World on fire, pt 2

The madness continues. We are still very lucky, safe in our homes with power (and now) internet. But new fires kept popping up last night, starting a torrent of conspiracy theories - it’s gotta be some California-hating MAGA lunatic, right? - but as of now we don’t know what’s started all these random smaller fires, so I’ll withhold theorizing. Let’s just say we all panicked a bit when fires broke out in Hollywood and then Studio City within minutes of each other, and I’m here alone, sick, with two kids. Our neighborhood could 100% go up in flames at any moment - we’re in a hill, with lots of dry brush. I’m at the very bottom of it on a busy street, but so were many of the homes destroyed in Altadena. Let’s just say if someone chose to fuck with us here there’s really not much we could do, with no water and resources stretched so thin. I slept with the fire extinguisher next to the bed and had the boys pack bags. 

Yesterday was endless heartbreak as friends - close friends - one by one announced their total losses on FB. There are a few who don’t know anything yet. I remember that horrible sick feeling so well during Katrina when I had to sit here helpless, thousands of miles away, wondering what had happened to the property I had just bought days before. Of course that’s entirely different because it wasn’t my personal home with all my stuff in it - but financially, it was devastating; remember, I didn’t technically pay off the debt from that debacle until I paid off this house three months ago (so 19 years later). 

So many landmark businesses and historical buildings are gone. LA is going to look very different after this, and people are going to be displaced for years, or may never come back. Also, the already tentative insurance situation for all of us is going to get a lot gnarlier (I fully expect to just be dropped by State Farm entirely at this point - and with the Orange shit stain in office, nobody’s going to do anything about it). 

Kids are now off school all week, which is nowhere near as upsetting as it would have been a few years ago; honestly, they’re happy as clams just building things together on the VR all day as long as I throw food at them occasionally. And for me, I feel good having us all together and knowing they’re safe. I have tons of boring tax work to do, which has to be done at home anyway, so other than getting 0 exercise I’m living pretty much the week I had planned. Still dieting which is terrible timing (all I want to do all day is stuff my face…but I don’t), but having this dry throat/head cold/whatever bullshit illness I’ve been dealing with the past two weeks plus this horrid air quality has been challenging, to say the least. What I wouldn’t give for a breath of fresh air right now. But I’m afraid that is a long, long way off.

Fires are still raging, winds are still blowing (elsewhere) and we are still in danger every minute. I desperately need to get to a grocery store - I had just thrown everything out after the fridge failed again while we were on our trip - but I’m reluctant to leave the house unattended (apparently many people have left our little hill neighborhood and now thieves are prowling around looting. Awesome) or leave the kids unattended. I tried to get delivery going but the stupid app is having some kind of server problem. Not sure what to do about all that. 

It’s hard to say if even on Monday things will be normal and school will return. I’m profoundly grateful that we even have a home and a school. I realize all of this could be gone in the blink of an eye, and that happening over the next few days, while unlikely, is not impossible. 

The H had a terrible fire years ago in which his pets died, and he often talks about how traumatizing and terrible that was, but yesterday said how he realized if he just hadn’t let it traumatize him as much it really wouldn’t have been that bad. Umm..what? He said the bad part was his reaction to it. Ummm…yeah? That’s what trauma is. Nobody chooses to be traumatized. Your reaction is your reaction. When you’ve had one of the worst things possible in the human experience happen to you, I say you get to react however the fuck you want. And just turning off your feelings about it…well, that’s a reaction, too, and you’re entitled to it, but I certainly wouldn’t be prescribing that for anyone else (which is what he was doing, reaching out to people who just that day found out they’d lost everything). Then a friend who had just evacuated wanted to philosophize about how fascinating it is that nature just clears everything out from time to time…and I just had no patience for it. I snapped that it’s easy to get all philosophical when you haven’t just lost everything. All of this smacks of my former culty religion so I was just extremely triggered. Can’t we just accept that all of this sucks and is a terrible tragedy and leave it at that? There’s nothing more to say. It sucks. Period. 

World on fire

It seems appropriate to start this dumpster fire of a year with “unprecedented” wind storms and wildfires tearing across Los Angeles. So far we’ve been very, very lucky. 

I had warnings of big Santa Ana winds headed our way yesterday, and my primary concern was power loss (and of course my recurring slightly irrational fear that the big pine tree at the corner of our lot will crush our house and kill us all). The last time we had a big wind event here was in 2011 when I was pregnant with Bobby - power was out a night, a full day, and then part of another day. I threw out all my food in fear of infection. But mostly I was just bored. So that’s mainly what I was planning for. 

Turns out wildfires were way more of a danger than I had imagined. While the winds died down for us by about midnight, they raged through the night in some areas, and many of my friends had to evacuate and/or probably have lost their homes, friends just a few miles away in Altadena and Pasadena. It’s unlikely the fires will come here, especially with the winds gone, but we’re all on edge.

I’m shocked we never lost power. Internet will probably be out for days, but obviously my cell phone is working. Woke up to a hellscape of raining down ash and orange sky; I didn’t know what to do about the kids and school. I got a call that school would run as usual, so drove through the mess of downed power lines and tree branches in the road to Theo’s school, only to be met by an administrator who told us we should head home since the school was in no condition to be open and half the staff wasn’t going in. I didn’t bother to check Bobby’s school (and glad I didn’t, as just a few minutes ago I got the call from that school to come pick up our kids for the day). So we’re here doing non-internet things, and waiting. I don’t imagine this will be resolved any time soon. The destruction is massive and infrastructure is seriously damaged everywhere. I’m glad we at least get two more weeks of Biden before the Orange turd takes over and tells us to go fuck ourselves because we don’t worship him. 

Today’s going to be a nail biter, for sure. Think good thoughts for us.

Road trip!

Kids were back at school today after yet another interminable three week winter vacation, and I don’t know how to do anything anymore. When do we have to leave to be on time? What do they want for breakfast, again? It’s amazing how fast you lose track of routines.

While I enjoy my last moments in a house so quiet my ears are ringing, here’s a recap of our AZ/UT trip.

We had a long (7+ hours) drive from LA to Kanab, Utah on Saturday the 28th. When we arrived at our Airbnb condo, someone else was occupying it. Fortunately we were moved right next door and it all worked out. The next day bright and early we went to the visitor center for the orientation meeting for our Wave visit. Hearing what lengths people go to to get these permits, legally and illegally, reminded me how special it was that we got one on our first try (and also that the weather the next day would be perfect for it). After this we revisited the Sand Caves which we had to cut short due to a monsoon on our last visit in July of 2021; a little gnarly scaling the rocks up and down, but we managed. Then went to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes where the kids sand surfed with snowboards.

Both kids - but especially Bobby - showed such skill on the board that it made me realize I really need to get off my ass and book us a ski weekend somewhere. I’m worried about the expense, of course, but I think they could be really good at this and it could be a new winter activity for them. Now I just need to win the lottery. 

The next day we got up early to meet our guide - a jolly retired local cop named Kenny - to take us to The Wave. It was a long day of hiking over rough terrain, and it was wicked cold in the morning, but we ended up being pretty well prepared; we had our camelbacks for water, packed lunches, had good stout boots, and enough layers to be comfortable throughout the day. The Wave itself was very cool - but to be honest we’d seen so much cool stuff on the way that upon seeing it my first thought was, “is that the whole thing? I thought it’d be bigger!” Still super cool, though!

The next day, New Year’s Eve, we headed up to snow country in Heber Valley. We had a desultory celebration at midnight in our kitschy motel room, and everyone immediately crashed from sheer exhaustion.

On New Year’s Day, we swam in the Homestead Crater, a fascinating cave/hot spring that had been on my wish list for a while. You can’t see it very well because it was full of steam, but trust me when I say it was very cool. That reminds me, on the way to Heber Valley we stopped at a roadside hot spring called Meadow Hot Spring which was also pretty awesome.

The next day we did some snow tubing. We all bundled up like crazy fearing being cold, but as it turned out most people were just in long sleeved shirts. It was a fun couple of hours until we were all sick of it. Then we had dinner in an “alpenglobe” at a local restaurant.

Friday we did the long drive to Las Vegas, spent the night in a hotel where the elevators didn’t work and we were on the 3rd floor, then the next day packed up and went to Meow Wolf Las Vegas, also known as OmegaMart, something Theo’s been obsessed with for ages. I don’t know if it was just the fatigue or the fact that we’d already been to the (to me) far superior Santa Fe version last summer, but I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. Too overstimulating and pointless and confusing. Creative, yes, but my brain just couldn’t hang anymore, and I think I speak for all of us when I say it was underwhelming. 

Saturday night we returned home, recovered and did laundry yesterday, and today normal activities resumed. The trip was overshadowed for me by a weird viral throat thing I had the whole time, in which all night every night my throat felt like someone was holding a blowtorch to it; mostly during the day I was fine, and I never *felt* sick, but by Saturday it had escalated to a dry cough and painful throat all day, so I spent the day Sunday in urgent care. Fortunately or unfortunately they said it’s just a common virus, not one that there’s any treatment for, so they said just to take care of my throat and rest. Ok then. As of today, after suffering this stupid thing for over a week, I have to say it’s the worst it’s ever been. I sure hope it fades out soon, before I have to start singing again.

The H also is still having tremendous work woes - a printing press that’s still not working after nearly two months of attempted repairs - I think he managed to keep it together pretty well, considering, but it did lend another layer of stress.

When we got home, the fridge had crapped out again, but only temporarily, so the new ice cream I had bought to replace the old ice cream was ruined, but everything was starting to freeze again. We ordered a part that comes on Thursday that should be a better bandaid than the last one…who knows? I’ll just say I’m so sick of the fridge failing and ruining our food. I’m reluctant to cook anything or really stock up. Sheesh.

For now I’m going to ignore the fact that today is election certification day, continue to cough up a lung, and delve into the mountains of tax work that has to get done this month. Whee!

Christmas week

Let week two of Christmas break commence. It feels like it’s already been years. 

For the most part, the boys have done nothing but alternate between YouTube meme collections and playing Yeeps on their VRs in fetid underwear and pyjamas while I occasionally throw food at them. I feel tremendous guilt for not getting them out of the house like I used to, but at the same time…they’re having a blast and don’t want to do anything else. As Bobby said, “I worked hard all semester and now I just want to relax”. Who am I to not listen to the wishes of this straight A student? Indeed.

I’ve been keeping up with my exercise (except cancelling my usual 9 AM Friday weight training because who the hell wants to get up at 7 right now - I’m barely out of bed by 10). I’m in terror of gaining tons of weight in the next two weeks before I start dieting again in January, even though I know I’d have to eat thousands of calories a day to gain more than 2-3 lbs in two weeks, and I’m definitely not doing that. But as of right now I’d be starting from a much better place than when I started last April, so I stand a much better chance of getting to my goal weight this time. Let’s just say it’s easier to lose ten pounds than eighteen. I’m pumped up and ready to go. 

We’ll have a nice Christmas at home and then in a couple of days leave for our road trip through Utah. It looks so far like the weather should cooperate for our Wave hike, which I’m excited about. I’m a little concerned I haven’t booked enough things for us to do - on a couple of days, our activities are over by early in the afternoon and then we’re done for the day - but there’s going to be so much driving and looking for places to eat, I don’t want to over schedule, either. I feel like our road trip life may be coming to a close, to be honest. I’m starting to tire of the intense planning, and we’ve pretty much seen everything within a reasonable radius. The H mentioned he’d like to try a cruise, and I like cruises, and suddenly the idea of just getting on a boat and having everything taken care of sounds incredibly luxurious (and believe it or not, is way cheaper than what we’ve been doing - road trips are hella expensive). I hope we can start to transition to international travel and cruises instead now, in the time we have left with these kids. I’d rather someone else handle the itineraries from now on.

It’s past the solstice, which means it starts to get brighter now. As much as I’m dreading the non-stop deluge of outrage and misery that’s coming under Trump (I can’t believe I’m even saying those words, ugh!), I feel like we’re already there - Trump and his First Lady Elon are already calling the shots and wreaking havoc; it’s like Biden doesn’t even exist (I find I have to remind myself that Biden is still president). I’m more than a little afraid that he will crash the economy and destroy my event this year - especially the year I’m adding a day and taking on all these expenses - but hey, if it happens to me, it’s going to happen to every other event and business, too. There’s a chance the H could start making significantly more money this year due to partnering up with his competitor and raising prices; boy would that be nice! But again, if Drumpf ruins the country, all of this is a moot point. I feel like Americans are being plunged into the kind of instability and corruption that many people around the world have grappled with for ages - well, I guess it’s finally our turn.

What a weekend

It was a WEEKEND. Started off with several shitty, triggering comments left on several of my podcast videos from someone who is clearly in the cult still. Despite having deleted the comments and hidden the channel from him, the comments still show up as the first thing you see when you click on the video. If you click on the comment, it’s not there, but it still comes up right under the video. Apparently this is just how it works. What the actual fuck is the point of being able to delete comments if you can’t actually delete comments??? Also, you can’t block people from seeing your content, either, just make sure any *future* comments don’t get posted. He can continue to view everything I post and keep commenting with no idea that he’s not actually able to. I’m so annoyed and have been really triggered and upset all weekend (especially because the gaslighting bullshit he posted was exactly the type of shit my mother used to say to me).

Then our fridge broke again, after being repaired just a few months ago, and of course, once again, none of us noticed until everything was literally hot. Even though last time I bought thermometers so we’d have more of a heads up this time, of course they got knocked over and pushed to the back because of all the crap in there. We had a frantic run to Home Depot to try to buy a new fridge - having decided we were sick of repairing this one - but then after buying it, got a hold of the repair guy who was able to come by and fix it after all (waiting on a part now), which is still way cheaper than a whole new fridge, and I had to call to cancel the order of the fridge, but the person told me I need to call back tomorrow to “make sure” the cancellation went through, but tomorrow will be too late for a refund, so now I’m worried about that.

In the middle of all this I had to run out and finance a new phone because my rickety old one wouldn’t even charge anymore, and it took over six hours on the phone with TMobile, Apple, and GoDaddy to figure out why my email wasn’t working (apparently I had to clear my cache).

I struggled to remind myself all weekend how grateful I should be for all the nice things in my life, because these things that happened are petty and have solutions and don’t really matter in the scheme of things. As of now most are resolved (except the YouTube issue which will continue to irritate me - I may just turn commenting off in the future). We didn’t have to fork out $2000 for a new fridge that was a step down from the one we currently have, and I have a kick ass new phone which, apart from the extremely irritating loss of a whole day trying to fix the email issue, works great. And paid very little for it, as we were able to use some promos and just stick the cost on my monthly bill. But STILL. 

We watched It’s a Wonderful Life Saturday night, an event we’d been looking forward to with the kids, but for me anyway, it didn’t go as I had hoped. The H promised the kids hot chocolate, not realizing we didn’t have any. So when we stopped the movie in the middle to make some, I hustled myself into the kitchen to make it from scratch, while being annoyed that I had to use things I was saving for other recipes to make it. To be fair, he offered to run out and buy some - I should have taken him up on this - but I figured I make this same recipe all the time for the kids so it shouldn’t be a big deal. But I was so exhausted from having had a late night gig the night before in Santa Barbara that it was a bit of an ordeal, and then to top it off later Theo said it “wasn’t very good”, despite having loved it many times before. Theo just has this way of hurting my feelings the way no one else can. I considered confronting him about how rude this was, but backed down because I’ve just had too much conflict lately and was already feeling shitty over the YouTube stuff and just didn’t want to make things more shitty. In the end, I think the kids were bored by the movie, and honestly after watching George completely go off on his family and make everyone cry, I kind of wished Clarence hadn’t saved him in the river. So George Bailey gets to verbally abuse his whole family, including his wife who clearly is and has always been the only one keeping everything together (renovating an entire house on her own while having four babies in rapid succession), and we’re supposed to be happy when the town comes to bail him out. Pffft. I’d like to see a modern version in which Mary leaves his lame daydreaming ass because she clearly doesn’t need his selfish abusive BS anyway. Now that would be a wonderful life.

Doing Christmas

We “did Christmas” yesterday. It’s one of those processes that kind of sucks when you’re in the middle of it - lots of stress and dealing with dusty picture rails and things falling and pine needles and glitter everywhere - but once it’s done, it’s nice. I order an ornament of our family photos every year, and there are so many of them now that they fill a whole shoebox. This is the beginning of the end of “Christmases with children”. It’s a weird thought.

I wonder what these kids will remember about their childhood Christmases? What presents will stand out, what moments? They probably won’t be the ones we think. For me, I remember best the year I got a tiny portable television after four years of not having a tv at all; the screen was about the size of an iPhone, and it was black and white, and I don’t remember using it much because you could barely get any reception on it (and not long after, we got an actual television). I remember Christmases at my grandmother’s place in rural Connecticut, and in those last years she was alive (she died when I was fifteen), I made the strange habit of waking up on Christmas Day before sunrise, sneaking outside and climbing a tree to take a picture of the sun as it peeked over the horizon. I have no idea where these pictures ended up. 

My kids will probably remember when they got a play station or a VR or an iPhone (some day). Which is normal. I’d love for them to remember all the invisible labor I put into making things magical for them - the big breakfasts, the planning, the candy making, the decorating - but…they’re kids. I certainly don’t remember my mother’s invisible labor; when I was a kid, she existed only as a person to acquire toys for me. The meals, clean clothes, clean toilets all just happened naturally. Right? Our parents don’t really become human until we become adults ourselves. Kids can’t, and perhaps shouldn’t, understand how much work goes into holidays. 

I’ve been giving the whole house a general glow up - mainly in moving pictures around and filling empty wall spaces. I got the kids’ room done (I ordered one more vintage pennant to put on their wall):

I had to find the pictures I took of them for their yearbook for 2020 when they weren’t in school, and print those out. I’m pretty pleased with how their year-by-year photo displays turned out.

I’ve also been rubbing down dirty walls, trim and light switches with a magic eraser, and dusting and rearranging things in general. I’ve ordered a jewelry box to keep my mess of jewelry organized, and will do a cull of my makeup as well. I’m also overdue for a closet clean out. 

The kids have two more weeks of school and then three weeks off - but we’re really only home for about a week before we leave on our AZ/UT trip, for which we all need long johns and snow boots. I’m pretty sure Theo can wear the ones I bought Bobby years ago that we never used, and mine should still fit, but Bobby will need new ones and we all need warm underwear under our clothes. It’s an expensive time of year. 

Thanksgiving in the free world

Another Thanksgiving week has passed, another one full of building ikea furniture, moving stuff around, and spending time in the desert. After I built the boys’ desk while blasting The Smiths all day on Monday, Bobby helped me build the rolling filing cabinet, I built the under-bed boxes, and we went up to ikea once more to get bed slats forgotten earlier in the week, and get some desk organizing items. The next two days were spent sorting and disposing of STUFF. 

Thankfully the H has a coworker with kids who loves our hand me down toys, so a living room full of stuff went to work one day and never came back. By Wednesday I was completely exhausted so took the day to record a podcast and get ready for our desert trip. 

We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at Spaghetti Western, a campy joint in the Morongo valley, which made me happy as I was able to get a nice small portion of spaghetti rather than having to suffer through heavy, rich Thanksgiving food which I can’t stand. We spent three nights and four days out at our place, finishing up the “shower corral” (getting the water tanks piped and in position will have to wait until another time). We went to a mural unveiling up in Amboy. We used our new pizza oven and made twice as much pizza as any of us could eat, but at least we have a fun dinner option out there now.

The boys played on their VRs outside, but also played in the dirt quite a bit, and we had an epic two hour game of Uno one night. It was too cold to stay out at night in hammocks, so we used the little space heater to warm up the downstairs so we could be comfortable in there after the sun went down.

We came home last night dusty and happy, my mind spinning with all the things I have to get done between now and the end of the year. My event planning is woefully behind, due to not hearing back from some instructors who may have conflicts but don’t know for sure yet. I suddenly have a backlog of podcasts I need to edit and release. And Christmas is upon us - we got home too late to do any decorating, so the tree and lights will have to wait until next weekend. Everyone needs haircuts and new shoes and winter wear for our big trip coming up at the end of the month. I’ve got two out of town gigs in the next two weeks, and no idea what to get anyone for Christmas. We’re doing updated VRs for both kids, and that’s kinda it. We’re finally at the volume of presents we should have been this whole time.

Tomorrow I’m going to make little photo displays of all the boys’ school pictures (they used to be haphazardly displayed in silver frames on their wall - I’m going to give that concept a little glow up) and hang the vintage pennants I bought. I hope they don’t hate it. But I think the room will look a lot less antiseptic with things on the walls. Bobby has really embraced using the desk, which is great. 

Bobby insisted on setting up his vintage style alarm clock to actually work as an alarm, but as I predicted, the immediately hated it. Those old school alarms are no joke. I think your mother coming in and gently calling you to breakfast in a fake Polish accent (for some reason) is a lot less jarring. 

I still have to find a home for all their books (I may bring them out to the desert - it’s the perfect place to read) and the giant garbage bag of stuffies that’s still in the living room. I’m hoping to maybe get them to at least pare them down. Even though I think it’s adorable that they still want them. 

Like many Americans, I’m pretty terrified of what next year will bring, so I’ve distracted myself with aspirational living - let’s say we (or I) do decide to be a full time desert person in my old age. I would still want to escape during the summer. What about enjoying the equivalent but in a place like Maine or Massachusetts or upstate New York? Just a small hunter’s cabin, off grid, preferably on a water front? I spent much of my childhood summers by and in the Finger Lakes or lakes by my summer camp in Maine; what a treat it would be to get to enjoy summers in places like that, again. The older I get, the more I find my thoughts drifting east…am I really just going to stay here forever? When am I going to go home? Maybe there’s a way to have a little of both, and the best of both worlds.