Last Day of 2022

I was up really early today, because I was in the middle of some nice alpha meditation and stuff came up to my awareness that I had to write down. Like at 5:30 AM in the morning. I actually had gotten up at 4:44 to go pee. Significant only because of the 444 thing and I realize that is the time that I can actually connect with my Higher Self best. Boy did I. I had some A-Ha thoughts that I had to write down as a separate post. And I felt really good about finally getting to the root of some of my issues. It's not like I have not been aware of them before. But this time feels different. Like I peeled a bunch of layers of the onion that makes me who I am. And it WAS uncomfortable. Which really encourages me because unless I can feel the discomfort, then how would I know what to heal? It also gave a really huge context to the argument Lisa and I had on the drive to San Diego. I feel like most of that was on me now. Yes I know she said she felt attacked. Yes I know she could have been less confrontational. But I let my own emotions get away from me is the bottom line. And so fortunately it was the sound of Johnnie crying in the back seat that shook me to my core, and slapped me back to rationality. Now I know not only to work on my tone, but also to work on my reaction. I need to practice defusing US as in Lisa and I. Little did I know I would get another chance later on. As in today. I didn't make any plans today actually, nor did I even expect to see Lisa and Johnnie for the rest of the weekend. Heck it was raining cats and dogs when I got up. I was perfectly happy to just stay in, have some nice hot tea and keep doing internal work. After all, it IS the last day of 2022. Usually I do an end-of-year review. Usually I also do a 2023  reset in terms of outcomes I want to experience. But I didn't do those, at least not today. I didn't even end up staying home, not from mid-morning on. I had it in my mind that I was going to buy pajamas today. My existing ones are so old I can not even keep them on, the elastic has worn out. In fact, I looked around the apartment and decided to get rid of stuff that I could replace with much more functional things. Like the carpet I have in front of the stove that is now disgustingly dirty. I bought a new mat on Amazon. And I thought I'd get new pajamas from Target. So I went to the one on Sepulveda. I ended up getting grocery stuff instead. No pajamas my size. At least I was close enough to Sprouts so I could get some more grocery shopping done. Hmmm.... at least I know I'll have food for tomorrow if everything is closed right? I didn't give up on those pajamas just yet. Nothing at Target Culver City? I decided to go to Target Westwood. They had more stock alright. Just not in my size!! Damn!! Oh well... just so it wasn't a total loss I decided to stop at Tacos 1986 and get a bunch of carne asada tacos. It was drizzling all this time but I managed to keep reasonably dry. When I got home I got a call from Lisa inviting me over for dinner. I guess mom and son had gone to Pilates and was just now eating lunch. I agreed to come over at 6:30 PM and also decided to bring all of dinner. Lisa didn't have any food in the house after all. And so I went to Ralphs AGAIN and this time got a turkey breast already cooked. That made it easy. I also bought those mini potatoes and broccoli and mushrooms AND I bought shrimp. With cocktail sauce this time. Oh and an apple pie too. Can't forget dessert. For Johnnie, I went home and cooked a bunch of penne pasta for his chicken noodle soup. I went over there promptly at 6:30 and there was Lisa on her computer, apparently trying to book her flight to Italy with Heidi.  Yep, she's actually going over there to pick up her grand piano. Johnnie was on the couch supposedly with a headache, though I was 100% sure he was playing something up. I made the veggies, and laid everything out. But of course we had to wait for Lisa to get done. I tried to see what was wrong with Johnnie but I decided he was fine. I was 99% sure all of this was simply to get his mom's attention. Which of course she wasn't giving him any. Until she got done with booking her flights and then she yanked Johnnie off the couch, took him upstairs and gave him medicine. Of course I was uncomfortable with all this. But I was also NOT going to start an argument. This was my chance to undo the karma from this past week and I was not going to let myself get derailed no matter what Lisa threw at me. Or what I allowed to get thrown at myself more accurately. I EXPECTED Lisa to be out of balance. And I simply went with the flow. She had some mean words about the penne pasta (disgusting was the word she used, though I don't know why). Instead of reacting, I simply asked her what made it "disgusting" because it looked fine to me. I didn't even care about her answer. And in the end she was able to coax Johnnie to come down and have dinner with us, though not on the table. And he ate THREE bowls of penne. Yep, that supposedly "disgusting" thing that I brought over LOL.  And we actually ended up having a pretty good dinner. Afterwards, Johnnie wanted to watch Ratatouille, which we had watched partially at the hotel while Lisa was stewing downstairs taking a walk to clear her head. Another reverse karma event. Only Lisa didn't watch at first. She had to do whatever busy work she needed to do in order to calm herself down. That would be cleaning the kitchen, starting a load of laundry, whatever. I simply told myself that she was trying to calm herself down. And when she did, she asked if we could start the movie over. And hearing her laugh over some of the scenes meant that we did it! We were able to change the energy of the evening from where it was when I first walked in. When I left it was 10 PM already. And it was still raining hard. That was probably why there were really not that many sounds of fireworks in the neighborhood or the city. Just like a normal evening tonight then. Except that we pulled off a New Year's Eve dinner with my family. Can not complain about that!

2022 REVIEW

When I think of the year 2022, what comes to mind is a slow return to a semblance of normalcy. Or at least a NEW NORMAL. QueensCare is still doing remote work and actually tried to start with the 4-day week thing until it was voted down by the rank and file. From a job perspective, everything was ok for the year. I really can't complain. I'm still able to work from home, I'm still managing 3 teams more than adequately in my opinion and although positions opened up for a manager for IS and EHR I haven't been able to find anyone to hire in 3 months. Still, as mentioned I think I'm doing ok although you can never know what the Executive Management team is thinking. I did manage to carve out a niche with not one but TWO cybersecurity conferences/webinars for NACHC. Hey that's a national audience after all. And I got paid for it though the money did go to QHC LOL. Can I say paid national speaker?

HEALTH So let's get on to the more important stuff. Health-wise I had an episode earlier in the year with some blood in my urine. I started to go to the doctor for it, but I ended up cancelling all tests. All this I believe coincided with Dexter having a major medical issue with his intestines that required an operation and with him walking around with a bag for the majority of the year. Johnnie contracted COVID in April but I didn't. Then Lisa contracted it in November, but again I didn't. In July I REALLY had some bleeding in my urine that didn't seem minor. As in it wasn't traces of blood like earlier. It was actual bleeding. I did NOT go to the doctor for this simply because my instincts told me not to. As in it was not a medical emergency. The funny thing was that it would stop within the next time I had to pee. And I noticed it would only happen when I was in my apartment. What the heck? And so it was more like something was really trying to catch my attention. OR more likely, I was purging stuff. By the end of the year, it was like it never happened and no more bleeding issues. It was still in my attention though that there was still stuff that needed healing so some more work to do. By the end of the year, Dexter had healed too and was pronounced ready to go back to work. Because of the health stuff earlier, I changed my diet to keto in the beginning of the year, and eliminated sugar from my diet. I dropped from 180 to 155 almost in within weeks. I went from a 34 waist to a 30. And my blood pressure dropped to normal. Resting heart rate went from a high of 79 early in the year to 60, averaging around 63 for the entire year. The numbers amazed me. But I started to look too skinny and gaunt. And so I re-introduced carbs back in my diet and I looked and felt good still. 

FINANCES. So I started the year on the verge of retiring. As in if the trajectory of the past few years held I would be retiring sometime this year. Heck I wanted to retire by the end of 2021. But I didn't. That was because the stock market tanked big time from January on. And by the end of the year I was down 25%. I reminded myself that it was not a time to panic. Just that my retirement plans got postponed by a bit. I still had over $100,000 in my ready cash accounts by the end of the year, which was enough to sustain me for more than a year should anything happen. In the meantime I still managed to have more money than I needed all year long which was something to be very thankful about under any circumstance. 

Johnnie was a bright star and there were so many memories and M&Ms all year long. Too many to write here. The end of 1st Grade. The start of 2nd Grade. The start of Spanish classes twice a week through the year. The April Song festival where he got to introduce his class song. And then again for the winter fest for 2nd Grade where he got to do the same thing. In the meantime, so many friends and parties he got to go to. Penman Park summer activities. Dinners with Brooklyn. Rose's trampoline birthday party. Emari's birthday party at Bowlero. James' birthday party at the movies. Our spring break trip to San Diego with the zoo AND Legoland. His own birthday party at Lisa's house. The Big Boo at MV Elementary. The QueensCare Dodger game. The Lakers game with Silvia (more on that later). The LA Zoo in November to make up for the one we didn't really do Labor Day weekend because it was so hot. Thanksgiving with just he and I at my sister's house (Lisa had Covid). And then of course another Legoland trip with Lisa after Christmas. It was a very cool year for Johnnie and I.

I wanted to write something about Lisa because she represented the one thing that was unstable in my life this past year. It was up and down with her all year long, mainly because she struggled with her office. She lost Nikki who had her baby. And she lost doctors, assistants, other staff. And she did not deal with those very well. But she didn't lose money either. And despite all the mostly down stuff, we did manage to end the year on a good note. The other thing of note was that she hosted the Au family (Maui) this year though I never got to see them. AND she hosted Silvia who came out for a couple of weeks in October. We had dinners, went to Disneyland, the Lakers game and though all of the above contributed to more emotional instability and drama on Lisa's part, we managed to make it through ok. I do remind myself that everything is me pushed out. And whatever instability I experienced with Lisa was merely something I need to heal. About ME. On the potential relationships front, I did manage a few dates though in the end none of them panned out. And that was ok. I will keep trying. The one constant I did get to do all year was that Scott and I played golf on Sundays pretty much with the exception for 4 or 5 all year long. And I had games where I played really well. Definitely can't complain about all that. 

So all in all the year had some ups, some downs. But in general, here it is the end of the year and I am doing just fine. THANK YOU 2022.

Solving Myself

I think I have gotten through my own layers and figured out my basic fear. It is a fear of not being good enough. Of not being enough. And it has manifested over the years in many different ways. In college I would not attend class because I couldn't motivate myself, especially with classes I didn't deem was important. Those elective classes. It cost me by not graduating in 4 years. Fortunately, I did finally go back and finish. But not until 5 years after I should have and I had already started my career. That was the start of the pattern maybe? I thought it was good enough to almost graduate. And I was able to get a job and get my career started anyway with EDS. I guess they didn't ask for my diploma did they? Kind of like the athlete who turned pro early, or at least before graduating. Luckily, I had the sense to finish the last 2 classes I needed to and DID get my diploma. The pattern about my age got started when my mom allegedly lied about my age <supposedly> to get me in the same class as my brother when we were in kindergarten. I mean it was the Philippines after all. How else could she have gotten me in the same class as my brother who was a year older? Anyway, the pattern I want to reverse, is the one of embellishing and blurring the facts. That was what triggered me when confronted with it the day after Christmas in San Diego with Lisa. There are times when that is ok. But I do it far too often for even my own good. When I change my score on the golf course for example, and not count an errant shot, does that really benefit me? That I do to simply make myself look better. But I won't get better unless I admit to myself that I should get better. And I remind myself that I can control the physical world but I must address my own energies first. Is all I need to do is to simply raise my vibration and allow myself to get into flow? I need to do a lot more self-observation to focus on the states I want to be in rather than be in a reactive state. All the while not letting myself overthink and get myself out of flow and rhythm. That is the trick. THAT is the real work isn't it? And just like golf, it takes practice. 

Last Work Day of 2022

It is Friday, the last work day of 2022 and since QueensCare closes at 3 PM today, I am effectively calling this a TANK DAY. Oh, I'm going to check on emails and TEAMS every now and again but really I am treating this like an off day. So much so that I let Johnnie sleep in until almost 8 AM. And given the choice of eating in for breakfast, iHOP like last week, or McDonald's like almost every other morning, he chose to eat in. As in a duplicate of yesterday morning. And so I made him sourdough toast and bacon. And I made me a bacon avocado and egg sandwich for my breakfast. I didn't actually get Johnnie out of his pajamas until well into the morning, considering we didn't even get done with breakfast until it was already 9 AM but that's ok right? Besides, its supposed to be raining all day. And so just like yesterday I parked him in front of his computer. I know I know, I'm supposed to be doing stuff with him. I figured it was better for him to be in LEARN mode than be watching Garfield all day. And in the meantime I could catch up on stuff. It turned out that what I ended up catching up on was grocery shopping again. I was not going to get stuck this weekend with no food in the house no matter what happens. Still I managed to get Johnnie playing English and Math games at Education.com, and I did notice the stuff he still needs to learn with punctuation and sentence structure and stuff. He did seem to like the game mode and did not hesitate to ask questions when he got stuck. I keep reminding myself that I actually do have him learning 3rd grade material, but then again should I be aiming even higher? Sometimes we all get stuck limiting the potential of our kids, not being aware enough to realize how resilient and adaptable they can be. It is all about motivating him and making sure he knows I/we support him no matter what. Also in the meantime I scan my emails to see any really-gotta-do-this-shit-today stuff. I can't imagine there would be any. I can't imagine there wouldn't be anything that couldn't wait until Tuesday. Except... it is end of the year and there is always some kind of data request from a health plan (that would be LA Care with ECM stuff) and it is always half-annoying and half-amusing to watch Dr Liao fumble around with that stuff. On the one hand, I feel like saying SEE what you idiots do when you let people go. You guys were supposed to fill the gap. You're not filling the fucking gap. But hey is that me being petty? That's also me reacting and making the grooves of a trigger deeper. I see it now. And now I can let it go. I see now how my ego has engaged. And I can now disengage.

I made Johnnie mac-and-cheese for lunch today. And made myself some pasta and soup too. I wanted to make sure he was fueled up because I had it in my mind that we were going to practice basketball again this afternoon. If I was really concerned with his stamina, then the only way to increase it is to keep pushing it every day. And so by 1:30 PM we went down to the garage and did the same drills as we did yesterday. And then we found a section of the overhead pipes that he could sort of tartet as a makeshift hoop. I noticed he was doing much better PUSHING the ball and getting more distance than he used to do. I said what the heck it wasn't raining hard anyway. We headed to Mar Vista Park and there I got him shooting again. Lo and behold Johnnie actually is reaching the 10-ft rim now. Not 100% of the time but considering he couldn't even push the ball high enough as of his eval drill 2 weeks ago, this was considerable progress in my point of view. Heck I thought to myself If Johnnie can improve with his shooting at the 10 foot hoop in a space of a few days, there is no better example for change and improvement than that. I am inspired to improve myself. This was easily the PLAY OF THE DAY. And I got him to work up a sweat too. The afternoon went by quickly. He did his Spanish class, and then Lisa called to pick him up. But apparently she got sidetracked by yet another side project at work. This time boxes and boxes of paper stuff that needed to be shredded because they had kept it from the start of the practice way back in 2009! She met us at Staples so she could drop it off to be shredded. She had over 200 lbs. worth of stuff! And with that I handed off Johnnie and went back home. I did timecards, did my data downloads for next week as my last official work act of 2022. One last day until 2023.

The Year Winds Down

It's Thursday and one more day left for the short week after today and I don't even know why I'm in work mode considering there are probably half the admin people left working the rest of the week. For my part I did have Johnnie today as per usual and I remember last week we spent Thursday and Friday at iHop for breakfast. Today, it's the reverse. I thought I'd MAKE him something for breakfast. I still had all the sourdough bread left plus a lot of bacon and Johnnie was perfectly fine with those items. Just look at the pic I posted of JOhnnie enjoying said breakfast. For myself I made myself a nice spinach, mushroom, and onion omelette, just like I would have had at iHOP. I didn't really make any plans for Johnnie and I other than I wanted to maximize my time with him since yet again I had no idea what Lisa was planning for the coming New Year's Day weekend. I did look at what was happening last year at this time. It was raining same as it is now. I was also doing internal work and focusing on manifesting my outcomes <though last year I was more focused on financial outcomes>, same as I am doing now. The question is how do I make a breakthrough as I feel like I am doing the same things over and over and not really getting the results that I want. What do I need to change? What do I need to do differently? What do I need to focus on? How do I get the resources that I need? How do I get the guidance I am looking for? The discomfort I am feeling when I think about stuff I haven't manifested yet has got to lead me towards a path doesn't it? I can't be ok with just getting by, with doing stuff over and over. It's like my golf game. How long do I tolerate not making any improvements in my game?  How do I learn to focus better? How do I get rid of thoughtforms I don't want? Lots of questions. It's all about the work still I have to remind myself. And to balance that with having as much quality time with Johnnie as possible. 

I parked him in front of the computer all morning with Prodigy English and Math. Then had him do artwork after lunch. And THEN I did some basketball drills with him in the parking garage downstairs. Eh, who cares if it's raining?! I need him to break in his new basketball shoes anyway. I wanted him to learn not just basketball stuff, but also to pace himself or he'll be out of breath everytime he goes down full court. We'll see what happens. When we got back, I got a call from Lisa. She had spent the morning walking with Ines <as in Tony Cataldo>. I know she could care less about me at all so I am trying not to have any judgements and be as neutral as possible. She didn't get any stuff done yesterday, and didn't get much of anything done today. So she actually asked if I could keep Johnnie through this evening. I couldn't have asked for a better outcome than that. She dropped Claire off on the way to seeing a patient of hers and back we went to normal Thursday... Except, Hayil called off today's class. That's ok. That meant dinner at Panda Express tonight for he and I both. That meant finishing up my steps. Not only did we head out and do a dinner run, we went to Trader Joe's too. I had not done any shopping since the weekend before Christmas and i was running out of stuff. Tonight, I talked Johnnie into watching Frozen 2 again. I remember when it came out a couple of years ago and that was one of our favorites. I have a memory of driving down to San Diego with Johnnie and my mom and me playing LOST IN THE WOODS for Johnnie. That was all before the pandemic I think. Anyway it was great to sing all those songs we liked from the movie again. And so Johnnie and I got to do our thing anyway. Quality time. Year winding down. One more work day left. 

How did We Recover So Quickly

Today Lisa and I arranged for me to drop him off in the morning so I could go to the FRB. I had had me a 4-day weekend but now I have things to take care off before the year ends. Just like everyone else. The simple answer was that I focused on recovery and healing. Did I trip and fall. YES I DID. And the most important thing when that happens is always to find a way to get up and keep moving forward and not live in the shit. But live in the SHIFT. I realized while meditating last night that I was triggered when that lying about my age thing got brought up again. And although I was not ready to give in completely, it was more important for me to see how I was focusing on how equally shitty Lisa was. Her personality, her innate ability to push my buttons. And somehow, I managed to find a way to be grateful for all that as the vehicle for which I need to find my own healing and to see what it was that needed to heal. I reminded myself that EVERYTHING WAS ME PUSHED OUT, including the parts of Lisa that I hated most. And if she was pushing trigger points, it meant that it was ME pushing my own triggers to see how I could find a way to react in a more positive way. I didn't hate her. I hated ME. It was me that hated myself for lying about my age in the first place. Or more precisely that I was too weak to tell the truth. Yes we all lie. No I did not want to do it to hurt Lisa. I was trying to be accepted by her. And even now when I don't really have to be accepted by her anymore, maybe I still do. Because if I really didn't care, then why did I get so angry? Because it was a deflection from having to discuss the truth. I simply was not ready to fess up and I am sorry for that. Who knows what that caused or any ripple effects with Johnnie, which is really what i am most concerned about. The good thing was that although there is no long term fix for Lisa and I, we did manage to make it through the short term and ended the evening, dare I say, on a pleasant note really. And so today I hoped to do some more work on myself, some more work on my energy, some more work on forgiving myself, even as I had to show my face at work today. Actually, I didn't really need to do that. I just felt like my energy for work would be better served if I did. And I get to drop off Johnnie to be with Lisa for some more bonding whatever else was required. I had to drop the truck off too anyway. And so with that I get to the FRB before 9:30 and I'm back to work for a very short week.  I actually did manage to get quite a bit done, including getting specs for a difficult cabling project in the Training Room. I got to have a team meeting too and set expectations for the weekend. The IS Team simply couldn't be left alone for more than a few days without having to be reminded of stuff. Actually, there weren't that many folks at the FRB, as if everyone is simply waiting for this week to go by.  I stuck around for lunch then a meeting with Barbara and then an impromptu meeting with the building management and then off I went home. It was 3:30 when I left the FRB.

I went straight to Lisa's house and there was no one there. I did see that the truck was in the garage, which told me mom and son were probably at the park playing. I thought Lisa had all these things she needed to do but hey, whatever she needed to do to keep Johnnie occupied was a good thing. I simply went back to my apartment kicked my feet up, sent her a text to get together for dinner later, and then watched the latest episode of Willow on Disney+. Later on she would tell me she had already cooked a piece of salmon and wanted to eat it for dinner. Of course she would prefer that to eating at Maria's or something. Last night was the opportunity to eat out together. Tonight, she simply wanted to stay in. Later on I could tell she was in clean-up mode as she kept commenting that all she was doing all day was cleaning up after Johnnie. She didn't get anything done. I'm not sure why she couldn't leave Johnnie alone, but far be it from me to question her after Monday night. I even brought the cooked shrimp I was saving for later on in the week for me. And so with that, Johnnie had tofu and some rice, I had 1/4 piece of salmon and some of my shrimp and Lisa had the other half of what I had. Plenty of food for her I am sure. For me, I stopped at Taco Bell on the way home to get a crunchwrap to augment that fine dinner Lisa had LOL. After declaring that we are in the middle of rest and recovery day I was NOT going to stir the pot in any way. I even directed Johnnie to clean up after himself. Once we got back to my apartment, he could watch as much Garfield as he could. And it was back to normal Wednesday routine. I would note that he got a quesadilla too to augment HIS dinner LOL. But we still managed to make it to bed early. Back to work day in the books, just a couple of more days to go before the end of the work year 2022.

Salvaging the Legoland Day

I woke up this morning really with the intention of going to Legoland and having a nice day at the park. Was that possible? I visualized the three of us having a good time unaffected by the emotional shit we just went through last night. And I post all these pics from the day because the bottom line was we did make it to the park, we managed to not only be civil but we actually had a pretty good time actually. And we were cooperating and working together again. So much so that by the end of the evening, we picked up Claire with the help of Lisa's brother Joah without encountering any drama from Lisa's dad. WE left at 5:15 and got to Sierra Madre by 7:03, not encountering hardly any traffic at all. And we managed to eat at Baja Fresh. We chose it because it had outdoor seating, but we ended up being allowed to eat inside with Claire. And we got Johnnie a cheese pizza from Domino's next door. And Lisa and I had fish tacos and chips and guac again <and a burrito for me>. And we made it home before 9 PM. And Lisa was so tired she just said to take the truck and bring it back tomorrow. I was going to drop off Johnnie anyway since I had to make an appearance at work. And so despite the horrendous start last night, we ended up finishing the evening all well and good. And I will consider karma undone again. Still work to be done and that is ok. We at least had a pretty good Legoland day.