Memorial Day

I made the best of being trapped at home on a 3-day weekend due to my first Knott’s appearance on Sunday by packing in other activities - Friday night I spent the night in Santa Barbara after seeing Queens of the Stone Age with a couple of girlfriends and yesterday we went to the LA County Fair, something I’ve never done but would do again. I got cheap tickets at the grocery store and we went early, so got to enjoy rides and food with no lines - by about 3 pm the hoards of people arrived, and that’s when it became unbearable and we all wanted to leave. The afternoon crowds were what I had expected the whole experience to be like; thankfully we dodged that bullet. Still came home with a massive Disney rash around both ankles, again. Ugh. 

We’ll be back at this same spot (the Pomona Fairplex) in two weeks for a massive punk music festival, which could go either way for us, really - the H has an injured knee and has a hard time walking and standing; it’ll be very hot with no shade and nowhere to sit on black asphalt; the audience will be mostly current and/or former male punks with axes to grind (we both think there’s a chance of a massive riot that will shut the whole thing down, hence deciding not to bring Bobby). On the other hand, based on the age of the bands, we imagine most people in attendance will be 50+ so unlikely to cause trouble or be in any better shape than us. 

Two more weeks of school, and the last week barely counts - I think there will be a number of half days and parties and things. My sister will be visiting, so I thought it would be fun to make a box cake for Bobby’s graduation. He’s a huge Kermit the frog fan, so I ordered this figurine for the cake and made a little felt graduation cap and paper diploma for it:

I love that these boys still enjoy childlike things - I say, enjoy the last of your childhood as long as you can. I was still playing with dolls at 14! Why not? With Bobby entering a whole new phase of life this year, I think this could be the year that he morphs into a whole different person; for now I’m going to treasure these last vestiges of his pre-teen life. 

Final visit of the season

This weekend was our final desert visit of the season. Or rather, most likely our final desert visit, as the H is determined to make it out once or twice. With me singing every Sunday at Knott’s, plus extreme temperatures, I find this scenario unlikely. Last year I watched weekend temperatures every week just as an experiment, and they rarely if ever dipped below 105-ish, which is just untenable with no power. This visit, like our previous one two weeks ago, was during a heat spell - 95° both days - and it was pretty unbearable. I sat out in the hammock chairs and it felt like someone was aiming a hair dryer at my back when the wind blew. Our remaining projects - installing the kitchen sink, figuring out our water tank situation, building a shower corral - are still left undone. 

I'll miss the place over the summer, but mostly I'm concerned about what it means that we won't be there until September; it means there's a giant mountain to climb before we see it again, which is my event. And everything will look different by then, and I don't know what's going to happen, and it makes me very insecure. 

I realize I do this every year, but I'm worried about attendance. I'm only on a par with last year as of now, which says to me I will not have a better year than last year as I had hoped, and I can really only expect about another 300 people or so in the next 3 months. As is typical right now, it's nothing but refund or transfer requests every day and no new signups, so I'm playing chicken with my bank account and wondering when I'll have to dip into my savings again, and how that will affect my house payoff dreams. This plus the "May grey" that's descended, leaving every day cold and overcast until the late afternoon, is just taking its toll on me emotionally. 

We've only three more weeks of school, and it dawned on me that I'm actually going to miss the predictability and routine, as much as I'll enjoy not having to get up early. From mid-June on, every week is going to be different, which will definitely get in the way of my workout classes, and keep me on my toes. Then in August the new routine begins - juggling pick ups from two different schools at different times, and that'll be our life for two years until they're joined together again (hopefully). Will I have a paid off house? Will my event be ok? Will my plans to expand the event work out? Will I even be able to have my event at this hotel past 2027? Everything right now is unknown, and it's leaving me feeling uncertain and restless.

When we were young

There’s something about music festivals featuring bands of your youth that make you feel simultaneously both young and free and also impossibly old.

After much debate, we decided at the last minute to attend our third Cruel World despite having had a mild fit over their choice to headline Duran Duran (not goth…not goth!). I was still there for Tones on Tail (anything to get me in the presence of at least some members of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets). I hastily threw together this customized Love and Rockets-themed outfit from a jogging jumpsuit from JC Penney and an L&R logo from one of the H’s too small t shirts. I felt pretty good in it.

Unlike previous years, the weather was perfect. Also unlike previous years, there was nobody there I was overly excited to see, and therefore no magical moments, although I was caught off guard by how emotional I got hearing Simple Minds’ “Alive and Kicking”, and also really enjoyed Jesus and Mary Chain with all their buzzy psychedelic awesomeness, finally got to hear The Stranglers do “Peaches”, and of course Tones on Tail to round out the night.

My body, as usual, was destroyed. Back hurt after a few hours, feet and legs ached despite lots of sitting/lying down, and even with compression socks I still got Disney rash. 

I had hoped working out or walking five days a week would make me in better shape for this. Nope. Still old. Nothing can undo that, sadly.

So here I am the day after this festival with all bands in their 60s and 70s, and surrounded by mostly people like me who had 70s and 80s youths, feeling my aching body and awash with the feelings and sounds of my formative years, and just full of…I guess…saudade is the only word that really sums it up.

I also ran into the boy who broke my heart in high school, which, while delightful, also made me feel some type of way. We’ve been in touch since HS and resolved past issues and are now pleasant but distant friends - I mean, we’ll never hang out or anything - and we had chatted briefly on FB about both going to the No Values show in June, but I was surprised to see him yesterday. That certainly added a little something to that weird feeling of being so far removed from my teen self, and yet she’s still in there, you know?

It’s odd to look at my kids now - especially Bobby, as he’s on the eve of being a teenager - and think this is the little person that will still be inside them when they’re grown men and completely different than they are now. Will they one day listen to the music of their youth and cry? Is there music of their youth, or is their music just my music? Will music mean the same thing to them, or not, since obviously music was my way of escaping my traumas and dissociating? I wonder these things about them, while also acknowledging a) they’re boys, b) their childhood was in the teens, not the 70s, and c) they are growing up in Los Angeles and not Boston and New York City. So many differences. 

Today is Mother’s Day, and with the specter of my own broken maternal relationship long behind me now, I can enjoy the day and claim it for myself. I’m going to sit in bed and nurse my aching body and later we’re all going out to a nice vegan dinner. I’m grateful for these men in my life, I really am. 

May is here

May is here and I am torn between feeling like I wish this time would never end, and wishing it would go more quickly. Spring is always weird for me because my event is open (as of this year, we’re always open) but I’m between the opening hoopla and the time where things need to get done, so it’s an awkward holding pattern. The kids are itching to be done with school - five more weeks - everywhere is a feeling of ramping up while also winding down.

After doing a bit of research and asking in groups, I was able to find some suitable summer camp options for older kids for next year - gone will be the days of lunches provided and full days, however I’m pleased to see there’s at least something to keep tweens and young teenagers occupied for a few hours each day. I’m especially interested in some theater camps, science camps, and volunteer camps. Everything will cost more than I’m used to, but I may not need many weeks in the future. I will probably have to Frankenstein together a series of different camps week by week. I also got a notice that the boys’ atheist sleepaway camp may be canceled due to lack of signups, which has me slightly panicked since this is the only year they need to be somewhere as I’ll be in Korea for three of the weekdays they’d be gone. I know that camp never really rebounded after covid, and it makes me sad. I saw that the YMCA sleepaway camp still has a few spots - but I don’t want to bail and make their situation worse, while also not wanting to be left canceled on at the last minute. I imagine they won’t know for sure until it gets so close that they have no other option but to close. I’m just hoping desperately that they can squeak by one more year. 

Our penultimate desert visit starts tomorrow night, and that’s another thing that’s coming too fast. I’m struggling to figure out how to stay on my diet while also cooking for other people all weekend. I’m down six pounds - my Lose It calorie counting app threw me a little party - and I’m pretty proud of that. I no longer have to wonder if the method I developed will work. It definitely does; now I just have to stick with it for three more months. I’m 1/3 of the way there. I’m still at the point where none of my clothes fit, I still have a big fat gut, and I can’t cross my legs or bend over and tie my shoes easily. But I know from experience that another 5-6 lbs and all of that will change. In 5-6 lbs I can wear 70% of my wardrobe; in 12 lbs I can wear 100% of it. That’s my goal. I think I can do it. 

Camp sign up craziness

Well. After missing the kids’ usual rec center camp sign up because they moved it a month early, I’ve been waiting three weeks for today, when a second batch of camps open. I even communicated with one that said to just come by this morning and that registration starts at 10. I sidled over there at 9, assuming I’d be the only one there and would just play on my phone for an hour.

OH NO. I get there an hour early and there’s a huge line of at least 60-70 people, many of whom brought chairs and coolers and looked like they’d already been there for hours. The guy working at the front of the line was telling someone else that odds of getting in weren’t good, so I decided to cut my losses and go home and try the online system for the camp the boys went to in I think 2018 or 19. Their online system wasn’t up, and upon calling, they said to just come by, so I hurried over. This line wasn’t so bad - only about 10-15 people, and I had high hopes. 

BUT. It took two and a half hours to get to sign up. Why it took so long, I have no idea. Slow system, they said. Each person seemed to take 15-20 minutes. In the meantime the online system seemed to be working sporadically, so people would drive up and say they had “just signed up online” (WHAT) and were just there to drop off paperwork. It was maddening. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do if I finally got to the head of the line only to find out they just sold out. I kept trying the system on my phone, but it continually crashed, said things were unavailable, made me go through endless “prove you’re not a bot” tests then only to tell me I couldn’t select things. This went on for hours. By the time I finally made it to the window, I was a nervous wreck. The phone was ringing off the hook and the beleaguered parks & rec worker had to keep pausing to answer it, telling other panicked parents to come by but spots were filling up fast. People in line had friends or partners at home trying on their computers, and one by one they dropped off as they got spots while I still waited. Oh, it was infuriating!!

Long story short, we did get in and all is well. And the fact that this particular camp, which was very under-attended five or six years ago and not very well run, is now suddenly so popular, says to me maybe they’ve improved. It’s crazy when even your “last resort” is still this stressful to get into. 

Sometimes when you get so focused on “getting” a thing like this, you get tunnel vision and forget to evaluate if it’s even worth it. Do the kids even want to go to this, or any, camp? I haven’t even told them about it because if they express the slightest negativity about it I know I’m going to lose my mind. But there’s also the fact that, of course these kids don’t want to do anything but play video games. Their ideal summer is staying in pyjamas, not brushing their teeth, eating ice cream and playing Gorilla Tag on their VRs every day. Do they really get to choose that as their summer? Of course not. So off to camp they go, but I have a feeling that Bobby, at least, is kind of over it. Not many older kids go to these camps - they’re really for the 5-7 year olds - so there may not be many kids their age to play with (which is where the eagle rock camp was better for them). I just don’t know. It’s like, I should feel happy and relieved and grateful that I pulled off the impossible and got cheap childcare for two kids for the whole month before school starts (and right when I need to focus and work the most), and I am, but I’m also kind of ambivalent. This doesn’t solve the problem of what the heck I’m going to do next year when B is 13 and too old - try to convince him to do a CIT program? Make him do a CIT program whether he wants to or not? Let him malinger at home while Theo still goes by himself? Let both kids malinger at home? I know it’s a year away so I really shouldn’t be even worrying about it, but I’m going to have to figure it out before next spring. Now that I know how completely nuts the parks & rec summer camp sign ups have become, I know how much more hyper vigilant I’m going to have to be now. The days of strolling by the day camp opens to register your kid are long gone. 

In other news, we had a lovely and HOT weekend in the desert. It was mid-high 90s, which is actually unusual for April. I got my ass out of bed on Saturday to do yoga at the Palms, which was great, and the rest of the time read hundreds of pages of various books (Welcome to Wonder Valley and Nomadland) sitting in the chair hammocks, and helped set up our shower with the water heater I bought three years ago. 

Just for last weekend we had it set up on the east side of the house, but will try to build something more permanent along the side of the shipping container. I have to say, having a hot shower was a revelation out there. 

Time is running out before it’s no-go time until late September or October - we can really only manage two more weekends before we’re out for the season. I don’t know if we can get a shower structure built in that time. 

Because of the hot days, the nights were incredible - Saturday we had a nice fire and lay in the hammocks and it was warm and delightful. That’s what being out there is all about. I wish we didn’t have such a tiny window each spring and fall for good weather, but at least now we know that with insulation the place stays warm in the winter, so even 40° nights are easily tolerable without any heating at all. The H says he still wants to go in the summer, but he was wilting even in the 91-95° heat, and summers can be 110-120° pretty consistently for months. That’s not manageable. Even if we had AC, what the hell would we do all day? Sit around, bored, in a tiny box? What’s the point? Also, my band is on for every Sunday at Knott’s all summer again, so weekend trips are pretty much out. 

Tonight I’m going to try a new Y in DTLA to try a “power yoga” class. I’m not really up to it - I’m fasting and on my period and generally out of sorts - but maybe I need the distraction, and I’ve already dealt with uncomfortable, triggering things today so might as well just pile on one more new, vaguely threatening experience. 

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Two nights ago Bobby casually dropped an information packet on my bed in which I discovered we have to pick all his classes and electives for 7th grade RIGHT NOW. I freaked out slightly, but watched the infographic they had set up on the website and he and I went through the choices together. He had the option of picking honors or regular subjects - with the understanding that honors would require more work on his part. He chose honors math, and a college-prep STEM thing, but otherwise no other honors. I think that’s smart - I don’t want him to burn out right out of the gate. We have no idea what this new experience will be like; best to be conservative at the moment. I was such a language and writing kid, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that these kids are brilliant at math and loathe pretty much everything else. 

For electives, naturally I would have loved for Bobby to get back into playing an instrument, but he wasn’t all that interested. He wanted the art and animation classes, with band a distant third. He may end up in it anyway. But I’m still traumatized from our violin experience, so I’m not about to push that on him unless he personally wants it. 

It’s wild to think these choices we made in April will be his life next year, and he won’t know until the first day of school what he got! I looked at the current bell schedule, and it’s going to be interesting - Theo will get out at 2:38 (unless he has a club) but Bobby doesn’t get out until 3:30. I’m not sure what to do with that difference. I think there’s going to be a lot of sitting around in cars the next two years. It’s not enough time to reasonably shuttle one kid home to go get the other; and with Theo out earlier, he’d have to be the one to walk over to Bobby’s school if I wanted to pick them up together, and I’m not crazy about the idea of 10-year-old Theo crossing busy streets and then hanging around a high school by himself waiting for his brother. Anyway. I’ll figure out a system, like I always do. Most likely, sit around in the car for 45 minutes waiting for Bobby. 

In other news, diet is slow and steady. As of Monday it’ll be two weeks, and I’m down three pounds. I wish it were more, considering how aggressive I’m being currently, but I know this is a healthy rate of weight loss and I should be happy about that. I don’t feel like I can really start celebrating until I hit the five pound mark. Then it actually means something. I could have lost three pounds by doing absolutely nothing. 

This week I worked on the expanded schedule for 2025. I’m having a lot of anxiety over the customers’ reaction to the news - I imagine it’ll be mostly positive, but what if it backfires, and people feel like it’s too much of a commitment and they want to just skip it entirely? I called the hotel to reduce the amount of guest rooms on opening night just in case. It’s hard trying a new thing. The last time I did this was moving to Labor Day, which was in 2013. So it’s been a long time since I’ve made any changes. I would hope that not raising the prices would help if anyone had objections, plus knowing there’s an added day a year in advance. It’s odd to think that this will be our lives from now on - heading to the hotel Wednesday night, getting kids to school and picking them up Thursday while we set up all day, four full days of classes and contests. It’s a lot, to say the least. And with shifting things off of the night dances and expanding some things, I’m not really adding anything new, per se, just spreading out existing things, which bugs me. It’ll be interesting to see how the vibe changes with more downtime during the day. My hope is it feels less frantic and people can relax and have more hang time. I’m glad I have one more event this year on our usual schedule while we adjust to Bobby’s new life. Both things changing in the same year might be a bit much. 

Rounding down the year

Announcements are coming in for 6th grade culmination stuff - graduate pictures, picnics and softball games and ceremonies. It’s a thing. And the only graduation B has had since preschool and probably the last one before high school (I don’t know if the jr/sr high he’s going to does anything for 8th graders - maybe?). Things are happening.

I’m also having one of those “maybe I need to rethink this” moments with regards to summer camp plans. I had every intention of signing the boys up for their cheap rec center camp as usual - they always open sometime in May for registration. On a whim last week I checked the website and discovered to my horror that randomly this year they opened on April 1st and the camp is full with long wait lists. So that camp is impossible, as are half the other rec center camps within a reasonable distance. Thankfully a couple - highland park, and the one they went to in I think 2018 - don’t open until April 22; highland park says you have to do it in person that morning, which I will try to do. However, it may not work out, and I need to accept that. This would have been our last year, anyway - Bobby ages out at 13 - and these camps are pretty low budget and poorly run. However, they are (relatively) cheap all day childcare when I need it the most. And they get to go on fun field trips and not be on screens all day. I have a lot of anxiety about trying to manage their time all summer - I have to work, it’s not entirely practical for me to be cooking and cleaning up three meals a day, arranging activities and policing their online time. I mean, if I must do these things, I must, but it fills me with dread. Summer is insanely stressful for me under any circumstances; adding in all day childcare for nine weeks and I’ll just about lose my mind.

It’s not like there aren’t other options, but they’re all twice as expensive. $400-$600 a week for each kid for a month is way above my pay grade. And, things are already full. So, I’m going to do my best and be super aggressive about getting the kids into the highland park camp, then maybe consider the one in San Fernando they went to years ago, then maybe if I have to, try the full time childcare thing. This may be my future, anyway - maybe just jump in now…?

Today marks the beginning of week 2 of my diet challenge. Three pounds down, with the understanding that most, if not all, of this weight is just water weight from my trip. But more important than numbers moving is the fact that I’ve found it pretty easy. I haven’t been driven mad by hunger, even on my two 800 calorie “fast” days. It feels sustainable, even if it doesn’t turn out to be. I’ve just got to keep this up for four months if I want to fit into my favorite clothes again. Continuing with my workouts, which is challenging with my very painful arthritic toe and stiff shoulders from frozen shoulder, but I’m doing it, and it does generally give me a good mental boost as well. I’m forming new habits - not snacking, drinking more water, taking the time to make salads, etc - and it gives me a lot of hope for the future. 

I signed contracts for 2026 & 2027 and today signed the addendum to add Thursday night to 2025. God I hope that works out.