Tributes

This weekend we went back to our wedding and camping space to pay tribute to the man who bought the land some 40 years ago and set it up as a place for lost souls to wander and live and find themselves. He died earlier this year - we only met him once, briefly, the weekend before the wedding. When we explained who we were and said we were getting married there the next weekend, he said, “don’t do it!” Ha ha. Anyway, I got notified on FB that they were doing a celebration of life this last Saturday, so we went. 

It was about what I expected - a rag-tag band of random people, some hippies, some raver types, some older conservative folks that must have been family, and people hard to figure out like us. There were only a couple of other kids there. But we listened to the tributes and wandered around the space and shared some food. We would have stayed longer but it was wicked cold - intense, biting winds blowing, and even the scarves and gloves and winter coats weren’t enough. I didn’t know the man beyond that one meeting, but I found myself getting quite emotional more than once. Maybe it was that church-like feeling of people coming together to celebrate something; maybe it was the beautiful full moon rising over the hill that took my breath away, maybe it was the sound of the wind skidding over the boulders. I don’t know - but that place is really special. How many places exist like that in the world - beautiful places just set up by some guy, not connected to any business or government agency? I’m not sure what’ll happen to it now that he’s gone, and it didn’t feel polite to ask, but I’m hoping since it’s a 501c3 and set up for paid campsites and things like that that it’ll continue as before. That’s one non-profit I would get involved in, if they were ever looking for people to help.

Friday I helped out at the boys’ Harvest Festival, and it was just as nuts as I’d anticipated - I just got thrown into the fire making sno cones for long lines of people with little or no guidance. For an hour I ground ice, packed serving cones, refilled syrup bottles, and took orders when that person wandered off. A couple of the moms chatted with me when we could - I could tell they were craving connection, too - but the work was so fast paced and relentless that there wasn’t much room for socializing. Picture The Bear - sno cone edition.

The boys had fun in their costumes and running around with their friends, but it’s weird to think this is Bobby’s first and last experience at this school. Maybe I’m projecting my own weirdness on to him but I feel like he’s not really committed to this place, either, knowing it’s just a way station. Of course, it’s hard to tell with an eleven-year-old boy. If I were to ask him about this I’m sure he’d just shrug. We always tell him he can come to us with anything and talk to us about anything - but I also know that he won’t, and perhaps, shouldn’t. I would have been mortified to talk to my mother about any of the things swirling around for me at that age; of course, my mother wasn’t very approachable for a variety of reasons, but honestly I probably think I am but actually am not, just as she probably thought she was but actually wasn’t. I also think kids, especially at that age, probably want to figure things out for themselves and have some privacy and separation from their mothers. I respect that. 

Much talk about junior high school selection, and I think some of the other parents are finding out the hard way that, if you chose to keep your kid in elementary school for 6th grade, the chances of being admitted to any of the top schools for 7th are pretty much nil. I don’t know why they didn’t know this - I certainly did - but I’m seeing it slowly dawn on some of them. It’s also validating to hear that other parents are concerned about long commutes in rush hour traffic. Quality of life is important, and three to four hours of driving back and forth a day just isn’t worth it in my book. All of this to say, I’m feeling more confident in my choice to just choose the local jr/sr high (Plan A). We don’t find out until March if he actually made it in or not, but even if he didn’t make it in to the actual gifted program, I think I’d still get a permit for the regular school. 

Tomorrow is Halloween which means the end of the first part of the holiday trifecta. This is actually the simplest one, tbh. Thanksgiving involves the big move of furniture out to the cabin, which will be very complicated and expensive. I did manage to get us tickets to Thanksgiving dinner up at the top of the mountain in Palm Springs - the H is always wanting us to ride the gondolas up there, so hopefully this will be a welcome surprise. Then Christmas has been a bit fraught and I’m stressed out that I still don’t have travel plans locked down - we’re supposed to go to Florida, but tickets are sky high, so my sister and I are vigilantly watching prices. Hopefully we can lock something down soon. 

Pumpkin patchin’

I had worried that the kids were getting too old for the annual pumpkin patch visit, but we went yesterday with the donor siblings as has become our tradition, and had a thoroughly great time. 

It started a bit messy as Bobby woke up with a fever and was lethargic and didn’t want to eat anything, and the H also said he felt achy and foggy-brained. Tested for covid - negative. Also one of the moms couldn’t make it due to work, so it was just two moms and three kids, which, unsurprisingly, was a lot more manageable. It’s odd to occasionally have a peek at what life would have been with only one child and no husband. Very, very different, as it turns out. 

I kept Bobby home from school today as a precaution. It was also the first day of my three-day stint volunteering for the safety valet drop off; apparently at this school every classroom asks every parent to volunteer at least three days. I was (and am) happy to help out (anything but being booster club treasurer - lol), but of course as an introvert it was a little excruciating. It was typical of my school volunteering experiences: I show up far too early and am the only one there for a good 15 minutes; because I’m the only adult, people start asking questions and beginning the responsibilities even though I have no idea what’s going on and I just have to jump in and act like I know what I’m doing; nobody really explains anything so I just go with it, then in a rush it’s all over. At least having used the safety valet every day myself, I already knew the concept of waving the cars down to the end of the line, opening the doors, saying good morning, etc. The family dynamics were interesting. The parents who don’t look at me or say anything to me are the ones with kids who don’t look at me or say anything to me; the ones who are friendly and personable and make eye contact have kids who do the same. One particularly delightful little boy who gave me a huge smile and “good morning!” had a mother who also was very friendly. Funny how that works. 

Two more days of volunteering, and for sure we’re leaving later after today. Then on Friday I’m working Theo’s class’s snow cone booth at the harvest festival for an hour; over the weekend we’re headed to the desert to have a cabin visit and attend the memorial of the man who ran the location where we got married, which should involve some pot luck items on my part; on Halloween we’ve been invited to a party which also involves pot luck items on my part. So there’s a lot of non-work related labor coming up soon. I bought the most ridiculous chicken costume I could find for Halloween - I find it’s just better when I’m wearing something silly. With the kids older and less maintenance on Halloween I feel like I have more freedom to participate. 

Activities

I took the kids to see The Muppets Take Manhattan at our new neighborhood revival house on Sunday. The night before we went to a puppet show. I’m glad the kids are still into things like this; Bobby, especially, absolutely loves puppets. I’m curious if he’s going to grow into a hardened, jaded middle schooler who thinks everything is uncool. Or have the generations changed and kids aren’t in such a rush to grow up anymore…? This is the question that plagues me, and only time will tell. I would *think* that Bobby is enough of an iconoclast that he won’t be subject to peer pressure; Theo, I’m not so sure. I personally was not subject to peer pressure and always did what I wanted. We shall see.

Bobby’s armpits have started smelling - I looked at him and said, “are things starting to happen?” and he said yes, that plus some other stuff. I’m going to get him some deodorant today. I gave him a quick lesson on how to most effectively use it (because no one ever explains anything to kids). He still seems like a little boy to me, but that’s probably just my mom lens and the fact that I see him all day so I don’t see him actively growing. I’m trying to push him intellectually - I had him watch Religulous with me and explained how this movie was so instrumental to me when I was struggling with belief in god; I’m trying to talk him into seeing my favorite 60s Japanese art/horror movie, Onibaba, at the revival theater next week, but I don’t think he’ll go only because he doesn’t like horror. 

It occurred to me that in just over two years he’ll be the age I was when I stopped living with my mother and moved in with my sister at fourteen. I thought I was so mature and grown up, like all fourteen-year-olds do. I think when I finally see my fourteen year old child and realize just how young he actually is, I’ll be really horrified that my mother thought it was a good idea for me to essentially be on my own at that age. She got a lot of criticism about it and was always very defensive about it, and as the dutiful daughter I defended her, too. It was fine, I said. Nothing bad happened, I said. And nothing did, not really, but it definitely shaped me in such a way that probably didn’t help me later in life - being hyper vigilant, isolating, being afraid to ask for help, etc etc. Well. The good thing is my sons will have an in-house mother through their teen years whether they want one or not, ha ha! 

Gauntlet survived

I have survived the gauntlet of weekend travel gigs - Chicago two weekends ago, and Eureka (northern CA) this weekend. To celebrate I went to the doctor early this morning and had my boobs smashed, blood drawn, and an X ray on my very painful big toe that’s made it increasingly difficult to walk for several months, to the point where I’m pretty incapacitated. Why have I not dealt with this before? Tune in to my new podcast to find out, coming next month.

This weekend was a jazz festival - a very rare occurrence for us as we normally play dances (my preferred method) - one which we actually blew a chance to play some years ago. This was before my bandleader got help for his adhd and he never answered any calls or emails from the organizer; a groveling apology later and we were hired for this year. There were many positive things about it - some friends came, so it was fun spending time with them; the mostly elderly audience was very receptive; I enjoyed time walking around the quaint little Victorian town by myself and shopping when I was stranded with no car. But. I can honestly say the whole experience kind of bummed me out, and not for the reasons you’d think. Mostly, it was being in this charming little town that has clearly been completely wiped out by meth and opioids - the meth zombies were literally everywhere, and there was a constant feeling of menace everywhere we went - it was actually pretty shocking. I mean, the desert is like this, too, but for some reason that feels different to me; when I think about the desert areas we go to, I think about interesting people moving out there to do interesting things. I suppose people do that in this town, too…I don’t know. Maybe it was the combination of PNW rain and fog plus meth that had me just feeling gross. It was like living in the movie River’s Edge. I couldn’t wait to get back to cloyingly sunny happy Los Angeles, I gotta be honest. Anyway, most likely we’ll be invited back, so I guess I’d better get over it. 

There’s a whole circuit of these small town jazz festivals that most of these guys (and they are all pretty much white guys, let’s be honest) go to. Technically we should be in that loop, but for me, I have zero interest. I spent some time last night ineffectively explaining this to the H. I don’t know how to explain how not fun these situations are for me. There’s a lot of sitting around and waiting, followed by frantic setting up and breaking down and terrible sound because there’s no time for sound checks. And I’m not a “real” musician like these other folks - the concept of jamming out doesn’t really apply to me, as the girl singer, and one who has zero interest in inserting herself into other people’s spaces (and it is a completely white male space, which, as much as these guys are all neurodivergent nerdy types and therefore mostly lacking in bro-y toxic masculinity, I still don’t feel comfortable there). So I find it mostly isolating and boring. At least at a dance event I know everyone, can maybe dance a little, or make small talk with like-minded people. I don’t know. It all just makes me want to run away and watch Korean dating shows on my phone. 

The boys seemed to have survived their weekend of farting and burping and making messes with dad in control; I won’t be leaving them again for some time. It’s a relief, because these trips make it hard to focus on anything at home. The boys have their own doctor appointments next week (after Theo’s urgent care trip for the flu last year, we’re getting flu shots this time, dammit), and I need to start a few house cleaning projects (it’s time for a kid clothing cull and game closet cull). Fall is here and I’m digging it. Especially SoCal fall which means it still occasionally dips into the 90s. I’m here for it. 

Fake summer

E-choices - the LAUSD system of applying for magnet and other programs - opened on Monday, and I applied for Theo to get into the gifted magnet at his current school. I think it’s *fairly* unlikely he’ll be admitted next year; unless his brother’s sibling points (3) push him over the edge. But I think he stands a good chance of making it for 6th grade when kids abdicate for middle schools. So there’s hope there yet. I’m bummed he’ll never get Bobby’s 5th grade teacher - the cool person with the Mohawk and the PhD; she’s teaching the highly gifted magnet for 5th. But if he’d stayed at his old school she wouldn’t have been an option, either, since she moved to this school. 

For Bobby, I delayed a couple of days…I still had it in my head that I wanted to tour other schools first (I have until mid-November to submit an application), but after looking at the available options, I have to say, they’re just logistically impossible - too far away and too impossible to manage with two kids. Also if I then wanted to try to move him back here for high school, according to the tour I took last year, there are very few spots for ninth grade. So your best bet is to start here for 7th, which was my idea in the first place. So I took a deep breath and applied for just the one local school with the gifted program. This is the one both boys could be in all the way until they graduate. There’s no guarantees Bobby will even be admitted - if he’s not, I’ll have to make some decisions - and we won’t know until March. But with his many points for being in the magnet system as of this year, he stands a really good shot. So that’s done and done.

I’m currently in between traveling gigs - last weekend was Chicago, this weekend is northern CA. I’ve had to learn a lot of new songs, which I positively loathe doing, but we do need to mix it up now and again, so I know it’s necessary. Once I’m back from this weekend I feel like I can really lean in to the holiday trifecta heading my way; I’ve decorated for Halloween but don’t really feel it yet. One reason is the current unseasonable high temperatures. But I also feel like I need to focus on this travel and learning new songs and everything else can wait.

Motivation has been a real issue with me lately, and I’m a little worried. I know I’m not depressed - far from it - so it’s not that; but I’m having a really hard time doing more than the bare minimum in life. I just feel like I want to take naps all the time and just relax and be comfortable and not do anything. I’ve never in my life been this sedentary - I rarely go on walks anymore, and up until fairly recently would go nearly every day. There are so many cleaning and organizing projects I should be doing, but getting started is nearly impossible. Part of it is being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of four people’s crap - it’s a lot to manage, as household manager. I’m staying pretty on top of business stuff - I’ve got a planned overhaul of my website, I’m working on hiring for next year, even this week started uploading our earliest videos to YouTube which is a huge and time consuming process. But everything else - meh. I can’t remember the last time I was motivated to try a new recipe or start an exercise routine. I just can’t do it. Is it post-event and post-covid fatigue, still? Is it menopause and my age in general? Is it normal? Should I be kinder to myself and just say fuck it, kids are fed and happy and get dropped off/picked up on time, house is clean, bills are paid, who cares about the rest? What, exactly, do I think I should be doing at this age that I’m not? I don’t know, but I feel like a lazy slob. At the same time, being lazy just feels so goddamn good. I don’t know if this is an actual problem or if I’m making it a problem. 

Reclaiming

We finally got back out to the desert this weekend after a long hiatus. It had been nearly four months since we spent the night out there, and it showed. The place needed a great deal of rearranging and sorting - we had packed up and put nearly everything in the container to make way for the contractors, and the place itself was full of sawhorses and wood and sawdust. They had also left several large garbage bags full of detritus, and siding all around in the sand which had to be painstakingly walked over to the container, piece by piece. The H was not thrilled with the condition they left the place in - they clearly didn’t care by the end - they also took much of our 5 gallon jugs of water away for some reason. I was annoyed, too, but considering what we went through to get this place finally in order after two and a half years, I take it in stride.

Upon entering the place, we discovered the spiders had claimed it as their own - and two scorpions had taken up residence in the “kitchen” corner. I’d never seen scorpions out there before and I have to admit it freaked me out a bit. I kept having flashbacks to my mother describing her daily habit of shaking the scorpions out of her shoes when she lived in huts in Mexico in the 60s. So I was on edge that first night until it became clear that the bugs were aware of our presence and stayed away the rest of our visit. Still, the H insisted on bagging everything up and spraying poison as we left - not something I would have bothered with, but probably not a bad idea. 

It was uncomfortably hot and dry - much hotter than original predictions - so I tried to lay low in the shade and not move much; I managed to get the kids involved in endless games of Uno, and we did have one lovely night in hammocks under the stars (always the highlight of being there). The H busied himself with projects in the hot sun with no water and was surprised when he felt hit by a truck later. If we were on Naked and Afraid I would be the one that would succeed by conserving my energy and slowly starving; he would be the one that would crash and burn after blowing too many calories with tons of activity. Sometimes it’s about the strategy.

We won’t be seeing heat like this again for a long time; our next visit isn’t for a month, but I hope to spend much of November out there, maybe even another friends-only visit, depending. I don’t feel comfortable firing up the shoddily installed wood burning stove, but I think with the new insulation that our little propane heater should do the trick (with the C02 monitor and a window cracked, of course). I look forward to winter days when long hikes in Amboy or Joshua Tree National Park will be feasible again.

For now, the boys are back at school and I head to Chicago on Friday for a singing gig that involves learning eight new songs; I think we’re being housed in a hostel-type environment where there will be multiple people in a room together which I’m very much not looking forward to. The weekend after we’re at a jazz festival in northern CA where we get our own hotel rooms, and there’s a lot less for me to do and friends in attendance, so I’m excited about that one. Our band travel is, very slowly, returning.

After some false starts, I have a gut-wrenching logo for my podcast drawn for free by someone I did a favor for; I’m not sure when my bandleader will have time to record a little music for me, but I think I can at least start doing interviews soon, maybe once these back-to-back trips are behind me. I’m still nervous about the technical side - making it sound good, promoting it properly, etc etc, but I’m going to give myself the grace that I’m not a professional podcaster and I have to start somewhere. I think the content alone sells it - for anyone curious about my rapidly diminishing obscure little former sect, this will be the one place you’ll get to hear about it from the people who lived it, interviewed by someone who also lived it. I think it could be a helpful resource regardless of how slick it is or isn’t.

Recovering and becoming

Covid negative, woot! Despite the inconvenience of having to curb all social interaction for a couple of weeks, this go-round was shockingly mild and not life affecting for the most part. Am I still terrified I’ll get out for a hike and drop dead of a post-covid heart attack? Yes. Who knows what internal damage this virus has done to me. Welp, whatever it is, it’s me and pretty much everyone else on the planet. 

Weather appears to be cooperating, so we should be set for a cabin visit this weekend, which thrills me to no end. I’ve missed it terribly and am looking forward to having the cabin and the surrounding area back in our lives on a consistent basis. In other news, because my newly-cleared brain has to plan something, I’m plotting a spring break rv trip for next March, hitting some spots still on my list. My notes from our summer trip taught me two things - campervans are not practical unless you don’t plan on ever using the bathroom or shower, and these owner-rental sites, despite having worked out the first time, are not worth using anymore. All you get is misinformation, broken equipment and lack of guidance. I think originally the big rv rental places were more expensive, but this is no longer the case. I looked at one out of curiosity and found we could get a nice new clean rv for less than half what I’ve been paying for these broken down old wrecks that are always delivered with full waste tanks and broken gauges…eff that. I’m going to guess that two things are happening - camping dropping off post-covid has caused the big companies to slash rates, while just like Airbnb, the owner-rental sites have gone up and up and now comprise endless extra fees that make you end up paying more than double the nightly rate you thought you were paying. Since it’ll be March we’ll need a warm, wind proof place to sleep, so regular camping is out. I want to take the week and hit Red Rock Canyon state park (officially the last desert park in CA we haven’t visited), followed by the Trona Pinnacles, then rounding out at the Kelso dunes which we’ve driven by but never stopped at. I doubt the Kelso dunes can compare to the Ibex dunes, but we shall see. As usual, the H is on board. So, hooray for plans (and cheap ones at that).

I did a thing on Saturday that I have been debating for literally 35 years. I got a tattoo. After declaring to the H some months ago that “I guess I’m just not a tattoo person - if I were, I would have gotten one by now,” it dawned on me that the reason I haven’t gotten one is because I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted, nor push past the discomfort of finding an artist, making an appointment, talking to new people, etc etc. But this summer I had a consult with a very talented female artist I know through swing dancing, and this Saturday we spent the entire day fleshing out the design together and then spent three hours on the actual tattoo while I watched the entire 12th season of The Real World. Did it hurt? Yes, but pretty much exactly as I expected - mostly just an annoying scraping feeling with moments of lip-biting pain that passed quickly. Let’s just say I was able to endure three hours of it, and I probably have average pain tolerance. My plan was to have something old school - Sailor Jerry style - and that incorporates elements of my hidden heritage (Brazil) and one of my favorite phrases that sums up my approach to life; A Luta Continua (Portuguese for “the struggle continues” or “the fight continues”). This is a phrase said by Brazilians in response to “how’s it going?” It’s so true, isn’t it? 

Right now the tattoo is covered in plastic with a repulsive bubble of trapped ink and blood swooshing around…it’s giving me massive anxiety that it’s going to pop and ruin my clothes/the car/the bed etc, but the artist assured me this is normal and to leave it until Friday when the healing should be complete enough to remove the plastic. Here is what it looked like right after application:

I love it and wish I hadn’t waited so long, but I guess things happen when they happen. I don’t intend to get many in my life - I’d still like to get a NY street sign at some point - but I think that’ll be about it for me. I guess I have to start investing in some muscle tees and thinking about toning up these arms, huh?