Alex's Birthday Lunch

So today Johnnie and I are headed to San Diego as I had promised we'd take Alex to lunch for his birthday this weekend. And then Grace asked if I could pick up my mom in West Covina. And so I picked up Johnnie at Lisa's at the usual time. Lisa had made him breakfast but had not given him a shower. So I gave him one, then we went to my apartment to get me some breakfast and then off we went to West Covina. My mom was already ready to go. I hadn't seen my mom in a little while. She's now looking so much older. But then again I've noticed MYSELF looking older too no? I think I need to put THAT on my list of outcomes too. To somehow find a way to reverse aging. My aging anyway. It wasn't really my mom's age that got my attention though. It's her mental acumen. She started to tell me about our relatives in Canada on my father's side, how she talks to my Ate Lorie almost everyday. She mentioned how bored she was. The thing was she kept repeating the same stories as if she never remembered bringing them up in the first place. At least she had Johnnie keeping her somewhat amused. WE needed that. Because once we passed San Clemente, we ran headlong into traffic. Heavy traffic. Stop and go 20mph traffic from North San Diego all the way to our exit. It was a stretch of 14 miles that took almost an hour to traverse. It was excruciating. We finally got to Grace's house close to noon. And then came the other concern. How Claire the dog would behave around Grace's big dogs Bucky and Pia. I remembered when we went to Dexter's house, how their dogs were large too but in no time at all, Claire had made friends with them. And it turned out the same here. Claire is pretty excitable anyway but at least she didn't try to attack the bigger dogs. She still couldn't be left with them outside though as we all went to lunch. So she was left IN the house. We went to Pizza Nova, which apparently was Alex's favorite and his choice of lunch spot. And then I had to figure out what I could eat LOL. Today I simply threw caution to the wind. I had only had a celery/apple/carrot juice for breakfast so I thought I'd be ok eating a little more than usual and with some meat and carbs too. Like a regular lunch that I would have had 3 months ago. I did have a salad. But I had a pizza too with pepperoni and sausage toppings. Oh and I had garlic bread AND some fried calamari. Man I really went all out didn't I? And of course I felt really full afterwards. I hadn't eaten this much since 3 months ago. I was so full I almost took a nap as we were watching Shang-Chi, which was Johnnie's activity of choice for the afternoon. That and then we ended up watching Kenobi (for me, the 2nd time in a couple of days). Johnnie sat with me in the recliner and I must say, he is no longer the little kid either. Certainly not as big as Alex, who is now a strapping 17-year old, but he's all elbows and legs. And I will say I held him close like he was still my baby boy. Because he will ALWAYS be my baby boy. Late afternoon, we had a Swedish bread dessert that Andreas cooked up. Pretty good too. I figured I had had all that food earlier. Why refuse this one now LOL? Now I'm really full. And I hadn't had any opportunity to do steps at all too. By this time it was already 5 PM and I decided to head us back home. But not before we took one more picture of my mom with her grandkids. My mom is not getting any younger was what went through my head when I took this picture. And look at Johnnie being such a goof. Driving home went so much faster than getting here this morning. It was barely 7 PM when I pulled over to stop at Panda Express so at least Johnnie could have dinner. I didn't know when Lisa was going to pick him up but at least I figured one more full meal. And by 8:3o some milk too. And then finally I tried to catch up with steps. Badly needed considering how much I ate today. When we came home, I barely had 3300 steps in. I got to 8500 in less than an hour after that. And I could almost feel the fat burn kicking in. I actually did make it to 10000+ steps today. And I didn't need to eat anything for dinner either LOL. Although I did have some veggies and chicken from Panda Express. In my mind I'm going to have to recover from today for the next couple of days. By 9 PM I hadn't heard from Lisa yet. And so I decided to just go ahead and bring Johnnie and Claire to Lisa's house and put him to bed. He knocked off in less than 5 minutes. He must have been tired.  Heck I was. While waiting for Lisa I thought about today and felt good that at least I did get to hang out with my own family. I pondered why I acted as if I didn't like them. And maybe I don't. So many things from the past I need to still release and let go I think. Nothing really terrible. But to a child that was pretty much ignored or didn't get any attention and didn't have the sense of connection nurtured, do I now wonder why I'm detached from my own family? I mean I don't even now my relatives on the Mendoza side, the ones from Canada that my mom kept talking about. I mulled these things as I drove home. I have no relationship with my brother. But do I really want to cultivate such relationships? Am I ok with things as they are with my mom and my sister? Truth is that I am. And the reason is that I can only have enough energy for a limited amount of people in my life.  Only enough for Lisa and Johnnie really. There isn't much energy left for much else in terms of close relationships. Which is why I never even made an effort with Michelle, my date from a week ago. I'm going to leave it as today was spent with my fam and it was a good day. And I was glad Johnnie was with me.