This Saturday Did Not Turn Out As Planned

September is now in the rearview mirror and today is the first day of the brand new month of October. Already Johnnie's birthday looms ahead as early as next week. There are other birthdays too. In fact, we were invited to TWO celebrations today, one for Dexter's mom Vangie and the other for Johnnie's classmate Julian. Much as I wanted to go to both, they were too close in proximity to attend practically. And since it is my choice, I decided we would do Mama Vangie's party since I did respond to that invite first. Leave it to Lisa to throw a last minute wrench to the whole day, as if things weren't tense enough from her recent bout of dramao and then the subsequent Johnnie reaction. Now she scheduled a grooming appointment for Claire at 11 AM, which was when the Mama Vangie lunch was supposed to start. Damn Lisa. I wanted to maintain peace which I felt was already hanging on a thread. So I simply agreed to the grooming appointment. I was thinking to myself it could even be to my advantage to do it, since it gives me an OUT. Now I can go later than usual to the Dexter's mom thing and then I would have the perfect excuse to miss the Julian birthday party thing. I know Johnnie wanted to go. It made it at least 2 of his lists, that he makes all day long. I will make sure he understands. In the meantime, I picked him up first thing and of course he wasn't even awake yet. No doubt mom and son stayed up until late. I took a pic of him feeding the turtles outside, with Claire patiently waiting for us to get going. But not this morning. Johnnie and I went to breakfast and left Claire knowing full well we needed to be back well before her 11 AM appointment. And THEN I can think of options to do with the rest of my afternoon. Still we had to have breakfast before any or all of that didn't we? On to Elysee we went for Johnnie's usual. And today he got a treat. The girl who remembers he comes in most Saturdays, asked him to come behind the counter. And asked him to pick a cookie he could have for free! Johnnie picked 3 of course, taking full advantage. Ahh my son. Still pretty cool that he is still known around these parts, although it's been more than 6 years since we have lived here in Westwood. So breakfast all done, we went to Trader Joe's and then Target in Westwood to get at least some shopping done. And by the time we put the groceries away, it was already time to get Claire to her appointment. I figured we'd wait in my apartment until THAT got done. Which is when I realized it was already lunch time. And so I had to make Johnnie something. I made him penne in chicken noodle soup broth and made him those chicken breast tenders that I still hadn't cooked up in a week. All that made Johnnie a pretty good lunch. And I had to have some to in order to tide me over. By the time Claire got done with grooming it was already 1 PM! It was then that I realized we wouldn't be going to Mama Vangie's house, she was actually being surprised at a restaurant. Yikes. And it was in Long Beach. There was no way we would make it there before 2:30 considering how trafficky it was out there. I did the next best thing. I had Johnnie make Mama Vangie a card. And then we drove to Dexter's sister's house and dropped it off there. I braved the heavy traffic to get that done and I hope Mama Vangie will appreciate the effort. In the morning I had two events to go to this afternoon. When it was all said and done, I didn't make either one. But we did get to drop off Mama Vangie's card and I felt good about having done that. Johnnie didn't care, he was asleep for most of the car ride. And then on the way back he persuaded me to get him chicken strips from Jack-in-the-box. I thought it was a fair deal actually considering he really wanted to go to Dave and Buster's for his friend Julian's birthday thing. How could I make it up to him other than promising him we'd take him to Dave and Buster's too at some point.  By the time we got back home it was already nearly 4 PM. It felt like we did a lot but didn't actually get to do much of anything. I called Lisa this time to coordinate pickup. She was supposed to get her COVID booster this afternoon after work, which already alerted me that she might be needing me tomorrow when some, if any, of the effects that seemed to have affected some people could kick in. Today though she did manage to come pick up Johnnie around 5:30 PM, which only meant that I didn't have to give him any dinner. Lisa can take care of that, and especially considering she whined and whined about not seeing Johnnie and didn't get to be mommy all week long. In the meantime, now I can finally enjoy some ME time, starting with walking around my neighborhood and getting some steps in. Look at the pic of the sun which was starting to set. And of course I had sports to watch. A replay of UCLA's stirring victory over Washington last night. I can't believe they are undefeated at 5-0. And then of course I had to make dinner out of whatever else I hadn't cooked up all week long. I had a nice relaxing Saturday night, if only to make up for what turned out to be a very uneven kind of day. BUT at least I got a lot of Johnnie time today. I will never complain about that.