a woman who’s YouTube videos we’ve been following - she’s another neighbor, just north of us, and a) was the woman we saw walk by our place on our cameras on our wedding day, b) also has a contractor boyfriend we may be able to hire, and c) had all kinds of useful tips for us about power and water and heating, the most interesting being she recently bought a drill to dig a well and is looking to dig wells for friends. I got her number.

We had a blast teaching the kids to play pool at the Palms. Pool was a huge part of my misspent youth - I spent a couple of summers playing 9 ball with Chinese gangs at Tekk Billiards on Christopher St in NY when I was 15 & 16 - so the idea of getting the kids into it is very cool. Bobby was a natural. 

Then we went to an artist’s pop up mini golf course in which you could paint an abandoned house after - despite the extreme heat, it was a blast. I painted a Bowie portrait (the same one that’s on my phone case). 

Later we checked out a local bowling alley - old school and cheap - and as we drove out the following day, we finally visited a musician friend who lives out there and did what we want to do, rehab an old shack for living purposes. He showed us his whole set up for solar and water and sewer. While we can’t do all the things he did - he’s hooked up to city water and has septic - we got some good tips. 

We came back from the desert with a renewed sense of purpose and a surprising return to our original concept after weighing other options; I’m glad we’re of like minds about this stuff. At the moment I am considering a return to a wood burning stove for heating, and a traditional wooden outhouse rather than having the bathroom in the container. Now that we know that the place is not, in fact, rife with criminals trying to steal our stuff (while that element is for sure there and something to be wary of, five months of security cameras tells me pretty much nobody goes out there), I’m less worried about having a small break-in-able bathroom than I used to be. And the H is ok with an old school pit toilet if it’s not in a container with other things stored in it that could get contaminated. So, now we just have to get that going somehow! I feel like we could conceivably build it ourselves - it’s just a tiny shed - it’s the digging the pit I’m concerned about. Maybe we can recruit this new guy to do it for us. 

I’m on the hunt for a vintage parlor stove like the one my friend has used for the last couple of years to heat his place. I’m worried about fires and carbon monoxide poisoning - but the lady we met also heats her place with wood, and has had no issues. I also spent a long Connecticut winter in a house heated entirely by a single wood burning stove and was toasty all season and none of us died of carbon monoxide. So maybe I’m being overly cautious. Some detectors placed strategically is probably the way to go. 

The woman we met at the Palms said everyone comes out here thinking they can throw a cheap place together in weeks and just be done, but that it never works out like that; it always takes years, and that’s to be expected. Makes me feel a little better about what a roller coaster this place has been. I’m ok with a long-term project, especially if we can still use it in the meantime. 

We finally got some quality family time, which reminds me of why I wanted this place - without it, the H would literally work around the clock seven days a week. His insane schedule has always been a huge bone of contention for me, and it falls under the same category as managing his adhd - how much of this is just inevitable (he has to make money and in his industry this is the only way) and how much of it is his “fault” (allowing himself to be exploited, not being efficient, being addicted to hard work). It’s easy for me to sit here with my cush setup and judge others for their shitty work situations - and nearly everyone I know has issues with coworkers, bosses, company policies, etc etc - when I’ve been the boss since I was 26 and can no longer conceive of a time when my destiny was under someone else’s control. The fact is, people are really struggling out there, and he’s one of them. He’s basically working two full time jobs just to make a basic existence, running himself ragged so that when he is around he’s exhausted and stressed. But when I force him to take these trips - and he’s always apprehensive about not getting to work all weekend - you can see this whole other side to him. And I know he’s grateful (during my crunch time, I’m always glad I have a family to give me something else to focus on. I used to be annoyed by the distraction, but now I realize it’s important for my mental health). I’m aiming for one, maybe two trips out there next month, and one in November. Have not heard from our neighbor contractor so I’ll try him again this week. But he might be back by then. 

Our hotel meeting wasn’t bad but wasn’t great. I accomplished the goal of being assigned a new contact person, which I knew wouldn’t be an issue. But the extra charges will stay, and the $10,000 bill will be north of $20,000, in fact, since as I suspected, the initial bill I got was missing a bunch of stuff. I kind of knew it was too good to be true, but I’m still pretty gutted. Consensus among my hotel venue renting friends is that the industry is just terrible right now - hotels are scrambling to make up for lost revenue, and they don’t give a fuck. The GM even said most of the contracts they have now they would never agree to in this environment…which says to me when it’s time to renew in a couple of years, I could be in for a rude awakening. We pointed out the failures on their end - the many ceiling leaks, the downed systems, things that in the past would have earned me an apology and credits off my bill - and they were like, “yeah”. And…that was it. So I think at this point I should just count my blessings, raise my prices, and hope I can clear 1000+ people every year, because that’s what it’s going to take to make an even basic living from now on. 

Settling in

The last week has been pretty much me just sleeping. I forget how much the event takes out of me. Even if I feel “fine”, I find myself compelled to go back to bed after dropping the kids at school, sleep until eleven, still need a nap in the afternoon, and am still tired at night. This could also be just a) habit, b) being 50, or c) covid. It’s probably a mix of a and b, though.

I feel myself with a profound sense of satisfaction about how things went, still. After all that’s transpired in the last three years, it’s sort of hard to believe that we pulled this off. We came back, hardly missing a beat, and it felt like we’d never even been shut down. That was exactly the results I’d wanted but didn’t dare wish for. And I wasn’t left in the red. Huh.

Right now I’m straddling finishing up and planning for next year, plus planning our family life as we approach another holiday trifecta - what the kids want to be for Halloween (Bobby has become obsessed with Kermit the frog and wants to be him for Halloween, but sadly all available Kermit costumes are either for toddlers or adults), how to structure our Death Valley thanksgiving trip (mostly figuring out food, knowing as I do now that options are extremely limited in the area). And then Christmas break - can we afford a trip to Florida? I don’t know yet. 

Mainly, my thoughts are on the cabin. I figure we need to get it wired up if we’re going to be able to stay there at all this winter, so I feel some sense of urgency about that - winter temperatures at night are extreme, so we need to be able to plug in a space heater of sorts, and we can only do that with solar power. The H told me he can’t install panels himself, so I’m not sure where to go from here. I texted our contractor neighbor yesterday just checking in to see when he’d be back in town - originally the plan was November or December - but he hasn’t written back yet. What if we never hear from him again?? We’d be so screwed. I’m so desperate to get this place basically livable, but there’s so much that has to happen before that - first, power, then a water system of some kind so we can have a toilet and shower, then insulation, walls, flooring, windows, a porch. If our contractor comes back and has time for us it can happen fairly quickly at the end of this year or beginning of next…if not, well, it could be a long time coming. But regardless of next weekend’s high temps, we’re headed out there on Saturday, and will go check out a friend’s solar set up, and go to the astronomy festival, and have brunch at The Palms, and everything will be dandy. I ordered myself a custom “Rancho Saudade” key chain for keys to the place since that’s the only thing I personally can make happen right now; it gives me some small (silly) feeling of control. 

Soon it’ll be time to apply for kids’ schools again to earn points to hopefully make it into Eagle Rock jr high. Now that I understand the system I know what to do - apply for the most impossible schools and get points for not making it in. I do wish I had started this earlier - I think at this late stage Bobby doesn’t have a big chance of making it into their gifted program; but it’s not impossible, either. Either way he can still attend the school with an intradistrict permit. So many kids have vanished from LAUSD that it’s possible he won’t have as much competition to get in when he applies for real next year. 

For now both kids appear to be doing well at school - Theo’s teacher is a lot more intense than his was last year; I have to sign off on his 30 minute reading and homework each night, and his class work every week. I’m interested to see how the parent teacher conference goes in November. 

We came home last night from a rare date night to find Bobby sitting up with the baby sitter making origami weapons at 1:30 AM. This child needs no sleep. It’s bizarre. I mean I was a night owl at his age but I doubt at 10 I could have stayed up that late and not even be tired. Another way he and Theo are so different. Bobby eats like a bird, never sleeps, can zone out on something for hours; Theo needs his sleep, eats like a champ, and is easily bored. You wonder how much of this is natural and how much is them playing off of each other as siblings. 

Hopefully I will start to feel more normal in the coming weeks - I am determined to stop sleeping all day come Monday, and we finally have the two times delayed hotel meeting on Thursday which means I can pay my hotel bill and be done with that, which means I can put this event to bed finally. Then it’s time to plan next year. Oy.