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.

Karma not quite undone

Today I have a holiday day off for the day after Christmas and first thing before I even got out of bed yet was a phone call from Lisa. She thought it would be a good idea to go to Legoland tomorrow instead of Wednesday because of the rain situation. And therefore we need to leave tonight, and take care of the dog situation. I did not want to bother my sister with that request and to be candid, I was already iffy with leaving the dog with her on Wednesday to begin with. I was simply not ready to re-introduce Lisa into the equation. I can say all day long about how I am concerned that she will say something that upsets my family but really it's simply that she will say something that will upend some lie I have brought up in the past. And that, as it would turn out later on, would upset the cart anyway reintroducing a whole new energy I need to heal. She said to come ready to leave between 2 and 3 PM and so that all of a sudden compresses my day. It IS a Monday so my first thought was that would I even be able to do my routine of 15000 steps today? And if not, how would I make it up for the rest of the week? I don't even know what's happening the rest of the week anyway because she isn't working. And so I tried to do what I usually do on a Monday but compressed. I walked to McDonald's to get breakfast. I walked to Ralphs to get the grocery shopping done that I didn't do this weekend. And I kept on walking. By the time I got to lunch I had gotten up to 8000 steps and almost 90 active minutes. It was like a regular Monday. And I had leftovers for lunch from last night, and threw in some tomato bisque soup to round it out. By the time I took a shower to actually get ready to leave it was 1:30 PM and I was already at 10,000 steps and over 100 active minutes. If I didn't do anything else today I would have been happy already. I packed up quickly and got to Lisa's house at 2:30 PM. Was she ready to go? Absolutely not. <Sigh> Johnnie was ready to go though, Lisa was playing piano. I did not understand, knew that there was no miscommunication, but did not question it anyway. Hey if we're going to drive together for 2 hours, let alone spend the entire day tomorrow at an amusement park, I knew I had to prepare myself emotionally and mentally. I thought about Disneyland as the model but also made myself aware that THAT trip almost didn't happen at first because of some drama. I thought to myself that drama was a given, I just didn't know where it would come from. As it turned out, I was still not prepared adequately.

So the picture I posted was Johnnie and I in the car ready to leave for San Diego, and of course, waiting for Lisa. Still. It was nearly 4 PM by the time we actually left and we still had to get to Sierra Madre first to leave Claire with Lisa's mom. And it was 5 PM by the time we got there. Still, there was surprisingly not much traffic and we were at San Clemente a little past 6 PM. That's where we decided to stop and get dinner. Panda Express for Johnnie and I, and Lisa brought her own veggie soup and got some chips and guac from Chipotle. Yes it was an odd pairing but who cares. And we had a pretty good dinner. Everything seemed to be going along swimmingly until we got near the exit <Palomar Airport Rd>. That's when Lisa asked about dinner tomorrow, and when I said there wasn't any dinner, she got triggered.  She questioned if my sister was actually home or not as I said. And when I dismissed it with a tone that she didn't like, she said she felt attacked. She said I was being a jerk <again>. And even Johnnie from his perch in the back said that it was my tone that made Lisa react. He was absolutely react. But once triggered, Lisa kept going down the rabbit hole. She bugged about lying about my conversation with my sister. Which then brought up the whole thing with lying about my age. And how I lie all the time. And that I couldn't be trusted. NOW it was personal. NOW I felt attacked. And I got triggered. And I got angry. And then it was my turn to get out of control and bring up past shit. Namely a year ago when she screamed at me on Christmas Eve and I drove down to San Diego instead. Now we were both out of control. We were both angry. And I wanted to drive back. My deal was to always walk away. And I couldn't. And I got even angrier that I couldn't. And I screamed at Lisa this time. I screamed that I would never do this again with her and that she has already fucked up this trip. And Johnnie started crying. And THAT snapped me out of my state. I drove to the hotel right from re-entering the freeway to head back home. And I got out of the car and apologized profusely to him. I was SO SORRY he had to witness that. It was not his fault. I was still angry at Lisa however. Not really for calling me out, but for insisting on pushing at buttons to create an even larger drama, just like her family loves to do. We could have and should have handled this conversation just she and I without Johnnie present. Now we have to do damage control. AND I WAS DISAPPOINTED IN MYSELF that with all the emotional preparation, I was still not able to control MY OWN STATE. Yes Lisa pushed my buttons. It is what she does. I was still triggered easily and quickly.  I need to rehearse simply saying in a calm voice "Can we discuss it one-to-one and alone please". I have to practice that. Because now I have to recover myself before I can even deal with Lisa and I don't know how long that would take. My immediate thought was that all the work I did this past Saturday is now down the drain and I have to start all over undoing the karma. ANd first things first was to deal with the here and now. Lisa was outside in her car, and came in to announce she had lost her credit card while walking around. And now she can't go get her own hotel room <didn't know she was considering that> and couldn't even pay for herself for Legoland tomorrow. She basically already assumed she was no longer invited. NOW it is up to me to fix this. I sent Johnnie to talk her into reading a book for him before he went to bed. And when he didn't return immediately I went down to talk to her. I was still angry. I hadn't recovered yet. but I needed to at least ask her to stay. She was going to sleep in her car otherwise. I didn't care if she decided to sleep in her car really. I was more concerned of how I would like. That I would be the asshole. I didn't want to be the asshole. And so... although I didn't care what the fuck she did right then and there, I also knew it was the right thing to simply invite her back up to the room and sleep there at least. We will deal with tomorrow TOMORROW. Right this second I did what I could and said what I could so she would come upstairs and that we could all get some sleep. I was able to get her to do that. And then I prepared for sleep and did the only thing I could. I mentally and emotionally took the situation we were in and handed it to the Universe and asked for the best way to get it resolved for the highest good of all. And then I went to sleep.

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! It's Christmas! And for me, I somehow felt - what word should I use - JOYFUL, this morning when I woke up as if channelling times of Christmas past when we would wake up early and open presents. Yes there are no trappings of Christmas tradition in my apartment. No tree, no ornaments. In fact, I don't even ascribe to the religious tradition that Jesus Christ was born on this day. After all, were there any birth records LOL? We just sort of picked a day didn't we. If you google why we celebrate Jesus Christ being born on this day, you will find that the Roman Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus dated Jesus’s conception to March 25, which, after 9 months, is December 25. Hence, the birth date was decided. But I mean really, we take the word of one person who claims to know when the conception happened? I mean we can barely pinpoint it today! Be all that as they may, I still celebrate today as the birth of Christ potentiality. And if that means we exchange presents and take the day off, I'm happy for all that. Today I didn't make any plans and Lisa and Johnnie are headed to the Kederian Christmas get-together. And so I thought I'd head out to Penman to catch 9 holes early. I didn't think anyone would be there. I was wrong. There were plenty of people and this morning I didn't really feel like playing with strangers. And so I went to Penman and turned right around and drove on back.  Made myself a nice spinach, mushroom omelette for breakfast. And treated today like any weekend morning that I'm not doing anything. I did some meditation. Last night I noted that I was doing some clearing while in Apia state and I must have had other gunk to clear because it came up this morning. Things about money and what would be holding me back. It's not the money that I want, it's not to have to work for anyone, to be independent financially so as not to rely on a job or a boss or an organization. I can rely on me. Just need to set up some certainty is all. And so I worked on blockages about depending on a job and belief systems that linger that came from external sources. And I thought I had a really good session actually. Before long it was already almost noon. And so I had it in my mind that I would at least get out to watch a movie today. And so off I went to Century City after lunch and saw the movie the WHALE. It had gotten a lot of buzz and now I know why. Easily Brendan Fraser should win an Oscar for this performance of a broken man who became hugely obese because of a tragedy leaving behind a daughter who clearly was angry for being left behind. How he still loved her and expressed it later was something I  have to model when I'm with Johnnie. He's an amazing kid and I should not run out of ways to tell him so. I was crying afterwards it had affected me that much emotionally. And so I went on home and by then it was already 5 PM. I had stuff to do still and I was lucky I had enough food to make dinner since all the grocery stores were closed. I did not have to wait until 10 PM to assemble Johnnie's new study desk though. And I didn't even finish because I couldn't screw in some of the screws. When I looked up it was 1:30 AM. Damn. Hope everyone had a happy Christmas. All in all turned out that I did too.

Changing Karma

It was exactly a year ago that I drove down to San Diego on Christmas Eve to have dinner with my family. It was a last second decision caused by a major blow-up by Lisa. So bad, that it literally threw me off in every way possible. I immediately called off being at Christmas dinner at the Elams the following day and I couldn't get back to balance for almost a week. As far as Lisa's blow-ups with me went it was one of the worst. So much so here I am still remembering the emotional fallout a year later. And so I felt it was important to undo the karma of that day a year later. How do I do that? By spending the day with Lisa and Johnnie and making sure I do not get provoked into an emotional reaction of any kind. We discussed today actually and Lisa simply wanted to write up 4 day worth of notes she claimed.  And so I readied up by doing my meditation, doing my emotional clearing, and then even having breakfast so I am not dependent on whatever Lisa had in her fridge. I laugh at the thought because that was exactly what provoked her last year. She wanted stay in and eat lunch. And make some leftover shit that was in her fridge. Lisa being Lisa. I'm sure she's going to do more of the same today. I just had to be prepared for it is all. When I got there mom and son weren't even out of bed yet. And Johnnie already declared he was staying with mom. If anything, that kid sure sticks to routine. I didn't care really since I had already eaten breakfast. But even after Lisa got up, she insisted that I eat an egg at least and have some tea. Something about not accepting the food she offers really offends her. It's like she feels personally rejected BIG TIME. This morning I ate the egg, had Earl Grey hot tea and prepared to stay as long as possible, even for the entire day if I had to. I was determined to have a different day today than I did last year.  And so first we started opening presents. Johnnie of course had dozens of them already. And he hasn't even gotten some of them yet. Heck there is something waiting for him in the package room in the apartment as we speak. Of course there were a couple of games too. And we played a variation of the Tic Tac Toe game that was a lot ore strategic. Impressively, I didn't beat Johnnie even when I was trying. The kid has an innate talent for strategy I will give him that. He'd probably be good at chess.  And then finally Lisa started working her notes while Johnnie and I continued to play on his new games. If you would have told me I'd be spending the morning playing Pokemon. board games with Johnnie I would not have believed you.

The morning went by quickly and then before we knew it it was already time to think about lunch. Here was a focal point. Lisa had leftovers from last night of course and wanted to eat it. At least I cooked it LOL. And then there was some other finger food we could eat. And of course I cooked up some penne for Johnnie to put in his chicken noodle soup broth. We were good to go. And then after lunch Lisa needed a nap. And so I stuck around playing with Johnnie. We sort of invented this game with his building blocks. Him putting it up, me throwing blocks to tear them down. We went on with this game for almost 45 minutes I think. Every once in a while, I would go outside and take steps. 150 here, 200 there. By 2 pM I was already at 5500 steps. Hey just because I'm here hanging around doesn't mean I still couldn't do my steps right? I also took 15 minutes to pick up some shredded chicken nachos from El Pollo Loco. Hey if I'm hanging around, I could at least indulge myself with snacks. It's Christmas Eve after all. And when I got back, Lisa even sent me on an errand to pick up crickets for the gecko. We took that opportunity to pick up some salad stuff from my apartment. Johnnie had it in his mind that he was going to make his mom a salad. Parent's salad he called it. I took that to mean it was something that both his parents were going to eat and enjoy. Though it was only 4 PM, he sure did mean it when he said he was going to prepare it. I mean it did have everything. Mushrooms, beets, pumpkin seeds, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms. And no dressing. He gave it to his mom and Lisa obliged by eating all of it actually. By 5 PM Lisa had at least finished her notes. And I thought since it was close enough to dinner time that I started venturing in the kitchen and making stuff. Heck Johnnie had been there making the salad anyway and left a big mess LOL. Of course Lisa would find it and make a snide remark. I didn't care. I wasn't going to be triggered today remember? And so it was that I made the rest of her chicken and Johnnie had yet another meal of chicken and rice. Lisa already had her salad and had vegetable soup too, which would have been offered to me had I not had any chicken. That was the key you see, was to have an alternative on the ready. I would go home later on and make myself a veggie pizza. That would have been an alternative too. But as it was we had a nice dinner, I washed Lisa's dishes for the third time today and by the time I left for home, it was already 7:30 PM. I had stayed the ENTIRE day,  and got to spend Christmas Eve with Johnnie, which was something I couldn't do last year. I changed the karma at last. I am looking forward to a peaceful Christmas Day.

Friday Before Christmas Weekend

It's the Friday before Christmas weekend and although the norm is usually me getting up early, booking a tee time for the Sunday 10 days from today and then waiting for Lisa to drop off Claire on her way to work, this is obviously turned upside down because Johnnie is already with me this morning. At this writing I don't have a clue what Lisa is planning for this weekend so it could be that I won't see Johnnie again until Monday night. And so my plan was to simply be present with him as much of the day as possible today. Lisa also mentioned she was going to be done from work early so there was a chance she would come by to pick up Johnnie by mid-afternoon And so for the second day in a row, Johnnie and I would find ourselves at iHop Sepulveda having breakfast, he with his Silver 5 plate and me with my spinach, mushroom and cheese omelette. There were a lot more people at the restaurant today than yesterday morning and it's almost like people are starting to take off for Christmas weekend. Meaning that a chunk of the population is taking off work today. Not me. Not when I didn't need to. I could still hang out with Johnnie and still do whatever meetings I had today. And there were a couple in fact.  Barbara asked me to for sure be present at the Salesforce meeting this morning and so I was. <Note I would get into a bit of a scrap with Rafeal later on about some reports that he is requesting. I didn't want to have to pay for stuff that could done outside of Salesforce, and in my mind he's just simply replicating what he is used to doing, not really seeing what an electronic workflow looks like. most of the QueensCare folks are that way I suppose. And I had to fight not to let my ego do its react thing. I will simply ask Barbara next week.> By lunchtime I was starting to check out. And by 3 PM, I started to prep for Johnnie's Spanish class. I had talked to Lisa right before and although she WAS already headed home from her early day, she didn't feel well and was ok with me keeping Johnnie until 5:30 PM tonight. Which is to say, regular Friday drop-off. By then we had spent the day together anyway and although we really didn't do anything special, we still had a pretty good day. And even though there are definitely times when he pushes the envelope of his playful, nischievous, laughing self and I find myself scolding him, those times dont last for more than just moments. And honestly, I would not have it, or him, any other way I love that he is playful, goofy, and easy to laugh and leaning towards the smart-ass side at least with me. Later on while we were having dinner at Lisa's, she commented out loud how Johnnie had started to grow up to be this cute kid. If you look at the ifrst picture I posted, I not-so-suddenly became aware of how much he has grown up from a similar picture from 4 years ago. When DID he start growing into a very handsome young kid? And so that's all to say that we did make to Lisa's by 5:30 PM and she was keen on eating the leftover food she had in her fridge, including leftover rice and chicken strips. Actually it was Johnnie that prepped and started cooking the strips, while I cooked green beans and onions. Lisa was complaining about being tired and maybe being sick again. We all know how shot her immune system is. And I was mentally prepared to eat whatever at Lisa's. You have to do EXACTLY that, even be prepared not to eat at all since Lisa has this scarcity mentality with regards to food. Tonight we had chicken and rice and green beans and everything turned out just fine. Of course I would have to wash the dishes. That was already implicitly implied. And I guess that's ok. After dinner, Lisa disappeared into her toilet for what seemed like almost 20 minutes, apparently having to dump something she had eaten today. Hope it wasn't the chicken she just ate. She did prepare that herself after all, so can't be blaming me as some sort of trigger mechanism for her. That's ok. While Lisa was discharging in the bathroom, Johnnie and I got to horseplay some more. Fat chance that we would be able to watch something on TV wouldn't it? Usually Lisa would steer us towards some kind of board game. I didn't really feel like playing any board games just then. For once I did tell her the truth. That I wanted to go home and watch the Lakers game. Besides, I'm supposed to be coming back tomorrow morning and watch Johnnie while Lisa wrote up her notes. And so I made it back to my own apartment by 8 PM. Where I just crashed on the couch and I was watching the RECRUIT all over again. I binge watched that thing and finished all episodes by mid-week. And by the time I dragged myself to bed night, it was already well past nidnight. This is what is difficult when Johnnie is not around. And that's ok. Gotta get used to less restful sleep when my Little Bug is not around. Or at least learn how to optimally sleep. 

Winding Down To Christmas

We head into Thursday before Christmas weekend and needless to say I'm already 50% checked out of work mentally. Sometimes I would have to snap myself back into work mode when I see a chat from Eloisa or any of the other Directors, otherwise I was happy to simply cruise through the day. And I even started today with breakfast at iHOP. I figured I didn't know what would be happening Christmas weekend and so I might as well enjoy the moment with Johnnie with whatever we ended up doing today. And this morning that was him enjoying pancakes and bacon and sausage and me enjoying a nice spinach mushroom omelette. That's him in the pic drawing on the kid's menu BTW. And when we got home, I did my team meeting with the EHR Group and then no meeting with Dennis because I already emailed him the status report he needed from me and I was good to go for the rest of the day. I did crick my eye on emails and invites coming to my Inbox and I did have to answer a couple of quick questions from Eloisa but otherwise i spent the rest of the afternoon pretty much just doing WFH chill. And that also meant watching the latest episode of Willow on Disney+. In the meantime there were also arrangements I was trying to do for next week being that Johnnie and Lisa BOTH are not working the entire week. I pretty much got Johnnie into a routine of doing Prodigy English and Math, and then a video here and some exercise there. I note that I am still pretty much keeping up with my steps routine and then before I knew it, it was already 4 PM and it was time for Johnnie's Spanish class. It seemed like I had other stuff work-related to do too but I am not feeling overwhelmed at all. More like that tennis player who knows he's getting shots fired at him from different directions and he is still returning every single ball accurately and with relative ease. After the Spanish class, Johnnie requested that we get udon and rice+beef at Mitsuwa. We hadn't done that in a while too so I was happy to oblige. Besides, I was really getting tired of cooking and washing dishes every time we eat. Isn't that why you get to a certain level of living standard so you don't have to do that, at least not for every single meal? I was HAPPY to go out and get dinner. Johnnie did his udon and I did chicken katsu with rice and cabbage salad. Pretty good too and I shrugged off any annoyance that bubbled up when I found out not one restaurant would give you a cup of water. You had to buy a bottled water. How goofy is that?! Still a product of the pandemic? I suppose I'm just happy we get to go out and eat here almost like it was back to normal, noting that a year ago we had to have tags on our wrists so people would know we were vaccinated. I also note that we were talking about going back to the office then and then another variant hit and those talks died a very quick death. And here we are still working remotely a year later.  Anyway we went home and waited for Lisa to pick up Johnnie and Claire. I always get antsy when I'm in that zone of waiting for her to pick them up as opposed to knowing that they're staying the night or being alone after the hand-off. Uncertainty is what bothers me I suppose. And tonight Lisa waited until almost 8:30 and then told me she was feeling tired and feeling like she was getting sick again. Johnnie said we shouldn't bug her. It was decided that Johnnie and Claire would stay the night then. And I am 100% fine with that. I'm pretty sure johnnie didn't mind either. "I love you dad" I heard him say as I put him to bed. "I love you too Little Bug". A million times more.

All Day At Work

It is Wednesday after all so it should be no surprise that I was going in to the office today. Even if we Directors get a double whammy.  We have to do Eloisa's Strategic Meeting update starting at 8:30 AM and then we have to do the Leadership Retreat the rest of the afternoon. I had no intention of staying until 4 PM. Not even 3 PM really. Johnnie is spending the day at Lisa's office after all and I was going to try to pick him up as early as I could. I know he would never say how bored he gets with either one of us. But I do know him well enough that he's going to want to not be cooped up in there all day. Already my sleep last night was not as good as it usually is, not as good as when he's in the house really. But I did get up early enough to get to the FRB well before the meeting. I even had time to get me a breakfast sandwich and make myself some hot tea... before Lupe informed me that she had breakfast sandwiches coming for us. DRAT! As far as the meeting went I started with the icebreaker, which was to get everyone to give themselves a gift. No limits, no rules, but it had to be material and it had to be only for themselves. I started with the F-150 Lightning pickup to set the tone and give an example. Although, really what was in my heart if I followed my own rules was to get my 2 BR condo in Playa Vista fully paid for, keys in hand. As it was no less than 3 other people had buying property on their minds. From Lupd with a house in Pasadena, to Rody, to Anne Kim. Anyway you can say a lot about a person from this kind of a gift they give to themselves. You can say that Araksi totally does not think about herself much if all she wants to gift herself is an iPhone.And that's ok. As far as the actual meeting, we did go over the Strategic Plan again and Eloisa seemed intent on getting us to commit to priorities. Which is a good thing. I noticed she had a not-so-subtle veiled attempt to push Technology Advancement as one of the priorities and I'm sure she meant EPIC. For me I just want us to be competetent at using it, let alone use technology to do advanced functionalities. Towards the end she also seemed to send a message that we all should think about what pushing the envelope means and whether we're all in on it or not. Hard to commit if it's just woo-woo stuff at the 50,000 ft level which all strategic plans are aren't they? So I'm not sure what that was about. If she wanted us to feel urgency or perhaps feel threatened that we are underperforming, then that was probably an outcome, unintended or otherwise.  I reminded myself that I had plenty of on-hand cash should I get let go tomorrow LOL. I'm going to be just fine regardless. 

The afternoon was spent at the leadership summit, talking about accountability. In one of the exercises I got paired up with Rody who practically validated that he too felt uncomfortable at how Eloisa ended the meeting on a note of you're in or you're out. And sort of subtly telling us that we had better step it up. Or else. I guess he had had some interaction with her that left him wondering whether he was doing an adequate job too. So it wasn't just me wasn't it?  It looks like it's an Eloisa thing? I remind myself that I am here at the pleasure of the CEO. And she can choose to let go of me at any time. I simply have to remind myself also that I am good at what I do and that if there is a gap, it's a relationship and communication gap, not a performance gap. If such is the case, I still have to be prepared for any outcome shouldn't I? I tell myself that it's ok, since I want to position myself not to have to work anyway. The trick is to get that done much sooner rather than later so it doesn't matter.  Anyway for this afternoon session I had lunch and I participated but I left at 3 PM to pick up Johnnie. And sure enough I found him sliding around on an office chair, bored as heck.  I brought him home from there and checked out of work mentally. Later on we would do the Domino's pizza thing except that we brought it back to the apartment. I thought Lisa wanted to get together for dinner at her house tonight. Since Johnnie had his pizza, I made myself spaghetti bolognese. And so when we ventured back out, it was to bring Lisa minestrone soup that we picked up from Maria's on the way home. It was 7:30 by the time we went to her office. She was about to leave and had almost given up on us. But she did eat all of the soup. And ran some wind sprints with Johnnie LOL.  Hey everything worked out like I thought it should/would. I didn't focus on negative stuff, just on a harmonious outcome. And we got one didn't we. Back at the apartment, NOW I could sleep early. It had been a pretty long day.

Starting To Check Out

It's only Tuesday and I'm already thinking to myself why am I even working this week? Especially when I have Johnnie in the house all day, starting his winter break. Here is where I couldn't help but think that if I were already retired or working for someone only if I felt like it then he and I would probably be spending the day doing something out of the house for sure. As it was since I didn't really think of anything and since I actually did have to work today I figured we'd just try to replicate his usual day. That meant starting at McDonald's for breakfast although I did not wake him up early today. I just let him sleep in and so we got an unusually later start. As in almost 8 AM. Which was still pretty early. Actually. He did his videos on his iPad, and then I got him started on Prodigy. I made him do Math AND English exercises since he really hasn't gotten 5/5 much in his English and punctuation exercises from school. If there is a chink in his armor, that would be it. And so I made him go at it for a good hour and a half, checking in on him time and time again while I also caught up on my emails and such. I noticed we had a Roadshow planning meeting right after lunch. Is it time for that again already <sigh> and then of course I had my IS Team Meeting, and I note to myself that maybe I shouldn't try too hard to be an asshole this time LOL. Anyway we made it to lunchtime and Johnnie had macaroni-and-cheese Arnel style. And dad had tuna sandwich and tomato soup. And then I had him do some Art using all those paint materials we had bought some time ago. It kept him occupied through most of the early afternoon in fact. Enough so I could go through my 2 meetings without interruption really.  It was good that I get to spend all day with him considering I'm dropping him off later on at Lisa's to spend the night. Since I have to be at the FRB for most of the day tomorrow, I figured she could keep him at the office and I could pick him up in the afternoon. We had talked about it already and Lisa was all too glad to see Johnnie again tonight.

I don't think Johnnie was too bored today. I know it wasn't like yesterday when apparently he had spent most of the day with Brooklyn at her grandmother's house. The only counter move I had was that I let Johnnie watch his usual slate of videos starting at 3 PM. Ok maybe he was a little bored towards the evening. You can see he's in that mode when he starts digging into his toys and starts building stuff LOL. I looked at last year's journal entries to see what I was doing with him. Almost exactly a year ago I had taken him to the QueensCare health fair and then we went home to the infamous vomiting episode at Jack-in-the-Box, which Johnnie still reminds me to this day to pay attention when he says he's feeling sick. And then I noticed entries where Lisa was bugging me about something or other, culminating in that angry episode on Christmas Eve. That was probably me pushing out my own irritation that had built up over the week. Something to watch out for this week eh? Anyway Johnnie was spending time with me building stuff all over the apartment then too LOL LOL. Tonight I was simply trying to run out the clock, which was to let him watch whatever he wanted until it was time to clean up. The deal was that I was supposed to drop Johnnie off bed-ready. He was to be showered already and his teeth brushed. I was ok with all that. And by the time I had dropped him off, it was already 9:30 and it was for sure time for him to go to bed anyway. Lisa was already in bed, working on her computer. I felt a pang in my insides when I left to go home, as if I really REALLY did not want to do this after all. But I had no other option. I knew it would bug me to go home early in the week and be alone. It was so against the usual routine. Worse was that usually I get a really good night's sleep when Johnnie is around because I get to go to bed early myself. When he's not around, not so much. That's ok. I just let myself slink on the couch and tried to clear my head enough to go to sleep. I miss my Little Bug already.

More Holiday Stuff

It's less than a week before Christmas and I think I am finally mentally not wanting to work anymore. A fine time to start checking out on the Monday when timecards are due and the HRSA COVID survey is due too. Fortunately I already did approve my team's timecards at some point during the weekend so that was one thing off the list. But the list was fairly long already from the last part of the week and suddenly an email from my CEO's EA listing all my to-do's from the last 2 Management Meetings got me irritated. There were 16 items and I simply got annoyed that they were tracking. I did agree to all these things actually, though not the due dates. It was like I'm being held accountable and I'm annoyed that I am LOL.  Am I being targetted as the next person to get let go? At that point I knew it was my ego that was taking offense to all this. Because there was also a part of me that simply acknowledged that I had already done or were in the middle of all the things on the list. And half of them I'm waiting on other people. And so it wasn't like I had a bunch of new things. Everything was in process actually and I'd bet people might actually take me for granted, I still know I'm providing a heck of a lot of value. I remind myself that it IS Monday and that I need to be doing my steps earlier than usual because as much as I am irritated by the senior leadership, I do have to make nice and go to the QHC Holiday dinner later on tonight. And I need to remind Lisa to keep Lisa until 8:30 PM or whenever I get home from the party. I also need to make arrangements for Wednesday since it looks like I will be at the FRB for most of the day. Lisa will have to watch Johnnie at her office.  She was ok with all this of course as she knows she will get to see Johnnie more. By lunchtime I had gotten through most of the work stuff. But for some reason, the afternoon got away from me. I did get to 8000 steps but it felt like I put my head down and tried to do some work and then next thing you know it was already 4 PM. Uh-oh. Time to head to the QHC party since it's in East LA and there will be traffic for sure. As in it would take me more than an hour to get there. I cleaned up and showered and then got out of the house. I did manage to get to the restaurant by 5:15. Dinner wasn't until 5:30 anyway. The Board did a quick meeting and discussed the financials and then it was GO for dinner. We were at Tamayo's art Gallery and restaurant where we had one of our after Town Hall brunches 10 months ago. I remember I liked it here. I sat next to Cynthia Borders and her husband William. Was it more than 5 years ago now that I had sat with them at the QueensCare party? I remember I boycotted one year when Data Analytics team was sort of taken away from me. These days I'm happy we all get to do some things in person anymore. The meal was really good. I had carne asada and even before that I made a meal out of the chips and dip. That's the 2nd time in less than a week that I do that at a Mexican restaurant. Anyway we had one Board member at our table who was a doctor himself and we had a nice time socializing with him. And so I enjoyed my 2nd QueensCare party in less than a week and for good measure it got done pretty early. Like I was driving home by 7:30 PM. I'm going to pick up Johnnie at Lisa's on time after all. Except... when I got there Lisa was barely putting dinner on the table. What the hecK? I refrained from saying anything. I can only imagine that Johnnie was out of his mind hungry by then. I can only imagine what Lisa was doing all afternoon. It wasn't like she had to pick him up from STAR or anything. Anyway Lisa made her chicken and rice dish, the same dish I make usually on Thursdays for Johnnie. I sat down and caught up. After all, I hadn't seen my son since Friday. We also talked about Christmas Day since now we won't be going to the Elams since Bud and Courtney are down with COVID. Anyway I was still in my suit so I didn't wash Lisa's dishes. Off we went home and back to the routine. See Johnnie on my shoulders ready for bedtime. It was a pretty good work day today. AND I managed to make 14,700+ miles even though I was still backed up all the say to 8000 when I was at the restaurant. It's all good.

Golf and Lakers

So after last week's rain cancellation, today's usual sunshine was much welcomed. And we're heading to Roosevelt for this morning's golf game. I had, of course, a monster game last time we played here. It was like I was unconscious and out of my mind and I am clearly hoping for more of the same today. Cutting right to the game, the first hole I had 3 straight 'meh' shots but after the 3 I was at least on the green with a long par putt. And though I missed said par putt, I did make the bogey putt to start my game off just fine. I was all over the place on Hole 2 and managed just one good shot so that hole went nowhere. But on Hole 3 I landed my tee shot right on the green. I would miss my par putt again but at least I got another point. On to my favorite Hole 4. In this Hole, I missed my 2nd shot right into the bunker which threw off the entire hole. You know how a game hinges on one or two shots that you wish you could get back? This was the shot. A bogey or better and I would have had a nice game already. So what happened on that shot. I wanted to duplicate the shot that I had in a similar situation on this same hole 3 weeks ago when I belted the shot almost pin level. I did not focus on that shot and obviously focused instead on what was going on in my head. Which was to choke to shot. I did not slow my swing down. I did not relax. And had a blow-up hole. And I did not recover on the following hole either, topping out the tee shot. I was off my rhythm. Fortunately, I did recover on the next 2 holes, getting a bogey on the funnel zone Hole 6 after a nice tee shot on the right side that landed 80 yards from the green. I overshot it with my next shot but at least got it in 4. Same with Hole 7. Way short on the tee shot but the next shot was pin level and 20 feet out. I made it in 2 for another bogey. I was already up to 4 bogeys today. No pars though. Hole 8 I actually got on the green in 3 shots. But 3-putted and missed the bogey. And finally on the last hole, I got my bogey and finished with 5 bogeys. Not a bad game really. I will definitely take it. And then after that I went to Sidewalk Grill for lunch.

With morning all done, I went home and tried to get caught up. Finish laundry.

Catch up on journal. I was doing this because Yadira and Dexter were coming by at 4:30 and we're all going to the Lakers vs Wizards game. A Laker game at least once a year has now become a ritual for the 3 of us. Yes we do feel a little bad that we don't invite Lisa. But then again, not really. We just have a much better time I think and we don't have to focus on whatever it is that she's focused on that is not typically about the game or anything else important. As it was Dexter got to my apartment early and then Yadira followed suit by 4:15. And we were headed downtown by 4:30 PM. That would have never happened if Lisa were with us. The game isn't until 6:30 PM we know but this way we could have a leisurely dinner downtown and not even worry about being late. I was surprised at how many people were downtown on a Sunday nght though. So much so I had to do 2 rounds before I found parking on the street. But find it I did and it was a half block from Panini Grill too. So guess where we were going for dinner LOL. I know I had already had kabobs for lunch. And Dexter and Yadira are buying my dinner considering I bought the tickets. Although... this is actually their Christmas present from me. I do appreciate their friendship through the years, even as Lisa and I had split up. There was simply too much history already, some of it we even brought up tonight. The farting incident in San Francisco. The trip to Sedona and Grand Canyon one Thanksgiving. The trip to Palm Springs. Yes absolutely we sure do have history. And we note that we went to the Lakers-Clippers mega game a week before the NBA and the rest of the world shut down for the pandemic. If COVID was going to get us, that would have been the time I thought. And now here we are. Dexter is doing much better now that he is no longer walking around with a bag attached to his stomach and now that he has decided not to get his gall bladder removed. Sounds extreme right? Anyway all that stuff from the past year was behind us today. Today we enjoyed a nice dinner at Panini Grill where I had the flatiron skirt steak. And then we walked over to Crypto.com and made it to our seats 10 minutes before game time. We had some pretty good seats too. As far as the game itself, we may have been without AD but we still bolted to a double digit lead by halftime. It was a lead that they lost with some lackadaisical play in the 3rd quarter. But they at least came back to life again to take the lead back. It became way too tight in the last 5 minutes. And the game got tied up with 24 seconds to go. LeBron got doubled and almost lost the ball. But in the ensuing scuffle, he got the ball back and rifled a pass to an unguarded Thomas Bryant right under the basket. Game winning dunk. We WIN!!! It was a nice exclamation point to a pretty good game and another cool Laker watch for the 3 of us. I made them buy me a taco from a taco truck on the walk back. Might as well take advantage LOL. And then we went on home. A nice sunday for sure.