First shot

I took the kids for their first shot yesterday. They were brave boys and didn’t make much of a fuss about it - I more struggled with their wrestling and rough housing and touching everything in the pharmacy while we were waiting. They didn’t have many thoughts about getting the shot in general; I asked Bobby if he thought he’d feel safer, and he said no. But they both wanted to get it because their friends were getting theirs. Peer pressure has begun. At least in this instance it’s for the good. 

The F has had a rough couple of weeks. He had a surgery that left him somewhat debilitated for a few days, then the motherboard of his printing press went down, so it’s been a mad scramble to try to fix it while orders pile up, while also trying to get a deal on a new press, all while we’re having global shut downs and supply chain issues. I’m not 100% up on exactly what’s happening, all I know is he’s the most stressed I’ve ever seen him, there’s a chance he’ll be out of work for weeks or months while this issue gets resolved, and there’s a chance we’ll have to cancel our entire Thanksgiving trip, which has me completely gutted. Today he goes to check to see if the latest repair takes; by late afternoon we should know if he can skate by for a few weeks or if he’s really screwed. 

On my end, things are looking up - I’m down to the last bunch of items to be uploaded to my Etsy store before I'm officially done; the grant money I’ve been waiting months for was finally deposited, now I have two more I should have approval on in the next two weeks; I talked to a wedding planner that didn’t stress me out like the first person did and hired her, so now I have some guidance going forward - my time with her starts on Dec 4 (six months out); the kids got their first shot, and, most importantly, after a two month hiatus, work resumed on the cabin yesterday!! 

We’re still miles away from it being done or usable - we still need a roof, door, windows, patio, and entire separate structure for bathroom and shower. But at least for the moment I can say he’s trying to finish and didn’t just disappear with my money. So, very very grateful for that. Will we have this thing for the end of the year? I don’t know, but I’ve started ordering macrame wall hangings and hammock chairs just in case!

Here’s the boys enjoying post-shot frozen yogurt. 

No!vember

Two weeks until Thanksgiving break. We’re all itching to hit the road. This will be an easy go compared to our usual epic road trip - we’re staying in hotels, a first, and only two of them. Unlike last year, we’re not adapting to a rented RV, nor relying on campsites that you can’t reserve in advance. And most importantly, this year I won’t be in constant agonizing pain due to my frozen shoulder. When I think about how utterly debilitated I was this time last year - I had pretty much given up trying to use my left arm at all, and had multiple episodes of intense pain per day plus dull throbbing pain all of the time anyway - oh, it was just hell. There are so many things that are better this year. In fact, fuck it - everyone else is doing gratitude stuff for November, I might as well join in right now. Here are things that are better this year than last year:

Trump is gone!!! I mean, not really, but at least for now he’s not in the White House. I live in constant terror of what’s going to happen in ‘22 when we no doubt lose the house and senate and in ‘24 when we probably lose the White House because of voter suppression and propaganda, but I’m determined to enjoy every minute of this brief moment of having sane Democrats in control.

Coronavirus is on the retreat - kinda. Lately the news hasn’t been so great with regards to what we’re facing this winter; after weeks of “we’re going to have this thing beat by January and no winter surge!” now all of a sudden parts of Europe are seeing their worst surges yet, with the US possibly to follow, in particular the western states. Still, though, way different from last year when we were all helplessly facing this giant wave heading right at us with no tools to fight it. At least now the F and I are vaccinated, and the kids will be fully protected in just five weeks. There’s a good chance coronavirus will be largely under control some time next year. 

Kids in school! I rarely think about the long months of home schooling now; I just want to put it behind me. But every once in a while I think about it and am just so happy the kids are back in school and having a somewhat normal childhood again. They really thrive there, and I delight in my quiet time at home alone. It keeps me sane.

I’m engaged! No more wondering when it’ll happen or if we’ll ever get married (it could have gone either way). The moment happened and we have a wedding planned and it’s happening. And then it’ll be over and we can just be a married couple until one of us dies. I never thought I would get married, so I’m glad to get to have that experience in common with so many other people in the world. I’m interested to see what it’s going to be like.

We’ve found a family passion which is doing outdoorsy stuff, in particular desert stuff. I’m glad this is something we can all share - in a time when monoculture is long gone (we all sort of do/watch/listen to our own things these days), it’s great to have one thing that still bonds us together. While building the cabin continues to be fraught, it will be done eventually, and then we can move on to really enjoy our lives out there. I’m excited for this.

Things are coming back. Our band is playing, we’re going to concerts, we’re starting to get on planes and travel. Last night I went to a dinner and then comedy show, and it was great. I can run errands and go to stores and movies. Life is really about 80% normal. 

The government has helped me survive two years of shutdowns. I am profoundly grateful for all the loans and grants. 

Everyone continues to be healthy. Yay for that. 

In other news, we finally saw the donor siblings yesterday at a climbing gym. Like our kids, the girls had gotten taller and thinner in the last two years. The donor was I believe 6’1” and 140 lbs, so tall and skinny is in all of their genes. I can’t say any of them really resemble each other; but then again Bobby and Theo look nothing like each other, either. Genes are weird. 

Here are some pomegranate seeds from our hyperactive tree. I’m down to the last few I can seed, the rest have been ravaged by squirrels. It’s been a good run, though.

Shots! Shots! Shots!

The announcement came yesterday that kids’ vaccines are all but greenlit at this point - I believe there’s some more signing off to do, but in a rush, suddenly appointments became available for kids. I didn’t think doses would be available until next week, so I booked two through Walgreen’s for next Friday, just three days short of the cut off to travel to Hawaii in December. So unless things change or go wrong between now and Dec 3rd, their second shot, we should be able to get on that plane without any testing requirements or issues. It’s a huge relief. I was not looking forward to white knuckling those test results just a day or two before our flight.

This is a huge step forward to the end. I imagine school procedures will stay the same - still masks, still downloading daily pass and having to walk the kids to the gate with my phone - but this is the path towards being truly free of this thing. And there’s less worry about being a family in a dangerous social situation or bringing covid home to unvaccinated kids. It’s a big deal.

We applied for the F’s passport yesterday. Even the postal worker couldn’t believe he’d never had a passport before. I’m so excited for what this means for our future. At some point next year after the backlog is handled I’ll get the kids theirs, too. I can’t wait to have little world travelers!

Our issue with the venue we had to drop out of actually went better than I’d anticipated - while they still held to their policy of not checking vaccine status, it was clear that the person we deal with most was not in agreement with this policy and wants to continue to have a relationship with us after this is all over. So thankfully no bridges burned, and we’re putting on a small invite only event instead that will at least get our musicians paid. Personally I’d rather go to the desert next weekend, but there you have it. Duty calls. 

We have lots - and I mean lots - of gigs in December. I’m working every weekend, and the first weekend every night. We’re even working New Year’s Eve, which is a first in several years since my bandleader started getting hired at an event in NC with another singer (harrumph). All of this impinges on my ability to be in my shack in silence in the desert which is all I really care about. Even though I have no reason to think we will one day have a completed cabin - my contractor is still delaying week by week; right now he’s promising to be done by Thanksgiving, but who knows - I’ve found myself planning for it and thinking about it a lot lately. I hope it’s all I’m picturing. My worst fear is starting to use the place and coming to the unpleasant realization that I just don’t like being out there. However, I think that’s unlikely. Every time I go to the desert I feel instantly relaxed and comfortable - I love the crazy hot winds and endless vistas and ringing silence. It will only get better when the day comes when we can afford ATV’s to scoot around on. I can just picture my dusty tanned desert rat teenaged sons having a blast exploring out there. It’s really going to dramatically change our lives when we have this new place to be every few weeks, our second home. I’m very much looking forward to it; it’s so close I can taste it. 

Dia de Los anti-vaxxers

I woke up today to two angry reacts on a FB post our band made about our vaxx only New Year’s Eve gig, one from this bitch who earlier this year was on my event page encouraging people to sue me over my vaccine requirement, one from some guy who’s FB page is nothing but American flags. They were both blocked, but I’m still buzzing with rage about it. This comes from a weekend of discussion/controversy/debate about whether or not we should cancel a gig we accepted on the premise that the venue would be vaxx only, only now to be told they have no intention of actually checking. We are pulling out of the gig, which is burning a pretty big bridge (these are the people who taught me to lindy hop twenty five years ago), and probably throwing our own event the same night. It’s an ugly time. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. The idea of having to face all this shit again in a few months when I have to start making plans for my next event fills me with dread. 

Right now, numbers are ticking back up in California. It upsets me on many levels - the main one being that anti-vaxxers use this as an excuse to not bother getting vaccinated. But it also bolsters my plan to continue requiring vaccines for my event, and continue to ban problematic people. But this also sets me up for another spring of hell dealing with these people. Would I rather just let them all in, though? No. So, here we are. In a country full of rage and hatred and death threats. Fun. 

In other news, our first trick or treat back was good. Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures. The reason is, because of Theo’s blow up costume, we had to assemble it when we got out of the car, and it was pitch black and pictures were pretty much impossible. Bobby went as a Dementor, and in his all black costume, I couldn’t get any decent pictures, either. Oh well. The difference this year from 2019 was less participating houses - also, we went too late so many of the houses were done. A note for next year. But everyone had fun - Halloween is so much less stressful with bigger kids! Theo got tons of attention in his costume and Bobby was mildly annoyed - I told him it’s nice to let other people have the spotlight from time to time. I don’t think he internalized this at all, but at least I tried.

Their personalities are really developing now - and I try not to comment on it, because a parent’s verbalized opinion of you becomes your inner voice; I always tell these kids it’s never too late to reinvent yourself. But Bobby is soooo me - shy, easily grossed out, introverted, obsessive, sardonic, sensitive, smart. Theo is so different - friendly, outgoing, physical, a natural performer. I wonder if siblings play off of each other that way, filling in the gaps left. But I love that, as much as Theo is so much under his brother’s thumb, he is still asserting his individuality. I consider my feelings for them often and can honestly say I love them equally - they’re both so unique and so lovable. I can’t begin to imagine what they’ll be like as grown men; it’s still such a mystery. I feel like they’re books I wish I could sneak a peek at the last chapter of and then go back to where we are now. 

As of Halloween eve

Yesterday was not as exhausting as I’d anticipated. We went to a birthday party in a park, which was a nice return to normalcy, then Theo and the F went to another party while Bobby and I stayed home because it was too late to drive to El Segundo for their festival. Then we went to their school’s Halloween Creep Thru (short spooky drive thru in the tiny staff parking lot), then they got dinner while I returned alone to help clean up. I always volunteer for clean up because nobody wants to do that - they want the fun part; the set up, the performing. Sure enough, other than two guys tasked with taking down the major set pieces, it was only me and one other woman plus the two main PTA people actually putting everything away. Everyone was exhausted from having been there for twelve hours, and I got a lot of appreciation which felt good. I don’t know how these full time PTA types do it - they all deserve a medal. 

Funnily enough, after filling out and sending in my application for middle school and mentioning to a school mom friend how I was strategizing it, I discovered I had done everything wrong and had in fact been wrong about the whole process for years. Ha. As would make more sense, you don’t actually apply for middle school every year. You apply the year before you go. Duh. But what you’re supposed to do is apply for elementary school magnet programs you know you can’t possibly get into so you can be waitlisted and rack up points. You won’t even be considered for most good middle school magnets if you don’t have points in your pocket. So you basically have to figure out which these coveted elementary schools are and apply year after year - if you’re wrong and you get accepted and decline, you lose points. Huh. So in a roundabout way my application may actually help me - I accidentally applied for Eagle Rock Elementary, but most likely we won’t get in and I’ll get those points. So…yay? In the Eagle Rock Jr/Sr High zoom, I learned a lot. Most importantly, I learned that while their magnet program is highly coveted, their regular school is excellent, too, and still part of the International Baccalaureate program. So as much as my kid, who is white, stands a good chance of not making it into the magnet, I can still easily get a permit to be allowed into the regular school population and get all the benefits of attending there. This was at the end of a two hour zoom. I was like, why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place? Fuck the magnet program! But at least now I’ll have a plan. B will stay on at this elementary through 6th grade, and that year I’ll apply to the magnet, and if he doesn’t make it (most likely), I’ll go the permit route. And if for whatever reason that fails, he can start at one of two or three other middle schools for 7th grade. And I can keep trying to get him into that school for high school, which is also a possibility. So at least there’s a plan of action now. Funny how no one ever in all these years just simply told me you apply to impossible to get into elementary schools every year in order to rack up points for the one chance you get to apply to middle school. That would have made everything make way more sense and I would have started applying in 2nd grade like I was supposed to. Ugh. 

In other news, kids may be able to get their shots as soon as end of this week or the week after! So excited. Everyone is buzzing about it, but I know vaccination rates for little kids are going to be very low. Well, we’ll be part of it. Sign me up.

After several attempts, I finally spoke to the wedding planner, and everything that came out of that conversation was terrible and disappointing. First, she told me to expect to at least double my wedding budget. Gulp. Then she poo-pooed our idea of a taco truck - referred to them as “fuck you tacos”, as in, we get all these people to drive out to the desert and dress up and then serve them two tacos on a paper plate, fuck you - and then said the catering company we were thinking of will charge us double what was quoted and probably will show up hours late if they show up at all. And didn’t offer any alternatives or other ideas. Then said she had sixteen weddings in the next two weeks so she wouldn’t be available to talk until then, but I really need to mail down a caterer right away, also hair and makeup (ugh). Then said she’d send me a list of the expenses I can expect at this particular venue which she’s worked several times so I could see all the unexpected costs - she never sent it. Now, I can call other wedding planners, and probably will. But the whole conversation was a huge shock, and I’ve been paralyzed ever since. I told the F about it and he said we need to cancel that venue, lose our $10,000 deposit, and start over. I said absolutely not. Like most men, he has zero concept of what things actually cost and how the world actually works. Such as, you don’t get to dictate the terms of a contract when you hire a catering company - they do what they want and you pay or end up in court. He thinks we can get an iron clad contract with the caterer in which we won’t pay one penny more than they quote us. I said it doesn’t work like that. They’ll build in a million caveats in which they can charge more on the day of if they see fit. We came to a stalemate on it. Nothing has happened all week. But recognizing this is now going to cost life changing more money than I’ve anticipated, I sat down and re-wrote an entire new budget for the next thirty years, which no longer includes paying off the house early (sigh), but does include a college fund for the kids, which was the whole purpose of paying off the house anyway. So seeing that made me feel better about everything. Yes, in principle I hate spending a ton of money on a wedding; it’s stupid and wasteful. But we’re committed to this venue, and this venue comes with costs. And the reality is weddings are expensive unless you go tiny, and even if we did cancel and move to somewhere cheap and local and boring, we probably wouldn’t save that much anyway. So, fuck it.

In other “men don’t understand how things work” news, my desert contractor was supposed to start last week, said he’d start next week. Then last night he texted me he’s still closing out his dad’s home (I guess the dad is the one who died of covid) and he needs more time. He still says he’ll finish the place by Thanksgiving. But…all these delays. The F is convinced he’s a complete con artist who is never going to do the job and just robbed us with the full intention of never doing the job. I highly doubt this. I think his life is a mess and he can’t get his shit together. And what do you say to someone who’s dad died of covid?? Unless it’s all an elaborate lie, but honestly, if he really only intended to rob us he would have disappeared ages ago. I still have faith he’ll finish up, I just think it’s going to take fucking forever. And, again, every single weekend for the entire rest of the year is full of stuff to do so we couldn’t go out there before January anyway. It’s telling the F, who’s full of rage about this and convinced we’ve been conned, that’s the hard part. I absolutely hate those conversations. He just doesn’t get it because he’s never hired a contractor for anything ever. Everyone else I tell this story to says “sounds about right”. Sigh. 

Here’s a picture of Theo his teacher sent me from the school’s no-parents Halloween parade.

Halloweening

This weekend was a rush of Halloween stuff, and yet next weekend is even more packed. You wanted the pandemic over so we can all get back to life as it was? Be careful what you wish for. I can honestly say, though, do I find social gatherings more exhausting now because I haven’t done them in eighteen months? No, they were always exhausting. Everything is exhausting when you’re middle aged. 

After a couple of weeks of back and forth and printers failing and children failing to remember to return evaluation request forms…turns out Bobby doesn’t need to be evaluated after all; apparently his OLSAT score still qualifies him to apply for gifted programs. He’s “high ability”. I sure wish someone had just told me this in the first place. But, no harm, no foul - I still have time to apply for the schools we want. Right now I’m focusing on Eagle Rock jr/sr high as my first choice. It’s an International Baccalaureate program, has high college placement, and excellent scores (especially for this area). My only concern is it may be too intense for us - the last thing I want is my kid bogged down with hours and hours of homework like I was at that age; it was miserable. But we’ll never know if Bobby can rise to the challenge if we don’t at least try to have him in an intense program. Also, he may not even be accepted. So there’s that. But in discussing with other parents it does seem the smart thing to do is apply to Eagle Rock only this year (it doesn’t start until 7th grade) and then apply again next year, and next year list the back up schools, which would be Luther Burbank and one other, possibly Washington Irving, which apparently can be gotten into even late. So Bobby will either go to Eagle Rock for 7th and if he doesn’t get in, Luther Burbank for 6th. So at least I have some clarity now. I’m going to an Eagle Rock zoom tonight to get a better picture of the place, and then on Thursday I’ll drive around to look at other schools at least from the outside. 

The city of LA grant was supposed to have launched today - it has not. Also, I was supposed to have a wedding planner from the desert call yesterday after two; she didn’t. And two places I’m waiting on for estimates for catering never answered me. The contractor was supposed to start the cabin this week after two months of neglect; he now says it’ll be next week. Sigh. And so it goes. 

We’re all really “doing” Halloween this year - everyone’s dressing up (me - bumble bee, the F - a frog, Theo - blow up alien carrying kid, Bobby - some scary Harry Potter thing that I don’t know about because Gen X); we’re going back to our Before Times trick or treat spot; I’m going to a Halloween dance on Thursday that I’ve not attended in years; I’m helping out at the school’s drive-through Halloween thing (called In N Ouch - see what they did there??). It’s a lot. But it’s also a lot of fun. It’s not lost on me that one day soon these Halloween-with-kids days will be over forever, so I’m going to enjoy the heck out of every single one we have left. 

Closer

The grant I thought had disappeared, reappeared with its own website and opens for applications next week, hurrah! I also got a notification about a city of LA grant that’s starting next week - it’s very small, only $5000, and done by lottery so not everyone who applies and is eligible will get it - but you best believe I’ll be applying. As the pandemic winds down all this free money will disappear, so I’m going to take advantage of every opportunity I can. Right now my full time job is applying for grants and selling my old stuff on Etsy. Both have turned out to be quite lucrative.

I finally got through to the school principal about having Bobby evaluated for “intellectual ability” and had a frustrating week of back and forth trying to print forms that won’t print, then having to get Bobby to remember to get a paper copy from his teacher (he remembered) then getting him to remember to turn it in (he forgot). Time is running out. I don’t know how, in the vast red-taped bureaucracy that is LAUSD, we can actually get this evaluation done in time for me to apply to schools before the cut off. Also? He may turn out to not actually have any intellectual ability, after all this. I am still utterly clueless as far as what schools to actually apply to. I’m pretty much leaning towards the local school, Luther Burbank, if only for ease of dropping two kids at two different schools for two years. But again this is a big decision and I don’t want to just rush through it without sitting down to consider all the options. It’s weird for me because middle school was not a transition time for me - after shuttling to various elementary schools, when we finally settled in NY I got a scholarship to a small performing arts school that included all grades, so I was there from 5th-8th grade and then opted for a public high school because I was sick of being the poor kid, also because by then my desire to be a child actor had waned so there was really no reason to stay there. So “middle school” being 6th-8th grade only, with no other grades at that school, is not something I personally experienced. 

I have taken a two week break from exercise. I know this isn’t good for me and is not sustainable, so I’ll start back up maybe tomorrow or Monday. Last week I was told to stay off my foot after the skin cancer surgery; this week I threw out my back really bad and could barely walk on Monday and have been slowly regaining mobility since. I guess this is my life now…? Pretty much constant aches and pains, always the same and/or different - my frozen shoulder still persists more than a year and a half later; I have pretty much non-stop skin cancer episodes now, and I tweak my back or neck every few weeks; right now I have a weird knot on my palm that hurts every time I touch anything, which is all of the time. On Monday I visited my 97-year-old friend in the hospital as she needs a heart procedure; she admonished me, as many of the old time dancers before her had, to “never get old”. Too late, apparently! I like to think of myself as healthy and pure - no smoking or drugs or alcohol ever in my life, vegetarian diet since I was 14, exercise (somewhat) regularly, never more than a pound or two “overweight”, surely I’m in better shape than most people my age? I like to think I’ll live a long life and remain relatively healthy, but sometimes I wonder. I often laugh that my F who still smokes all day, eats mostly fast food, and lived a wild life when he was younger, will probably end up outliving me. Who knows? 

After a prolonged process, we finally got a hold of the F’s birth certificate (the original disappeared in the storage unit he stopped paying when we first met, along with all his other belongings). It arrived yesterday, and I was so overjoyed! It means he can get his first passport and finally leave the country, which he’s never done (except to Mexico back in the days when you didn’t need a passport). We need this for our honeymoon trip to Fiji in July which is already bought and paid for. Thinking about him having a passport - and I want to get the boys’ theirs soon, too - makes me think about in a few years’ time starting to take the family on exotic world trips every year. It will be expensive AF so I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be able to afford something like that, but boy would that be the fulfillment of a life dream. I miss going on tours to far-flung places; that’s a part of my pre-children life I’d really like to revisit. And with the F’s natural curiosity and wonder at the world, I can see him losing his mind at some of these places. He doesn’t know what he’s been missing all this time. I think the best trips for us could include: Nile River tour with all the hot spots (I’ve been to Egypt but only one day for the pyramids), Galápagos Islands, Machu Picchu, Costa Rica, Vietnam and Cambodia (my favorite trip), Greek islands, Iceland, Morocco. Now I just need to find tours that aren’t full of Trump supporters. Ha. 

Here are the boys’ school pictures this year. Bobby looks slightly drunk, but otherwise I think these are a decent representation of them.