The Winter Song Fest

So the holiday activities continue and today it's Johnnie's big day. It's Mar Vista's Winter Song Festival and his class is performing at 1:20. And he's introducing one of the songs no less. There is no shortage of talented, outgoing personalities in his class. That he positioned himself to do it is pretty good I thought. And so it was that I pretty much tanked most of today work-wise. I did get some things done and I did get some nice meditation in this morning. But really all were prefacing the show mid-day. And LIKE the other big events of late, there really isn't much to talk about other than fact that Johnnie did so well and I was very very proud of him. Today was one of those events where I got to do a very dad thing and I couldn't be any happier. At the concert I sat next to Blair and Jason and as luck would have it, Brooklyn was introducing with Johnnie on the same song. Couldn't help but feel like I was looking at a pretty cool future. Awww... Lisa made it too albeit a little late. But she did make it and that is what's important. I picked Johnnie up at 3:30, he did his Spanish class and it was like a normal Friday. Except that the pictures below show otherwise. Something to remember most definitely...

Busier Thursday Than Usual

How did I end up with so many meetings today. No less than 5 all throughout the day, starting with the OCHIN meeting that I had a sense would have some tension only because Marina and Dr Liao are attending and I will say they just like jabbing people in the ribs without really having enough of an understanding. Yes I will say that too. They're good with checking in on deadlines but they aren't really interested in the story so much as the deadline. That might not be a fair assessment but I said it anyway. And I'm aware I am projecting something less desirable. I figured I had the day covered in meditation first thing this morning anyway. As in I was going to have a good day regardless. AND during said meditation, I became aware of an anniversary today. Today 8 years ago in 2014, Lisa brought Johnnie home. Which is why I posted the contrasting pic of him from that day and him today when I dropped him off at school. Never should I forget how lucky I am that I get to be his dad. And I don't think I will lose sight of the fact that THAT is the most important thing in the world to me. And how much laughter we share on a daily basis from the moment he gets up out of bed to the moment I tell him I LOVE HIM when he goes to sleep. So many emotions automatically bubbled to the surface from around that 2014 time frame. I remind myself we were going live with EPIC too. What a time.

I managed to make it through that EPIC meeting relatively unscathed, and then the meeting with the Virginia HCCN folks, which turned out to be a meeting with Blue Novo was refreshingly good. How many times do you get to meet with a CEO of a healthcare tech company and get a compliment. I think he was trying to figure out why I would do this for free. He invited me to Park Place Korean BBQ next time he's out in LA. So that was something huh? I had thoughts of maybe working for an outfit like that for $100 an hour. Nahh, I don't want to be traveling all over the country anymore. Not with Johnnie in the house. But hey I made it to lunch and then I did my EHR team meeting and then the Penelope implantation meeting. I felt like I had a VERY productive day. By the time all my work stuff got done it was already almost 4 PM. On a usual Thursday, I would be picking up Johnnie and then we'd be doing Spanish class and waiting for the Lisa hand-off. Except that Lisa threw me a curve yesterday and scheduled Johnnie for a consult on that pus-filled sac that we dealt with on his neck since last month. We don't even know what's causing that really except that it looks like a pimple. The curve was that Lisa wanted to pick Johnnie up early for an equally early appointment. Which meant I had to cancel Spanish class. So instead picking up Johnnie, I dropped off all his stuff and Claire too at Lisa's house. After all, I still had Fuzzy. On the way to Lisa's house I noticed how cool the sunset looked and had to take a picture. And so there would be no hand-off tonight and I actually get some early ME-TIME instead. I made myself some nice mushroom chicken over rice for dinner. And watched TV until I knocked off for bed. I don't want to say I have unhealthy TV viewing habits when Johnnie isn't here but... What I ended up doing was watching the RAMS on Amazon Prime and ended up watching one of the greatest comeback stories of the NFL season. Rams vs Raiders, 2 teams that won't be in the play-offs this year. But the Rams had no one because everyone was injured. So much so they had to pick up Baker Mayfield on waivers from Cleveland. Baker Mayfield? The guy ends up driving the team 98 yards with no timeouts, barely even sniffing the playbook for a couple of hours. And leads the Rams to a come-from-behind win. A cool story even if you didn't like Mayfield. or didn't like football. You couldn't have scripted this if this were a movie. And it was amazing to watch.

Happy Thanksgiving

So we made it to Thanksgiving in San Diego with my fam and I must admit it was somewhat surreal to wake up in a Motel 6 Thanksgiving morning. The advantage to doing this of course was that we didn't have to drive a long ways this morning and we didn't have to deal with traffic although I dealt with it plenty enough last night. Still there was a great deal of familiarity to being here, particularly with Johnnie who LOVES coming to Motel 6 and doing the whole breakfast at McDonald's thing. Same McDonald's near the freeway and near the outlet. At least I know he had a huge breakfast. Not that there won't be any food later on at Grace's house but I simply don't know what Johnnie will feel like or not feel like eating. This way I'm sure. And then we went back to the hotel room and I kept up my journal and Johnnie got an hour's worth of Garfield videos in. We took off for Lisa's by 10 AM and we're there by 10:30. Lunch was not until 1:30 but I thought we'd at least get to spend time with the fam whoever was there.  My mom and Mike were already there. I think it's the first time I had seen Mike in more than 2 years. I was thinking this morning that among the many possible things that gave me a physical reaction while driving last night <let's see... I had named the Lisa interaction earlier in the day, some residual stuff from work, and maybe perhaps the whole act of going down to San Diego for Thanksgiving by itself?> dealing with my family could be a possible reason too. Not that I haven't dealt with them before, but in this new drive towards becoming more aware of the negative emotions I keep trapped in my physical body, the family dynamic always has a place and a history. I don't actually remember the last time I've come right on Thanksgiving Day with JOHNNIE.  Usually we are at the Elams, or before that we were always in Maui. Or a couple of times I've come by myself. So this was a rarity indeed. And of course I'm going to milk it for whatever it's worth. I let Johnnie spend whatever time he could with his Grandma Linda. Had him draw her some art work. Had him play with the dogs (see pic). In the meantime, there was definitely loads of food. I had rib roast for the first time in months. But I also threw caution to the wind. That meant I ate more carbs than I have had in a long time. Hey, it's Thanksgiving. I even had a carrot cake! ANd yes, predictably I was ready to take a nap after the meal. I was carb comatose LOL. I stuck around for a little bit although the dynamic was that the bigger kids hung out and I stayed with Johnnie even while watching his TV shows <Floor is Lava> and while the old folks caught up too. I am THANKFUL that I got to join my family on this day and with Johnnie with me and that my family got to enjoy him if just for a couple of hours. I was thankful for the Thanksgiving feast. And so when we left for home by 3:30, mainly because I also wanted Johnnie and his mom to connect today, I thought it was still worth the long one-day drive just to be here. There were no weird physical anomalies on the drive back. And there was no traffic either. Which meant we were home before 5:30. It was already dinner time and I know Johnnie didn't really eat much other than bread and rice for lunch, so I made him his chicken special. And we did connect with Lisa, arranging a hand-off for tomorrow. I don't know that Lisa is negative for COVID, but I'm sure Johnnie's immune system is strong enough to withstand whatever Lisa has. And then Johnnie must have had an extra heaping serving of chocolate ice cream because he sure had a lot of bounce tonight. That's ok. I love the bounce and his innate joy. Even though his punches are starting to hurt. We went to bed early tonight. And I note that I still made it to 11,000+ steps and already at more than 400 active minutes this week. Happy Thanksgiving EVERYONE.

My ABSOLUTE BEST Golf Game In YEARS

What just happened? I'm sitting at lunch at Sidewalk Grill on Vermont reflecting on the golf game I just had. That's because I just shot bogey golf... for the entire 9 holes at Roosevelt. I had 2 pars on Hole 4 and Hole 6. 2 6's on Hole 2 and Hole 8. The rest were bogeys. And 2 of those should have been pars because I missed relatively easy putts on Hole 1 and Hole 5. Simply, it was the best golf I had played in a long LONG time. How did I do it? For one, except on Hole 8 all my tee shots were nicely hit, long and straight. And even that whiff on Hole 8, I followed up with a fairway 3-wood that went 200 yards and got me within 70 yards of the hole after 2 shots anyway. The difference on that hole was focus. I let the sand trap bug me and I whiffed on that 3rd shot, costing me another bogey or better.  On Hole 2 I hit the tree on the 3rd shot which would have gotten me on the green already and cost me the bogey there. But on most of the other holes, I had very nice fairway iron shots. THAT was the difference. It overcame my putting which was just ok. I made them when I was close. But I wan't missing by a lot and I was putting myself in a position to close out. So the combination of good tee shots and good fairway irons pretty much on most of the holes got me good scores. Even on the last hole where I had 2 errant shots, one of the tee that landed right and then the pitching wedge shot that went way past the hole, I recovered with a chip shot that got me close enough to the hole  and allowed me to close out with a bogey. And so I shot a 42 today. Wow. I could hear Greg now expressing his utter disbelief. Heck, I could hardly believe it myself. What did I do in the mental game? Not much from this morning I could tell you that. I had been visualizing every now and again all week about hitting my irons well from the fairway. And it came to pass. I just told myself that I was going to relax today and be in the moment so I could let the shot I want come to me. And more often than not that was what happened. I could feel myself losing some of that focus starting on Hole 8 but it was ok. I was already in such a rhythm that I was able to finish the game on that high note. Even Scott couldn't believe it. WHAT A GAME TODAY! 

I took a nap as soon as I got home and started to put myself in game time mode for tomorrow's conference. It already started today but I don't have to talk until tomorrow. I hadn't thought about it all week long frankly. But then again, I didn't really have to I didn't think. I am simply confident enough that all would go very well. I just needed the nap because I was binge watching Season 9 of the Blacklist last night and didn't get to sleep until almost 1 AM. Which makes my great game this morning even more puzzling really. Get enough sleep? Nope... in fact, I felt that need for the nap the entire morning. Good meditation? Focus on the golf? Nope and nope. I simply was more relaxed this morning which helped me to dial in better I think. The good program simply outweighted the bad programs today. And so now I can work on replicating that next week LOL. It turned out to be a beautiful, warm last Sunday in October. So beautiful that I had to remind myself that I actually needed to get ready for an early ride to LAX tomorrow morning and I needed to get to where I needed to go from LAX to Vegas. Usually I'd be kiciking around with fall sports but since I cut the cord, I had no access to regular TV, so no Rams football, no access to Spectrum Sports Net so no Lakers. Which may or may not be so bad considering the Rams aren't playing well and the Lakers? don't get me started. They have gotten off to their worst start in years and they are the worst shooting team in the NBA. But there's still the internet. I mean after all, I get too nervous and don't even watch these things live anyway. When did I start being so neurotic? Yeah, like forever? All the way back to the 80s! Back then I called it superstitious LOL LOL. Anyway, this afternoon the Rams lost to the 49ers. Again. But the Lakers somehow won their very first game of the NBA season! I watched none of it of course but then again after this morning's golf game, I was pretty blasé about either team. Besides, UCLA football won last night.  So I had a pretty quiet rest-of-Sunday-last-weekend in October kind of day. And now we usher in Halloween, November, and the holiday season. Can't wait. 

Disneyland

And so today was Disneyland day. We only had been talking about it for months now. And now it's here. And Dexter got himself a ticket to go. The last thing I said to Cecille and Silvia last night was that they had to help me get Lisa out of the house today at a decent time. I was over at 8:15. They were ready. Lisa and Johnnie were still in bed. Lisa was talking about not going since Johnnie was sick. Or at least claimed he was sick. W-T-F? My gut already told me he was not sick, but was acting like it because everyone else in the house seemed sick, including of course his mom. And I felt like he was just projecting Lisa's energy of not really wanting to go. I KNEW this was going to happen actually. It's just difficult every single time when you have to deal with it and deal with her. Brings me back to golf Sundays when she started not to want to come but would just do her best to waste my time and energy and not actually have to decide one way or another. YES it is a CONTROL thing with her. Just like it is with Johnnie now.  And I was not having it. As it was we waited until the very very last second until everyone finally left the house. It was 9:45. But we DID leave despite all the drama. And we got to Disneyland by 11 AM. The moment we got there, Johnnie already wanted some popcorn. Yeah. Sick alright. Anyway I will just say we all had a pretty good day at the Happiest Place on Earth. And Johnnie's favorite this time? The canoe ride! Yep, we got to ride a canoe! The rest I'll just post pics and let those pics tell the story. We were home by 8 PM. Tired. Very tired. But it was a good day. 

Enjoying Moments

You hear it all the time: It's about the journey not the destination. It's about the process, not the result. And then we all get caught up in either or both journey AND destination that we forget to appreciate it all. That was what I tried to remind Lisa of at dinner last night. And somehow the message made its way back... to ME. And the day flowed almost effortlessly well and nothing due to anything I did I don't think. First off, this morning's ride to our routine breakfast pick-up and then on to school was different. Today we shed Johnnie's car seat in favor of a booster. Definitely a time marker, or maybe more of a growth marker. After all, I've only had a car seat in any car I've driven for almost 8 years. So this is a moment to remember for emotional sentimental saps such as myself. Anyway I only had one meeting this morning as opposed to the typical full morning slate. And so like last week I actually had a quiet morning. And even my IS Team Meeting was very smooth, so much so it felt like all the stuff we talked about at the beginning of the week flowed and things were progressing well. I don't know what made me walk to Trader Joe's this morning other than to pick up some chana masala AND some chicken strips for later. I was thinking I'd make Johnnie some home made chicken strips and see how he liked it, encouraged by how much of it he ate last Monday night at Lisa's. And so I got my step count up and active minutes too while doing some shopping. Uncharacteristic for a Thursday morning, but it was nice to walk outside and enjoy the sun since it had not gotten really hot just yet. And as far as the lunch I made, pic posted shows that it turned out pretty good at that: shrimp with bok choy over chana masala and rice. Awesome. And I was pretty full. If I didn't have a good night's sleep last night for the second night in a row, I'd probably be napping the afternoon away, instead of watching SHE HULK and my usual assortment of Youtube healing audios. I'm thinking that is what had been making me tired the last couple of nights. My body was simply healing. For sure it was a little sore this morning from the gym yesterday. And that is a very good thing. And so the afternoon went by quickly. I did have a date lined up with Candace later on in the evening and I was still thinking about how to drop Johnnie off at Lisa's to make the date. I went as far as making a reservation at a fish house in Redondo Beach. And then Candace took care of the problem for me. She decided to call off the date and reschedule it for the weekend. I was not at all disappointed. What does it say that I am more relieved that I didn't have to rush anything and get down to Redondo Beach by 7 PM? Instead I get Johnnie in the hot tub like I promised, and look at him in the pic with his computer. Johnnie in the hot tub playing Prodigy math games. I certainly did NOT have that when I was a kid! I was all set to simply let Lisa pick him up tonight. I had even called her at 7 PM to check where she was (hey she was at home sleeping last week when I called wasn't she?). Not even 5 minutes after I hung up did I get a call from Jorge. He was across town and asked if we could go to dinner. That threw me for a loop a bit since I was all set to simply let Johnnie get picked up and chill the rest of the evening away. But of course I agreed to go. I had HAD the rest of the chicken strips for dinner already but maybe I could have some ramen was my thinking. And so Jorge came and we drove to Sawtelle, and to make a long story short, I had Lisa come pick up Johnnie and the dog right there while we were waiting to get seated. Except that the universe tested my patience yet again. The Daikokuya ramen place was full. It took almost an hour before we got seated at a table. I was so impatient and cranky. But we did get the table, and the bottom line was that Johnnie, Lisa and the dog even joined us. And so quite spontaneously we had another dinner night out and with Jorge joining us to boot, AND he even picked up the tab. How can you not be grateful about all that? The day had lots of moments and I enjoyed them all, one test that I didn't feel like I passed but it still managed to end up well in the end. It was a very nice Thursday.

A Family Day

So my day with Johnnie yesterday didn't go exactly as planned. But today Lisa planned a morning at the California Science Center to see the Angkor Wat exhibit. I was skeptical that she would actually go because of how late she got in last night, but she did ask me to come by early for breakfast before we went to catch the 10 AM entrance.  When I got to her house at 8 AM, Johnnie was already ready to go so I knew it was on. We even got to USC on time, and found parking a couple of blocks from campus so we thought we'd just walk on over across the street to the place right next to the Coliseum. Of course, I didn't realize that today is Saturday game day, and the first USC game of the season at that. Still, the game must not have been until later on in the afternoon because we did find that parking spot. Of course, it seemed closer than it actually was. Because when we started walking it became apparent that it was going to be a long, hot walk. We went through the USC campus simply to find shade. And we walked through the paths I would normally take going to my office at USC Stevens. Same Taco Bell in the corner, same Supercuts where I had many a haircut. Same old parking structure I used to park at. And when walking through the campus, the tailgaters had already started putting up their tents. Anyway, Johnnie was a trooper walking in the heat and we finally got to the Cali Science Center. And then it was on to the exhibit. I will say this: the last time we went to an exhibit all together, it was for the Dead Sea Scrolls when Johnnie was still a baby, and it was disappointing. This was actually more than I expected. Amazing how Angkor Wat had some parallels to other advanced civilizations like the Mayans, Aztecs, and Egyptians.  I thought Johnnie had a lot of fun building temples and putting scrolls together. And then when we got done with the exhibit, Johnnie took me to his other favorite exhibits like the island exhibit, and the Space Shuttle. By the time we got through I actually had gotten energized. At least, that was what walking through the air-conditioned areas did because it was really really hot outside. Anyway we had pizza for Johnnie, a beef/mushroom/cheese sandwich for Lisa and an Impossible burger for me. And then when we got done, we braved the hot walk back to the car. We had to stop a couple of times in the shade to allow Johnnie to rest. But the rest was good for all of us too. And at least we were hydrated. Anyway the morning excursion was a success. And I was already satisfied that we all got to spend the morning together and actually had fun. Wjen we got back to Lisa's house, all I wanted to do was take a nap. And I decided I'd stick around for as long as tolerable. Maybe I was trying to set a new personal record for how long I could be around Lisa. She did promise to make it through the day without getting mad at me. I thought she had done just fine already. She played the piano while I took a nap an when I woke up she kept on playing while Johnnie and I played balloon badminton in the backyard. And we had so much fun. We went through at least half a dozen balloons that popped and we kept on playing until we had no more balloons. Finally dinner time came around but Lisa had to do some talking to Johnnie. He had gotten irritated because she had made him wash the dishes. He felt like he was being overworked. He even wrote her a note telling her not to go into his room. Awww. Hey, I had gotten one of those notes from him before too. While they talked I went back to my apartment and picked up cabbage, apples, and carrots from my fridge. Lisa did not feel like eating much and quite frankly neither did I. I had eaten so much at lunctime. The cabbage apple carrot salad with balsamic vinegarette was perfectly fine and perfectly adequate.  Johnnie had his penne and chicken broth, which was really the only time all day that Lisa would lose it. That's because she couldn't stand me mixing up the old penne with the noodles in the can. I was 100% sure Johnnie didn't care, heck I gave that same meal to him many a time. So of course she had to cook new penne for him. And he waited another hour before he ate. But that little incident was a mere blip in the course of the entire day. By then Lisa had started to complain again about her throat and her cough. Johnnie had already mostly recovered from yesterday. Maybe there is something about Lisa having a damaged immune system. How can I help her with all this knowledge I have gotten? How could I help anyone that doesn't want my help? It was 9 PM by the time I went home. I had spent the entire day with Johnnie and Lisa, probably the most time I had spent with both of them.in years. Or at least as long as I can remember after I left the Maplewood house. And it was a very good day. 

First Day of School for Johnnie

This morning is a big morning. HUGE. It's his first day back at school and he himself was so excited he was up at 6:15 AM. Before I was. I gave him some of the newer clothes I had already purchased. Except one thing. His shoes were falling apart. DRAT! And his new Adidas shoes aren't here yet. They come today. Oh well, I guess he wears his old Vans for today. Anyway we back to our old school routine, which is to say breakfast from McDonald's and then pack his lunch and then get him going. School doesn't start until 8:15 for him, which is 10 minutes later, but we went early anyway. Today the parents are finally allowed back in the yard and I remember when I used to drop Johnnie off at TK when he would line up before his teacher walked everyone in to class.  Or line up outside his classroom door. That seemed so long ago. Before the pandemic. No lining up for kindergarten obviously and not for 1st Grade either. So this was almost like a first. I posted a pic of Johnnie by the line-up cone and it did have a huge feeling of familiarity going into the yard again in the morning. And then I had to hustle home because I had already asked to go later for the Management Committee meeting first thing. That was at 8 AM. I was on at 8:30 AM. And so I got myself into 'game mode'. I did finish my presentation yesterday and caught up on sleep this morning so I was good to go. I had a lot to present this morning, capped by the IS Audit presentations and all the steps I was taking. All in all, the general tone was that yes they found stuff but that my team could do all those really. Eloisa did mention how disappointed she was that some of the findings included having to keep hardware and software up to date. And earlier than that, when I was presenting the IS service survey, 25% responded that there hardware was just adequate or below adequate. All pointing to a focus area that I need to keep our organization hardware more up to date. On the one hand I'm trying to save money. On the other hand, can't be skimping too much that users think we're giving them crap hardware. Such is my balancing act. Anyway, I felt that Eloisa's comments were fair. There's no way I SHOULD have let my switches get to end-of-life. Those are the things I left up to Justin back in the day and since he has been gone 4 years now, it is definitely no longer an excuse today. Anyway all in all it was still a positive meeting I thought and the best part was that it was done before 10 AM and when it was done I was good to go for the rest of the day. Heavy lift of the week all done!

And so with that I chilled the remainder of the day away. I deserved it after all. I worked my tail off the last 2 days. Drifting off to a nap this afternoon seemed effortless. And in the blink of an eye it seemed, it was already time to pick up Johnnie. No picking him up early today too. We're paying for STAR to watch him after school until at least 5 PM and I waited until 5 PM to pick him up to be sure. When he did he was very excited about his day, about seeing his new classmates, and reuniting with his old classmates and familiar faces. I mean when we walked in this morning the lady at the gate gave him a big old hug and knew who he was already. And of course she had to say hi to Ms Marlen. And Ms Jennifer from STAR gave me a wave when I picked up Johnnie. He definitely had an agenda for tonight. A list such as it were. He wanted to watch BAD GUYS (a movie he saw on the plane), he wanted to have dinner then ice cream from McDonald's, and then he wanted to relax in the hot tub. OK then. My agenda was to look in his bag and see any homework he needed to do and to look for first-day-of-school stuff. For dinner I made him tofu and got some chicken wings from Ralphs. And he put those away like quick. I made myself shrimp and veggies over shiratake noodles. And then realized I was behind 11,000+ steps pace. I mean I do have to get to that now don't I? Especially after making 15,000+ steps yesterday and 124 active minutes while not doing anything for most of the morning. I couldn't get my heart rate up today though, at least not as easily as yesterday. And that's ok. As it were, we did have dinner and then walked to McDonald's afterwards to get his ice cream sundae with M&Ms. Am I concerned he is ingesting this much sugar? I'm concerning he's bouncing off walls LOL. And then he finished watching Bad Guys, while I caught up on my emails. By the time he was done with the movie it was already 8:15 PM. And so I convinced him it was already way late to go to the hot tub. He had to be in bed in a half hour after all and if we're being honest, I too felt tired enough to knock off early. Which was exactly what I did. All in all a good day. A good first day of school for Johnnie, a good meeting day for me. I can cruise the rest of the week!

Losing Patience And Being An Asshole About It

I tried to trace back today when I started losing patience. Important to me because by the end of the day, by the time I picked up Johnnie from school, I had almost totally lost it. It wasn't just the usual lost-patience-with-the-idiotic-way-people-drive kind of impatience. It had carried over so pervasively that I lost patience with Johnnie right in the middle of his Spanish class, simply by him not getting a couple of answers right when Hail his teacher asked him. I felt like he wasn't focused enough. Just look at his body language in the picture I posted of him in the middle of said class. And so I angrily grabbed his precious Pokemon card he got today and I almost ripped it right in front of him. At least I controlled myself enough not to have done that and instead put it in my back pocket. And when he got done with his class, I sat him down and told him I thought he was not trying his best and that he was basically slacking. And that I expected better from him. And so OF COURSE that made him cry. I made him cry. Which always somehow snaps me back into dad mode. The good dad. I managed to get him back to his usual playful self simply by giving him his food. Chicken strips and spaghetti tonight. And let him watch his Pokemon videos. And I gave him back his card. I hoped I did no harm no foul. AND THEN I REALIZED I had snapped and that I had been building this state of impatience all day pretty much. Which is why I tried to find out when it started. I traced it back to the Salesforce meeting with the project manager Greg Denizard. I think what it was was that he had this deliberate style that basically tried my patience. It was like we did a 30 minute meeting that I would have done in half that time. Maybe he's trying to pad hours, but boy he sure made me irritated to the point where I was rolling my eyes and looking off camera so as not to be caught rolling my eyes. I remind myself that these things are sort of a test. A test the Universe sends me to test my patience. And boy I did not pass that test today. Because even after that Salesforce meeting, even after lunch and I sat on the couch and tried to chill for the rest of my Friday afternoon, it seemed like email after email kept coming that work-related and all people tugging at me asking me for shit. Greg bugging about a personal printer at someone's house that needed to be replaced, which of course I had outlawed. And he kept going on and on and on about it all afternoon too. Approvals from Sheng. Asking yet again if he could purchase a laptop for someone. Hey I did tell him to ask questions didn't I? And then all those Data Team requests from the week. Starlet. Cynthia Borders. Didn't these people get the email that Shilpa is out on vacation? They expect ME to get the reports out to them? Yeah right. Anyway it felt like work really got to me this afternoon, which led me to overwhelm. A state that stayed with me until I saw Johnnie cry. That finally snapped me out of it. I spent the evening pretty much making sure Johnnie did recover. And that I recovered too. And in the end that last picture was me and Johnnie watching the movie Incredibles together and sharing a bag of popcorn. Man do I still to do work or what? Even realizing that the whole thing with the negativity was my ego trying to goad me into it to feed itself, I still did it. Fortunately, I did have Johnnie for most of the night as Lisa did one of her work-really-late evenings. She doesn't even call me anymore. I just drove Johnnie and Claire to her house, gave him a shower, and put him to bed. He was already asleep when she came home. And that was ok by me. I needed some extra time with him just so I could feel better about making up for the part where I was being asshole dad. When he went to sleep, I told him I LOVED HIM and Johnnie even played with that and responded that HE LIKED ME.  Before finally telling me I LOVE YOU Dad. In the end that's all I need. Just to hear him tell me he loves me. All is forgiven. I'm disappointed I even got the state I was in the first place. I will work on that. 

Not lost on me BTW was that today was Johnnie's last day or school for this school year. His last day of FIRST Grade. Started off with en masse testing in August, to his chickenpox thing in September, but rode out pretty smoothly in the end. He discovered basketball at STAR and also got caught up in the Pokemon phenomena, after briefly flirting with the Minecraft phenomena too. He strengthened friendships with Brooklyn, found new close friends and Ialso found himself in the principal's office one time. But I believe he grew into his own this year. His reading and math skills already past 2nd grade level. I do not worry about his academics at all, though it will be interesting what he actually settles into what he wants to do later on when he grows up. And grow up he is doing. And it is a delight to watch.

My First First Date In A Year

So today I knew I wouldn't get to see Johnnie, which means I don't get to see him this entire weekend, first time that has happened pretty much all this year. And today, that's ok. I had plenty to do and I wouldn't have had time to spend some quality time with him anyway. It's Lisa's turn to do that. Today I actually lined up a meet and greet with Michelle the woman I met on Match just this past week. She was attractive enough when we met on FaceTime on Wednesday and she was game to meet today especially since she is working in my neck of the woods this morning at Sprouts Culver City. Apparently she works in customer service and goes store to store at the many Sprouts locations and helps people in the vitamin and supplement section. No Johnnie? Perfect time to meet for lunch. I told her I'd be doing shopping at Sprouts anyway this morning and that wouldn't be a lie. What I didn't know was that the large Sprouts is actually not the one in Westwood, and not the one on Exposition a few miles from me. It would be the one on Sepulveda near the Fox Hills Mall, near the Target on Sepulveda that Johnnie and I go to.  And so I did my meditative exercises this morning, did some release work specifically about the Lisa interaction last night. I knew it was coming. I knew that because of the videos on narcissistic people that kept coming up during the day. And I was going to get tested. And I stood my ground. I didn't worry about hurting her feelings, as I reminded myself that she has NO feelings that would get hurt. She was simply all about doing her thing and doing her way and THE BEST THING I could do was not to get sucked into whatever drama she was weaving for herself. She did that already by choosing to work until 11 PM.  No wonder she had us come to her office. Turns out that would be the last time she saw Johnnie since he was already asleep when she got home. The thing that I reminded myself was NOT to talk about Lisa and her antics or our interactions. Nothing that would even FEEL negative. That's one thing you don't really want to focus too much when you're with someone new that you're interested in. So I went to Sprouts and there she was helping someone in the Vitamin Section. And she looked perfectly fine. Very attractive. Curvy attractive. Works for me. I gave her a hug and she told me to go ahead and do my shopping and when I got done we'd go to lunch. It was already noon by the time I made it out to the store anyway. By the time I got done shopping I even went all the way home and dropped off my groceries and then went right back to Sprouts to pick her up. By then it was 1 PM. Perfect. 

So we went to BJs at the Fox Hills Mall for lunch. It was busy. As in there was actually a 30 minute wait. But not at the bar. So there we went to grab lunch and chat for a bit. She had açaí with salmon, I had the ahi tuna salad. Who AM I? And it didn't really feel me up. But hey, that's why I did shopping this morning didn't I? So the purpose of a meet-and-greet was to see if there was some chemistry. You never really know until you spend time with someone. All I do remember was that my last date was actually a year ago. Early May last year. And no I didn't feel any chemistry after meeting up. As in when we hugged goodbye then, I was ok if we didn't go out again. We did have some pretty good conversation over lunch but then again I could have a conversation with anyone about almost anything really. Our commonality was that we were both Filipino-Americans, and first generation at that. Her kids were mostly grown but then again at my age I doubt there would be many women with kids the age of Johnnie. And that would be a decider for later on wouldn't it?  Turned out to be a negative a couple of years ago with this woman Jodi. Let's see what happens. I do know that this time, there was enough chemistry that I want to take her out on a date again. Maybe see if there are some sparks. It seemed easy and flowing to get from meeting her earlier in the week to today. So that's a good sign. We'll see what happens of course. More to come I think. I went on home and for the second day in a row, I didn't really get around to taking a nap. Too many things in my head most likely. That and realizing that I was barely at 1000 steps by 4 PM. I ended up staying in the rest of the day and reverting back to my couch potato binging on TV self. Hey it's ok to do every once in a while. I don't have to be go-go-go all the time. I watched the Dodgers win another game, then binged on the Lincoln Lawyer, the Netflix series based on the movie with Matthew McConaughey from a few years back. A former hotshot lawyer who fell from the perch, lost himself  and is trying to get back on his feet. And the series was about a high-profile case and then surrounded by smaller cases, each of which are seemingly tied together. It was good enough for me to binge on for the rest of the evening. Heck it could have been the Black List for all I care. Or Fringe. or any of the other shows I would binge on for my weekends. No 3 AM in the morning tonight though. There's golf tomorrow. And it's at Eaton Canyon. Can't be tired at all. But as today went, I had a date today. I'll call it a date. And as time markers go, that's a good thing.

Maplewood Morning, Netflix Evening

Maybe it was having to "live" at Lisa's house for a week while my apartment bathroom was getting done. Maybe it was my washer not spinning properly last weekend. Maybe it was having to do an 8 AM meeting this morning with the Coleman Associates group about the Dramatic Performance Improvement project at work. Maybe it was a need for more clarity. Maybe it was a tug from the past. Maybe it was all of these things. Anyway just as soon as I got done with that rah rah meeting with the Coleman people, just as soon as Lisa dropped off Claire with me for the day, I packed off all my dirty clothes in the hamper, my towels and headed right back to Lisa's house. Ok, maybe in the back of my mind I was thinking that the spin cycle in my washer isn't working right. Maybe the idea of taking a shower at her house seemed like a good idea. I had it in my mind that this morning I was going to do a couple of loads of laundry at Lisa's AND get a shower in and still be done with all that before noon. I thought that KNOWING that if there was one teeny tiny thing out of place, Lisa is likely to find out and make some comment or blame me for something. Doggone it I did it anyway. I put in my usual load which really was mostly Johnnie's dirty-ass clothes from the week, and then took a shower in Johnnie's bathroom. Something about this shower, or maybe it's the shower cream Lisa has in there. It makes you feel like you are scrubbed clean and your skin is devoid of whatever oily residue it had boy. I mean I felt clean. And then of course the clothes took almost 2 hours to wash simply because that's how long the wash cycles on her machine are. I did get the normal load all dried. I figured I'd just take my towels and get them in my own dryer. Because I was going to leave at noon or as close to it as possible. And I did just that. It kind of felt like how it would feel if I were still living here I guess in the here and now. The gardeners were over mowing the lawn, the dog kept as close to me as possible. And I was home by 12:10. I had to wipe EVERYTHING down of course but that was just fine with me. I was never here LOL.

In the meantime, though I did get a couple of pings from work, it is still Friday and I was not pushing hard, not in the least. I actually got some nice meditation in first thing this morning before I was even fully awake. I think this is where I get derailed actually. I get caught up in the day to day. I get distracted by other things going on. After all there is a full-on invasion going on in the Ukraine courtesy of Russia right now. And it would be really easy to get sucked in to all the news going on.  <Instead of focusing on peace for the situation mentally and emotionally> It would also be easy to get sucked in to what's going on with Dexter. As I did call him to check on him today and got more info about his health scare and what is going on. It sounded like he really had major surgery. I mean isn't it major surgery when they have to cut off part of your colon? And you have to poop from a bag as a result? More to come when we talk more after he comes home from the hospital I think. But I also need to make sure I don't get pulled from thoughts of my own good health. I give in too much to thoughts of illness and demise as it is. <instead of focusing on perfect health and commanding my cells to work perfectly>. And then of course there is Johnnie, who I have to pick up from school today. That is a distraction I welcome wholeheartedly as I completely accept and embrace being his dad even 100% of the time. If I were completely self-sufficient enough financially to retire and that were my ONLY job I would welcome it. Tonight I picked him up, brought him home and although Lisa made overtures about having a pizza night tonight, I knew better. I gave him his dinner and held out on mine until the last second. That is, I didn't eat just in case, until 7 PM. Then I made my beef-spinach dish. Lesson learned. Gotta have something ready to go for me too. And true enough it would be nearly 8:30 when Lisa called to let us know she was finally coming home. Nothing new for Johnnie or I. At least we got to hang out for a couple of hours on this Friday. I mean all I really need is that smile in the picture I posted. That toothless smile makes ME smile any time. Raises my vibration almost instantly.  And still I was home before 9 PM. AND THEN I gave in to the last distraction. I binge-watched Vikings Valhalla on Netflix. Kind of the sequel to the wildly successful Vikings series. This was just as interesting I thought. Kind of gives one a handle on the early history of England.  It was close to 1 PM when I finished all 7 episodes. And finally went to bed. Hey, it's Friday. It's the weekend. And I gave thanks that this week turned out to be a pretty light one. I'll take that any time. How do I know I had a pretty calm week? My body told me. My resting heart rate hit 69 today which is the lowest it had been this year, certainly since before Thanksgiving.  And my Sleep Score was over 70 all week long too, the first time I had done that in I can't even remember. Which meant I had the least stressful week I have had in a long time. And that is always a very good thing. And something to be grateful for to be sure.

Being Dad is Great But...

It is 3:33 in the morning. I had just finished cleaning almost the entire bathroom. Johnnie had woken up in the middle of the night and ejected the contents of his entire stomach. All the chicken noodle penne he ate last night at dinner. He intended to do it in the toilet I know that. But he missed. And so now there was vomit EVERYWHERE. The floor. The toilet. The walls. The doors. EVERYWHERE. And it stunk up so bad I had to wear an N95 mask to clean it up. First, I made sure Johnnie was ok. All I heard was him saying "I'm sorry Dad, I'm sorry". My mouth said, "That's ok Bug, we'll just clean it up and we'll clean you up". My brain said "You'd better be sorry. This is totally disgusting!!!". Man, I almost vomited myself cleaning the whole stuff up it smelled so bad. And I had to do it first because there was no escaping vomit everywhere. And then I had to get him in the shower and clean us both up. Even when he was a baby and did disgusting poops and vomits all over, I think this would probably be his worst throw-up episode EVER. Simply because of the sheer volume and the size of the mess. I mean I literally had to clean the entire bathroom. Took an entire roll of paper towels to do it. And then I had to walk outside in the cold to throw the whole thing out that I had collected in the garbage bag in the building's trash chute. Not going to stink up my kitchen too with all that mess. THEN I had to brush out Johnnie's mouth of course. Poor thing. THEN I had to make sure he went back to sleep. Stayed with him and held him and let him drift to sleep. Finally when I heard him breathing softly and slowly, I went back to bed. It was 3:33 in the morning... I had a flitting memory of a story my mom would always talk about, which was me having a really bad tummy ache right around the time I was Johnnie's age. She took a taxi to take me to the emergency room. And I proceeded to vomit the entire contents of my stomach right there in the back seat of the taxi, to my mom's utter embarassment. I felt instantly better of course according to my mom, and I didn't have to go to the hospital after all. I went to sleep thinking is this karma or what??

A Day Out of the Ordinary

So with yesterday's news about me needing to vacate my apartment for about a week, I'm a little out of balance this morning. I had this dream that I was trying to get someone to kill me, and they had to use a knife to do it. But when they stuck the knife in my back, it wasn't in nearly deep enough to even cause any bleeding. Like it only hurt me a little. Is a part of me needing to die? But it's difficult to kill. Hmmm. More on that later I guess. Today I'm headed to Echo Park Health Center in the morning and if I leave about the same time as I did yesterday I knew I'd make it there in plenty of time. It's Wednesday too and it's not the ONLY Town Hall I have to do today. I have the QueensCare one to do as well. This time I got to leave at 7:50! A minute better than yesterday! I was already near the Vermont exit by 8:04! The thing though is the street traffic which is far worse than the freeway traffic. How could that be?? Anyway I did get there by 8:25 right as the thing was starting and this morning we were given a treat actually. The Dental Team at Echo Park had a little skit going with a dance and everything to urge other providers to send patients to the Dental Clinic. THAT'S what I'm talking about. THAT'S how it's done. No need to depend on external energy. Echo Park brought its own energy and it was amazing! It wasn't done there either. Their DPI (Dramatic Performance Improvement) presentation was very surgical and I thought it was very very good. Something I would present, with charts and everything. And so today's session gave ME energy. And I needed it for the next TownHall with QueensCare an hour later. And after my turn, which came early in the presentation, I was already able to breathe out knowing I had done my work for the day and we only have 2 left of these Town Halls to do. I gave myself a reward actually, lunch from Ralphs which was the tri-tip plate and green beans and macaroni beef. I mean, for $10 you could do FAR WORSE. And it was pretty good at that. And with that great lunch I followed it up with the latest episode of the Book of Boba Fett. Episode 6. Which was more like an extension of the Mandalorian series actually. And this time, we get to check in on Grogu and his lessons with Luke Skywalker. That snippet alone was worth the entire series. This episode mirrored the Empire Strikes Back especially the training sequences with Luke and Yoda. Only this time it is Luke that is the teacher. I can't say enough how my heart warmed to see this scenes again. So much so it was actually the play of the day. And I needed it too. Because later on, I had a lot more to do.  I got another call from the Building Management that I needed to clear my bathroom and my closet by tomorrow morning. Never mind that I still had to drop off Johnnie at school and that I still had to make it to my Westlake North Town Hall by 8:30. That meant I had to do everything tonight. It might sound simple since I don't really have much stuff in the bathroom. My closet, however, was a different story. So much so that after I cleared my shoes, I realized I would have to clear the rest of my clothes tomorrow morning. Because I had to put them on the bed. And so it was that I spent most of the evening packing up the bathroom and whatever I could in the closet. And left the rest for tomorrow. And I was tired after all that. More so emotionally and mentally I think. It's always strange to pack stuff away even if you're just moving them to the next room. I guess I just don't like moving so much. And so it was that this Wednesday is somewhat of a timemarker for me. Such an un-routine kind of day...

Start Of A Short Work Week

A couple of things happened first thing this morning before I even got to start my day. First, I showered on a Tuesday morning, even before Johnnie woke up. It occurred to me that I didn't even shower yesterday since I was so occupied with Johnnie. And then this morning when I dropped Johnnie off at school, I saw Brooklyn getting dropped off by her grandmother. I'm sure Johnnie will love that since this is the first time Brooklyn is coming to school after the holiday break. She had tested positive for Covid last week and had to quarantine and miss the first week back from the break. That alone already makes it feel like things are finally back to routine. In the meantime, I got a lot of stuff done today, a heck of a lot more than usual and the puzzling thing is that I got them done quickly and I'm left wondering why it took me so long to get around doing them in the first place. With the long weekend, the first thing to get done was timecards. And then I had my team meeting. And then I had contract stuff to get to. And of course I had to work on transition stuff for the new network and the new Voice system. Lots to do. AND I got everything done EXCEPT my presentation for tomorrow's Tech Council Meeting. I did get started on it already so all I had to do was follow my own template for the content. It's just that I do have quite a bit of content. I'm thinking the meeting isn't going to go for more than 45 minutes, but then again you never know. It had not gone less than an hour in the past few months though I didn't really prepare that much content. Lots of people ask questions is all. What I ended up doing was putting my head down, getting my presentation done and I took breaks along the way. Lots of breaks. Walking breaks. I at least got to almost 6000 steps by the time it was time to pick up Johnnie from school. And by the time I did that, I actually felt like I had accomplished quite a bit already for today.

And I had one more thing I planned to do. After Johnnie and I got dinner at Panda Express, after he had his round of desserts, after I finally finished my presentation for tomorrow, I made sure Johnnie was occupied with a project. He wanted to make a drawing or pictures of his day sort of like news style. Perfect. I needed him occupied because I was going to FaceTime a woman I had met online just a couple of days ago. Tara was her name and she was a psychologist who works for the prison system and lives in Santa Clarita. She had actually sent me a like and a compliment and I responded. Mind you I get lots of those now. At least one a week on Match.com actually. But she was the first one in a while that I felt like I might be interested in. She had a nice profile and she looked ok. You never really know until you meet someone in person. And you wouldn't know until then if you have any chemistry, or if you have that attraction factor I call it. The last time I went on a date was way back in May and I knew then the attraction wasn't there. Or at least it wasn't mutual. So that didn't pan out. And so here I am almost 9 months later and maybe this pans out. One never knows. The ritual is the same always. You connect online, then do email or FaceTime to make sure the person is real and see if the other person is at least looking like her pictures on her profile. In this case, they did so who knows. The purpose of these first steps is always to get to the next step. And tonight Tara and I talked for about 45 minutes and then agreed to talk again. Is that how you build a friendship at first in an organic way? Who knows anymore.  All I do know is that I am not in any kind of rush to get into anything. And so we shall see. In the meantime, Johnnie started popping in to the bedroom when he got done doing his picture(s). And by the time I was done with my call, it was back to his pre-bedtime routine. One thing about meeting someone new is that inevitably I would talk about Johnnie because you know, they ask you about your kids. And talking about him makes me feel even closer to him as his dad. I put him to bed <on the couch> gave him a big kiss and told him how much I love him as he closed his eyes. Yeah... it was a good day.