Roadshow TownHall Week

It's the last day of the month of January. AND the start of Roadshow Town Hall Week, with today's destination the Hollywood Health Center. It's not necessarily a good thing since HW, Echo Park, and Eagle Rock all take the same amount of time to get there. Heck they all do at this point so it didn't really matter. What was different was that I was up at 7 AM getting showered, and instead of taking Monday morning steps and focusing on my image cycling exercise, I'm getting ready to go to work in person. Mind you my bit should only last about 7 minutes. Kind of a lot of effort just for a 7 minute schpeel, but hey I'm being a good teammate, a good leader, and a good soldier aren't I? And so it was that I got there well before 8:30 and even got a chance to rehearse my schtick in my car on the way.  Gotta talk about UDS, gotta talk about Phishing stuff, gotta hand out my gift card.  Gotta make some jokes, make people laugh. The cool thing this morning though was that my staffer Lainie, who I just nominated for Employee of the month last week, actually won! How about THAT! And I did that at the last minute too LOL. And I did get some free bagels and some bland hot tea. Oh well, lesson learned for tomorrow. Bring your own Earl Grey LOL LOL. Actually, today's session ended way early. Much earlier than usual anyway. I was out the door and on my way back home well before 9:30... although with the traffic and all I knew I wasn't getting home before 10:15. At least not if I took side streets the way I did. Still i was home early enough to walk the dog. I didn't have to leave her much more than I would have if it were a normal day. And the best part was that I already got work done and so no need to push the rest of the day. I mean I do have work to do but why not savor the Rams win just a little more. Monday means all the football pundits are out in force reacting to yesterday's games. And of course the Rams were one of the highlights. So I watched sports news, then got a turkey roast from Marie Callender's for lunch. Then and only then did I start my walk in earnest.  Hey I still was at 7500 by mid-day. Still on track to clear 15,000+ today. 

And so it was that I just basically did the minimum amount of work the rest of the day. I tried to take a nap even but the thought of going after the 15000 steps today interrupted that. I couldn't allow myself NOT to do it in fact. I don't think I started that trend until spring of last year. This being the last day of the month, I reflected on how I stopped thinking about retiring. That's going to come, it's just something I don't need to chase. The money will be there too, which means when I do retire, I am a MILLIONAIRE. It just won't be on January 31 is all and that's ok. I still focused on a feeling of gratitude that I have all the money I need. Today and everyday. And in retrospect, January turned out to be pretty quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary is fine by me. Anyway, pretty soon, it was getting dark, which meant it was already 5 PM. I had gotten to 13000 steps and so hitting my target was all but certain. Last thing left to do on this Monday night was to pick up Johnnie and the dog. I called Lisa twice to announce that I was already on my way but she didn't pick up. Oh well, I guess she'll be surprised again. As it was, mom and son were in the kitchen when I got there. It was 6:30 and they had already had dinner. Good good good. Apparently Lisa has another early soccer game tonight and she actually seemed to be in a good mood. I mean she did complain about her staff yet again to which I responded to by saying "Join the club". We're all having staffing issues aren't we? actually I'm not really. I have what I have and I think all I do is the best I can with who I got. And more often than not it is good enough. If we were a football team, we're not the RAMS or the LAKERS by any stretch. We're not a team loaded with individual talent. WE are more the nondescript group that still manages to play within the system and wins a lot more than it loses. In other words I get the best out of my teams. And so the hand-off actually went pretty quietly tonight. I got myself my El Pollo Loco tostada salad for my dinner and then chilled the rest of the evening until bedtime. I'm headed to bed early actually. Another early morning is in store for tomorrow. 

At Least the Rams Are Going to the Super Bowl

Yesterday's post was titled "What is going on?" I should have known when I found out today that Mercury is in retrograde for the next couple of days. And maybe that would help explain how badly I played at Penmar today. To make a long story short, I hit mostly double bogeys on most holes, with a couple of saved bogeys in between. But this is Penmar. I always tell Scott that there is absolutely no reason why we don't have at least 3 pars each and every time we play here. And I don't really have an excuse. The weather was another nice, warm, beautiful Sunday. The tee time was not early at all. In fact, I had time to have breakfast at the apartment before I headed on out to the golf course. I could say that because of all the hubbub with the fire in my building last night, I didn't get enough sleep. I didn't really get to fall asleep until 2 AM, but still, I ended up with about 5 hours of sleep. Certainly I wasn't walking around dazed and sleep deprived. But I sure played like it though. Remember that streak I had of hitting pars on the first hole the last few times I played here? I could at least point to that as a consolation no matter how good or bad I play? Well that did not happen today, a predictor of things to come I guess. I shanked it badly to the left. And although I saved myself with a great 2nd shot that got to within 10 yards of the green, opening it up to a bump-and-run Arnel special, that didn't happen. I bumped it way past the hole and I missed the putt. Barely, but I missed it and ended up with a 6. On that hole. 2nd hole, I hit it so badly to the left AGAIN that it almost went out of the yard. It did hit a tree and shoved it way right... which happened again and again today. Again a great 2nd shot landed me near the green. But I misplayed the next 2 shots into another 6. 3rd hole, another bad shot off the tee and into the trees on the right. But I bumped in pin level off the rough. But again I missed putts for another double bogey. Same thing again on Hole 4. Way off to the left. Again. Hole 5, Hits the tree on the left pushing it way to the right. Hole 7, i did hit it out of the yard and I was lucky it didn't hit a car. FINALLY on Hole 9, I hit it fairly straight off the tee. Man, this was the way I USED to play back in the day when I was badly inconsistent. Man did I lose my focus or what? I could never get it back either, or better put I never could get the right focus for starters. Oh well, one of those days where I simply didn't have it. At least I hadn't played like this in a really long time. Months! Like I can't even remember the last time. But boy was it a stinker for me out there. Nothing to do but work on playing better next week <sigh>, and console myself with a nice lunch from Crimson like I used to do. That meant I ate there at the restaurant. My usual salmon kabobs and rice and lentil soup. I did that because I wanted to go home and take a nap and be awake for the RAMS NFC Championship game. Not that I wanted to watch it. OH I'd be far too nervous to do that. I wanted to do what I could in the 3 1/2 hour stretch to keep myself occupied. And that meant getting around to doing my HRSA reports, doing timecard approvals. Work stuff. I did get my nap in actually. And then I made some bibingka. Otherwise known as mochi cake from Trader Joe's. Pretty good though. I know it's the real deal because the one piece I ate sat in my stomach for the rest of the afternoon like a piece of lead LOL. And so I got my butt to work and kept hearing the quarter-by-quarter updates from ESPN, all the while resisting the urge to look up the score. By 6:30 I knew the game wasn't over yet. And one of those ESPN updates sneaked through while I was taking a break and playing CANDY CRUSH. The Rams were behind by a field goal. There were 6 minutes left in the game. Aww, the RAMS can pull this one out couldn't they? History said no. The Niners have won 6 in a row against the Rams. Imagine my surprise when I finally did peak just as the game ended. The RAMS DID pull it out. 20-17! They're going to the Super Bowl. Ahhh. Now on to all the post-game stuff. The Rams won! The Rams won!!

What Is Going On?

Today started off innocently enough, with a trip to Rockenwagner to get croissants and other goodies for breakfast to bring to Lisa and Johnnie. Predictably, when i get to Lisa's house, mom and son, and dog, are in her bed just laying around. Not that I blame them mind you. It IS Saturday after all. I could have been doing the same thing myself. But maybe we're simply "celebrating" making it through last night without Lisa blowing up LOL. This being Saturday and all, I was expecting to take Johnnie for the morning and then drop him back off by lunchtime, simply to give Lisa some ME time. But first, I know she wanted to have a family breakfast, and not only did I deliver that, I brought it up to the room. And so I not only brought breakfast, I brought breakfast in bed.  Lisa did not even have to lift a finger this morning. That would be my gift to her for today. I mean it wasn't a whole lot to eat, but they WERE Rockenwagner croissants after all. And when we got done, I even did the dishes for her. I was fully expecting to be out of there with Johnnie by 9 AM. But for some reason, i felt like it was Johnnie that wanted to hang around his mom for a change. It was Johnnie that didn't want to go with me this morning. I felt this when we kept lingering in his bedroom for a bit, and then for a long bit. And then pretty soon, Lisa came up with a project for the morning. Apparently, they had an orbiting toy space shuttle Johnnie got for Christmas and it needed to be fastened to the ceiling via plastic wire. Now mind you, screwing something up in Lisa's ceiling is a whole other level of mishaps and caution for me. Heck I wasn't forgetting the grief I got with every single home project I ever attempted in this house. And so I simply let Lisa take the lead. She can fasten the screws herself with her fancy schmancy Makita electric screwdriver LOL. I did help steady her hand after a bit but really Lisa did it all. In the meantime, Johnnie wanted to make planets that the shuttle was going to orbit around. He made all the planets in the solar system in fact. And then I had to help him affix those in the ceiling. That was much simpler and far safer, since all he was using was the blue tape. At the end of it all, we had finished the project of the day: and the result was the shuttle orbiting around the planets and the sun, as shown in the picture I posted. The pic itself had a surreal effect even. The light aka the sun looked real enough to begin with. Pretty cool I think.  

And with that i told mom and son I was headed to the store and actually that would be it for Johnnie this weekend I thought. Which was fine with me. See, with Lisa's new schedule, I actually get to see Johnnie on a Friday anyway, which meant I get to see him 6 out of the 7 days of the week.  It was all I could ask for and more.  And I headed on home and did my grocery shopping for the weekend, all by lunchtime.  And for lunch I actually baked some nice salmon and the rest of the leftover clam chowder and the rest of the leftover sourdough bread.  Ok so maybe I was trying to replicate the stuff I remember from Fisherman's wharf. It did turn out ok. But Fisherman's wharf clam chowder this wasn't. What it did do was help me get a nap in for almost 2 hours! I had nothing planned except to do the work I needed to do this weekend so I can do TownHall Monday and not have to have anything urgent to do all that day. And so I did my staff time cards, headed out to Target to pick up gift receipts for the quiz I had the EHR team do, and downloaded all the data I needed to do HRSA reporting. Heck I even got a shower in today before doing all those errands. I was about ready to just binge watch on something for the evening when the fire alarm came on. What's going on now? This happened a couple of times before, both false alarms really. I was hesitant to head outside to wait for the fire department to show up. But the damn alarm was incredibly loud and so I HAD to get out of the apartment to go outside. To my surprise, half the building was already out there. Including my cute neighbor with the dog named NOLA. Hmmm, perfect time to strike a conversation huh? Except that I didn't. There were lots of other tenants there of course, but I just basically crossed my arms and just watched like everyone else did. This time there really WAS a fire. I could smell smoke when I left my apartment, and so I headed back and grabbed my wallet and my phone just to make sure. And we all ended up waiting out there for almost an hour. When we finally got told to go back, the fireman in charge asked for the occupant of #103. hey that's ME. What's happening now? My apartment was perfectly fine when I left to go outside. Turned out the fire was in unit 202 one unit to the north of mine upstairs. And not only was there a real fire, it triggered sprinklers. And there was now water all over the place. They were tryng to clean up 102, the unit next to mine. And then when I went back in my apartment, I was greeted lots of dripping from the ceiling. This is the SECOND time this week, my apartment got affected by some other unit's water stuff. And so like Monday I tried to get buckets under the drips and cleaned up the floor. I was going to let the drip die off which it would have eventually. But then the building people came by at 1 AM asking to see the water damage. And then they brought in this dehumidifier machine supposedly to dry off the bathroom. In the end, it was ok... except that all that water must have done something with the circuit breakers. Because now I have no power in any of the outlets in the bedroom. Just great. It was 1:30 AM already and I was tired. I let myself fall asleep on the couch. Got a tee time tomorrow at 9 AM you know. At least the leaks are under control...

Ahh Friday

It's Friday and I already know I need a TANK DAY today. I know this because I already woke up feeling the lazies. No Johnnie to take to school, no dog to wake up at 6 AM to take outside to poop and still I didn't get out of bed until nearly 8 AM. Or maybe THAT'S why is that I had none of the usual drivers that would make me get up. Of course there would come a call from Lisa and today's version of drama. That would be that her phone conked out and she couldn't pull up the Daily Pass I gave her. And she couldn't call me in time to drop the dog off either. Nope. I had to go to her office and pick up the dog myself. I found her running around from operatory to operatory. How annoying must that be?! Hey at least they had a box of Yum Yum donuts in the kitchen. I helped myself to one. Sort of a reward for having to come out here in the first place right? Hey at least I was out and about already, and so I swung by Burger King to get their 2 sausage and egg croissant for $4 special. What a deal. Much as I like to fix my own stuff, it does get tiring to keep doing it day after day AND wash dishes afterwards too. $4 is fair enough to not have to do any of that. And then when i got home I realized I hadn't done anything. Not meditation, not the look at the markets that I keep telling myself I need to do in order to do something with my money, and definitely not even anything remotely work related. Hey, that's what a TANK DAY is supposed to be right? I figured, it's Town Hall week next week and I'm going to need to be on my game at least every morning, having to dress and get to the Health Centers first thing every morning. But that's next week. Today I found myself even getting in a really good low-frequency meditation session. It's pretty obvious the Universe is at least answering my request of getting aware of stuff I need to clear. And I do realize that that process is an ongoing thing.  Finally around mid-day I started stirring and waking up a bit. And I even made it out to La Salsa on Pico for some tacos for lunch. That's after I discovered that I liked La Salsa tacos. Today though they sat in my stomach and made it grumble. That's probably because I wolfed those down so quickly. AND THEN I did my walk around the neighborhood just to settle my stomach down.  I even took Claire the dog with me although she seemed a bit confused. Why are we walking so far I bet she asked LOL... 

So this being a Lisa workday, following the shift of her day off from Thursday to Friday, I picked up Johnnie at school. Lisa didn't actually have the day off last night because she chose to work. And so naturally she was not in a good mood when she picked up Johnnie and I was expecting the same tonight, not a week removed from that disaster of a pizza night just a week ago. But at least we could still have a decent dinner Johnnie and I. I got him his Panda Express usual and I threw in a broccoli beef bowl for myself too. And then of course came the usual videos and horseplay that characterizes our weekday evenings. Look at Johnnie trying to get the better of me with a blanket. I get out of breath trying to wrestle with him on the couch anymore. So last week Lisa came home around 7-ish. And when she called around that time I was expecting the same, although no dinner for all of us anymore since Johnnie and I already ate. What I didn't expect was that I was going to talk Lisa off the ledge again. She gets that way when she is in one of those hormonal moods, or when she gets triggered by her dad, or when she feels she has lost control with her dental practice. I simply explained to her that this is what happens when she worked yesterday. She is out of gas. And she needs to come home and forget about work at least for the rest of the evening. She still has the rest of the weekend to catch up. What I did not want to have happen is for her to have another one of those Lisa blow-ups. No need for that. For the life of me I do not understand why she simply can't think of coming home to that toothless grin of our son and the dog basically choking herself just so she could get held by her mom again. That would be enough for anyone. As it was she did finally listened to my advice and headed home. An hour later past 8:30 PM. By then I already drove Johnnie and the dog to her house. I gave the option to Johnnie of sleeping at my apartment tonight and he declined. Surprisingly, he would rather keep to the routine. And that is fine with me. I took him to her house and got him in his pajamas. And he even said he would wait for his mom to brush his teeth. Awww. See? No matter what Lisa is doofing around with, her son is still there waiting for her. At least she was in a decent mood when she did come home. It was past 9 PM by hey it's Friday and there's no school tomorrow. She even invited me to spend the night at the guest room. I politely declined BUT promised to come back in the morning with croissants for breakfast. All is good.

Still Chill For the Week

I could write about routine all day long and maybe the difference would be the pictures that I post. Today's pic courtesy of the school drop-off for Johnnie. The only difference being whether we get to see Brooklyn and Bailey or not. Anyway, I'm home by 7:51 usually, a good predictor for next week when I have to do those roadshow Town Halls all week long for version 3.0. This morning we had that Director's Meeting for the first time since before the pandemic and we directors always say this is the place where we could iron out all kinds of stuff since really it's the C-suites that always comes up with directives and it is us who get to implement them. I'm pretty active in these meetings simply because it is the only way I know to create value and THAT is ultimately what I strive to do while I am still doing the job that I do. I hope my peers see it, I hope my executive management sees it, and I hope even prospective employees see it as I had another interview for the Kennedy replacement today. That interview all but killed any hopes of me getting out to Roosevelt to play golf and that's ok. I wasn't sure that they had a spot for me anyway. I was happy just doing my meetings in the morning and then skipping out to get lunch. THis time I went to Ralphs by Lisa's office and got myself some tri-tip steak and veggie sides. I always liked this lunch deal from Ralphs and I note that I've been getting this on and off for the last 6 years now. No difference between going to this Ralphs for lunch than the one on Olympic downtown and hanging out at the Starbucks across the street.  And then of course I had to enjoy another nice warm-ish afternoon doing my walk in the afternoon. This I could do every day for a while and not bug about it. I suspect I'd be doing this when and if I am retired living off my multi-million dollar nestegg LOL. Of course doing this walk strengthens that by doing my image cycling about THAT specific outcome WHILE I walk. Makes me feel double good in fact. Of course I do realize it is Thursday and it is hand-off night tonight. Lisa isn't supposed to be working on Thursdays anymore but then again she wasn't supposed to be working Fridays either and still found ways to make it to her office. I do not fault her in the least of course. What she does on her day off is totally her business. Though i would suspect she could use more of doing the self-care stuff that I just described. Merely walking around my neighborhood is DEFINITELY self-care to be sure. Anyway I went to Panda Express early today because I had it in my mind that Lisa was going to pick up Johnnie around 6:30-ish tonight, like she did last week. Foolish me though realized very quickly that no 2 Thursdays with Lisa are EVER the same.  And when I didn't hear from her around 7 PM, I already knew she was at her office. The difference is a mental one. When I give myself an end-point and my brain is expecting it, I become sort of obsessed with it. As in I was starting to count minutes after 7 PM. Not that I didn't want to be with Johnnie anymore. Far from it. Just a trigger that Lisa hits with me and I actually am very aware of that. I become aware that I am highly resistant of her and whatever it is she asks me to do. And I NEED to watch myself and let go of my own pre-determined expectations. At least she came by 7:30 and I was able to finish my 11,000+ steps and go on with my evening and even managed to go to bed at a decent 11:30 PM. This Thursday was chill and I welcomed that 1000%. Now to finish off the week the same way...

Time travelling

I did some time travelling last night in my dreams. I travelled back to the time I was into real estate. How I worked hard at all the foreclosure stuff. How I gave up my job and had no income source and had to live with Karl for a while. I did have some sporadic success though. Bought 2 houses in fact and got 2 other offers accepted that didn't get followed through on. Man can you imagine if I got that Norment house in Altadena now that I have money? And that house is now worth probably closer to $1M! Heck even thinking about the condo I purchased for less than $60K. The 1 BR in Hacienda Heights possibly worth more than $360K now. And what about my foray into the stock market where I held Amazon stock for all of 2 days back in 1998 for $86 a share. Not even going to think about what THAT would be worth now. Again, sporadic success. But then I also saw that I over-leveraged and maxed out my credit cards. I mean what was I doing buying a BMW when I already had a Hyundai station wagon that was going to last a really long time? All that to say I made a lot of questionable financial decisions in my younger days. And had to go back to the thing that I knew best, which was a job. And I turned that into a healthcare IT career from 1995 on. 27 years going strong. But I also could have gotten serious about finding alternative means of income. I had my chance when i left USC Dentistry. But that summer I was very much distracted by a new relationship that would turn into marriage. Maybe I wasn't ready to do the work-for-myself thing back then. I need to learn to do that. To create. CREATE A PASSIVE INCOME STREAM OUTSIDE OF A JOB. That was always the goal. And now that I have money socked away, I can actually work on growing it. Forget the misadventures, bad decisions of the past. I let those go. Now. And now I have more information, more resources, more guidance. I really have to get off my ass.

Just An Ordinary Wednesday

It's a Wednesday and so I remember when this day used to be my busiest day of the week. Not anymore I don't think. In fact, although I had 2 meetings lined up today, one got done quickly and that was my team meeting anyway. And then the other one got cancelled, leaving the bulk of the day pretty much free for me to do what I will. And today that meant leaving any sense of urgency behind. And so you will forgive me if I post a video of myself making lunch. For myself. And doing it to Coldplay's Sky Full of Stars, my favorite song from Sing 2. That would be as light-hearted as I could get myself and it felt good. And I enjoyed a pretty good lunch to boot. And then I followed that up with watching this week's episode of Boba Fett. That itself was a treat because it wasn't really an episode of Boba Fett. For this episode, we return to Din Djarin. The Mandalorian himself back to bounty hunting. I'm not sure where this is going to go but hey it was great to see a thread to the old Mandalorian a la the MCU when storylines begin to weave together. Could another appearance by Luke Skywalker be on tap? Anyway it did feel like a very relaxed Wednesday afternoon and I rode that feeling of ease all the way to picking up Johnnie at school. I keep telling myself this is rehearsal for when I'm actually doing this all the time and not having to worry about job stuff, QueensCare stuff anymore. And I can't wait for that actually.

Now as far as part 2 of Wednesday, which is to say the part that starts when I pick up Johnnie from school, he didn't want pizza tonight. That's ok with me too. He actually wanted me to go pick up my dinner at El Pollo Loco so that he could have some churros himself. That worked for me too, since I already have broth and penne pasta in the fridge for HIS dinner. And so it was that it was a sort of 'usual family night Arnel style' this evening. Johnnie following up almost a full bowl of penne pasta with ice cream and snacks. I swear I do not know where that kid puts all that food! Or maybe it's because he eats such a meager lunch in comparison.  And then the dog joins us for some play and then Johnnie and I horseplay on the couch. I swear his punches on my stomach are something I feel these days where as before I wouldn't even know that he did. Now I better be careful and protect myself or I could get hurt! It was notable to me that this was around the time that we - and I use the term "we" rather loosely - got Claire the dog. And also on a sad note, this was also the day 2 years ago when we lost Kobe Bryant to a helicopter crash up in the Santa Clarita foothills. The sadness of that time frame is still something I remember. And then who can forget when we couldn't decide whether to take Claire to the vet emergency room because she hadn't really learned how to eat our food just yet and was throwing up and pooping at the same time! These days Lisa asks me if I was glad I had a dog. I wouldn't say I'm 1000% glad, but I've learned to be ok with it. Not like with Johnnie where I was all in 1000% from Day 1. And to this day when he goes to bed and I tell him "love you J-Bug" and he says "love you back Daddy-bug", I know my world is right. It may have been a simple, ordinary Wednesday. But you know, I love those to pieces anyway.

Since When Did Tuesdays Get Busy

So the title of the post reflected today pretty accurately. And that's because for whatever reason today became one of those days where I found myself putting my head down and working. Not that I wasn't supposed to mind you, just that this was like last Tuesday when I was cranking on my HRSA reports and putting together my Tech Concil presentation. That had some sense of urgency to it. Today, not so much except that I realize that I create my own sense of urgency anyway. I'm thinking, wouldn't it be great if I were back in Johnnie's world at 7 years of age and had less cares in the world other than to make it from one of the school to the other without getting "caught" by the bad guys? Some sort of game he and Brooklyn had conjured up. In the pic, Bailey <Brooklyn's sister> was chasing him to get a hug, which she does every morning we see her in fact. And Johnnie of course is running around and running away. The funny thing is that I also realize it is us that make our lives complicated when we grow older. And it takes a long long time, in my case decades, to realize that we are in far more control than we had thought. It took that long to become aware of the power of our own thoughts and that sometimes those very thoughts aren't exactly that of our own. Which is why I'm being careful of what Johnnie sees from me. I know he learns by example (modelling) and by the very words I use with him. Which is why I'm glad we've started to sustain the rhyming game that we do practically every day. And so it was that I dropped Johnnie off at school and then did my work day, focusing on reports, reports, reports. Not that we're behind on anything, just that I like to know data points. That's my thing you know. I like data. I did manage to take a break and go outside for lunch. That is, I took a walk to El Pollo Loco and ate lunch there. Sort of killed 2 birds with one stone actually. Had a nice lunch, enjoyed what turned out to be a nice day, AND got my steps in too. It would have been perfect if I got a nap in, but I got back to work just as soon as I got home. Is that work ethic? Or just a program? I'm not sure.

Each day I give my passion, my talents, my joy as a gift to the world. That was the affirmation I put on this morning and I must say it did move me. Maybe that was why I was motivated to work today. When I listened to those words, other words got magnetized to my awareness as well.
I provide massive value no matter what I do. And so it was that I actually got quite a bit accomplished today. And even those that needed my help I was able to do whatever I could. I noted that Johnnie also greeted me when I picked him up... I helped someone today Dad. I helped my friend Emma. Awesome. I have him focused on helping people. Or at least those that need his help. He will come to know he has very special gifts and I, for one, am eager to foster them. Tonight he actually played games we used to play when he first started doing at-home learning. I introduced him to Education.com games at least 2 years ago, with Muggo and Cuz-Cuz. The games were easy then. Now I have him doing 2nd and 3rd grade math games. And they are a lot more challenging. As they should. He actually did games for a good couple of hours. All that right after we all had dinner. I thought it was amusing to post a pic of the 3 of us, me Johnnie, and Claire the dog all eating at the same time though we were all eating different things. We got Panda Express for Johnnie and I same as we always do on a Tuesday night but I augmented mine with the beef from Trader Joe's. And then of course since it's Tuesday I had to make cookies right? And while Johnnie was playing his advanced games, I got enough ME time to finish 11,000+ steps. AND catch the last minute of a Lakers win, rare though that may be these days. AND finally, UCLA blew out rival Arizona in a Pac-12 battle of #1 and #2. Ahhh the world is right again. The Lakers won, The Bruins won, and Johnnie is softly snoring while sound asleep by 9:15 PM. All is good.

A Chill Kind of Monday

I woke up to a sunny Monday morning and I'm still perusing videos on the Rams win yesterday. Yeah I know I know I have to do my meditations, I have to visualize what I want to experience today. Really, it's simple. I want to feel like I had a nice, relaxing work day. After all, my back is still a tad bit sore from whatever I did yesterday. Couldn't be just that last bit where I chased a golf ball down a ravine could it? Or maybe it was that I was slamming the bell pretty well on almost all my tee shots. No the spasms felt real enough and although not quite as bit this morning, I still felt slightly sore. Not sore enough to dissuade me from doing my steps though. I am determined to keep up the 15000+ steps on Monday streak. And that meant to have 5000+ steps and at least 40 active minutes under my belt by 10 AM. I did that one better. I not only had 5100 steps, I did it with 50 active minutes too. Not that I wasn't logging in active minutes. Hey didn't I already give myself the Saturday off with just 9 active minutes all day? I still ended up logging more than 550 active minutes for the week! And so when I say I wanted to have a relaxed work day today, that meant blowing off a 9 AM meeting that I simply delegated to Noriel one of my guys. That meant stopping and having an intentional hot tea for breakfast. That means simply enjoying it. That meant not only doing my steps, but also doing my image cycling as I did them. And watching whatever anxieties came up. And finally, that meant simply getting to those tasks I put off last Friday. Including getting my auto insurance paid since I got a letter saying they had cancelled me since I didn't make the payment. What kind of test is THAT from the Universe? To pay attention? I took care of it in 10 minutes logging on to the website of course. Maybe I simply needed to be reminded to watch things from falling through the cracks. Any way the best thing about this morning was that I got myself a tuna melt from Marie Callenders. And I enjoyed it at the fountain/barbecue area by my unit. I was alone and that was great! I enjoyed my sandwich and the warm sun in my face. As if I was at Grand Hope Park on a Monday downtown.

Later on I got reminded that next week is Roadshow Town Hall week and that I needed to prep for it some. That is when I have to be in work mode for most of the week. But it also gives me an excuse not to think about or do other stuff LOL. Today, I also enjoyed more of the warm sun in the afternoon by taking more walk steps, I noted to myself that it was MLK Monday just a week ago and even though I had Johnnie like it was a Saturday, i still managed my 15000+ steps. And with no such excuse I got to 11,000 steps before 4 PM even. I knew it was pick up day too, but I waited until 6:30 PM before I headed on to Lisa's. When I got there mom and son were having dinner and I sort of got the feeling Lisa was surprised that I showed up without calling first. Ok maybe I should have called. She told me their first game of the new soccer league is tonight. So it was probably good that I showed up when I did, though she says it is early. She is just milking all of her time with Johnnie and I do understand. I would do the same. She also muttered something about these are the times she hates that we are divorced although I KNOW she is just talking without a filter, and it doesn't really mean anything. My mind reminds me: It's moot. We ARE divorced. And we ain't getting back so there's that. Who knows what she is really thinking about other than stuff that is bound to keep her in a state of unhappiness. In the meantime, as I told Johnnie later.. "Do whatever your mom asks you to do when she needs stuff cleaned up so we can get out of there as fast as we can. The sooner we're back in the apartment, then  we can do what we do." That was what it's about for me. I get to do what I do. When we got back to the apartment though, it wasn't back to what we do. That's because we walked in to a leak from the upstairs unit that has bled into our bathroom. As in everything was wet in the bathroom. What the heck?? I had to call the apartment management and they had to dispatch someone on an emergency basis. Turned out there was some kind of water leakage upstairs though we never got to confirm it. When the occupant turned the water off (most likely), the leaking stopped. And I got to clean up everything. Was this another one of those "pay attention" messages from the Universe? Or a rap on the head because of some emotion Lisa evoked. Either way it was simply a minor inconvenience and we got on with our evening Johnnie and I. Last year I remember my boiler went out. Echoes of something I'd say. And just minor inconveniences all. 

Nice Warm Sunday

It was supposed to be a warmer day than normal today and it did not disappoint. Perfect day to play golf in the morning. When I woke up this morning, I thought to myself it would be a great day if I had a nice golf game and if the Rams beat the Buccaneers in the NFC Divisional game later on today. So I posted a pic of me getting to Roosevelt Golf Course pretty early courtesy of the 2 Fwy route which got me there in under 25 minutes, with my bacon egg and cheese McGriddle and Earl Grey hot tea in my hand. Scott took his time getting there but who's checking LOL. I just had my breakfast, sat in the picnic area and watched other golfers tee off.  Today we were paired up with a Korean couple who claimed they were new to the game and just learned it just this past summer. The way they hit off the first tee, I'm not sure I actually buy that but hey, I blasted my first tee shot 200 yards and a bit off to the left too. And even though I shanked my 2nd shot, and my 3rd shot overshot the pin and went OB, I made a spectacular 25 foot putt to get my par! YES! See what confidence does for you? It's like I EXPECT to make par on the first hole of any of the courses we play now. Now as far as the rest of the game... That's what the 2nd pic was about. On that hole (Hole 5) I blasted a great tee shot straight down and past the sand trap but again overshot the pin on the next shot. I still should have hit par but I missed the putt and got a bogey. That's how 6 out of the 8 holes after the first one went actually. Even on the bad 2nd hole, I had a nice recovery 2nd shot to end up right on the base of the hill to the pin. But muffed the chip. I got a bogey on hole 3, A 6 on hole 4 even though I was already on in 3. Missed par putts on Hole 6 and 7 even though I was on in 2 as well. And on 8, I just lost focus even though my 2nd shot was already on the fringe and a mere 25 feet from the pin. And THEN on the last hole, even from the black tees, Scott and I both deposited our first shots right on the green! Then I had to chase the ball of one of our partners that went clear out of bounds and down the hill to the rattlesnake area. In doing so, I tweaked something. My back started to twitch. And I lost focus and did a 3-putt to finish what should have been a par at worst. At least Scott got his par and then we took a selfie for the Greg hole and went on home. Hey it turned out to be a nice day and I really couldn't complain about my play. So part 1 done. I went home and made myself lunch, only because there were do many leftovers in the fridge. I cooked up some turkey bolognese albeit it tasted like taco meat. And did pasta lunch AND a couple of burrito/quesadilla combos. That worked just fine. I should have taken a nap too. I started to feel spasms in my upper and lower back when I got out of the car on the way home. Was I just simply dehydrated from the heat? Or did I really simply exert myself more than usual? What? Playing golf? Naah... Anyway, I knew full well the RAMS game was going on, but I couldn't bear to watch it. I did see snippets from ESPN being sent to my iPad via notification. I was determined not to watch until it was nearly over. When I did, the Rams were up 14 points with 4 mins to go. And then 3 minutes later, expecting to see the final seconds tick off, I had to watch Tom Brady, Mr GOAT himself lead an improbable comeback to tie the game with less than a minute to play. Sigh. Is this going to be like the 49er game from 2 weeks ago? They had that game won I thought. Fortunately, with 42 seconds left, I watched Matt Stafford hit 2 straight passes to Cooper Kupp and then the kicker hit a game-winning walk-off field goal. YES!! Rams to the NFC Championship game next week! Part 2 done. It was already a heck of a day. And it was only 5 PM. I just chilled the rest of the way. Didn't feel like cooking, didn't feel like doing anything. Just got dinner from Chipotle. And watched NFL post-game. It's me doing the self-care thing. And preparing for next week's work week...

Saturday Half Day with Johnnie

So Lisa has to work today and so I am at her house picking up Johnnie and the dog at 7:30 AM this morning. The past Saturdays I ended up keeping Johnnie until night time, even having to get him ready for bed at Lisa's house one Saturday night when she decided to work until really really late. I stayed there until 9 PM when she decided to finally come home I remember. Today, there won't be any of that. That's because Heidi, Jared and the kiddos are coming for the final slots in the afternoon and Lisa requested that I bring Johnnie to the office by 1 PM. Actually 12:30 if he wanted to help assist with any of the procedures. I didn't mind at all, since I have actually seen Johnnie for significant stretches of time this entire week, including MLK Day on Monday. Some early ME time would be good for me too. But first I wanted to maximize whatever time I had with him this morning. And I am not going to deny that I had so gotten used to having Johnnie with me for most of the day on a Lisa work Saturday that I actually felt a pang of hesitancy when she asked me to bring Johnnie over much earlier than usual. And so this morning Johnnie and I went to Elysee for breakfast. Johnnie must have been hungry from not eating as much last night as he normally would when he stays with me. But then again it wasn't like he didn't eat anything either. This morning he ate all the sausage and half the eggs. AND the croissant too. The only thing he didn't consume was the orange juice. Anyway we did our routine, hung out at Westwood and then to Target to pick up a few things. It wasn't even 9:30 AM yet and I could feel it was already going to be a warmer day than usual. And I am definitely not complaining. When we got home, we immediately went back outside. We had brought Johnnie's hoverboard with us. He seemed to labor when riding it last night in the streets although it WAS dark and you couldn't see the road and what you were riding over exactly. I wanted to see how he did this morning on MY neighborhood roads. And the answer can be seen in the video I posted. He didn't seem to have any trouble at all. And so this is another thing he has already learned. Johnnie noted that I taught him how to ride a bike and how to scooter a couple of years ago. This time it was his mom that got him to learn to do this. I was glad of course. Can skateboarding be too far behind? Anyway we got to ride around the neighborhood and I got some walking steps in chasing him of course. And then we went to Panda Express Westwood to get lunch. Yes, the morning went by seemingly in no time at all! Before I knew it, I was already dropping Johnnie and the dog at Lisa's office. I saw him putting his gloves on to assist. And that would be it for the rest of the weekend. With all this time on my hands all of a sudden, I did the thing that I do even when Johnnie was with me on a Saturday. I took a nap! AND THEN I actually started to watch NFL football! The Packers were playing those hated San Francisco 49ers after all and I'm not going to lie... I took great satisfaction that the Packers marched right down the field on their first drive and scored a TD. The Rams don't play until tomorrow but what the heck, I can watch football for my Saturday afternoon. Until the 49ers ended up pulling off the upset of the Packers! Damn those guys... Actually I ended up binge watching Wynona Earp. Yeah, just another series between a strong supernatural female character and some evil entities a la Van Helsing. What is it about series like these that has me binge watching? I know I could be doing other things. But then again I note that although I finished with 9000+ steps this evening, I managed only 9 active minutes. First time I had gotten that low in forever. Still I felt no urgency to step it up or to even get it double digits. I'll leave it right where it is without any special effort. And watch I will still have comparable numbers by the end of the week tomorrow. And so it was that this Saturday turned out to be a different one and I didn't really get much of anything done. Except chores and errands. Grocery shopping. Laundry. I guess that was the point. In that case, I did get lots done. That is perfectly fine.

Tank Day and Lisa Being Lisa

I already decided that I was going today was going to be a TANK DAY. No Johnnie, no dog, lots of ME time. Until Lisa called to drop off the dog with me right after she dropped off Johnnie at school. You see she swapped her Thursday and Friday schedule, so she now has Thursdays off and now works on Fridays. And so she obviously needed me to watch the dog. AND pick up Johnnie from school later. THAT part I didn't mind so much. I don't usually get to see Johnnie on a Friday. This way I do. And anyway, it was just the dog. I still got to do a lot of stuff this morning. Which included finding a way to rid myself of FEELINGS of "I NEED TO DO SOMETHING FOR WORK'. Feelings of annoyance and irritation of those that are asking stuff from me. Marina always, the new Director Starlette. And I am fully aware I feel these feelings of annoyance even while Eloisa is on vacation and not actually asking anything of me.  Just more feelings of "I AM SICK OF WORKING ANYMORE". I do need to pay attention.  That and the videos from Kyle Cease I watched this morning regarding money. I was basically getting reminded that what is happening in my perception of the outside world is merely a reflection of what I am focusing on. If I am manifesting not-enoughness, it's because I am focusing on not-enoughness. And the obvious remedy is to focus more on being enough and having more than enough. And being grateful for it already. Now. And so I did some meditation this morning on just that. Being grateful for already having a lot more money right now than I did last year and also the year before that. And for lunch I actually tried to put myself in the feeling of not being at work. In the past that meant simply sneaking out and going to watch a movie for a couple of hours. Today, I went to have lunch at the Century City mall. Went to Massis Kabob and enjoyed some koubideh kabob. And enjoyed the nice warm day that it was. I mean look at the pics of the Century City mall food court area outside that I posted. Can't do much better than that for a mid-January day. People walking around in shorts. I took the opportunity to make a stop at the Container Store to pick up plastic storage for Johnnie's toys that are starting to sprawl in my living room. I'm going to have to start throwing stuff out that's for sure. Anyway, I noted that 3 out of the 4 work days this week I was able to hang out and be places where I wouldn't normally be if I were still working at the office, and THAT makes a pretty big difference in terms of feeling a lot more relaxed. I even went home and took a little power nap in the afternoon, before walking some more around my neighborhood until it was time to pick up Johnnie. I normally do not pick him up on Friday but then again it isn't like I'm otherwise occupied anyway. I know Lisa and I made plans to do pizza night tonight. But a huge part of me knows that LISA BEING LISA means plans are by no means in concrete on nights that she works.  And so I made sure that at least Johnnie was fed. I picked him up and headed right to Mitsuwa Marketplace so I could get him some udon. That and some ice cream and it doesn't matter what Lisa and I end up doing for our dinner. Part of me wanted to get something to eat too. But then again, I was still holding out hope that maybe we could order that pizza at the corner at that pop-up stand and make a night of it. As it was, Lisa called around 6 PM and told us to go ahead and go over to her house by 6:30 PM. And so here's where it somehow unraveled. Lisa said she had eaten a whole bunch of cookies at work and so she really didn't need to eat a whole lot. She suggested we do pizza slices instead of the entire pizza. Already I knew we weren't going to have a pizza right then and there. Still we walked over there to the popup pizza stand. It had turned into a not-quite-so-cold evening with Santa Ana winds blowing. And when we got there Lisa was told they didn't sell pizza by the slice and we would need to wait 30-40 minutes for a whole pizza. More like an hour actually. Sigh. And so we just decided to go back home. But we couldn't just go back home. Johnnie had brought his hoverboard with him. And so Lisa decided we'd go back home the long way down Marco Pl and around to Maplewood. What-in-the-heck? I don't get to eat and now I have to do a walk even though I already walked 11,000+ steps anticipating that I wouldn't do any walking when I came down? Talk about out of sync! Still I didn't want to make any trouble. And so we all took that stroll. By the time we got back to Lisa's house it was nearly 8 PM and now I was hungry. I know Lisa would try to put something together to eat, even knowing full well that I HATE when she does that and that caused a major fight on Christmas Eve. She's doing it again. This time, I simply told her I'm tired and I wanted to go home. I gotta be back tomorrow early anyway since it is a work day for her. And I made a stop at Taco Bell to pick up a couple of tacos and a burrito for dinner. The win here was that despite Lisa being Lisa, Friday evening was not spoiled. And that we still managed to do SOMETHING together. I'll see Johnnie first thing tomorrow.

Bad Miscommunication

So the day after Tech Council Meeting Day is always considered by me as a breathe-out kind of day. In fact, in previous years, it would also be CCALAC Meeting Day that would pretty much take up most of the day, even though the meeting itself was only for a couple of hours. The key was that it got me out of the office, it made me feel good about the job I was doing at QueensCare, and I felt the respect of my peers. Most times LOL. Today I decided maybe I will join Scott and his friends for golf albeit at 1:20 PM. I always used to say my barometer for enjoying my weeks more would be if I played more golf during the weekday right? And so I did have a spate of meetings all morning that I had to do. And of course first things first means witnessing the daily play of Johnnie, Brooklyn, and Bailey as I drop Johnnie off at school <first pic>. And so I blasted through my meetings which really did take all morning, including a half hour interview with a Kennedy replacement candidate. That interview didn't really move the needle for me and my team and there was enough doubt there so that we decided we need to take a long at more candidates. OK then. My meetings got done by noon and then I high-tailed it to Los Feliz to make it Roosevelt Golf Course by 1 PM. I shoved some leftover pizza down my throat from last night, but since I did get there before 1 PM I decided to have a turkey melt too. And hey since I'm here anyway I figured I would just enjoy the patio view. It was a nice, warm day too... perfect for a round of golf. I pinged Scott to verify the reservation time and to make sure I was included in the reservation and he sounded like he was running late. So 1:10 came and no Scott. 1:15. then tee time 1:20. No Scott and no other people he played with that I had sight-familiarity with. That's when it hit me that he probably made the reservation for PENMAR, not Roosevelt. Sigh. Oh well. At least I had a nice 2 hour break for lunch. That's because it took a full hour to drive back home! See the pic I posted of the museum on Wilshire Blvd? That was my route home. And man was there so much construction going on EVERYWHERE or what? Oh well, it felt like the normal break for the CCALAC meeting at least time-wise. Back then when that meeting got done, I would find myself at Macy's on 7th or something simply to waste time until it was time to go home. In this case, it was 2:30 by the time I got back home. And at least I did get to get out and enjoy a warm day even if I didn't do anything active. I remedied that by taking a walk immediately when i got home. I would confirm later on that we indeed had a miscommunication and that Scott's group was at Penmar. Sigh. And so the rest of the evening went routinely. Or at least it seemed so. I picked up Johnnie at school, then we went to Whole Foods since I talked him into eating Italian sausage for dinner. Which also gave me a chance to eat pasta and same sausage for MY dinner. And then the surprise of the evening was that Lisa called at 6 PM to pick up Johnnie! W-h-a-t?? I didn't expect her to call until almost 9 PM like she had the last few Thursdays. Turned out I forgot she now has Thursdays off and switched her work day to Friday. She seemed calm and even happy on the phone! What a difference a day off made! I was happy to hand Johnnie and the dog off by 6:30 PM. That gives me time to clean up the house or just chill the rest of the evening away. And we made plans for me to pick up Johnnie at school tomorrow instead. All good. I get to see him one extra hour one extra day.  So the day didn't turn out like anticipated. But hey, at least I didn't spend the afternoon "working" LOL. Good enough for me.

Another Tech Council Meeting Day

A Technology Council Meeting Day on a Wednesday means that is where my focus is at least until 2:30 PM when it's over. And what happens when it IS over, you see the first posted pic. That's me taking a walk around my neighborhood padding my steps count. AND trying to get at least 70 active minutes for today, metrics that at least ensures that I am active and moving. AND I get to enjoy a nice warm-ish afternoon in mid-January. In other words, I am taking a breath out not that I was all that stressed from the meeting. The nice development as of late is that the Communications Meeting we used to have the week before the Tech Council Meeting is now the same DAY as the TEch Council Meeting and so really it's sort of a rehearsal since I'm presenting pretty much the same information as the Tech Council but very much abridged.  I feel like I keep spouting the same information in fact, but then again is anyone really paying attention? Do they really care? I feel like most are ok knowing I am at the wheel and that I have everything under control. As it was I did get cranking in the morning, catching up on lots of stuff, including Meeting minutes from 3 months ago that I didn't do. I got 3 months worth done inside of an hour! AND I managed to meet with the Data Team to assure MYSELF that things are under control. AND I got a troubleshooting meeting with OCHIN done before the TEch Council. In other words, I got a whole lot of stuff done. And as far as the meeting itself? Other than using it to educate the new ones that were there, I was anticipating a quick meeting. Then again, this meeting usually meanders certain directions and I don't really have any idea which way. Today, it was the FRB return-to-work plan and getting hardware replaced and making sure we're in the state of operational readiness in case we DO get called back at any time. And so what happened was that the meeting itself took the entire hour, which was unexpected to be sure. But I felt like I did get some good content discussed, a couple of asks where noted and the meeting went pretty good I thought.

And so I did my walk and then chilled on the couch and relaxed until it was time to pick up Johnnie at school. He had is usual download when he came out of STAR of course and he had his usual stack of artwork in his bag. I reminded him that it is pizza night tonight and so I got our 2 medium pizza from Dominos, one cheese, one sausage and pineapple. And I noted that once we got the route and routine down, it actually takes no more than 20 minutes out of our way to get our pizzas at the Sepulveda location. That is contrasted to picking it up at Domino's Pico Blvd or that first we went when I took the Culver Dr Route and got stuck there for a half hour. Now it's eezy-peezy and Johnnie and I had plenty of food for the evening. The picture I posted was after dinner when Johnnie shifted to play mode and started to dance to the Magic School Bus music episode. I'm glad he has reverted back to that, from Peg the Cat, and before that from the Wild Kratts. Look at him dancing around. And actually this evening, I gave him a treat. Since he always asks for dessert, and then a double dessert after that, he and I went for a walk. That's because he wanted to print out his artwork for the week. We had to do that at Staples of course and what better way to finish off my 11,000+ steps tonight than to walk there and back! AND on the way back I promised him a chocolate pop dessert from Starbucks... Except Starbucks closed at 7 PM except for the drive thru. Oh well, a promise is a promise. And so we went back to my apartment garage and took the car and got his chocolate pop from the drive thru. AND Johnnie "bought" me a hot tea as well. After all, he said he had $2. Enough money to purchase his own chocolate pop. And if I added a little more he said, I could also get a coffee or a tea. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that he now has an awareness of money. And so we ended up not only having a nice evening walk, which was definitely out of the normal routine, but we got him a dessert also out of the normal AND his pictures actually turned out to be pretty cool. And so it was that I had a pretty good day and when I tucked Johnnie in to what is now his bedroom <the couch in the living room> we both thanked the Universe for such a good day. I wasn't done yet. I watched the latest episode of Boba Fett to wind down my evening. This episode had connections to the last couple of episodes of the Mandalorian Season 2. I liked it. As I drifted to sleep I reflected again that it really was a pretty good day.

Start Of A Short Work Week

A couple of things happened first thing this morning before I even got to start my day. First, I showered on a Tuesday morning, even before Johnnie woke up. It occurred to me that I didn't even shower yesterday since I was so occupied with Johnnie. And then this morning when I dropped Johnnie off at school, I saw Brooklyn getting dropped off by her grandmother. I'm sure Johnnie will love that since this is the first time Brooklyn is coming to school after the holiday break. She had tested positive for Covid last week and had to quarantine and miss the first week back from the break. That alone already makes it feel like things are finally back to routine. In the meantime, I got a lot of stuff done today, a heck of a lot more than usual and the puzzling thing is that I got them done quickly and I'm left wondering why it took me so long to get around doing them in the first place. With the long weekend, the first thing to get done was timecards. And then I had my team meeting. And then I had contract stuff to get to. And of course I had to work on transition stuff for the new network and the new Voice system. Lots to do. AND I got everything done EXCEPT my presentation for tomorrow's Tech Council Meeting. I did get started on it already so all I had to do was follow my own template for the content. It's just that I do have quite a bit of content. I'm thinking the meeting isn't going to go for more than 45 minutes, but then again you never know. It had not gone less than an hour in the past few months though I didn't really prepare that much content. Lots of people ask questions is all. What I ended up doing was putting my head down, getting my presentation done and I took breaks along the way. Lots of breaks. Walking breaks. I at least got to almost 6000 steps by the time it was time to pick up Johnnie from school. And by the time I did that, I actually felt like I had accomplished quite a bit already for today.

And I had one more thing I planned to do. After Johnnie and I got dinner at Panda Express, after he had his round of desserts, after I finally finished my presentation for tomorrow, I made sure Johnnie was occupied with a project. He wanted to make a drawing or pictures of his day sort of like news style. Perfect. I needed him occupied because I was going to FaceTime a woman I had met online just a couple of days ago. Tara was her name and she was a psychologist who works for the prison system and lives in Santa Clarita. She had actually sent me a like and a compliment and I responded. Mind you I get lots of those now. At least one a week on Match.com actually. But she was the first one in a while that I felt like I might be interested in. She had a nice profile and she looked ok. You never really know until you meet someone in person. And you wouldn't know until then if you have any chemistry, or if you have that attraction factor I call it. The last time I went on a date was way back in May and I knew then the attraction wasn't there. Or at least it wasn't mutual. So that didn't pan out. And so here I am almost 9 months later and maybe this pans out. One never knows. The ritual is the same always. You connect online, then do email or FaceTime to make sure the person is real and see if the other person is at least looking like her pictures on her profile. In this case, they did so who knows. The purpose of these first steps is always to get to the next step. And tonight Tara and I talked for about 45 minutes and then agreed to talk again. Is that how you build a friendship at first in an organic way? Who knows anymore.  All I do know is that I am not in any kind of rush to get into anything. And so we shall see. In the meantime, Johnnie started popping in to the bedroom when he got done doing his picture(s). And by the time I was done with my call, it was back to his pre-bedtime routine. One thing about meeting someone new is that inevitably I would talk about Johnnie because you know, they ask you about your kids. And talking about him makes me feel even closer to him as his dad. I put him to bed <on the couch> gave him a big kiss and told him how much I love him as he closed his eyes. Yeah... it was a good day.

MLK Day Off

I am TRULY grateful to have the day off, also knowing that we won't have President's Day off next month. It is the day we honor Martin Luther King and even Johnnie and his class has spent time talking about the significance of his words and deeds. Johnnie was even volunteered to draw him for his class, which I thought was pretty cool. From a practical and logistic standpoint though, it felt like a Saturday which meant I probably was not going to get to my steps regimen until later. That's because Johnnie and Lisa called me first thing to ask me to come over for breakfast. Actually, Lisa was complaining about how sick she felt. Again. And that she wanted to stay in bed all day. I am sorry but I just don't commiserate with her as much as she would like. But I was happy to have breakfast with them and spend time with Johnnie, as she actually asked me to watch him for most of the day while she got some rest. Happy to do THAT. And unlike Saturday when I came empty handed and had to improvise, this time I brought bacon, and I brought milk which I was going to throw out by midweek anyway. And so it was that while Lisa lay in bed and debated with herself about how she was feeling and what she was going to do about it, I made us all breakfast. I made some pancakes with just flour so they actually turned into crepes, made scrambled eggs, hot tea, and heated up my pre-cooked bacon that I brought. <which by the way made Lisa jump in anger because she thought I was cooking bacon from scratch in her microwave. Funny, funny, funny> And so we actually had an even better breakfast from Saturday in my opinion. In the middle of all that, her cleaning lady came which actually made it ok for Johnnie and I to take our leave and take off for the morning. Like I said... just like Saturday. Johnnie was all too happy to hang out in my apartment watching his cartoons and without the dog even.  And it felt like the last 2 Mondays anyway, since Lisa dropped him off at 11 AM the past 2 weeks. And finally I did get started with my steps regimen and actually got to 5000+ steps before lunch. I don't even know how I managed that! Considering it felt like a Saturday, Johnnie and I went to Panda Express for lunch of course. That was after returning to Lisa's house thinking we were going to ferry her to Urgent Care to get her seen by a doctor. I don't really know how to get her to decide, but at least she decided she was going to just stay in bed all day. For Johnnie and I, it was like OK GOOD off we go back to the apartment. With a stop at Panda Express of course LOL. I'm thinking to myself do we really need to pander to Lisa the way we do? All she wants is some attention I guess. As long as I don't have to hang around her house all day, I am ok with that. Even though I know full well it is going to suck up some of my day off. As it was Johnnie and I actually got to just hang out for the afternoon. I got him to draw something which cost me $2, We played use-the-kali-sticks to score a goal with a balloon. And though we were having a good time, again we returned to Lisa's house to bring food. I brought split pea soup for her from Whole Foods, and El Pollo Loco tostada salad for me and I already cooked Johnnie's penne and brought my own broth. In other words, we took what we would have been having at the apartment and simply brought it to Lisa just so we could have dinner together. All that so she can come to some realization and verbalization that "I don't make her happy". Very hilariously funny. As if I was created for that purpose LOL LOL. Fortunately, I had had a good day and I just laughed it off as something she is not filtering and thinking out loud because she has spent more time with her mom. She still does not get that all this dissatisfaction is centered on her DAD, not me. What did she say this afternoon when we came by? She told Johnnie that dad does not get sick. Because he does not have as many stressors. And when she gives me stressors, I just ignore it. YES!!! I got it down!!! I'm even GLAD she sees that.  She wanted us to help her put away Christmas stuff too, but I think she simply got tired of trying to goad me into some drama. She just basically sent Johnnie and I off for the week. Which is a very very good thing. See ya!!! And with that I noted that not only did I finish my 15000+ steps today, I also did my HRSA report. On my day off. Oh well, at least Johnnie and I got to hang out. And we get routine back tomorrow...

Golf and Playoff Football

So today our tee time is at 9:30 AM at Harbor Park. Chris had bowed out yet again at the end of last week, citing an inconclusive COVID test from Connor. I think he found yet another excuse not to play and that is ok. We'll keep giving him chances if and when he does reach out. In the meantime, Scott and I do just fine getting paired up with random people. Today it's with a couple of Harbor locals actually and a nice old guy who doesn't play all that often. <Funny he played well enough actually> My first 3 shots off the tee were absolute bombs right down the middle. And the one on hole 4 was a nicely  placed shot less than 100 yards from the hole. If only I could be consistent and string 2 or3  good shots in a row. Maybe THAT is the goal right? To put a string of good shots together. On the first 2 holes, those nice first shots were followed by absolute stinker misses, both almost going way out of bounds. How do I not focus. All I gotta do is dig under the ball. Instead I top and miss right off boat 2nd shots. Finally on the 3rd hole, my 2nd shot was ALSO an absolute bomb. 2 shots in and I was already less than 60 yards from the hole. Long story short, I missed my par putt on that hole. But I got a 2nd chance and got a par putt in the next hole. Missed that too. And I got a par putt 3 more times in the next holes. Missed all those. Sigh. And so in the end, after the disastrous first 2 holes, I actually settled down to play pretty well. I have GOT to find a way to bottle what I'm doing on the tee shots which is now pretty consistently hard hit and long and straight. Couldn't complain at all. Anyway, those 2 locals we played with didn't play any better than I did, or not THAT much better anyway and I'm sure they play this course much more often than I do. And so I was satisfied that we were able to hang with them for the most part, although Scott looked visibly disappointed with his game today. I didn't shoot any pars but at least I was close and was putting for those on 5 holes. Some of those putts I really should have made too. Oh well. In the end, it turned out to be a warm day, in fact, so much I didn't even wear a sweater to the golf course. Should have worn shorts in fact. And after golf I made a stop at IN-N-Out El Segundo of course and there was no one in line. This is what I like. No long wait at all. Just my double double washed down by a Coke. It was already a pretty good day. 

And so lunch all done, I was ready to take a nice long nap for the afternoon. After all I did mention I didn't sleep a whole lot last night and I needed to catch up. But I got caught in NFL Playoff football for the afternoon. As in I ended up watching the 49ers and Cowboys. I mean the Rams weren't even playing until tomorrow night and I got sucked in to watching the game. Especially since the Niners pulled off the upset for the 2nd weekend in a row. Of course Dallas playing pathetically the way they did sure helped SanFrancisco along didn't they? And so it was that just that act of watching that football game shifted me into LAZY mode. I didn't feel like doing much of anything. I didn't feel like finishing the housecleaning that I started on Friday any longer. Heck I was already up to 11,000+ steps today and all the way to nearly 200 active minutes. For the 2nd Sunday in a row, my resting heart rate elevated past 110 for at least an hour after I came home from golf. I had to tell myself that there wasn't anything wrong and that i was not having a cardiac event. Last week I thought my body was fighting off something actually. Remember I caught that 24-hour bug and I didn't get rid of it until mid-week. No such thing today. In fact, I stopped by the drugstore after golf and picked up some Zycam. We're all so stuck on COVID that we almost forget there is still such a thing as the common cold. Anyway what I ended up doing was watching Iron Fist re-runs. Hey, it's Marvel isn't it? I don't have to work tomorrow. I can do anything I want and sleep in. Of course who knows what will happen tomorrow... we'll just have to wait and see.