Johnnie Day

Lisa is working today so I have Johnnie for most of the day. Routine Johnnie Saturday usually meant breakfast at Elysee and then grocery shopping and then whatever else came up.  I was thinking I'd do some basketball drills with him actually since tomorrow is his evaluations for the Mar Vista basketball league. When I walked into Lisa's house I immediately realized that those plans were already out the window. First of all, I saw a plate of pancakes out and they were for Johnnie. Lisa had to wolf a couple of those down of course since she was needing to get to work by 8 AM and it was, of course, near 8 AM already. By the time Lisa left and I washed the dishes <of course> I thought I might as well get some stuff out of the way. I was actually going to bring my bed quilt and wash it here but I didn't want to make a fuss. Now Lisa has also asked me to bring Claire to her grooming appointment at 11 AM. Ok then, I decided since I'm going to commit the morning to being around here, might as well GET my beddings washed. And so Johnnie and I got the sheets, got it in the washer, and then went back again to get MY breakfast from McDonald's and hung out at the apartment until it was time to bring Claire to the groomer. I made Johnnie some bacon since I knew he ate considerably more for breakfast than just 1 piece of pancake and hot cocoa I made him some eggs too. And I had TWO sausage McMuffin's myself. By the time we got back to Lisa's house we had made a stop at Trader Joe's to get some of Lisa's essentials and I had put the bed stuff in the dryer and Johnnie had watched some Netflix. So I got stuff done anyway. Johnnie had it in his mind that he was going to have a Happy Meal for lunch if only to get a Hasbro game that was the toy of the month. He got Jenga too. Awesome. With that and some pasta, and with a filet-of-fish, I guess we also didn't do the usual Panda Express at lunch either. And that was ok. Even with Johnnie in the house, I caught up with my journal and got the rest of my laundry done. But no question it was great that I got to put clean beddings on since it had been quite a while since I washed them. Not since the summer at least, and early summer at that. In the meantime, Johnnie was entertained plenty with a new movie he discovered <Back to the Outback> and before 1 PM, we had headed back to Lisa's house so we could pick up Claire. The grooming was pretty uneventful, but definitely much needed as well as Claire looked great and smelled clean afterwards. I think he was happy to be back in my apartment too, although that could merely be that she didn't really want to be left alone anymore.

I realized that I hadn't had Johnnie for a Saturday for the last few weeks. Not since before Thanksgiving even and so I figured we'd do a movie, we'd play a game, and basically focus on quality time.  For the movie we did Black Panther. What I did not expect was how upset Johnnie would get when T'Challah lost to Killmonger and basically was left for dead. He was so upset he started to cry. And told me this was the worst movie ever.  Boy who knew he'd get emotional over this?? Was he upset because the good guy lost? I told him this was momentary and that good guys win in the end, but may actually have to take a few turns in order to do so. I did manage to calm him down and get him to watch the rest of the movie. And then we played Jenga from his Happy Meal and then we ended up in the spa for a good chunk of the afternoon. Yes it was a bit chilly outside. In fact, it looked like rain and I knew for sure rain was already on the forecast for tomorrow. But Johnnie wanted to chillax. And I felt like I could use some relaxing myself anyway. And so off to the spa we went and we managed to do quality time there. WAs it cold out? Not if you were in the spa it wasn't. If anything, at least Lisa wouldn't be needing to shower him for later on. It had actually been a while since Johnnie and I had hung out in the spa on a weeknight and I actually wanted him to try his robe I bought for him a month ago. And so we got done and pretty soon it was time for dinner. Which meant I ended up having Johnnie for most of the day and for 3 meals today LOL. That's the longest. I made him Trader Joe's pizza for dinner and he had 2 of those mini-pizzas in fact.  I had some chicken potstickers for appetizers and later on I would have the barramundi for dinner. AND a veggie pizza on thin crust too. Lisa picked up Johnnie around 6 PM today which was perfectly fine since she apparently had to do soccer league paperwork. I don't know why she's still playing in that league actually. She doesn't seem like she's having fun. But that's all Lisa. When she picked him up, she let me know that she now has an extra spot for her office Christmas party tomorrow and she and the rest of the office unanimously asked to invite me. I am touched actually. It had been many years since I last went to a Kederian DDS Christmas party. At least 5 years to be exact in 2017. And I had memories of being cold outdoors after the dinner waiting for Lisa to wind it down.  I did not have a good time. But maybe 5 years has erased that? I can at least appreciate that he office staff invited me, God knows Lisa wouldn't have and that was perfectly ok actually. It's not like I do anything for her office <sarcasm>. And so with no golf tomorrow because of the rain I made plans to be at Johnnie's basketball evals. Quite looking forward to that actually. It's another dad moment to follow up today. 

Johnnie Day

So this isn't a Lisa work Saturday, But just like yesterday she is in a CE class downtown all day. which means I get Johnnie all day too and I couldn't have planned it better if i tried. I'm at her house at 7:30 ready to pick up the kid and actually ready to shower too since I hadn't showered since Monday I'm embarassed to admit. But when I got there Johnnie was already ready to go showered and everything. Which is what happens when he's excited to do something. I had no choice but to go back to the house, drop off Claire, and take a shower first myself. I wasn't going to spend one more day stinking myself up.  And so not only did I shower first, I also took that opportunity to clean up the shower too, which I hadn't done in more than a month. I had to clean up the grime build-up including the soap stuff on the shower door Lisa style. The good thing was that it looked much better afterwards, and I FELT much better too now that I am clean! or CLEAN-ER. Thus getting showered, Johnnie and I headed out to breakfast. To my surprise he was ok with going to iHOP today, since we hadn't gone in many many months. He was happy to have his pancakes and bacon and eggs. And I got myself a nice, healthy mushroom and spinach omelette. The cool-thing-of-the-day was that the Latino couple next booth adjacent to us commented to me that he was a cute little boy, which was not out of the norm. But when he started conversing with Johnnie and he started conversing back in Spanish, that was what amazed them, and amazed me. He actually was able to hold a nice, simple conversation with them. Those Spanish class are paying off at that. And they commented to me that he was not only cute but smart too. That is MY boy. And so after breakfast we went on out and did grocery shopping. We went to whole Foods first and then we went to Target because he wanted to go ahead and buy the present for James next week since he's invited to his birthday movie. And I managed to get some of my grocery shopping too. So check and check on the shopping must-do's for today. We also checked to see the turkey inventory since I'm making lunch for Lisa's crew on Tuesday and she's making turkey for her family on Thanksgiving Day. Which made `me think... what am I doing for Thanksgiving? Eh, I'll figure something out later. It did feel like a Lisa work Saturday which meant that I had Johnnie through at least lunch and today he actually had something different in mind too. He actually SHOPPED for his lunch, opting to go with macaroni and cheese. And then I supplemented it with bacon so he would get even more protein. Worked out just fine. I baked the salmon I had in the freezer for a bit and with a salad that was MY lunch. No going oout or anything.

And so it was I had to figure out some kine of activity for Johnnie for the afternoon. That's when it dawned on me that he had to start practicing basketball given that I had entered him into the Mar Vista league in January. And so we headed out to Mar Vista Park armed with the basketball from my trunk. I posted a video of him shooting underhanded because that was all the shoulder strength he had for now, at least to shoot at the regulation 10-ft rim. I think he will be fine shooting at the much shorter 9 ft room hoop in the gym. But for now it was good to see he can at least make an outside shot! And he made 8 of them in a row even. Just like dad huh? Shades of the Tuesday afternoon gym sessions I used to have at the AT&T Building. Or the Friday afternoon shooting games I used to have at the FRB back in the day. It was only a couple of months ago in June in the summer he couldn't even reach the hoop. Look at him now! I think he will be just fine. He will be challenged physically but I think I'm ok with that. He has to learn to deal with adversity physically even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with him. He will simply need to learn to play with taller, bigger kids. And that is perfectly fine with me. Anyway I ran him through his shooting and dribbling and passing and by 4 PM, there was absolutely no doubt he had gotten his exercise in for the day. I rewarded him with Panda Express for dinner, and concludes a full 3-meal day I have had with him. Lisa called by 6 PM letting me know she was already home but also catching up on her ME time so she could play the piano. I was happy to let her do that, which was a win-win-win for all and keep Johnnie until 7:30. And when I dropped him off and came back I also realized it was the big UCLA-USC football game at the Rose Bowl today. They were leading at halftime UCLA was. But it would not last. It turned into a shootout that USC won 48-45 and only by getting an INT on UCLA's last possession. UCLA would have probably at least kicked a field goal to tie.  But tonight it was not to be. They fought and fought but lost an extremely competitive game in the end. Oh well. At least we go to a bowl game this year. And hopefully win next week to exceded last year's win total. Still all good. They teased us all year but now they are descending back to earth. It's still good.

The Big Boo

Johnnie had so much fun today. I was so tired it felt like that day in Disneyland. We were, of course, at the Big Boo at Mar Vista Elementary. Pictures tell all the story. What a day. And we even got Lisa to leave work before 2 PM and she showed up. Miracles CAN happen LOL. It was a very very VERY good day.

Johnnie's Birthday Party

There isn't much to write about here, only that there's too much to write about. It started with golf at Penmar. Early tee time. 8:10 AM. I started out ok, Scott and I both did in fact, getting bogeys on the first 3 holes. On the 4th hole, I got on in 3 in fact. And still managed to triple putt past a bogey. On Hole 5, my tee shot got within the fringe. But I dicked around with it from there to another 5. I had a nice fairway drive on the long hole, but again botched it from the fringe. Only on Hole 8 did I truly mess it up and had a 6 on a par 3. And then recovered with a bogey on Hole 9. So I had 5 bogeys, 2 double bogeys and 2 more than double bogeys. A decent game. But I should have had my 2 pars. They were there to be had. I just missed the putt. I went to Lisa's after that. And despite not even getting started until around lunchtime, despite Lisa not being around so it was just Johnnie and I, and then Dexter coming by early to help, despite still having to return a bad helium tank, and a last second trip to get drinks, it all started on time just fine. And the rest I will have to show in pictures. I was tired at the end of the day. 17,000+ steps will do that to you, I think I had a personal record. My back was aching. And remember Silvia and Cecille had also come so I stuck around for a bit to chat. And then stuck around to watch Johnnie because of course the Frenchies had to go to Target. That is a Silvia thing for sure.  I went home so tired...

Johnnie Turns 8

Today is obviously a big day for Johnnie and by extension, for me as well. He turned 8 years old today after all. And he was so excited to be bringing his goodie bags to school to share with his classmates. Not to mention the chocolate donuts too. As soon as we got to school, some of his classmates were already greeting him Happy Birthday, particularly his friend James who was just saying Happy Birthday to you over and over. Well, at least we couldn't say nothing happened for his birthday today. Last year I was afraid that he didn't think his birthday was celebrated, hence I took him to Pitfire Pizza and invited Brooklyn and Bailey. Today I didn't think it was necessary. After all, he gets a party on Sunday and Brooklyn and Bailey are invited, as well as a couple of the neighborhood kids. And I know I'm going to need to do appetizers, and the big salad, and get the piñata and the cake and so on and so on and so on. It was nice to see him get some attention this morning although that really isn't Johnnie's problem. Some of the staff even agreed when I told them of what he was like 3 years ago when he started TK and he was really mopey and sad his first week of school. Look at him now. They mentioned a whole bunch of kids gravitate towards him even. Anyway I knew he was going to have a good day in school. And so on I went to my day at work-from-home LOL. Today I had the option of meeting with the Penelope implementation people in the morning or do team meetings. I decided not to do either LOL. I decided I would just do another touch base with NACHC. After all, I still had to go to the East Third Health Center after lunch to get my flu shot. Yes I know it's a slog, but hey it's Thursday right? I have nothing better to do in the afternoon. In fact, I ended up eating lunch right before taking off for E3 and while I was doing my NACHC meeting. And then after I got the flu shot, which took all of 5 minutes, I stuck around simply because the onramp to the 60 on my side of the street was closed. Might as well stop at Taco Bell for a taco and get gas. I turned that into a Mexican pizza (two lunches today?), got gas, and went home. I was all ready to pick up Johnnie and just chill in the hot tub until Lisa called to pick him up. Tonight I am fully prepared to drive him to her house no matter how late. Except of course she flipped the script yet again. I picked up Johnnie, got him through Spanish class and made him dinner. He chose homemade spaghetti instead of going out. Fancy that. And so I made myself some chicken for dinner too. And then Lisa called. At 6:30 PM! Really early for her. She asked to meet her at her house so Johnnie could open some presents. She even mentioned she had a couple of steaks marinating if I wanted to have dinner. Why does she not tell me these things in advance I wonder?? Now I end up having 2 dinners as well. BUT I wasn't going to mention anything. I'm just grateful we will not be having the shout fest that we did a week ago. And so I pack Johnnie up quickly, foregoing our hot tub time. And when we got to her house, we got there at the same time as she did. We all went in together and SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE. There was an entire birthday spread on the dining room table and a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY AREA with balloons and present and everything. We come to find out Lisa had nothing to do with any of this, though she did bring presents from folks in her office. OF COURSE Johnnie lived it up. We were amazed. Turned out Blanca her house cleaner did all this. I was very much moved. This was not some little deal. And this was for OUR son. And all of a sudden I may have felt a bit underwhelmed at how little I had done all day after all LOL. Even Lisa got him a present which just came from Amazon. Johnnie was way too occupied with getting all these Pokemon cards he really REALLY wanted. Nothing takes the place of the smiles and joyful shrieks Johnnie did while opening presents. I was focused on cooking up the steaks Lisa had. I ended up searing it, but then the insides were practically raw. So much so we had to cook it again. My second dinner such as it were. I couldn't have been happier at how much Johnnie enjoyed today. And his birthday festivities were not over just yet. We still have the weekend to go. But I went home tonight very much light-hearted and very much feeling the love my son experienced. Happy Birthday Johnnie. Happy Birthday my son. I love you.

Bring Johnnie To the Office Day

So it did catch me by surprise that today Johnnie's school is closed for Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religion. A day of atonement. I was surprised when I found out. This past weekend. So really I've had 3 days to figure out what to do with him. I could call in sick or take PTO. OR I could take him to work with me. I chose to bring him to the FRB with me. I figured I had some meeting for a couple of hours, I could simply get him to watch something on his iPad for that long. So I let him sleep late last night and let him sleep in this morning. And we didn't even go to McDonald's for breakfast. instead, I gave him milk and cereal and sourdough toast. That would be the kind of breakfast Lisa would give him. And made myself the usual eggs and pineapple smoothie. And then off we went. It wasn't like Johnnie hadn't been to the FRB with me of late. In fact, he was just there the week before school started in mid-August with that playdate with Brooklyn. No such playdate today. But fortunately there were plenty of things for him to do simply by bringing his computer. Just like his old man. And so while I was off to a charitable giving training meeting upstairs (2nd day in a row I'm in a meeting on the 5th floor at the FRB), I had Johnnie doing Prodigy. Fortunately, the first people we did encounter was Eloisa and then Barbara. And they didn't say anything about Johnnie being there. In fact, it felt very much ok. I had to explain of course that I sort of messed up (ok I lied) and forgot about the holiday. Then again it didn't seem to matter. In fact, here was Faith trying to give him food. And of course the Filipino folks all thought he was so cute. Johnnie sort of just took it all in stride. Anyway I participated full out at the meeting, using the 5-minute break in between to check on Johnnie. When the meeting got done, off we went to lunch at 7th and Fig. yeah, it was a bit of a walk on a hot day. But the pizza was worth it, even if the service really wasn't.  Pizza studio was one of my go-to pizza places even before the pandemic. Today they were out of pineapple though. How can you run out of anything just as the lunch rush was starting? Still I replaced my pineapple with cherry tomatoes and all was good. When we came back I had one more meeting to do. It was the Penelope Implementation meeting. And I had NOT prepared one bit for it. Leave it to me though to pull stuff out of my ass yet again and actually got positive movement with Erica the primary user. As in I had her actually tryiing the system and creating events by herself. The reason they had not implemented was that she simply didn't have any confidence at all. They had gone over all the steps, but it didn't take because Erica simply hadn't had any reps. Just like sports, that is easy to fix. Just get some reps in. And so we're simply going to practice and practice and practice for the next couple of weeks. Starting today. And we got farther along in this one day I felt than they had in almost a year! So Johnnie and I finally took off for home close to 3 PM. It was the latest I had ever stayed on a Wednesday at the FRB since the pandemic. Today I gave Johnnie the choice of doing his Spanish class at my apartment or Lisa's office. But then I told him that either way we still had to bring his mom dinner. SO he chose to do the class at my apartment. And then after the class we picked up dinner from Panda Express to bring to Lisa. I figured she had had an interview anyway and wouldn't be ready to be with us. Of course she wouldn't be. She still had lots of administrative stuff to do. But she did manage to knock off earlier than usual and actually sat and had dinner around 6 PM. Which meant that Johnnie and I got back home before 7 PM. Johnnie elected not to go to the hot tub tonight. We simply went to Ralphs to get some chocolate donuts to add to his party gift bags. It's a big day tomorrow. It's his birthday. Gotta go to bed early. But reflecting on today, Johnnie and I got to spend a rare day together for the entire day. And although we didn't do anything overtly fun like go to the zoo or something like that, I think Johnnie simply appreciated that I brought him to my office.  And although I couldn't be with him the entire time, he had plenty to keep him occupied. He found an old doodle I had kept for many years about him. I think I drew it while bored at a meeting at least 4 years ago. It was before the pandemic. He actually augmented it and made it colorful and made it HIS artwork. It looked so cool I had to bring it home and hang it on the wall. So yes we had a good day together. And now we move on to his birthday festivities for real.

Johnnie + Johnnie & Mom

So Johnnie made it a point to invite me to dinner for tonight, where we would be eating the sustainable fish that we will shop for this morning. I love how he gets these ideas in his head and how he intermingles what he wants to have happen. That invite had an educational component (learning about sustainable fish and where to buy them), it had a routine component (we do shopping on Saturdays) and a family component (dinner). You really gotta love this kid! But before all that, I was supposed to come over for breakfast and though I slept in, he Facetimed me to ask me to come over and make breakfast. Of course all I really cared about was spending any kind of time with him today, either an hour or two or however long Lisa lets me, knowing full well she's got a bunch of agendas going on. But first there would be breakfast. I had already downed my pineapple smoothie this morning so I didn't really care if I got to eat anymore. But as it was Lisa wanted me to make French toast for she and I and Johnnie was perfectly happy with a bowl of cereal. It is amazing to me how little he eats here at Lisa's house compared to how much he eats at mine. And that's ok, since we're looking to do dinner tonight. I always make sure he has plenty to eat. Anyway, Lisa agreed to let Johnnie go with me grocery shopping. And I sweetened the deal by telling Lisa we'd even do her grocery shopping for her. Yes it's probably going to cost me an additional $50, but for more time with Johnnie it is worth the price. And so it was that we first did HER groceries, doing the Mitsuwa (for noodles), Trader Joe's, Ralphs, and Whole Foods circuit (for Lisa's foo-foo yogurt drinks) and got it all done in an hour really. And then after dropping those off at her house, off we went for the 2nd round to do MY groceries. This time of course, we had to go to Sprouts to get my produce. And the was where I was going to get the barramundi that we were planning to eat tonight anyway. By then it was already lunchtime too. I floated the idea of eating at Shakey's which was right by Sprouts to Johnnie. But then again there was also Panda Express in Pavilions down the block. Guess which one Johnnie chose?! As for me, I didn't want to eat Panda Express. And so I took us to Ono Hawaiian BBQ to get me some fried whitefish and chicken katsu. Johnnie ate his food <told ya I'd make sure he ate properly> and I ate mine and by the time we were on the way back he was falling asleep in the backseat. He had the right idea. That was what I wanted to do too. And so I dropped him off and Lisa was, by this time, glad to have him back as she also got her ME time in as well. I told her I'd be back in a couple of hours for dinner and off I went and took a nice hour-long nap. I got the morning that I wanted to have after all :)

At the Promenade. I drove back to Lisa's around 5 PM. By then I had had a nap and I was ready to cook the barramundi and do whatever it was that Lisa wanted to do for a Saturday night. It turned out to be way different than I had expected. When I drove up, mom and son were just getting home from walking around the block <I guess-Johnnie was on his bike> and Lisa seemed surprised that I was there. We WERE going to do dinner tonight weren't we? Then again, with Lisa you never know. When she gets cooped up in the house as she had been, she simply will want to get out. And tonight, right then she wanted to return the pillows she had bought at Santa Monica Third Street Promenade. I could tell she wanted to buy other things as well. Hey, I was game... in fact, at that point I was thinking maybe we can even eat dinner at the Promenade. I think the last time we were all there together the three of us was the holidays in 2019 before they left for Paris. Of course, I was just here last week returning my cable gear to Spectrum. I parked pretty much the same place I did last week. And then off we went to return her pillows. To Pottery Barn no less. The LAST TIME the 3 of us went in to Pottery Barn was a time period I won't forget. It was the first week of 2017.  Johnnie was 2 years old. And it was the day after we had that horrible fight that made Lisa move out of the bedroom.  Not good memories to be sure. I was thinking it was perhaps the Universe's way of surfacing yet another thing that I needed to clear, another thing I needed to heal. And tonight, it was way, way different. First of all, with Johnnie older, he was looking at furniture in the context of what I told him I wanted to do, which was to replace the couch he sleeps on with a much better couch. Not that it's bad mind you, it does function just fine. But I could upgrade it as well. Maybe not right now, but in the future to be sure. And so we let Lisa return her stuff, looked around a bit, and the difference this time was there was just no negative energy whatsoever. We let Lisa buy her new flip flops at Tilly's on the Promenade. And then these days, at least Johnnie is on my side when I ask him if he's hungry. It isn't just me anymore. And so Lisa is far more agreeable. We didn't know where to eat. And so ending up at this popup eatery called Ugo's Italian cafe was a surprise. The bigger surprise was that the food was actually pretty good. And like in Italy, the portions weren't American super-sized. We had just enough to eat, Lisa with meatballs, me with lasagna, and Johnnie with a pizza. The surprising thing was that Johnnie actually ate some of my lasagna and liked it! Fancy that! And then after dinner, Johnnie had it in his mind to go to Barnes and Noble. Off we went to the only open BN we knew, which was in Marina del Rey. I had already bought Johnnie a book this morning, but he wanted one more simply because his mom promised him they could go. Which was what we did. By the time we got done it was already past 8:30 PM and it was time for me to go home. But we did have a nice family time together this evening. Which would be the 2nd Saturday in a row we did that. I got to have the Saturday I wanted after all :)

A Spontaneous Johnnie Saturday

I was right about to go into my meditation session first thing this morning when immediately that plan changed. My phone rang and it was Johnnie letting me know he wanted to have breakfast. Immediately I knew that Lisa was still out of it <she already was  last night> and that she was in lazy mode, or do-my-notes mode, or whatever else mode but whatever mode it was it did not involve breakfast for either herself or Johnnie. Enter dad of course. And so it would be no surprise to find me in her kitchen making Johnnie some sour dough bread with gnutella and a spinach onion omelette. I shrug off all negative memories of getting yelled at for using the wrong thing in her kitchen and simply made breakfast. All while Lisa stayed upstairs writing notes. Apparently both mom and son were already up since 5:30 anyway. Today I simply released all resistance to whatever energy Lisa had or that I anticipated that she had and simply focused on a breakfast Lisa would like. And lo and behold she actually liked whatever I made and had positive comments to boot. And then of course I got to wash dishes, brush and floss Johnnie's teeth. And at least we were out of the house headed to the park with Lisa's full blessing and how rare is that?! And I had to post a couple of videos because we ended up spending a pretty cool next couple of hours at Marine Park next to Penmar golf course. I would always see this park from Hole 3 but I don't remember ever coming here. Heck it was a drive around just to find how to get in there actually. But when we did there were basketball courts where Johnnie and I played some. Johnnie reveled in watching me miss 12 shots in a row from the free throw line. WHAT? What was THAT all about! Of course I had to undo that memory later on. While Johnnie played on the playground stuff, I made sure I made at least 5 in a row. Low energy my ass! It turned out Johnnie even ran into one of the kids from Penmar day camp and so he was amused and entertained just fine. Afterwards we swung by my apartment just so I could make myself some pineapple juice. Hey we both got our money's worth in terms of physical activity didn't we? And then I was ready to drop him off at Lisa's. We got there by 11 AM and we were met with... silence. Lisa was asleep. And so Johnnie and I simply went back to my apartment where he got to watch more of his videos, He ended up taking a shower there too. I got to make him spaghetti for lunch and even my own version of chicken teriyaki courtesy of pre-made chicken strips we got from Ralphs. And I finished the rest of last night's pizza for my lunch. Hey, we ended up spending the entire morning together after all! These spontaneous circumstances are always the best. When we got back to Lisa's it was already 1:30 and she was up. And we even got her when she was getting ready to yell at us for not having brushed Johnnie's teeth. Not today Lisa. Not today. We did that BEFORE we left this morning. I went home feeling totally gratified that I had already had a pretty good Saturday. The rest of the day I just cruised. I went to Target, bought gift cards for next week's Town Hall, did laundry, finished approving timecards so I didn't have to worry about it on Monday <only absolutely necessary thing to have gotten done by Monday morning>, watched the Dodgers blow a lead, made myself some spaghetti and then a nice ahi tuna salad for dinner, exchanged chats with a potential date on Match finished 10,000 steps and 52 active minutes <remember I'm still not forcing anythng> and basically just cruised the rest of Saturday away. And it was all good. 

Sky Zone

Today was definitely all about the birthday party for Rose Starr, Johnnie's classmate and neighbor right down the street on Rosewood. We got the invite a couple of weeks ago and I will admit I was hesitant to go. Not because we didn't know them, not really. I mean I remember in Kindergarten, Johnnie and Rose had a play date at Penmar Park and I got along plenty with Patrick, Rose's dad.  The hesitancy was all about not knowing anyone else and not knowing what to do with myself. Johnnie will be just fine regardless. These are his classmates after all and he has at least 4 classmates that he knew well on the guest list. Still, I remind myself it's all for Johnnie, not me. And for Rose and I will suck it up, put on my big boy pants and take him to the party. Besides, it's at Sky Zone in Van Nuys and I found out later it is actually a trampoline park. How fun would that be for Johnnie! And so this  being a Lisa work Saturday, I planned to pick Johnnie up first thing. Except that I was texted first thing by Lisa's office too. An opening in the Hygiene schedule just came up and Claudia wanted to know if I wanted to come in for my cleaning. Those openings being rare, I jumped at the chance. Plenty of time to do that and then go to the party afterwards. When I got to Lisa's house, Johnnie was still asleep and Claire right next to him in the living room sofa. I guess they had played in the sand and Lisa said both boy and dog were too dirty to sleep in the bed upstairs. Why that makes a difference with sleeping on the sofa is beyond me but who am I to question. Lisa just stated both needed a bath, meaning I should give both a bath. That, I was happy to do. In fact, all 3 of us took a shower in the lower bathroom. Much easier to do it there than at my apartment. All 3 o f us getting cleaned up therefore, I headed us to my apartment with McDonald's breakfast in hand. Now all of a sudden my morning was compressed. And I was so glad I did my grocery shopping yesterday already. I went to Lisa's office at 10:30, Kristin Wong did my cleaning as we traded stories about the kiddos, and I was glad to have nice and clean teeth again. And now I could focus totally on the afternoon and the Rose birthday party. What made me feel better was that Johnnie actually had a present for Rose all ready to go, hand-wrapped and everything. Then I don't feel anything was inappropriate. In fact, now I was mentally prepared to spend the afternoon with the kiddos. 

There was just one thing I did not account for. The party started at 1:00 PM. And I didn't know that they were going to do the trampoline activity first before food and that actually meant 1:30-2:30PM.  Which meant that we wouldn't be eating until 2:30 at the earliest. I didn't think about that one. Not so much for Johnnie. He's used to skipping lunch just to do more activities. I was thinking more about me and how hungry I was going to get. Could I suck it up until 2:30 PM? I decided not to. Just as soon as the kiddos started with all the trampolining and jumping around, I snuck out and grabbed me a pizza at the food place inside. I wolfed down half very very quickly and got me and Johnnie some water. And then I joined the rest of the parents. I will say it's kind of cool to see Johnnie with his friends again. And there were at least a half dozen kids from his class there. Look at the pic of him and his friend Caleb doing battle in the balance beam. SO much fun! I will say that a half hour in, all my hesitancy and social anxiety went away. I can do this. And everything was already fine. The Starrs were great hosts and I myself thought this was a great idea for maybe even Johnnie's birthday. The kids got stuck playing air hockey actually and although I didn't bring any cash for any of the other games and they weren't providing any at the check-in places, that's actually not bad that they weren't doing mostly games, after all, the trampolining was what was paid for. Afterwards, the kids had pizza and the adults let them sit with each other and i sat with David and Ana, Alanna's parents and we talked about golf the whole time LOL. See? I do just fine socially! It was almost 4 PM by the time we got home. With the pizza, I ate the rest of my tuna salad as soon as I got home. I was more tired than usual, and I thought it was hilarious that it was ME that was tired simply watching Johnnie play. All in all, Johnnie had a great time which was all I could ask for and he wasn't even all that tired really. In fact, he wanted to take out MY mini-trampoline so he could keep bouncing some more.  I parked him in front of his usual slate of videos and waited for Lisa to call to pick him up. I didn't really talk to her much when I got my cleaning done today simply because she was busy and we really did need to go. Still it was a surprise that we didn't hear from Lisa until it was almost 8 PM and she was back to her dark Self energy, you know the why-do-i-do-this, why-am-I-alive energy. I already knew I had to disengage quickly and not feed into it or she will suck me into it. If I could even not have any interaction at all that would be ideal. But I still had to get Johnnie home. I toyed with the idea of letting him sleep in my apartment for the night. Instead, I waited until 10 PM to bring him home. No need for him to sleep early tonight, he can sleep in all he wants tomorrow. And as it was he actually waited for her to come home before actually going to sleep. I waited too, for which I was rewarded with an interrogation about brushing Johnnie's teeth and Claire's teeth. For which I responded that I did both. She wasn't interested in teeth. She was interested in picking a fight. That's the only way her dark energy could process. To actually let myself sink into it is how it gains energy. And so I went home and tried to clear my thoughts and clean up that energy as best as I could. And fortunately, I went to sleep easily. It was a long day. But other than the Lisa blip, it was a fun, frivolous, happy day actually. And I hold on to THAT energy as long as I can.

Tech Council Meeting Day With A Twist

It's Wednesday and Tech Council Meeting Day. And Communications Meeting Day first thing at 8:30 AM. Which meant that we couldn't lallygag through breakfast at 8 AM like we did yesterday Johnnie and I. I did let him sleep until well past 7 AM and then woke him up and we ended up making it back from McDonald's by 8 AM anyway. Plenty of time for me to make my breakfast juice, AND avocado toast right before joining the meeting at 8:30 AM. By then I had Johnnie locked in to watching some education.com videos and games until I was done by 9:30. And THEN Johnnie had the idea that he wanted to play basketball today. And so right after the meeting, we put his socks and shoes on and off we went to Mar Vista Park to shoot some hoops. I was hoping there would be a under-regulation basket for him to practice on. Alas, there wasn't. And so Johnnie had to play on the regular hoop. I didn't think he was strong enough to even heave it to touch the rim. Well guess what, he touched the rim with the ball. He didn't make it in, he was still just a touch too small to do that but he handled the ball just fine. And this is a regulation ball mind you. And after 10 minutes of trying to heave it towards the regulation basket, I made do just like I used to when I was a kid. I made my own 'hoop'. In Johnnie's case, it was a tree branch that was about 8 foot tall. I made him shoot it through the branches like a hoop. And guess what... he did just fine doing that. Until I can find him a hoop, I was satisfied that he had actually developed some basketball skills doing STAR! Whaddya know? The best part about the morning was that he had fun and now I know why he would come home sweaty and dirty most days. He simply plays and what kid doesn't do that? At least he was in fun mode until we got home and I made him do some Math to round up the morning. And I got into my grumpy teacher mode <sigh>. I made him do some basic multiplication and 2-digit addition and subtraction. And as is becoming typical, Johnnie got frustrated when he didn't get it quickly. OR maybe I didn't break down the concepts to their basic form like maybe I should have. And MAYBE just maybe, the impatient EGO-ME struck again because I sure wasn't the loving, patient coach just minutes before at the basketball court. I became taskmaster-general and it didn't take long before Johnnie was crying in frustration. I had to flip myself again and soothe and calm him down and show him with patience this time that the steps were something he had already gotten before and simply tends to forget. Are you kidding me? This kid is brighter than most and I KNOW he has no problems with the concepts.  Anyway I made it up to him by making him udon and heating up last night's leftover teriyaki chicken. AT LEAST I know he's eating lunch on my watch.

By the time Tech Council Meeting rolled around it was almost anti-climactic. I had already done some of the material this morning at the Communications Meeting and I did like that I won't have to go next month based on the new Meeting Schedule for Shared Services. I won't go again until August. The meeting went by pretty quickly and smoothly I thought and I was done before 3 PM actually. Done in 56 minutes LOL. And after the meeting back I went to Johnnie's schedule. He had it in his mind that we needed to do 2 sports activities per day and I was perfectly fine with that. Yesterday it was karate for a half hour in the morning and swimming for a half hour in the afternoon. This morning it was 45 minutes of basketball and then in the afternoon, another 30 minutes of karate. I will say that after 2 lessons, his sidekick is looking much better and actually it does now feel like a kick. Like he could actually hurt other kids if he's not careful. I better make sure he understands to use it for self-defense only. By 3:30PM he was done with HIS schedule. I know I know, it almost feels like a year ago when he was still in kindergarten and doing school from home. At least he's learning. At least he's active. And other than the math thing, he had fun I think. I gotta think of some art stuff for him to do as well. He did that on Monday with Lisa when he was at Nikki's. One last learning activity for him today though... and that would be the regular Spanish class of course with Hail. Today though we did NOT go to Lisa's office to do it. We stayed at home. The last 2 weeks we did go and then waited more than an hour for Lisa each time. And cause emotional havoc for me the rest of the week. Not doing that today. He did his lesson, all was good and we both ate dinner right after. Chicken noodle soup for him and cassava pasta and turkey bolognese for me. And we were done eating by 6 PM. The last 2 weeks we would still be waiting for Lisa. As it was she called and asked if we had done the lesson. I simply told her I thought we were going to be doing the dinner thing tomorrow instead. Turned out Courtney was there at her office. Courtney did call me last Monday and left a message asking if she could hang out with Johnnie today. I never returned the call. My bad. And for her part, Lisa was satisfied when I told her I thought we weren't going to see her until tomorrow. I think she was ok simply finishing up her work. And we were ok simply staying home and for Johnnie to go back to watching Pokemon episodes. And for me to watch Episode 5 of Kenobi. We had a good day overall Johnnie and I, even with the Math stuff. The basketball made up for that. Hard work part of the week is over. I can cruise the rest of the week...

First Summer Tuesday Johnnie At Home

A distant memory I woke up this morning and for some reason I had a memory of my first year at Nogales High School. I had tried out for the JV Basketball team, and I thought I was doing pretty well and holding my own. But I also realized that my fundamentals were not up to par. And so when I asked the coach when the next practices were he practically told me I could come but there was very little chance I would make the team because there were so many other guys coming back that had already played on the team. I was disappointed of course but I simply brushed it off. Or maybe repressed it. Otherwise why would it come up now? Did it set me up for future patterns of less-than-optimal choices and behaviors? If that were Johnnie I would tell him, you gotta work harder, not give up and your opportunity will come. Just not that day and perhaps not with that team. And I know he would have tried harder and worked at making a team. I know this because I would push him. Alas, I had no one to push me then, no parent with an encouraging word. But I did try. And I would end up getting better. Just was a late bloomer was all. And so I would tell ME now... whatever you want to do, get up off your ass and get to work. You will be just fine. 

So today I had Johnnie at home all day. I lined up stuff for him to do in 45 minute blocks as if he were still in school, not that I knew the stuff he did in class or in what order. The point was I wanted to make sure I aligned the activities with the times I was going to be in meetings. Although, it IS Tuesday and really I needed a far larger block of time than 45 minutes to get done with my content for tomorrow's meetings. But I also didn't need to do all of that content in one sitting either. And so for the first meeting, which was the IS Team Meeting, Johnnie was doing karate online with DojoGo, which he had done a year ago. I was also intentional in making sure he was moving around even if he was in front of a computer doing so. Once done with that, it was on to Math. I remembered last summer he had actually progressed quite significantly with just the stuff I was showing him on YouTube. He was already doing first grade stuff well before starting first grade. And this time around he will be done with 2nd grade stuff too. Once done with that, it was on to Spanish class before lunch. I needed him locked in for an hour because I had that Shared Services Meeting with Eloisa and the other Directors about the meeting schedule for next year. Looks like I wouldn't be doing Tech Council Meeting anymore every month which is just fine by me. Just one long meeting every couple of months. Of course it is now on Tuesdays and it is now starting at 8:00 AM and likely in person AND starting in August when Johnnie's starts school again. When did I say I was on track to retire? Anyway starting this brand new routine even though it is just for this week, means I have to make Johnnie lunch. Hey at least I can monitor what he eats and that he eats at all! Today it was spaghetti for home, a hot dog with no bun, and a banana. For me it was spaghetti with turkey bolognese. Yes, I moved away from the usual vegan stuff but hey considering the weight I lost I think an off-day wouldn't hurt. Besides it's just one meal. I feel good that I'm getting muscly in my arms again. That used to be my calling card! Besides, Johnnie needed the energy for what I had in store after lunch. We're off to the pool! Again, for just a 30-minute chunk this time, I had him swimming. It had gotten warmer and there were a lot of women sun bathing in fact LOL. I managed to chill too. I call it a break from content creation the rest of the afternoon, which is what I ended up doing. By 3 PM, Johnnie was doing his usual Prodigy stuff and shortly after, my learning/activity school simulation regimen was done. I know, I know, it IS summer. But it got Johnnie occupied didn't it? And I think he had fun in the process too. Finally I did let him watch his Pokemon episodes on TV. And then we took another break at 5 PM as if it was a regular school Tuesday. That meant we went to Panda Express to get his dinner. I got me some veggies too, to go with a nice tuna sandwich and the eggplant Indian side dish. See? I'm back to the eating regimen. And managed to finish my 11,000 steps and 67 active minutes. What I didn't get to do today, was internal stuff. At least not after early morning meditation. And I think that's still ok. I could have done it at night actually but instead, I watched the Season Finale of Mayans. Man, gone was the innocent Ezekiel from Season 1. Every character's arc had changed significantly. All bait for the next season I'm sure.  Still before I drifted to sleep I managed to get to a space of gratitude for today. It was a Johnnie summer Tuesday at home and I think we both did really really good.