Connections Connections Connections

So the Town Hall this morning started at 8:30 AM and I dare say we did much better than the previous all-employee Town Hall. That one started 10 minutes early because someone on our team clicked on start the webinar button and I had to scramble music for 10 minutes! No such worries for me this time since I'm not hosting and it went pretty smoothly, even my bit which was supplemented by Eloisa with additional slides about UDS. And then right after THAT Town Hall came a supplemental one with just the FRB folks. That's when Barbara let everyone know that the FRB was pulling the plug on the whole return-to-the-office thing and re-imposed strict restrictions due to the recent omicron surge.  Makes total sense actually. It would have been completely tone-deaf to march everyone back in the office, not that most departments were even moving in that direction anyway. The vast majority of our administrative staff preferred to keep working from home, except for TWO people. Anyway that was rendered moot and so we're back to not worrying about coming back through at least the rest of this month and most likely even next month. And so with those out of the way I turned my focus on a couple of last minute things that came up. First, Fed pinged me late last night and let me know they were headed to Santa Monica at some point this afternoon and it would be nice to meet up. And then Lisa this morning mentioned that Diana Gold was coming up to have some procedures done and it would be nice to have dinner.  Well then... I guess that takes care of my schedule for the afternoon and this evening right? Hey I could think of fewer better things to do than bring Johnnie to the Samo Pier and hang out a bit...

So we were supposed to meet up with Fed and fam at 1:30 at the pier. I got there by 1:40. By 2 PM they hadn't showed. Johnnie and I walked all the way to the end of the pier and back and by 2:30 PM still no Gonzales family. I was starting to get annoyed really, not that I didn't like being here. After all, there aren't that many things that I can think of about how to spend a weekday afternoon that hanging out here. There weren't as many people as usual. Probably due to omicron hesitancy. But it wasn't like the place was empty either. Finally around 3 PM they finally came. They had gotten Covid tests in the meanwhile. And so we caught up again and I noted this was the first time they were meeting Johnnie. Funny that Johnnie simply being Johnnie manages to captivate his audience.  Within 15 minutes he was telling them all about his school, about Brooklyn, and telling them a few of his stuff from Bad Joke Day at school. No, the kid isn't shy at all. I was glad that they got to meet him. And despite not really doing much, by the time we got done and they headed on home, I was already at 11,000 steps! We walked around so much that Johnnie mentioned at least a couple of times that his legs were tired. It was already past 4 PM by the time we got back to the apartment. And it wasn't long before we needed to head right back out to Lisa's office to meet up with she and Diana Gold. Obviously I wanted to let her know that Lisa and I had made peace since Christmas Day. And Lisa decided that we were having dinner at Maria's Italian Kitchen on Pico. Man, we hadn't eaten at this place in a while. This is what I like about hanging around other people. I can't see where I would have been able to convince Lisa to eat her if it were just she and I and Johnnie! I remind myself that I was trying to get her to do sushi the day she erupted at me in anger because I wouldn't eat what she had in her fridge. Tonight not only were we having dinner with Diana, but Chantal also showed up. And so here it was Lisa got a dinner with her long-time extended family. No way I could have predicted this gathering at the beginning of the week! And so as it turned out we not only managed to connect with my relatives from the Philippines, we also managed to connect with Diana AND Chantal together. I had spaghetti and 2 HUGE meatballs. Lisa had minestrone soup. And we all enjoyed dinner for once with LISA! I can not overstate how rare this was. Diana let me know how glad she was that we were able to be friends again Lisa and I.  And for the second night in a row I had a lot of food for dinner. Still it ended up being one memorable day in the middle of the week. And at the end of it all, Johnnie and i knocked off tired really early.