Not a Wasted Word

The kids and I leave this morning. My husband leaves later this week. Our neighbor will be taking care of the house and pets while we’re away.

I have to say, I’m ready to get this first trip started. I really struggled to take advantage of the last two weeks, and instead of allowing myself to get the rest I needed I just beat myself up for all the things I wasn’t getting done. I think I was just wound so tightly that I couldn’t figure out how to unwind.

I was also having some weird feelings around my friends, who were largely quiet this past week, as they chatted on other text chains about the day camps their daughters were in, and the overnight camp they left for this Sunday. I know I wasn’t being left out – I couldn’t participate in getting ready if my daughter wasn’t going – but it still felt like I was being left out. They just didn’t have a lot of extra time to chat on the text thread I’m a part of.

Which is totally fine. I’m not upset, just managing my feelings of not being a part of something they are all a part of. I was also managing my daughter’s very real feelings of disappointment and FOMO that she couldn’t go to overnight camp with them. She is obviously thrilled to be seeing her cousins in St. Louis, but it’s still hard to know they will have shared experiences that she won’t be a part of.

I think we both need another set of friends to fall back on in these situations. My daughter actually is doing a lot better than I am in that regards (she makes friends very easily), which makes me happy. I’ve never been good at making friends or cultivating relationships. I should probably prioritize that more as our daughters grow up and away from each other.

And of course once we’re in St. Louis these feelings will be (largely) behind us, as we’ll have cousins to hang out with for the one time we see them this year.

I’m also managing some other stuff though. I realized at the beginning of the summer that while I may thing I have a decent handle on managing stress and anxiety, the more likely reality is that I manage those things in socially acceptable ways (exercise and over work). Once one or either or those slips away (or both as is right now the case – it being summer and my back pain still impeding my movement), I’m actually a massive hot mess. Those crutches being gone was the other reasons I struggled so much these pages two weeks.

So yeah, the start of summer wasn’t that great. I’m not trying to elicit empathy when I had two weeks of daily child care and no immediately pending professional obligations, but learning to live with this new back pain, not knowing how to let myself rest without feeling crushing guilt about not using the time more productively, and feeling left behind by my friends, made it a rough second half of the month. I’m very grateful that I can distract myself with a visit to my extended family for the next two week stretch.

And I think I am ready to go. I’m typing this Monday night on the elliptical machine. I just wrote the “cat care” document and we’re pretty much all packed (just the electronics and cords in the morning). I’ve heard air travel can be a shit show these days so I’m just hoping we make it to the rental car office before it closes tomorrow afternoon (that requires two flights not only not being cancelled, but arriving on time).

Wish us luck!

I think I was numb all day. I kept reading article after article trying to make sense of it. Trying to remind myself that it was real.

Late tonight I looked away for a moment and the true weight of it hit me. And I was so sad. Just so, so sad. Gutted. Hollow. Grieving.

I sobbed. For a long time.

I think it need to feel this. I think I need to let myself feel this deep pain.

And once I’ve felt it. Once I’ve let myself fall into it, so that I can come back out of it, then I will feel the anger. The rage.

And then I can do something about it. With it.

I have to do something with it. Or it will make me insane. The grief and the rage will destroy me.

They are white hot and burning.

Yesterday it was 95* in San Francisco (a place where literally NOBODY has air conditioning) and I guess that was hot enough to trigger an ant mating swarm at our house. First we noticed a massive swarm of ants coming out of every crevice around our front windows. I put out Terro Liquid Ant Baits and let them be. Then, we noticed some flying ants on our living room table and I kind of freaked out because I had a horrible flying ant situation during my first month living abroad in Spain that has stayed with me for literally 20 years. Some quick googling reminded me that flying ants swarm for a brief period when they are trying to mate and start a new colony. I, of course, didn’t like the sound of that at all.

I read online that spraying them with a mixture of Dawn, water and peppermint oil would kill them, so I quickly put some of those three things in a spray bottle and went at it. About an hour later I realized that our two hanging light fixtures were SWARMING with flying ants. After a mini-freak out, I grabbed a chair and sprayed a ton of that solution into our hanging light fixtures. Then I retreated downstairs, hoping that in the morning the flying ant swarm would be over.

The next morning, the two light fixtures looked like this:

While there are still some ants around two of the liquid baits, the massive swarm by the windows has abated. I’m really hoping that we stopped the new colony’s creation before it could get started.

Every once in a while we have some massive ant invasion that makes me think that, if we ripped out our drywall, the foundation would just be ants swarming in the shape of a house. We have so few significant insect problems in California, and as someone who has had to deal with bed bugs I know how minor ants are in comparison, but I still really hate ants. Last night was super stressful.

Of course my parents live close enough to a grass fire on the peninsula that they’ve been without power for almost 24 hours. So I guess I should just count my blessings and be happy the antvasion has ended.

Also, it’s a lovely 75* here today, and I’ve VERY THANKFUL for that.

We get today off (Juneteenth observed) so the kids don’t have camp and my husband doesn’t have work. My parents took the kids last night and my husband and I went to a nice bar with amazing cocktails and super good food. I saw a family friend that was working there which was fun. It was a nice night.

Today we were supposed to swim at my mom’s friend’s pool but the water is green and they can’t seem to fix it, so we’re going to Great America’s water park instead. You may remember that I was just there last weekend (with my daughter’s friends for her birthday) and it was totally nuts. I’m really hoping today is less crazy, but with it being a day off for many people, and a high temperature forecast, I’m guessing it will be nuts again.

Next week the kids have camp at the same park which means we get to enjoy four days of the same drop off and pick up. I’m VERY excited about this. Probably too excited.

We leave for St. Louis a week from Tuesday. I got some packing cubes, and I’m going to start packing the kids’ clothes this week. Luckily the clothes they need for St. Louis’s hot weather and the clothes they need for camp in cold, windy San Francisco are very different.

Friday my daughter got to bring her bearded dragon to camp drop off. He did great and she was very excited to show him off.

This past weekend was a nice one. We spent Saturday morning at Corgi Con on Ocean Beach. My kids are obsessed with corgis (you may remember that meeting my sister’s corgi is one of the main reasons we are going to London this summer) and they’ve been waiting for this bi-annual event to resume since the start of the pandemic (the October Corgi Con was cancelled last minute). Every where we looked there were super cute corgis. So many amazing costumes and so many cute corgi butts.

I went to my friend’s birthday dinner on Saturday night. It was fun to get dressed up and see the ladies. It’s been a while since we went out.

The only hiccup this weekend was learning that our son’s friend, who spent two hours at our house on Saturday, tested positive for COVID on Sunday. I guess we’ll be seeing his well our antibodies hold up!

There is more to report but if I don’t publish this now I won’t until tomorrow.

UPDATE: This didn’t post until “tomorrow” (today) because my WordPress app sucks. Oh well. Here it is, a day late.

I took my car to get serviced at the dealership near the giant Target and the mall today. I was actually kind of excited to have a couple-hour stretch to kill at both places. But quickly I realized I didn’t actually want to spend several hours at Target and the mall.

It’s so weird how sometimes I’m really in the mood to hit up Target and get a few things. And sometimes I’m really… not. I thought that since I’m about to do a bunch of traveling I’d find quite a bit to put in my basket but I didn’t. I just couldn’t think of anything I, or my kids, wanted.

Still manage to spend $80 though.

I had to walk up to the mall a weird way and I passed this Starbucks that looks like a bank. It wonder if it was a bank but Starbucks took it over.

At the mall I was surprised that the Macy’s was still open. I swore it had closed, but a woman at the door told me it the Macy’s at Stonestown that closed. I guess I confused them.

I have my book and my reading glasses and I found a spot to sit that is away from the foot traffic. I guess I’ll start reading. I have to kill another hour before I can walk back down to the dealership.

Written on Tuesday afternoon, and evening.

I got some bummer news from work yesterday and I was very sulky about it. I cried a lot and then walked around pouting. After my daughter and I watched Stranger Things (while my husband and son watched the Warriors game), I took a sleep aid and went to bed.

Today I had a meeting with my admins about the bummer news. It was basically them telling me “in person” all “the reasons” for the bummer news, which is that I have to teach one class of a grade level and subject matter that I am not at all interested in teaching. Honestly the news wouldn’t have been such a bummer last year, it would have been expected really, but after this year, and the huge popularity of the Spanish program, I was really hoping the years of doing this shit were behind me. But it turns out they are not, because we are a small middle school in a small district and scheduling restraints will always hamper the growth of my Spanish program. It’s that reality that is really what is getting me down. I’m trying to just be okay with it, but I’m giving myself a couple days to feel down about it first.

Yesterday I had two appointments and I went to Costco in between them. Today I had nothing after the 9am zoom call with my admins. I puttered around the house. I applied for a new credit card because I’ve been wanting to change mine and my current card was used fraudulently so it was cancelled. If I have to change the number everywhere anyway, I might as well change it to the new card (my old card was an Amazon VISA – which I know is the worst). My new card comes later this week. I also changed our NYT subscription so we only get it delivered on Sundays, not Friday – Sunday. I even set up my voicemail! (My husband has been hounding me to do this for months but I hate voicemail so I had no personal incentive to call customer service to get a new pin). I did a little light debris-clearing in some of the more problematic areas of the house and wrote a list of tasks I want to complete in the next few weeks. But I didn’t let myself start on any of that because I figured I was due one day off to chill out. Turns out I’m horrible at chilling out, and instead drove my husband crazy texting him dumb shit all day.

Not having a credit card that works made it impossible to shop online, so thank god for that.

I did read some of my book, but I found it hard to concentrate on it. And I’m writing this post, so that is something!

I’m going to the dojo tonight for class and I’m (probably overly) enthusiastic to see other adults later today.

Both kids are liking their camps, but it sure is hard to get them out the door in the mornings. The 12yo especially is not interested in the “this feels like school, but it’s summer!” morning routine. They are pretty much in camp or traveling all summer, which is exactly what I need. Our two weeks of Covid isolation was a great reminder that staying home for extended periods is not actually good for anyone.

UPDATE: My admins called me at 4pm saying I don’t have to teach 4th grade next year. I think it’s because I didn’t want to teach zero period if I had to teach 4th graders at 6th period. So now I’m teaching zero period and 8th graders at 6th period, with two other 7/8 Spanish classes and a 6th grade Spanish class during the day. It’s what I originally wanted, and I can’t believe I’m going to get it.

I still really can’t believe it.

Thursday I said goodbye to my 21-22 students for the last time. Friday I finished clearing out my room for the summer deep clean. I am now officially done with the school year.

Saturday I took four 12 year olds to Great America’s water park and then back to my parents’ house for a sleep over. It was 89* on Saturday and the water park is only open on the weekends so was totally crazy – just absolutely packed in a way I’ve never seen before. The girls still had a good time, but it was definitely a little much. They arrived at my parents’ house totally wiped so at least that mission was accomplished.

Sunday morning we were all up around 9am (I actually fell back asleep – which never happens – I guess I was wiped out too!) The girls played some Minecraft, had breakfast, packed up and we went home. I had everyone dropped off by 1pm.

We walked Sunday Streets with the kids but it was almost over by then and there wasn’t much to do. It was still nice to get out.

Both kids were totally done by Sunday evening. My son had spent the night at my ILs house (because my husband had a memorial concert to attend) and he didn’t sleep great. Both kids were asleep by 9:30pm.

It’s hard to remember that I’m actually on summer break. It’s been go, go go! for so many weeks that my body and mind are struggling to slow down. And maybe that’s for the best because I only have two weeks before the madness that is our summer travel begins. We just added an impromptu final trip to the summer (an opportunity came up that we couldn’t refuse), and honestly I think it will be a bit much, but it will also be awesome. As my husband said earlier, we will endure all these vacations!

So these two weeks are basically all I have to get some shit done, because any other time will be the weeks (or just days!) in between trips. I do want the house in good shape before we start the summer insanity, so I guess that is what I’ll be working on.

But today is appointment day. I have my allergy shot and an eye exam. I also need to see the chiropractor and hopefully and acupuncturist. I really hope I can get this lower back pain under control before all this travel starts, but somehow I doubt it.

I don’t know why it took me so long to figure that out. I guess the idea that a virus would give me back pain just never entered my mind.

But my first 48 hours I had “body aches” which felt a lot like menstrual cramps and were focused mostly in my back. I laid on a hot water bottle for two days trying to alleviate the pain.

But then it went away. And now I guess it’s back. I haven’t done enough “research” into whether or not I should expect it to be a lingering issue. I’m sure said “research” will be inconclusive anyway.

But did you know that lower back pain is one of the most commonly reported symptoms of omicron? I did not.

So yeah. Just wanted to put that out there. Evidently if your stuffy nose and scratchy throat is accompanied by back pain – most commonly reported initially as similar to menstrual cramps or GI pain – you probably should take a rapid test.

I think I’ll try to find an acupuncturist to see if they can help…