Oh, so first of all I want to make clear that I don’t blame teachers in any way for the workload they’re assigning or the jobs they’re doing. I totally heart teachers. Also I wonder if Poppy’s principal is reading my blog because last night several hours after posting my rant about home education, we got a recorded phone call telling us that we can just relax and do what we can and the most important thing was to play and be safe. So I appreciate that. Is Poppy’s principal really reading this, or is this pure vanity? Just in case, Holla Mrs. P.!!

I’m a social person. I also need a lot of validation from my friends because my brain tends to go off on weird unhealthy directions and my friends ground me. So not being able to hang out with my friends has been a really hard thing.

It’s funny the way that the little things are the ones that break us. Somehow I’m coping with the idea that we’re going to be inside for a long while. Our Family Fun Time is quickly becoming Family Unfun Time. I’m failing at homeschooling, and I will probably know someone who dies from this, but the thing that gets me?

Thaddeus and Poppy’s inability to have a playdate with Pearl and Hendrix.

These 4 kids are closer than close. I met their mom Scrubs (she’s a healthcare worker y’all) when Thaddeus and Pearl were just over a year old and we’ve been besties ever since. It was so convenient when Hendrix and Poppy came along and were the same age too. These kids are more than friends–they’re family. They love each other, they play together, they fight with each other, they camp out at each other’s houses, they hit each other (well, we’ve mostly grown out of that now) and woe upon the person who dares mess with one of the four because the other three are coming and it’s not going to be pretty.

My kids keep asking when their next playdate is. Can we move Pearl and Hendrix up to the cabin with us? When can we have a sleepover? When will we see them? And there’s really no answer. That’s what makes me cry.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

I’m so lucky to have my friends. Last night Krazy Klara instantly decides we need to have a virtual girls’ night out (in?). There’s a video chat. I get on my laptop so it looks like the Brady Bunch, each of us in our own little square holding a drink. Klara is going nuts–she’s the true extrovert of us all, but we love her anyway. Scrubs in laying in bed because she’s on call. Veronica keeps disappearing to put her kids to bed, approximately 200 times. Hang in there Veronica! We group in Grover and we’re all happy to see her. She has a higher alcohol tolerance than Klara because she’s hitting the hard stuff without even slurring her words. Then we add in Kimpossible, who comes on and is like “Yeah, so what’s going on? Grover just texted me and said I needed to join this, but I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

Also Kimpossible is the only one who still has a baby and she stood there with one of those wrap things and did this ninja Superman lollipop thing that made her baby stop crying and damn, where was she when I couldn’t figure that thing out?

Anyway, so we talked. And talked. About mediocre homeschooling. About needing personal space. About how considerate Klara’s father was for passing away last month so they could actually hold a memorial service for him. Some of us wore telemarketer headphones and informed the group that their conversation may be recorded for quality purposes. There may or may not have been a few tears.

Narrator: there were tears.

How are we going to do this without our friends? How am I going to do this without my friends? And yet we have this video chat technology. Is that going to get us through? I really hope so.

I don’t know about you but my grand plans to restrict screen time have been an abject failure. Social interaction remains a primary factor/excuse. How do we restrict screen time while still allowing social interaction? Thaddeus’ best friend moved out of state last summer and it’s been a tough year for him. He likes to play Minecraft online while chatting on Discord. The problem is that this has to be done on my computer. Mine. Where I want to be wasting my own time. And now my keyboard is sticky. Gross.

How do we restrict screen time will still allowing social interaction?

Well, I don’t know about you but I have completely failed homeschooling. The sad thing is that I am a stay at home mom who was ostensibly homeschooling already. I was failing then too, so this pandemic hasn’t boosted my test scores. I was so excited when people started posting all these things on Facebook about free shit available. Who doesn’t love free shit? And Pinterest? Pinterest: This is your moment! You were born for this! But then I quickly became overwhelmed because how many free resources can you really bookmark in a day? How many can you read through? And the critical question, am I really going to do any of this anyway?

Narrator: She’s not.

Which just makes me feel like an even bigger failure. I mean it was bad enough failing at all of the things that cost me money. Now I can fail at 133,993,698 things completely free of charge!

And then here’s the other half of the complaint–schools that have given students things to do? Surprisingly, despite her mother’s complete and utter failure, Poppy is doing reasonably well at. But honestly, it’s too much. And by that I mean that Poppy is literally sitting at the other end of the table saying, “I feel like I have to do all of this work but it really is too much,” and “Well I forgot to turn this in yesterday so it’s too late.”

With “this” being an online form saying 3 things you learned that day signed by the parent.

So far I’ve been letting Poppy go real free-form on those 3 things. Previous entries have included “it snows a lot in the mountains” and “online learning is really hard.” Okay, I’ll admit the last one was a little passive-aggressive, but it was her idea and who am I to hold her back?

There’s a real conflicting message I’m getting on places like Facebook (and everyone knows that Facebook is absolutely the best and only place you should be getting your information), which is memes and articles that I love that say, “It’s a freakin’ global pandemic, peeps. Parents, just cuddle with your kids for the next 2 decades or however long it takes to get us through this” and “Here’s another free thing for you to feel bad about not doing!!!”

I’m hard on myself. I know it. I even fail at self-care. Ha. Pity Party: Table for 1 now available!

And I know I’m not the only one out there. There is at least one other parent because I talked to her last night and she’s one of my best friends so she I know she is honest. But what I’m hearing is that “too much” is a really popular refrain. Like a bad 90s pop song with a ridiculous hook that won’t get out of your head, it’s too much, too much, too much. Some of it, Poppy is able to do independently and some not, but a lot of kids can’t do any of it independently, and their parents have better and more productive things to do with their time than writing a blog about having too much to do.

These side-quote things are really cool though, am I right?

Let’s start with tests. Actually let’s stop with tests. No more tests. It looks like state testing may have been canceled (the governor has been a bit mealy-mouthed in his proclamations and predictions–let’s just say he wasn’t my first choice for the office), but Poppy’s school still has tests. Poppy took one this morning, and almost cried because she didn’t do well. My aforementioned bestie (who by the way is a healthcare worker so can we PLEASE give them a break at least???) whose son Hendrix is also in Poppy’s class and whose daughter Pearl is in the class Thaddeus was in before we decided to homeschool (using “homeschool” loosely), said that Pearl’s class had to take a proctored test in the middle of the workday, also known as the part of the day when parents are working.

I don’t mean to slag on our teachers. I think they’re doing a great job with what they’ve been given and the parameters under which they’re required to work. But this kind of thing is coming from higher up (I’m not a fan of the Superintendent either) and what I’m hearing from a lot of people is that it is just resulting in a lot of yelling, fighting, and tears. Kid to kid yelling (check), parent to kid yelling (check), parent to parent yelling (well, mine is more like bitchy sniping, sorry Cal), kid to kid fighting, parent to kid fighting, and everyone in tears. Lots of tears. I’m yelling at the stove because it’s an electric instead of gas and these burners stay hot when even when they’re turned off and who thought that was a good idea in the first place? I’m yelling at children for not eating the food I have prepared on that stupid electric stove. I’m yelling at the step stool I can’t for the life of me get to collapse. I’m yelling at the TV because Tyler and Amy on Lego Masters are such smug phonies I can’t even handle it. I’m yelling at the dog, and she hasn’t even peed on the carpet yet which is a personal best for her.

The only ones I’m not yelling at are the rats, lucky guys. Except that I forgot to refill their food bowl and it was empty for like 10 minutes and Pippin is so fat (we call him Sir Chonks-a-lot) he was desperately chewing on the wood ladder in his cage like it was his last chance for survival. Look, it hasn’t been easy, okay?

An earthquake? First of all, how cliche’d. Let me guess, Lenny Bruce is not afraid #eyeroll. But also, large earthquakes are kind of a California thing. I don’t mean to brag, but we really only have one natural disaster and we’ve kind of perfected it. Other states have their tornadoes and hurricanes but everyone knows California has large earthquakes. It’s kind of our secret weapon for population control. Non-Californians say “I could never live in California, I’m afraid of earthquakes” and we say “Oh yes, they’re very, very scary. Very scary indeed.” and everyone’s happy staying where they are.

Earthquakes in California are very, very scary. Don’t move here.

So look, this is for Utah, the New Madrid fault, and all of you living on faults you don’t even know about–leave the earthquakes to us, okay?

But back to the End of the World. First off, I don’t care how you feel about Trump, but calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” is offensive and racist as fuck so don’t do it. Don’t be that asshole. Thanks.

But more personally, we had an exhausting night last night. Our normal bedtime is 8:00 (read: 9:00) but we’ve had all kinds of crazy hours the last few days and I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that we’re not going to go to bed at a reasonable time for the rest of the pandemic.

You know what else I’m not doing for the rest of the pandemic? Wearing a bra. Lockdown may be necessary, but ladies and breast-owning people, there’s no need to lockdown your body. Celebrate the little freedoms!

Celebrate the little freedoms–don’t wear a bra!

How’s everyone doing? Life just seems so weird. I mean a huge part of that is not being in our normal house, which I can say from day 2 was an excellent move (opinion subject to change). But another part is that whole end of the world and quarantine and all that. Our longest stay at the cabin before was probably 10 days, and we mainly lived out of the bags we brought our stuff in, with the food strategically placed in 6 giant Trader Joe’s bags lining the bar/counter area. However, for this time, I’ve decided to fully unpack.

This is not as easy as I thought it was going to be.

First I had to clean out the dresser, which was filled with an inordinate amount of snow suits too small for my actual children and any of our friends. How many 4T snow bibs does a SoCal family really need? How many children under 5 do I actually know? (answer: three, my two nephews and newborn niece, and they’re quarantined in Texas). I should sell these on Craigslist–oh, wait. So all of those tiny snow clothes and adorable little boots and mittens got shoved in the corner of the closet and I unpacked our clothes. It was exhausting and I had a glass a wine and a nap afterwards.

Also I should say that Cal was much more optimistic about this quarantine than I was. From the beginning I said that schools would be out for the rest of the year, and when I posted that on Facebook one of my best friends said “Nobody knows how this will play out. You don’t know everything, Paige” and I corrected her that I do in fact know everything and then the next day Gov. Newson said that school would be out for the rest of the year so I WAS RIGHT. I also assumed that we would be at the cabin longer than the original week and a half Cal thought, so I packed like all our clothes.

And I mean all our clothes like pretty much all our clothes. I was the reverse Marie Kondo. Instead of thanking our clothes for their service and the joy and happiness they brought and then giving them to charity, I rolled them up like I was packing for an extended trip to Europe and said “see you in 90 minutes.” I then went to the freezer and did the same thing. What is this frozen meat in this unlabeled ziploc bag? Well, who knows, but it doesn’t have visible frostbite so into the cooler it goes. I mean, my grandmother had one of those chest freezers in the basement and honestly I thought there was a body or two in there and maybe Grandma was planning to go all Donner Party if necessary. I mean, she did grow up in the Depression. And she did live in rural Wisconsin.

Where there are no large earthquakes but lots of blizzards.

Did Grandma have a body in the basement chest freezer? Turns out, no.

Cal did do a bang-up job getting food. I’ll talk about panic buying in another post, but in our case this was actually pretty legit, since this Small Mountain Community (SMC) only has one tiny little general store, about 1/3 the size of a 7-Eleven, and food offerings are somewhat random. The next closest option is another SMC which has a grocery story about the size of a large 7-Eleven but not as big as those truck stops on the 5 between LA and San Francisco. So let’s just say that groceries are not as easy to get as they are at home.

I know all you people who normally drive like 30-40 minutes to the grocery store, uphill both ways in the snow, are laughing at me right now, but let’s all just validate each other’s struggles, okay?

Anyway, we brought a shitton of food and it’s all over the counter and I’m not sure where to put it. But I’m going to try.

Also I realized this blog template doesn’t have comments which is kind of a bummer because I actually like talking to my readers (all 5 of you–hi Mom and Dad!), so you can chat over on my brand-new Facebook Page here: https://www.facebook.com/Thoughts-from-the-End-of-the-World-101443148166190/

Hi everyone, I’m Paige. Actually I’m not. Read the About Me link above for some basic information for starters. I’d add a link here but this is my first time with this new theme and WordPress has changed a bit since I last blogged, and also it’s 10:30am and I’m already exhausted so I’m not going to spend a bunch of time learning and fiddling around with my blog like I’m 35 with one baby who blessedly sleeps a lot (holla to those who read my old blog!).

So I think I speak for the majority of people when I say that this is not how I thought 2020 was going to go. I figured the biggest news would be the election, where the Republicans would nominate Trump like yesterday and the Democrats would winnow the most diverse field they’ve ever had to the oldest, whitest, male-ist candidate (on track so far!) and then there’d be a tired period of primary debates in which nobody learns anything, a grumpy convention between grumpy old men, then a bizarre spectacle of what apparently now passes for Presidential campaigning, culminating in an election not entirely free of tampering and disenfranchisement in which we all grow more grumpy late into the night only to wake up with some of us relieved and some of us disappointed and all of us girding ourselves for whatever new political reality we find ourselves in.

I mean, that’s a basic overview and surely there would be more fun twists and turns but, you know, basically that.

What is this fresh bullshit?

Then comes COVID-19, which just makes me say: What is this fresh bullshit? First there’s a virus spreading in another country which makes only epidemiologists worry because we’re America USA #1! and we don’t have those problems. Then other countries start, like, entirely shutting down. Like Asian countries next door to the original outbreak, which okay, seems sensible and thank you for that. But then Italy. I mean, ITALY? I’ve been to Italy! It’s full of Westerners with sexy accents and really, really old buildings! How do you close down all of Italy? And that’s where I’m getting worried because Italy is very much like America except with better pasta, and this could most definitely happen here. It’s coming. Like a barreling train. On the eco-friendly high-speed trans-national train system the United States should have but doesn’.

Seriously, what is going on? Now my darling, precious children–Thaddeus, 5th grade age 11, and Poppy, 3rd grade age 8–are out of school (although Thaddeus was already being accidentally homeschooled, but that’s a whole other topic) and we’re all supposed to stay like 3 feet away from other people while the rest of the world stays 1 meter because why aren’t we using the metric system? It just makes sense. But anyway, in an effort to avoid germs, move ourselves to a better mental environment, and have the opportunity to go outside and get some exercise without running over people, we have moved our sunny Southern California selves to our cabin in an adorable Small Mountain Community (SMC) in the snowy Southern California mountains (yes, they exist. yes, there is snow 90 minutes away from Los Angeles. yes, we could go surfing in high tide in the morning, take a short drive and ski all day, and then surf again in the evening. Oh! Southern California! May she live forever!).

I don’t know if this was a wise move or how well I’m going to do here, but as I mentioned, it’s 10:30am on our first day up here as a family and I’m already exhausted. And I woke up at nine. And the cosmically cruel thing that is especially true right now is that my stomach absolutely cannot handle caffeine, which means I can’t even start my day with a cup of coffee.

It’s going to be a long quarantine.