Updates (aren’t they all…?)

I heard from my friend. She of course read my blog and will no doubt read this. She apologized and said she has, in fact, had a life-changing event that she can’t talk about yet. So it’s not me. And now I feel terrible that, as a friend, I can’t be some kind of help or comfort in what’s obviously a terrible time. I told her I’m here for her if she needs me and she said thanks. It’s funny how quickly one’s incandescent rage can melt under just a few words. I feel relieved but also sad and concerned. It must be something pretty terrible because she’s a tough cookie and isn’t thrown by much in life. I’ll be holding her in my thoughts.

Yesterday we went to our first “tasting” of potential wedding food. It was a bit of a bagunça. The place was far as fuck - Temecula - and the woman there was flustered and somewhat unprepared for us. There were three tiny meat tacos for us to try - so, nothing for vegetarian me, although that’s my fault because I didn’t tell them - and everything was super basic. But, that was kind of the point; this is the cheap option. The woman said they probably don’t go to Yucca Valley although that was the first thing I confirmed with whoever I was texting. I think this business is a) blowing up a little too fast and they’re unprepared and overwhelmed, and b) suffering the help/supply shortages that are happening right now. I’m a little reluctant to put my wedding in their hands, honestly. But it doesn’t matter - we’ve got another tasting today and one in Nov as well and I’m also waiting on a couple more estimates. I’ll be happy when this catering stuff is done. It’s a huge amount of work for me and I’m pretty out of my depth with this stuff.

Friday my band spent the day filming some videos, something we’ve never done. But a friend in Korea wanted some videos for his wedding, and we needed some promo material, so we crashed the house of a wealthy dancer in Brentwood and shot some songs with dancers in attendance. It was really nice. I do miss that aspect of my life even though I enjoy my gig-free weekends. I so hope we can get back to international travel. I don’t know if that part of our band life will ever return, but I’m hoping. 

In thinking about the boys and sports and activities, I’ve decided to look into capoeira for them. It’s the perfect combo of dance, music, martial arts and culture - how much would it thrill me for these kids to learn about their 1/4 Brazilian background - and there’s a highly rated studio near us that’s having a special next month. So I’ll get us started on that. 

I’m still completely flummoxed about what to do about applying for middle schools for B. The principal never answered my request to have Bobby evaluated - I may go over her head to his actual teacher who is the person in charge of evaluations at their school - or hit her up one more time. I have to submit applications in about three weeks. Time is of the essence. 

One more week, maybe, until the contractor re-starts our cabin…? I find myself thinking about it all the time. I miss the desert, and Theo keeps asking when we’re going on a trip again. I hope I’m not overestimating what it’s going to feel like to go out there. What if it’s boring and we hate it? What if it’s constantly vandalized? What if we never have time to spend out there? So many things can go wrong. Or, we could love it and it could enhance our family life in a positive way. Which I think is more likely.

A letter to you

Today’s going to be a little different. This post is for my friend who most certainly will be reading this, to explain my take on what happened.

For everyone else - this is about my hairdresser/friend who was one of the first people I met when I started swing dancing in 1996. We were on a dance team together; she’s a hairdresser so became my hairdresser shortly thereafter. We bonded over our narcissistic mothers, traveled to Hawaii and New Orleans, usually had dinner after our appointment and talked about anything and everything. You can imagine the ups and downs that happen in two people’s lives over 25 years. Is this person my best friend? No, and I’m sure she’d say the same. But I definitely consider her an important person in my life, no doubt. 

At our last appointment a couple of weeks ago I brought up the subject of her doing my hair for the wedding, and I thought made it clear that this was not a pre-condition for being there, that she’s my hairdresser so of course I want her to do my hair for it but also I want to invite her and her husband as my guests whether she does my hair or not, and asked her rates for something like that (I in no way expected this to be free or discounted). She said we’d talk about my ideas. I said cool. Again I did not expect her to definitely do this for me - maybe she didn’t want to work, maybe doing brides is a drag, who knows. No expectations, just discussion. 

So over the following days she texted me with questions about my ideas, pictures, if I’m using a veil, etc. Then out of nowhere I get this weird, bot-like text on Saturday saying “I’m not available for your June 4 wedding” followed by a recommendation for someone else. I text thanks. Then it dawns on me what’s really happening here.

She doesn’t want to do my hair, fine. I find it very difficult to believe she actually magically has a conflict on that day that she suddenly can’t get out of, so I think that’s total bullshit. But she’s also telling me, I’ve decided I’m not going to your wedding. For no other reason than she just doesn’t want to go.

This ate at me all weekend and was the reason I was upset but I just couldn’t articulate it even to myself at the time. I was saying to myself, it’s fine, she doesn’t want to go, that’s cool. Then I realized - wait, what? She’s deciding for something nine months from now that she’s just out because she just doesn’t feel like it…? This person I’ve known for half my life, who I’ve traveled with and cried with and seen go through sobriety…? And she can’t even do me the courtesy of an actual explanation or apology or anything other than “I’m unavailable” like I’m some fucking walk in client she’s never met before? Are you fucking kidding me???

Naturally I ran this by some friends to see if I was crazy for suddenly feeling really hurt and angry. One pointed out maybe she was offended I asked her to work. Ok…maybe, despite how clear I thought I was being, that’s it? I also thought the weird bot-like text might have been an actual mistake. So I sent a text saying I was bummed that she couldn’t be at the wedding because I was looking forward to having my oldest friends all together but I understand if she has a conflict. Hoping, again, to get a rational explanation - my brother’s getting married on that day, I’m going to be out of the country on the trip of a lifetime, I’m planning on having cancer next June, anything. What do I get? A heart on my text. That’s it. 

Is she still offended I asked her to work? Let me ask you this - wouldn’t it be way, way more offensive to not ask the person who’s done your hair for 25 years to do your hair for your wedding? I understand this kind of stuff can be messy, but come on. 

There’s another layer to this that makes me question what happened. At our last appointment the conversation - and it was a good one - revolved around her working with a business coach-type person who’s encouraging her to work towards molding her clientele to what she wants and not just take every job and client. Basically, a few clients were on the chopping block (not me, she stressed). She’s learning to say no and not take on things that are inconvenient. I encouraged all this, as I’m on a similar track with my business. I can only imagine that somewhere between texting me for wedding hair ideas and that weekend she just decided I don’t want to do this and decided to tell me in the coldest, shittiest way possible, without even the courtesy of an elaborate lie to save my feelings (I’m planning on having cancer next June).

But really none of this matters - the real question is…why don’t you want to go to your friend’s wedding? Because it’s too far to drive, because there’s alcohol there, because it’s old friends you don’t want to deal with, because the whole thing is just not interesting to you? Or what this whole episode actually says to me - you just don’t care about me enough to go. And that tells me everything I need to know.

I had an appointment scheduled for next month. I texted telling her I was canceling. Once again, no do you want to reschedule, is everything ok, no nothing, just an infuriatingly happy “okay!” What the actual fuck. Wow. So this is all I mean to you. Just a pain in the ass client to be discarded without a second thought. While you’re on this coach-inspired scorched earth tear you might want to think about the things and people you’ll alienate along the way on this journey of everything now being only about what works for you.

You are a shitty friend. 

In this life you fucking show up for people. You wish them happy birthday, you check in on them when they’re sick, you visit their new baby (as you did with me), you comfort them when a loved one dies, and you fucking go to their wedding. You go even if it’s far and you tell them they look beautiful even if they don’t and tell them you’re having a great time even if you’re not. 

I think I fooled myself into thinking it’s ok if people don’t show up for me for this, that it’s just a wedding, it’s not a big deal. But you know what? It’s a big fucking deal. I’m going to be 50, spent my entire adult life single and alone so much so that I had to go to extraordinary lengths to have children by myself, and now I’m getting married which is making me happy and I really want a day of your time to come celebrate me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. And once again…why wouldn’t you want to come…? That’s the real question.

So I’m writing this mainly to get it out of my system (I am furious) but also to tell how this feels and looks to me. And why maybe at first I was ok but after really thinking about it it occurred to me that this is complete and utter bullshit. You’re acting like I don’t matter to you and you don’t really care about me. You certainly have zero interest in attempting to explain, or to rescue this friendship. You’re happy to see me just walk away after 25 years. What is wrong with you??

So that’s it. Adult friendships are hard, and this situation ain’t my first rodeo, for sure. It hurts and I’m sad and I’ll miss my friend but I guess I just have to move on and accept that I grossly overestimated my value in this person’s life. Now excuse me while I go punch a wall. 

On guilt and motherhood

I had an off weekend. I’m not sure what’s going on with me - but as usual I’m sure it’s not one thing but a collection of seemingly small yet triggering things that set me off on a downward spiral. I’m mostly ok now - I think I’ve felt all the feelings and am now sick of them and ready to move on. But I thought it was worth digesting one more time.

Mostly, I feel guilty. I feel like I’m letting my kids down by not having them in activities and not having gotten them into sports when I had the chance. I feel like I’m the only person on earth who doesn’t have their kids engaged in afterschool stuff and sports. I keep telling myself that a) the pandemic fucked everything up in this department and once it winds down for real (spring?) I can make up for lost time, b) I’m not really in any kind of financial position to sign up for hundreds of dollars a month in activities, c) the kids are thriving and happy so who the eff cares? And yet. 

We had a long, boring, unfocused weekend in which the kids were mostly in their pajamas with unbrushed teeth and I puttered around aimlessly. See, what had happened was…this was supposed to be our first weekend in the cabin. Which we all know can’t happen, and won’t happen, for months (contractor told me yesterday he’s not returning to do any work for at least two more weeks. Good times). Because I had to go to a wedding late Friday I couldn’t realistically make plans for us to do anything else - like camping or a short road trip or anything like that (I probably would have used our credit to stay at that cabin in Cambria we got canceled out of last May). And so I just left the weekend open. But that didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. The F is terrible at making plans, so we sat around all day in an endless round of “what do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do?” while he futilely looked up things to do with kids in LA and restaurants, not finding anything for hours, until I suggested we go to this beer garden-type place with a play yard the kids could at least run around in. Upon getting there, the play yard was gone. I spent $120 on a very mediocre lunch (still don’t know how that happened), we went to a park where Theo fell off his bike into a rose bush and tore up his leg something awful, we came home and struggled to figure out what to do about dinner at nine o’clock at night. Then yesterday the F got to the important work of fixing all of our leaking/stuck bathroom fixtures (I’m very grateful he’s up to the task of tackling things like this) while I futzed around and read and de-seeded pomegranates. I somewhat redeemed myself by cooking us all dinner and making apple cider donut holes, but mostly I just felt like a big fat failure all weekend.

Why? Well, mostly dumb reasons - seeing everyone’s family fun pumpkin patch pictures, drive-in pictures, beach day pictures…again, everyone in the world, it seems, did something fun last weekend. Why didn’t we go to a pumpkin patch? Because the half-sisters reached out to us to go, and I’m waiting to make a plan with them. So that was off the table. And again, the home repairs were urgent so that had to happen (we couldn’t turn the cold tap on the bathroom sink hardly at all). But then there was a discussion in one of my mom groups about how to build resilience in children and much of the discussion was about getting kids into sports and activities. And I see how much these things take over adult lives - just Friday night at the wedding I had a discussion with a mom of boys about how much she hates having to drag herself to early morning games and practices and how if her husband hadn’t insisted the kids be in sports, she never would have done it. Some years ago the F suggested I get the boys into little league or some such thing - I said I would if he took full responsibility for all the games and practices and other crap you have to do, and that was the last I heard of it. 

So it was a weekend of social media FOMO and mild shaming - something I typically avoid, but this topic touches a nerve with me because I do feel guilt about it and question if I’m doing the right thing by currently doing nothing. Part of me, too, is so intensely still hurt by our whole violin debacle that I’m just gun shy now about picking something for these kids to do, forcing them to continue when they inevitably don’t want to, dragging it out for everyone, only to be fired at the end anyway and all that work, money, and commitment goes right down the drain and was for absolutely nothing. To say I’m scarred by that whole incident is an understatement. 

The question is, what do you do when your kids don’t seem to show much interest or aptitude in anything? Other than watching gamer videos? I always swore up and down I wouldn’t be the kind of parent that would just let their kids wallow on YouTube all day…and yet that’s exactly how we live, and I’m intensely ashamed of it. Yet I don’t know how to fix it. What, exactly, do you do with kids when they get home from school? I mean when they’ve done homework and eaten and all that? Is it terrible to allow them downtime after a long day? Do you need to constantly engage them like they’re still toddlers? (trust me…they don’t want this). Didn’t we all just veg out in front of the tv every spare minute when we were this age? Was that bad for us?

What I should be doing is just picking things for them to do and trying them out, like other parents. But the mental energy this takes - not to mention financial commitment - sounds utterly exhausting to me. What/when/where? How to do research on all these things, where to take them, what teachers to get, and right now with covid still in our lives, too…it’s just complicated. I want them to learn instruments, but they have zero interest in this. Theo might still be into sports - or maybe martial arts. He’s very physical. I could consider getting them into some kind of martial art; I think they’d both respond well to the discipline and physicality of it. But I do worry if they’d then spend all their waking lives beating the crap out of each other. This is the most likely option for them, but again I might wait at least until they’re fully vaccinated before considering this. 

I look ahead to the next couple of months and, until our Thanksgiving trip, we have a lot of weekends with, frustratingly, one or two small things we have to do that make it impossible to go on an actual trip, and yet don’t take up enough time to make an actual fun weekend. We could have been spending time out at the cabin - that’s what this whole fall was supposed to be about. I’m so annoyed. 

I started reading a book called The Lost Daughter which, as promised, has been a real gut punch regarding mothers and daughters, and in particular abandoning mothers and mothers who can’t differentiate between themselves and their daughters. Mothers who tell their daughters they never should have been mothers (WHY) and feel vaguely or not-so-vaguely competitive with them. As much as I often bemoan the fact that I’ll never have a daughter (out of earshot of my boys, of course!) - the F recently asked me if it was hard to be the only girl in the house, and I said emphatically, YES - there’s still a part of me that’s glad I have boys because it’s just so much less complicated. I don’t have to worry about differentiating from them - they are nothing like me; they are aliens. They will only become more alien-like as they get older and turn into men. I don’t understand how their brains work, what they want, what they think about. I do my best to be compassionate and nurturing while they still let me, but mostly I just leave them be because I believe that’s what’s best, and I want them to be independent. So we have the gender gap - they are men, and therefore incomprehensible to me - but, more worryingly, the generation gap, in which these children are growing up with social media and at their age I was still using a (shared) rotary phone. I truly feel like the only time we’re having a similar experience - all doing the same thing at the same time - is when we’re in the wilderness. It’s no wonder that’s where I’m happiest and most satisfied with family life. 

Tomorrow is the middle school fair (zoom), and apparently middle school applications have to be in by mid-November. Schools still aren’t offering any kind of tours (covid), so it looks like I’m stuck doing online research (ugh) and watching tour videos to get any kind of sense of what these schools are like. I had started to get interested in this one hippy-dippy school until I read the Yelp reviews; like often happens with these types of schools,  it looks like it’s loud and chaotic, and all the troubled kids who couldn’t hack normal public schools end up going there and bullying the other kids with zero repercussions. Yeah, no. This is a huge, life changing decision, and I feel completely overwhelmed and out of my depth. I’m so scared of making the wrong call and sending Bobby to a school where he’ll be miserable - or worse, harmed. And I have to make, and commit to, decisions right now that we then have to live with for years. 

It’s just all so hard.

A gradual return

Thursday night I did something I haven’t done in ages - I went dancing. Even before covid times, this is something I had been doing very rarely. I can say it’s because of “the kids”, and that’s partially true, but the reality is more complex. When you go out partner dancing by yourself, you can really only have a good time if you have enough suitable partners to dance with. And as a follow, this is rarely the case. So I had found for years that I would get all dressed up, get a babysitter, leave my house at night, and walk into a club by myself and pay the entry fee, only to stand around all night and not dance. There would only ever be a handful of good guy dancers out, and gaggles of women who would grab them the second they walked off the floor for the next dance. Being naturally rejection-adverse and not competitive nor aggressive, I would just never get to dance. Nevermind the fact that, even if not dancing, you’re stuck dodging weird, creepy guys all night and made to feel extremely uncomfortable. So I gave up. You can see why I’m so interested in the concept of de-gendering this dance (everyone leads, everyone follows). It’s yet another area in which we women are artificially made dependent on men’s presence/aptitude/willingness to seek us out, and I’m not into it. 

So after having been asked to DJ at a place that’s been having a largely unadvertised soft opening for a few weeks, and seeing that, hey, in addition to strict covid measures, there is also a very pleasing male to female ratio and plenty of people I know and like, I decided to try showing up as a customer. I had to skip a week because of a cold (tested - no covid) but made myself some dance shoes (bought adhesive suede on Amazon and stuck it to the bottom of some comfortable slip ons - who knew this was possible), put my big girl panties on, and went. And it was fun! I was very surprised to see that it felt like I had just danced yesterday - my stamina was good (thank you, long uphill hikes every day), my frozen shoulder didn’t bother me very much, and my muscle memory kicked right in. I will say I don’t have much confidence in my skills - these young people are so much better than we ever were - but, as when I was in school re: my relative smarts, I can confidently say I’m not the best dancer in the room, but I’m not the worst, either. I managed dancing in a mask all night, as well. I know this short Renaissance won’t last for me - invariably more people will come, plus more girls, and/or the novelty of my being there will wear off and people may not be as interested in dancing with me as they were that night. But I think for this moment I’ve found a safe place to dance for a little while once a week, and I’m pretty chuffed about it. My love for this dance has not diminished in the 25 years I’ve been doing it. It is definitely my longest and most passionate relationship.

This was supposed to be our first weekend in our cabin, and I’m pretty gutted that it wasn’t possible. Instead I drove alone to a wedding in a closer desert town, and just the wide open sky and desert breezes made me so full of longing to spend time out there-! When I try to think of the cabin and what it’ll actually be like, I kind of draw a blank. It’s possible the whole thing will be a total bust - my F’s coworker said he knew someone who did what we’re doing, and the place got broken into so much that she gave up and sold it. That is indeed my worst fear - that we’ll be subject to relentless vandalism and theft and just get fed up. I have to accept that this is among the range of possibilities. Zero progress this week; I didn’t even bother contacting the contractor since he had mentioned he wouldn’t get his crew back until next week. Sigh. 

In other news, I emailed the CA business website that used to have that grant I was looking for, and thankfully they wrote back to explain that no, it has not been canceled but will roll out later. It was supposed to open on Tuesday - clearly that’s not happening. And no indication of when it will roll out - which means nobody actually knows. It’s stressful, but at least it’s not gone. 

Here is a picture of me in a new hairpiece I got for dressy vintage occasions. I think it’s all about fake hair going forward - the little secret our forebears knew.

Socialization

This weekend was all about socialization. Saturday I went to the pro-choice march downtown, having dusted off my protest sign from the last pro-choice march (sigh), and remembering my first pro-choice March on Washington in the 80s in high school, which means I have been officially marching for reproductive rights for five decades. And now, in the fifth decade, our rights are more at risk than they’ve been in that whole time. Sigh, indeed. 

That night the family went out to dinner, something we haven’t done while at home in…I don’t even remember. We had Thai food, which, as always when introducing new things to these kids, went so-so. But I have to admit they are *slowly* getting better at eating new things, which makes life so much better in so many ways. 

Yesterday I did something I also haven’t done in ages, which is dress up and go to a 1920s picnic. A friend had invited the whole family for her birthday, and I got to see people I hadn’t seen in ages and even have my first dance in about two years. As always with this stuff, it felt like I had just done it yesterday. It really is like riding a bicycle. Even my still not great frozen shoulder did ok with the dancing. Thankfully it’s not in my dominant arm.

I am still waiting on my replacement credit cards and debit cards, and currently have a bunch of companies trying, and failing, to charge me their monthly fees. I sincerely hope I get these new cards soon. 

A California arts grant I had been waiting on for months has suddenly disappeared from the website it was featured on, and there is no mention of it anywhere - not on Twitter, YouTube, my news feed, nothing. It’s like it never existed. I’ve emailed that government website to see what happened to it. Im afraid it’s just “gone away” and been re-allocated to other things. If this potential $45,000 is no longer headed my way, this dramatically changes what I will and won’t be able to do next year. It was supposed to open for applications next week. I’m pretty gutted. I realize it’s free money that I’m in no way entitled to, but still. I hate that a carrot was dangled in front of me that’s now (most likely) gone.

Fun times…not

My wallet was stolen out of my car yesterday. Late in the day I decided to get off my lazy duff and go walk around the Rose Bowl as I do nearly every day but usually much earlier. By the time I got there yesterday it was pretty empty. But I parked near other cars, tossed my purse in my trunk, locked the car, and headed out. An hour later I got back to an unlocked car, and immediately knew I had been robbed. Sure enough, my purse was on top of the bags I had hidden it under in the trunk, minus my wallet. You’re always in shock when something like that happens - you think, did I somehow leave my wallet at home? Did it drop under the car? But no. Somebody had watched me put my stuff in the trunk and had managed to get into my car, either with some clicker skeleton key, or the car sensor had unlocked itself as I walked away (this wouldn’t be the first time that has happened), because I remember walking around to lock the door, so I know I didn’t forget to lock it. The idea of someone watching me, when I was mostly alone on this long trail, really gave me the creeps. I always carry pepper spray, but still. There was a shady looking guy sort of meandering on a bike. I’m pretty sure it was him. He clearly was not there for a work out. 

So, a few frantic hours calling to cancel the three credit cards and three debit cards in my possession (none had any charges), and having to call my health insurance since the next day they were due to charge my premium to my credit card, and calling car insurance to get new cards sent…and now living with no credit or debit cards for a week plus while I wait for new ones, which is already causing all sorts of problems and complications, and wracking my  brain to think of what else I had in there…my library card, which can wait; luckily I had duplicate health insurance cards at home, and my license was on me. It’s nothing like some 15 years ago when my purse was stolen from a gig with my keys, checkbooks, wallet, and phone, which lead to shutting down my bank accounts, having to be driven home and breaking in to my own house, changing all my locks, having my car towed, etc etc…and those people were professional identity thieves who used my license for years after to mess me up. God, I hate these fucking people. 

Now I don’t feel safe at the Rose Bowl anymore even though intellectually I know as long as I don’t store valuable shit in my trunk (something I never felt comfortable doing) and go early when everyone is there is perfectly safe, and probably safer than any other trail I could take, even my own neighborhood. I’m definitely never bringing my purse again when I know I’m going to be walking somewhere - I don’t need all that shit. I’m also only carrying my credit and debit cards - the others can live in my safe since I almost never use them. And I really should be tying all my auto-pays to my bank account and not my credit card, since every couple of years this card gets compromised and I have to call a thousand companies to switch payments over. Seriously, F that. So I’m going to change the way I do some things to hopefully avert a disaster like this again in the future. It sucks that no matter how careful you think you are, someone can always get you if they decide to target you. Makes you feel so vulnerable and scared. 

I contacted the desert contractor yesterday as I’ve been doing the middle of each week, and he pretty much admitted nothing has gotten done. I don’t think he’s worked on it once this entire month. He had a family member die of covid and has been dealing with that, and every crew he hires quits after just a day or two. Sigh. What a mess. I asked him if he thinks he’ll be able to finish on his own with no help, and he said yes, but was asking for another month-six weeks’ time. So, mid-November. What can you do? I mean, I could fire him and try to get my money back, and then have a half-finished building left open to the elements and vulnerable to thieves out there for months while I try to find someone else (which I won’t). Or I can just take a deep breath and tell him to keep going, which is what I did. It sucks that we’re going to miss this entire fall out there…but again, when I look at my calendar I see no open weekends until November, anyway, so does it matter that it’s not done…? It’s just frustrating and scary, because I don’t know if I can trust this guy or not. I *think* he means well but is just a disorganized mess; if he were chipping away at it I’d feel better, but like I said I don’t think anything has happened out there for weeks. 

In other, happier news, tomorrow the holiday trifecta kicks off with me decorating the house for Halloween, listing some costumes on my Etsy store, and preparing a spooky secret Santa-style gift for someone in my FB feminist group. This may be our first sort-of normal holiday season, and I’m here for it. We plan on trick or treating. It’s a shame the school can’t do their normal super fun Halloween carnival, but that’ll just have to wait. 

I decided to take a break from the 5:2 fasting diet and try something new. I haven’t lost a pound in ages - only slowly gaining - and, regardless of the fact that the real reason I’m gaining is I’m eating too much on my non-fast days, it still means I’m stuck in a rut and what used to work for me no longer works for me. So, in the fasting vein still, I decided to give a little delayed fasting a try; since it’s really easy for me to skip breakfast and not eat until lunch, I’ve been doing that this week. So I eat a normal lunch at noon or one and then a normal dinner at 6 or 7 and then that’s it. It’s just a way to fool myself into consuming fewer calories. I’m already down 4lbs. Water weight, I know, but encouraging nonetheless. If I can just lose 4-5 more I’d be happy. That’s when I feel really good and all my clothes fit. I intend to go slowly, take weekends off, etc. I think I can do it. It’s a lot less brutal than earmarking two days a week to only eat 500 calories. That system does work, don’t get me wrong - but right now this one seems a little more doable. We’ll see how it goes.

One down, one to go

My supplemental grant finally came through late Friday night. I don’t know when the funds will appear, but the paperwork is signed. This should be the last of that grant’s funds…now comes the awesome responsibility of documenting how all the funds were spent. I set myself up for a mostly easy ride - I should just have to print payroll reports and bank reports showing all the refunds I’ve issued, plus a couple of invoices and flight payment receipts - but it’s still nerve wracking. What if they don’t accept some of my documentation or expenses? I won’t really be able to exhale until the grant is completely closed out. I’m not sure when that will be. I’m thinking I’ll get to work on it in January. 

In other news, my cabin rehab has ground to a halt. The contractor has not disappeared, thankfully, but his crew has, repeatedly, and he had a family member die of covid, and he’s just been barely pecking away at it by himself. I don’t think any progress at all has happened in the last month. While our weekends are filling up so I doubt we’d be able to get out there in the next month anyway, it still bums me out that this has all taken so long, and that the fall is slipping away without being able to spend any time out there. I also worry that it will never get done, or that it will get done but so haphazardly and with such cheap materials that we’ll have to fix a lot of it. Sigh. I am attending a wedding out there in two weeks and was hoping to spend the weekend in the cabin - looks like I’ll be making a long drive home instead. 

Covid numbers are dropping like a rock. Suddenly articles are popping up - including one written by my epidemiologist friend - stating there’s a good chance there will be no winter surge, or barely one, and that we’ll more or less have this thing beat by spring. By “beat”, of course, we mean only in the western world, and only in states with high vaccination rates, and only kind of. But hey, I’ll take it. I often wonder if by next Labor Day I’ll still be required to check for vaccines for my event, either by the state or just community standards. In a way I want to just to continue to alienate all the right wing bastards that tormented me when I opened up - but in a way I don’t want the hassle, either. It’s so hard to say where we’ll be in three months, six months, a year. For me personally, I just hope that a) kids can get vaccinated this fall, b) kids can stop wearing masks at school at some point, and c) we can stop doing the “daily pass” for school every morning at some point. Those would be the three things that would greatly improve my quality of life. 

I’ve started trip planning again. We decided to once again do a Thanksgiving on the road. One of the last areas of CA I’ve been interested in is California along the 395 - hot springs, Bodie, scenery. So I booked us three nights in a strange hotel called the Amargosa Opera House near Death Valley (we drove by this last time and thought it deserved a second look) so we can spend two more days exploring there (it will be so much better in a car we can take off roading and with me not being in constant miserable pain from my frozen shoulder). Then we head up to an old school Alpine-like inn in Mammoth Lakes for some ghost town and hot springs exploring. I have also managed to get a really good deal at a Radisson on Fiji for our honeymoon in July and $1000 off flights. I think there are good deals to be had right now because Fiji is only just now opening to tourists again. Anyway I managed a week in Fiji at about half the normal price, so yay me. 

The boys are doing well at school and continue to test negative. Bobby has his first project due next month, which is all too appropriately about California’s desert regions. We had our family photos done yesterday - here’s a preview: