May was kinda crazy. But like normal crazy, not pandemic crazy. In fact, maybe it was a little bit of pandemic aftermath. Like 2020 and 2021 were so screwy that this year, they were packing in all of the end of year fun they could in an attempt to make up for the things that were missed at the end of the previous two school years.

Teacher appreciation week for Maya’s class meant a new fun way to celebrate teachers each day of the week. Ian’s was a little more subdued, but because Maya was doing stuff, he wanted to as well.

Also to celebrate the end of the school year, the school did an A-B-C Countdown to Summer. Each day in May, they did something fun with a letter or two of the alphabet as their guide. A – Art day, B – Bubble day. They kids dressed up for H – Hawaiian day. Maya is now big enough to wear some of my shirts, so that’s what she wore since she had outgrown all of her aloha clothes.

Maya had two days of STAAR testing. Ian’s class did a special thing for Mother’s Day. Maya’s class had a pop it party toward the end of the month. There were a lot of things to keep track of, and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure I got all of it. For instance, I nearly forgot Maya’s end of the season soccer picnic. Here’s a photo.

Partway through, Sean and I did the only reasonable thing you could do – we had a date night at a cocktail bar. We had been trying to get a reservation at Tiki Tatsu-ya for a reasonable time of day (11:45 at night would be the only slot available, if there were openings at all) that coincided with sitter availability. Finally a 9:45p reservation opened up on a night when Anna could watch the kids.

That place lives up to the hype. The drinks are delicious and each is presented in a different and interesting vessel. We *need* to go with a larger group so we can order the drink that is served in a giant boat much fanfare and flourish from the waitstaff. Music would thud and lights would flash, and the Tiki gods, while briefly angered, were eventually satisfied with the sacrifice of brain cells, I guess.

They served interesting looking finger foods too, but we were too full from our dinner to check those out. Sean was mesmerized by the rum selection behind the bar and spent several minutes trading notes with the bartender. Tiki Tatsu-ya is Sean’s happy place.

My Calabrian chili plants were finally large enough to put in big pots. In doing so, I found this year’s first toad (a Gulf Coast Toad, we think). He apparently had been hiding in an empty pot, and when I moved it, he essentially jumped at my face. We’ve also seen a great many Texas Spiny Lizards this year in addition to a number of butterflies, birds, and (to Maya’s chagrin) bees.

Because we were dealing with so much end-of-school stuff and last minute vacation planning, Mother’s Day was a pretty subdued affair. I was gifted with a new shoulder bag and a lovely new cookbook. Ian made me a very nice Aperol Spritz way too early in the day (at my request, thank you very much), and Maya made me breakfast tacos. Otherwise, by and large, it was like any other day.

May was horribly hot, even by Texas standards, and with almost no rain to boot. It is going to be a long and difficult summer here.

Sean and I had a weekend event planned mid-month to go to the Cruel World music festival in Pasadena, CA and were very much looking forward to the milder weather that area generally enjoys. Alas, we brought the pain. It was so, so hot while we were there. Coated with sunscreen and chugging water almost as fast as we could find it, we watched very committed goths and other costumed folks sweating it out in full black and heavy leather regalia. I personally don’t know how they did it.

The shows were great, even with the heat. We were disappointed when Echo and the Bunnymen backed out of the show, but it’s probably for the best. Since we’ve seen them a few times, we might have had to skip their set to choose a different act to watch. The bands were spread across three stages, and even when waiting in line for food or the obligatory t-shirt, we were able to at least listen to one of the shows.

I think we dealt well with the heat, but the sour spot for me was the “merch” line. It was long and slow and there was only one of them. We hopped in line after the English Beat set, hoping we could snag our stuff before Missing Persons went on. Luckily, we were in a good spot to hear Missing Persons, because we were still in line. Sean kindly let me pop out of the line so that at least one of us would get to see PIL. He caught the last couple songs. We estimate the line took two hours. Unacceptable.

An astonishing bright spot for me was watching Devo! They sounded great and their show was really fun to watch. And the age range of the audience was something to behold. Several people were in energy domes and a few souls made of sterner stuff than me were in full jumpsuits.

The end of the night, after all the heat and all the standing and walking, was the killer. We had decided against renting a car on this trip, since it was just a quick show up, see the concert, go home kind of thing. Trying to find an Uber or Lyft after that concert was all but impossible. People would keep letting us book our ride and then moments later they’d cancel.

Thanks to some very good advice from a former coworker of Sean’s who was also at the show, we opted instead to walk 3/4 of a mile to the train station and for just a few dollars, took the train to a stop just a few short minutes from our hotel. We joked the whole way that we were walking in LA, just like they sang it in the Missing Persons set that we missed while waiting to buy frickin’ t-shirts.

Sean’s Dad came to stay with the kids while we were out of town, and by all reports, the kids had a fun-filled time of eating lots of takeout and spending lots of time at various parks. This was officially the first time we’ve been away from them overnight, if you can believe that.

Maya and her friend Maclin finally set up a play date. He’s the first person I’ve heard her describe as her “best friend.” They enjoy the same iPad games. They are both critter people. And Maclin has been in Maya’s class multiple times at elementary school. Sadly, Mac will be out of town for the summer, so Maya is working through ways to stay in touch with her friend. So far, she’s a little sad, but we’ll figure it out, and of course summer won’t last forever. She did get to stop by Mac’s house just before the end of school to meet Lemon, his Leopard Gecko and his family’s various dogs and rats.

The month did get weird toward the end. On May 24th, the shooting happened at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. I’ve always felt a wave of sadness when mass shootings happen. What a horrible waste of life. Those poor families. Why did this happen? But I’ve never had one hit me this hard. I’m assuming because it’s geographically close to us and because the kids that were slaughtered were the same age as our kids, we’ve felt the scab ripped off with each fresh news story. Some of the kids could only be IDed via DNA testing. Some of the kids played dead to avoid being shot. Some of the kids called 911 and begged for help. Rip-rip-rip. It was hard for the shooting not to occupy our minds as we sent our 1st and 3rd grader to their elementary school those last few days of the month. It’s hard for it to not occupy our minds now as a solution (or more probably a set of solutions) continues to elude us.

At the very end of the month, right after school let out, we left for our big Florida Keys vacation. It worked so well with Disney World last year, that I’m actually gonna write up a separate post for that vacation and link it here. I tried (and failed) to avoid reading the news, but even with the dark Uvalde cloud and the threat of a tropical storm, we managed to have a lovely vacation.

I think I’m done posting COVID stats. It’s not that I think it’s over, necessarily. In fact, we rushed the kids in to get their COVID boosters about a week before our vacation. It’s just that I don’t know how complete and useful the data are at this point. It seems like the death toll isn’t rising quite so horribly. Hopefully that’s a positive sign that between vaccine adoption and reduced severity in the most recent strains, we’re moving past the worst of the pandemic. And truly, deeply, honestly, I’m just so fucking sick of thinking about it.