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Happy 19th, Bug
As I’m going through my old posts, I’m struck by how odd it is that I had time to blog when I had a baby. Who has time to blog when they have a new baby? And before that? I blogged my way through Paris!!! But now that I’m home alone for days, I don’t have time to tell a story or two?? Something is wrong with this picture. I have a lot of theories. I’m looking at you, phone.
Yesterday was Bug’s nineteenth birthday. Poor girl, she got broken up with by her boyfriend on her birthday. I hope I’m allowed to write that here. I don’t think she reads, but I try to respect her privacy most of the time. It wasn’t too terrible because she knew it was coming, and they’d only been dating for four months. But still, on her birthday!!? That’s pretty crappy.
We’d planned a dinner date months before this, so she would hang out with me on her birthday no matter what. Even so, I was happy we already had plans. I’d be even more upset if she were alone on her birthday.
The thing about Bug that I am proud of is that she doesn’t expect a lot. I remember the first Christmas that I couldn’t afford to get a “good” present. I felt horrible like I’d “ruined Christmas.” But it wasn’t a big deal to her. She knew I was struggling to make rent, and we did something else fun. She’s always been cool about it. That was a big parenting breakthrough for me. Kids don’t care much about presents (or at least my kid). It’s more about quality time and attention. Since I’ve been unemployed off and on for the last three years, I’ve got quality time in spades.
So yesterday we did some errands, we went out to an early dinner, we cheered with some virgin margaritas, and THEN I took her to practice driving!!!! This is a really big deal. She never got her driver’s license in high school. She didn’t have time, wasn’t motivated, was afraid of driving, etc., all of the reasons that kids these days don’t get their driver’s licenses. I get it. I’m terrified of driving myself. Traffic and freeways are scary!
What is so remarkable is that she’s been taking the bus everywhere. When she moved in with her dad, supposedly because I wouldn’t drive her everywhere and let her down when I was working, I thought her dad would drive her everywhere instead. Nope. He’s a hard ass. He makes her take the bus. And she does! I never took the bus as a kid or as an adult. I hate to admit it, but I’m afraid of buses. I don’t know how the routes work, and I don’t like strangers. The one time I did take a bus to the beach when I was a teenager with a friend of mine, it took us three hours to go twenty-five miles!! I love subways, but buses are lost to me.
I digress. My point is that she took the bus to the DMV to take her own permit test, AND SHE PASSED IT! She called me up afterward, and we squealed like little pigs. I’m so proud of her. She’s probably hating me for writing this, but I don’t care. This has been a thorn in our sides for a few years now, and the fact that she is self-motivated to do it makes me happy. She did nothing when I nagged her continually, but when you leave her to her own devices, she got it done.
She got in my car, backed it up out of the parking lot, drove it down the street, and then we proceeded to drive around a parking lot nearby. It was great. She was timid at first and hit the brakes a little hard, but she got the hang of it. As we were driving down the aisles between parking spots, I noticed a pinecone. Try to hit the pinecone, I said. She missed it. She drove around again, missed it again. Now, she was getting determined. We agreed that it’s kind of like a video game. She went around that parking lot probably ten times and finally hit the pinecone with a satisfying crunch. We were so happy!
There was one car parked in the lot that was a little suspicious. The back windows were tinted, the front had a sun visor. The sides had some towels hung from the rolled-up windows. I think someone was sleeping there. I feel bad for interrupting their peace with strange driving behavior, but I don’t care. It was a moment. It was a proud mom moment.
We might not have big parties or fancy trips anymore, but we still have some pretty great moments. Quality time for the win!
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There’s a free calendar at the end of this post.
I don’t even know where to start with this post. Everyone asks me how I’m doing, and I make up some bullshit story about “healing in the desert” because it sounds good. But I’m here because I have nowhere else to go. I couldn’t cut it in the OC anymore, and since Bug moved out, it just didn’t make sense for me to deplete my retirement by paying rent on an apartment I couldn’t afford. So I packed up and moved home to my parents. It was a huge relief to give up finally. I’d been fighting it for what seemed like forever. I was hustling every side job I could find, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, borrowing from friends, knowing I’d never be able to pay them back…I was getting rejection letters every day from jobs I’d applied to months before. It was hopeless.
My mental health has taken a blow, but there is a little bit of truth to my bullshit story about healing in the desert. I feel the sun out here. It gives me hope. I am solar-powered, and every time I feel the sun on my face, I breathe in and out more easily.
When I lived in Costa Mesa, it was foggy every day. I was close to the ocean but not close enough to walk. The ocean came to me in a big bank of fog. My apartment was dark. I know it looks bright in photos, but it isn’t. I tried to make it pretty and appreciate the ducks and the trees in the neighborhood… but when it was too cold to sit outside, I felt like I was living in a cave. The low popcorn ceiling, the few windows on only one side, and the cloudy days blended into a dark mood that wouldn’t lift.
Coming here has been a breath of fresh air. I feel so lucky that my parents live in the prettiest part of an otherwise depressed town. They are on the outskirts of Hemet in the low hills. The horizon is vast. As far as I can see, I see rocks and hills and shrubbery, and the skies go on forever. There isn’t any fog. Just dry, cold air. It’s the high desert; right now, it’s very dry and chilly. But I grew up here, so it’s sentimental. I am a desert child.
Every morning, I wake up super early and watch the sunrise. I’d go for walks, but the coyotes are kind of creepy out here, so Cody and I stay close to home until it gets light. I was sitting in the vines of dead raspberry bushes in a raised garden, but my dad built me a little platform. I love being around my dad because he’s super handy and has every tool you can imagine. I can’t wait until summer when we have a thriving garden.
But right after I got here, my parents left for Texas to take care of my brother, who had hip surgery. He had some complications and is in some pain, so they are staying with him until he heals a bit and gets settled. I miss my parents. I feel like I’ve been out here alone for months, even though it’s only been a few weeks.
The power went out for three days to make things even more challenging. I’m not mad about it, though, because SCE is taking all precautions so that the high winds don’t knock down wires and start fires. Where my parents live in a high-risk fire area. When I see the devastation in Los Angeles as I scroll through Instagram, I am thankful for all these precautions. I miss my dad, though. Trying to find my way around in the dark was scary, as was figuring out how to turn the generator on and hook up the refrigerator so the food inside didn’t go bad. Afterward, I felt like such a survivor. But the dark did get old quickly. There isn’t much worth doing when the sun sets at 5:30, so I’d go to bed and sleep. Then I’d be up super early and start all over again.
I cooked my food on the gas stove (thank the Lord my parents have gas!), read books, and one day drove to the library to do some work.
Then, magically, on day three, the power turned back on! It was so amazing and wonderful. I think I felt like how people think crawdads are the most delicious food they’ve ever tasted when they’ve been starving for weeks. Crawdads are not delicious. Well, not to me, anyway. LED lights in the kitchen aren’t impressive either until you’ve bumped around in the dark for three days. Then they are the best invention ever!
The winds are still whipping around, so I brace myself for another outage. Until then, I’m typing out a blog post and dropping a calendar for you to proof!
This is just for you, Cathy: a free calendar. Please proofread it and let me know if there are any errors.
***UPDATE TO ADD NEW CORRECTED CALENDAR***
I am planning on taking this blog down this year. I’m in the process of copying and pasting it into a digital document for Bug and her cousins so that it will be up for a while. I’ve got twenty-plus years of content to copy and paste. Maybe I’ll want to keep going by the end of it, but I’m ready for a change. Secret Agent Josephine has lived her days. Thank you for reading all these years. I’ll keep you posted on Instagram.
xo
