What did I manifest in 2020

So how did I do in 2020? In 2019, I did a bunch of "wouldn't it be nice if..." statements. In 2020, I decided to put together what turned into my Image Cycling visual:

I obviously did not get $2.8 Million to retire on this past year. But I grew my IRA to $720,000! That's an increase from $553,000 a year ago, which is a rather significant increase. It already all but assures I at least have security during my Social Security years. 

2020 obviously was a HUGE SURPRISE OF A YEAR what with a pandemic on a global scale. And then the Presidential election. I choose to see it as merely a change in collective energy. After all, the pandemic all but grants me my desire to work from home always. And my team was even recognized by my company for enabling just that rather painlessly and seamlessly.

As far as my HEALTH, it was enough not to succumb to coronavirus, though I have long since held that if you're careful and wash your hands all the time and keep your distance, you should be ok. I did experience another event of Bell's Palsy that went away after 2 weeks. And then I am experiencing neuropathy now on my left big toe but i'm sure I'll work that one out too. And despite some severe muscle soreness that kicked my ass for a week, I still easily averaged 11,000 steps a day. The steps streak was broken for that week, but I managed to get right back in gear after that.

And then of course who in LA would not remember 2020 for Kobe's passing, for the year the Lakers won the NBA championship again fittingly, and for the year the Dodgers themselves broke through winning their first Major League championship since 1988! It was a hell of a sports year.

The LAST Day of 2020

It is the last day of 2020. But it's still a work day for me though it's supposed to be an early day. And it's still a Thursday morning for Johnnie and I. Which means the usual up-at-7AM-then-shower routine then breakfast from McDonald's. Lisa actually has the day off today as she has all week, but she agreed to let me have Johnnie until right after lunch since she has piano lessons with Vatche at mid-day. I don't know what she has planned for the rest of the weekend actually so I prepared myself mentally for a regular hand-off, albeit early and then maybe not seeing Johnnie until Monday. And that's ok really. I've had him all week. Since Monday really. It is simply Lisa's turn. Besides, I have all this stuff I usually do at the end of the year kind of the way an accounting firm turns over it's records preparing for the new year. This will be the last entry on this blog. Or maybe one more after this once I decide to do a reflection of the YEAR 2020. This morning I didn't really veer off routine. Which meant Johnnie still had his daily dose of Blippi, and Dr Binocs, and Coyote Peterson. And I still did one last IS Team Meeting, the last one of the year. I actually started reflecting back at a year ago this time. Lisa and Johnnie were still in Paris and I was preparing to pick them up from the airport the following days. Today we're spending the morning walking to McDonalds, enjoying a very nice, beautiful, sunny day to get Johnnie's McNuggets for lunch. And then before long it was already time to drop Johnnie off at Lisa's per our agreement for today. Lisa had actually called ahead and managed to turn a simple conversation about getting dropped off into a lecture on how Johnnie talks to people and needing him to learn how to talk with respect. I completely agree of course, but had no desire to listen to Lisa's nagging lecture. And I simply could not hold my reaction. Still I didn't have to spend any more time with her today which was good. I merely dropped Johnnie off and we made plans for me to come over for breakfast on Saturday morning. Cool! I get to see Johnnie once more this weekend! I was happy to leave it at that. In fact, I was happy to merely walk around her neighborhood, enjoying the last day of 2020 outdoors in the sun. It's going to be a strange New Years Eve worldwide. Usually the Las Vegas strip is packed body-to-body for miles and miles of the strip. NY TIMES SQUARE is full. Locally, there was always the option of going to the Rose Bowl festivities pre-parade where everyone stayed up on Colorado Blvd. Lisa and I have done just that a few times. Not today. As for me, I already had a bunch of movies lined up to watch to count down 2020. AND I had a nice sirloin steak to grill too. I can still have my steak and eat it too LOL. And then shifting back to Thursday night mode, I cleaned up the living room and kitchen. Mopped both areas. That would leave only the bedroom and bathroom for a complete clean-up of my apartment. I left that for tomorrow. Instead I watched VIKINGS Season 5 (last season) and then movies from the 90s. Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas and Don Juan de Marco with Johnny Depp. Maybe I was in a retrospective kind of mood. Whatever mood I was, it sure felt great to clean the apartment. THAT is how I ended the year 2020. There would be no fireworks heard outside, not much of anything. 2020 went quietly.

Focused on Work Work Work

It's the 2nd to the last day of the year! And 2nd to the last day of the work week too. Only significant in my mind because a year ago at this time, in a different time in a hugely different environment, I was at the office pretty much tanking the entire week and merely counting down the last few days of the year. Today, I am actually hard at work. So hard that I pretty much kept in front of the computer all day long. I was working on so many things too. Legit working on so many things. A meeting with Kennedy and James about Data Analytics tasks and projects. I think I ended up with a solution that makes me feel better about the department and how it operates actually. And then by the end of the day, I had the LA Care stuff for Oneida pretty much validated and verified which was due tomorrow. And same for a project for Marina. Due tomorrow. But now she has all the data she needs. And then a dashboard she needs to be updated by tomorrow. And Kennedy figured out how to update it too. So for now, at least by the end of today, this day, I think we're under control. This was much better than how I felt about all these tasks at the beginning of the week! The thing was that at no time did I feel I wasn't going to get it done. And I think that's the difference. It was just a matter of time. Just a matter of putting my head down. And today I did just that. 

Of course when I'm focused on work, that takes away from the attention on Johnnie. Today I was just hoping he had enough dinosaur stuff and videos to keep him occupied until I got done with all the work this afternoon. Normally of course he would have schoolwork. But not this week and next week. And so I'm left with Coyote Peterson and his many videos on wildlife. It's always funny to me how he does retain what he watches and then regurgitates it back to Lisa and she's wondering when and where he learns these things. How the heck do you think he learned all the dinosaurs? Certainly not from any one of those books she made him "read" back in the day. It was from all those episodes of Dinosaur Train. Even I learned about those dinosaurs that way. The question is what he does with it later on life LOL. But later on in life can come... later on in life. To me it's just about here and now and specifically today. By mid-morning he had created yet another dinosaur book and he has progressed from writing mini stories on small pieces of paper to actually drawing pages and pages with descriptions on them... like they were really books! He had done a dozen pages before lunch time. This plus his martial arts exercises in the afternoon took up just about the right chunk of time to get me over the hump with my own work. And let's not forget about the steps. I'm still doing 11,000+ steps. At the end of the day I got all these things done, which gave me a huge feeling of accomplishment. And we still made some cookies too. And did the routine stuff. Made it out to Westwood for Panda Express night. And tonight for a change, I ordered a full meal for myself. AND we even headed out to Target after dinner. That's because I wanted to get a pair of sweatpants for him to wear tomorrow. Until I realized when I washed the new pair that I could have easily just washed what he had on last Monday. Oh well, at least we got out and got some groceries done too. I wasn't sure if Ralphs would be closed on New Years Day like it was on Christmas. Need to make sure I could exist not going out...just like I didn't on Christmas Day. I was so busy I didn't really take any pictures of Johnnie like I usually do. But I did take one of him when he knocked off to sleep... and before I did. It was a busy work day and I was tired. But it was a good day and I still got to be with my Little Bug. 

Bustin It At Work Tuesday

I woke up with some anxiety this morning and I knew it had something to do with work. Not on the IS Infrastructure side either. I had at least 3 outstanding tasks that were due this week on  the lap of Data Analytics, which is to say James and he did not respond to my pings yesterday. At least this morning we had our usual IS Team Meeting and I was thinking he had better show up for that one because we really need to know what was going on with a whole bunch of stuff. Already I got a ping from my boss, our newly appointed new CEO Eloisa who mentioned that it was embarassing that some data was missing from the dashboards that she presented at the Board Meeting yesterday. Damn. And of course that brought out feelings of inadequacy from me. I mean I don't mess up much, not like that. And James is not making me look good for sure. But I figured I simply needed to make a mental adjustment as far as I was concerned. It was all about my own insecurities all the way back to the Dental School and even General Dynamics before that. I simply didn't know how to control my outcomes way back then. Or at least realize that I was not victim to such circumstances. I mentally pictured and thought about the outcome that I wanted... interspersed that with the general thoughtform that I create MASSIVE value, either here at my job or any other project I chose to pursue. And focusing on that already almost instantly dissolved those insecure feelings. Besides, how can I feel insecure when I have Johnnie there interrupting my phone calls with presents he wrapped himself?! OK maybe he was simply way too bored. Still, HE gave me a present. Can't feel anything but gratitude about that! I mean look at that FACE.

In the meantime the day after the rains is always really really nice. Warm and breezy and still kind of wet in spots all over the place but still plenty warm. I took a picture of the beautiful day it turned into by mid-day. So much I decided to cook the Italian sausage I bought last weekend right outside in the barbecue area. Hey, it gave me a chance to catch up on steps too. And enjoy the beautiful day outside. In the meantime, I kept Johnnie busy by making him some udon and turning on DinoTrux so he could have something to watch. And told him to take his time eating. That gave me plenty of time to make my own lunch. That Italian sausage with some of the chicken fried rice from Trader Joe's? Perfect! And I ramped up my steps to almost 4000 too. Today Lisa had plans to go hiking with Ines Garcia (she of Ines and Tony who we used to hang out with a few years ago pre-Johnnie). We sort of lost touch with them as friends when Johnnie was born. In fact, the last time I remember seeing them was when I was taking Johnnie in his baby carriage to Ralphs Westwood and they stopped at the stop sign. That was before Johnnie turned 1 so it was more than 5 years ago. They have remained Lisa's patients of course so they've sort of kept in touch with her. Anyway she called right after lunch when she got done with her hike and wanted to go on a bike ride and invited me to go with she and Johnnie. I nixed that of course since I had plenty to do work-wise. I actually made headway with all of the Data Analytics stuff almost magically since I shifted my mindset. James actually started getting stuff done. And so I told Lisa I was happy to drop Johnnie off for the afternoon so THEY could go on said bike ride. And I'd come back for dinner later. I felt bad that Johnnie was getting bored as I left him alone anyway so I could work.

Lisa told me to come by around 5 PM for an early dinner. When I got there, they had just gotten home presumably from their bike ride. Actually I did know that Johnnie had a list of stuff he wanted to procure... all ingredients for a smores making contest, which he saw in one of Coyote Peterson's episodes. Yep, I take the blame for that one... he did watch those episodes on my watch. It's funny to me only because when we left early in the afternoon, this is what my living room looked like: Jurassic Park movie playing on TV, Johnnie making up a posse of dinosaurs in one of his re-enaction scenes in front of the movie. And I'm leaving it just the way it is because it is one of Johnnie's SAVED WORK. Besides, if someone is going to clean it up, it WILL be Johnnie. I didn't think of what Lisa was going to cook up for dinner. I was sure it was some leftover stuff in her fridge, which I'm not exactly keen on because you know how I am with leftovers. And we know how she is with eating EVERYTHING in her fridge rather than throwing anything away. We are complete and total opposites in that regard, but I'm playing nice tonight and I could hold on until later when we leave if worse comes to worse and I don't like any of the food. Tonight it is actually poor Johnnie who got the raw deal and short end of the stick because Lisa decides to cook this multigrain pasta that actually tasted like crap (to me). And here she is forcing him to eat it. I know she has diet restrictions but c'mon! He does NOT have to eat what she eats does he? No wonder he eats a heck of a lot more when he's with me. He ate 20 -yep, twenty- pieces of pasta before Lisa let him off the hook. We had leftover turkey bolognese over the same pasta and at least I tried to eat as much as I could. I'll supplement that later when I get home as I said. Fortunately for Johnnie, they DID get all the ingredients for smores and so he was excited to at least eat THAT for dessert! Best part of the meal hands down. And I made myself a real doozy the first time too, that's how good it was. Johnnie ate 2 smores himself, which at least filled his stomach some tonight. I'll supplement him with the milk later on when we got home. And so despite the crappy dinner let's face it, the smores saved it all. And then we retired to Lisa's room to play another game of SORRY tonight. I wanted a rematch. I got creamed last night and it did not feel good. Unfortunately the results weren't any different this evening. In fact, Lisa won tonight and Johnnie won 2nd. I placed last again. We played a game of UNO afterwards and I won that one. See  what happens when I play something I'm familiar with? And then JOhnnie and I went home and immediately I gave him milk, and I had a snack. We went to bed early still and now I'm counting down to the end of the work week. Counting down to the end of the YEAR!

Rainstorm Monday

So last night it was raining hard when I went to sleep and this morning it's still raining hard. I wanted to get to work early today, mainly because it's Monday but also because I knew Lisa would be dropping Johnnie off around 11 AM and I wanted to at least get a headstart on my steps today since I usually average 13,000 steps on a Monday for the last 4 Mondays anyway. Not to mention it's raining. I wanted to keep busy. I had lots of Data Analytics stuff to do. Or rather for James to do but since he's being his usual unresponsive self, I have to try to pick up the slack. Still I managed to get showered up, got my tea ready in my new drip tea glass, got breakfast in and got a big chunk of exercise done, all before 10 AM. I already had 2200 steps and a mile under my belt when Lisa called mid-morning. It turned out that her appointment got cancelled due to someone testing positive for COVID. Sign of the times. And so all of a sudden there was a change in plans. She invited me to come over for lunch instead of dropping Johnnie off. She had the entire week off and was patching together plans here and there and now she lined up errands on her all of a sudden pretty wide open afternoon. In the meantime, this would make it 2 days in a row that I'm having lunch with them and today it was a ham and cheese sandwich on a brioche. It turned out to be a perfectly fine lunch. And then I took Johnnie back with me for the afternoon, and promised to return for dinner early. Since Lisa had the week off, she just wanted to milk whatever time she could with Johnnie too, and at the same time respect my  turn to have him. I was ok shuttling back and forth between my apartment and her house if it becomes a win-win-win for Lisa and I both. And Johnnie gets to see mom and dad as much as he could. A win for him too. Look at the picture I took of him the second I got to there for lunch. Happy as a clam. And he had a list of stuff he wanted to get from the store too. Some ingredients to make smores right off the episode of Coyote Peterson. I'm not EVEN going to tell Lisa I got him started on those. It rained pretty hard for the remainder of the day, only letting up when it started to get dark. I was all too happy to stay in and let Johnnie watch Cat-In-the-Hat videos for the rest of the day. And when it came time, to pack him up to go back to Lisa's house for dinner. 

I ordered Vietnamese food Lisa and I. And picked up Panda Express for Johnnie. By the time we got to Lisa's, our food had already beaten us there. It was barely 6 PM. And so it was that we had a nice Vietnamese dinner, Lisa with her pho and me with my rice noodles and Johnnie with his Panda Express teriyaki chicken. Mmmm's all around. The best part was that there was nothing to wash afterwards. Sometimes it feels great not to have to wash any dishes, particularly when I'm eating at Lisa's house where I'm mostly on the hook to do the dishes and clean the kitchen afterwards. I noted that when I was cleaning my own kitchen. I think I put more effort into her kitchen than mine LOL LOL. I would have been happy to do anything after dinner since it was clear Lisa expected us to stay for a bit and that was ok. Usually I'd have picked up Johnnie by now on a Monday and we're off to my house. I appreciate that Lisa did not get to spend the afternoon with him so I was ok to hang out. I was hoping Lisa would avail herself of the YEAR subscription I got her for Disney+. But she had other ideas for entertainment. She wanted to do a board game. She wanted to do SORRY. I've never played it before mind you. But Johnnie did and that was the most important thing. He delighted in trying to beat dad and mom. Mostly dad really. And as it was, he ended up WINNING! Yep, I lost to my 6 year old at this board game. And it wasn't like I was letting him get the good moves either. He won legit. And then Lisa beat me for 2nd place. The thing to note was this sort of became Lisa's much preferred version of family night and I was ok with that. I even brought in her garbage receptacles, what with the rain and all. And we STILL got home by 8 PM. And I don't know how I did it, but I actually maintained the Monday regimen of over 13,000 steps. In fact, I got all the way to 14,000 steps... the most I've done in a long time. And I had 2 full sets of the Nitric oxide dump too. And my calves really did feel sore. And so I let Johnnie watch his Jurassic episodes but it was going to be an early night for us anyway. I knocked off before 10 PM. Short work week this week. Check.

Last Sunday of the Last Weekend of the Year

I was up really early for golf this morning, excited because I get to play at Penmar. I really liked playing there the first time I had gotten to play it in many many months way back in November. Far nicer now that it isn't so crowded and they aren't sending out fivesomes anymore. With that said, it is just Scott and i this morning, and Scott is still recovering from a procedure to close a hole in his heart. If it sounds serious, I consider it to be so but since he did say the doctor gave him the green light to play then I'm happy to play with him. Today we got paired off with this English guy who had just moved to Santa Monica from Paris. A European guy who actually played really really well. As in he hit his tee shots over 250 yards and straight. And Scott and i both started out cold too. I mean when do I ever shank a tee shot so badly I barely graze it to go right. Fortunately for me I would end up warming up after the first couple of holes. By Hole 5, I was actually getting on in 2. Even the long Hole 6 I had gotten on in 3. Too bad my putting sucked. Still. As I missed par opportunity after par opportunity. Even on hole 8 when I landed my tee shot 145 yards right on the green, I still 3-putted. Arghh! Still it felt good to at least hit the ball pretty well after warming up. As for the guy we played with, he seemed far more interested in having a conversation with Scott than anything. Did I feel ignored? A bit. Did I care? Not really. I wouldn't let myself feel badly about some snobbish Englishman from Paris. I mean he talked himself as some tech guy and I'm sure he would have rather talk to the architect than some Asian dude who let him know he was in the same field (tech). I'm sure he worked with Fortune 100 companies. I still didn't care. I did try to strike up a conversation but more from the standpoint of you should take your kids here or see this places there. Hey I was trying to make conversation. I WAS mostly interested on what life was like in Paris during the pandemic. I mean he spoke up having to have "papers" which let authorities know how much time you've been out and about as if you're some vehicle in a parking lot. And the fines were supposedly stiff. And we Americans complain that we have it tough! smh. 

We got done with the golf by 11 AM. Early enough that I headed on over to Century City mall to pick up the new See Kai Run waterproof shoes I just bought for Johnnie. Look at how empty the mall was?! It's a few days after Christmas and this mall would usually be pretty busy. But I got the shoes quickly and was in and out of Nordstrom's in 10 minutes. And was headed to Lisa's house by 11:40. I figured I might as well drop it off right then and there. Give me an excuse to see Johnnie yet one more time this weekend considering I didn't see him at all yesterday. Lisa obliged by inviting me to have lunch with them before they took off to go on a hike with Sharon and Varsha. Lisa spent a great deal of time skewering Balwan for basically getting his brother out here behind Sharon's back, completely destroying all of their holiday plans. That Balwan can be a bit of a dunce sometimes. She's doing all the work and everything making sure they're afloat and here he is basically just being his social self. Anyway it seemed to have affected Lisa and she is pissed off at him. Still we managed to eat a lot of the leftovers she brought home from Christmas dinner at Joah's. And so I had some rice pilaf and chicken and some salmon for lunch! It saved me $20 for the meal I would have bought at Crimson LOL. And I ended up with some time with both Johnnie and Lisa on a Sunday which is rare. And when I went home I took my Sunday afternoon nap, kicked around until late afternoon and got so caught up with downloading some more movies that when I looked up it was well past 6:30 PM and well past time for dinner. I realized I hadn't even did my grocery shopping yet either even though I had the entire weekend to do that. Oh well, I went late, I made myself some ground beef casserole with garbanzo beans raisins and tumeric. Sort of a modified tagine dish over rice. And it hit the spot too. And it was a good thing I went grocery shopping when I did because not even an hour after I got back, it started to rain. And then I heard lightning. And then thunder. So we're now in the middle of a rainstorm. Symbolic for the last weekend of the year 2020 isn't it?

Doing Absolutely Nothing

I didn't get to bed until almost 3 AM last night, just watching snippets of movie after movie, almost giddy at how much I was able to replace my VHS/DVD collection overnight finding a treasure trove of digital movies to download. It's like all my favorites from the 80s are now digital and ready for playback at any time. Of course staying up that late means you pay the price the next morning. And that was I didn't even get up until well past 8 AM, didn't really even get going until 9 AM and barely got done with breakfast by 10 AM. Heck, I planned on taking a shower too since I didn't get a chance to take one yesterday but the morning kept going and going and pretty soon it wasn't morning anymore and I wasn't thinking about the shower anymore either. That's how quickly a half-day can get away from you. At least I did manage to do some awareness exercises while I was having a nice cup of hot tea. It was as simple as putting up a YouTube video with binaural beats to get me focused and then enjoying my tea. Hey, at least it felt like I did get something done this morning even if it was just to meditate and center and focus. I tried to tell myself that there is no urgency to do anything today and that if I felt any urgency at all, it was coming from the part of me that was focusing on not-enoughness. That I had to DO something. I think it was coming from the fact that Christmas is now over. Which means that the year is fast coming to a close. This very different year 2020 is finally at an end. And of course by next week I'm going to need to do a review and see how I did with respect to the goals and outcomes I wrote down at the beginning of the year. Do I give myself a pass for 2020? Do I really need one? At this point I'm glad I'm healthy, I'm glad I have a job and a stable source of income, and that in fact, I grew my assets significantly during a time when people are urging the current Administration to sign legislation to give folks $600 to tide them through this pandemic. A lot of people are doing significantly worse and I'm glad I'm not one of those. This as I plunk down $80 for a pair of shoes for Johnnie that I didn't even give a second thought to. This as I realize I have enough in the bank to cover me for an entire year should I need it. Yes, lots to be thankful for. Lots to feel good about. And isn't gratitude the one sure way one can raise their vibration? 

To be fair I did end up getting myself kickstarted into taking a shower, actually shaving and even brushing my teeth. Unfortunately, all that happened at around 5 PM. By then I also managed to get myself kick-started with getting steps in. I was at less than 1000 by 3 PM and I was not willing to tank this day for that. I am not giving up this streak simply because I felt lazy today. I mean I did keep on watching movies this afternoon, because I kept on downloading stuff. One movie I could not find to download was TEQUILA SUNRISE. And so I plunked down $6 to buy the digital copy on Google Movies. I mean how can I not have this in my collection? I had to watch the first half of it too obviously. Funny I thought of my old friend David from the Hacienda Golf Club days. I wonder how he's doing?! He and I would watch this movie and other movies too. Staying Alive. Dangerous Liaisons. We would be able to recite full dialogues from these movies. "Friendship is the only choice you can make in life you can make that's yours!" we would always say to each other LOL. That one came from Tequila Sunrise. That is what these movies do for me actually. Take me back to the past at any time. Take me back to my younger self. Take me away from thinking about this pandemic. And so by 7 PM I did manage to get to 9000 steps and I would finish that off soon thereafter. And I did manage to make myself a spaghetti dinner since I bought all this food on Christmas Eve. Even bought frozen chicken tikka masala from Trader Joe's that I had to eat for lunch now. And I managed to go through the ENTIRE day without leaving my house. Going outside to take the trash out doesn't count. I never left my building. I ended up being like that hermit character in the movie I ended up watching tonight. Midnight Sky with George Clooney. He ended up being one of the last survivors in a dying planet. And ended up sort of hallucinating over a child, his daughter that he never met. The ending of the movie was one of those plot twists that I end up appreciating greatly because it taught me some kind of lesson that I'm sure I was meant to learn.  I mean that's what movies have been all about for me aren't they? In this one, the great grand coincidence is that despite Clooney's character turning his back on humanity in favor of his work, it inspires his own daughter though father and daughter didn't know each other existed.  And she would eventually sort of save humanity. And through hallucinations, she was with him while he was alone after all. You see we are never alone. And that is the biggest lesson of all. Interesting lesson today.

A Quiet Pandemic Christmas

If there was anything everyone in the world will remember about this Christmas it's obviously that we're in the midst of a pandemic that had gotten worse most likely because people ignored it and got together for thanksgiving anyway. And so when you hear that people are being urged not to get together today, you KNOW a lot of people would still ignore it. Which makes me concerned about 2 weeks from now.  Heck I'm ignoring it myself and spending the morning at Lisa's to have breakfast with mom and Johnnie. Better to be in contact with them now rather than AFTER they hang out with her family later. And Lisa had a surprise for me this morning actually. She had found corned beef canned that her dad had given her to try. And it wasn't that cheap $2 corned beef you get at the grocery store either, it was the expensive kind. And so I was excited to prepare it and eat it too. CHRISTMAS CORNED BEEF THIS MORNING WHOO HOO! And so Lisa and I had the corned beef and eggs and Johnnie had eggs and pancakes. And loose leaf Earl Grey hot tea from Lisa's brand new teapot. A fine Christmas breakfast it was. I washed the dishes and actually promised to watch Johnnie while Lisa got in a little bit of practice. But she changed her mind after about 15 minutes and decided they'd go early to Joah's house and she'd practice there. That's Lisa showing off a bit and that is perfectly ok. By the time I helped Johnnie get dressed it was already 11 AM anyway. I had almost spent the entire morning with them. So I did get to spend a little bit of Christmas with Johnnie after all and that was more than I could ask... even though technically it was my turn this year since Lisa had him for a couple of weeks last year. Just had no reason since we're all hunkered down by the pandemic anyway.  Off I went home to watch the lineup of NBA basketball Christmas games, including the Lakers later on. And even though I'm by myself, I was still going to keep a bit of tradition and cook ham and stuffing, knowing full well I'd end up with enough food for the next few days at least.  I actually knocked off for a nap right after lunch. Who knew that Gobbler Quesadilla from Trader Joe's would fill me up?! And when I woke up it was already nearly 3 PM! And all I could think of was that I barely had 1500 steps to this point. It's like when we go anywhere for Christmas and I haven't had any opportunity to walk around and/or get some steps in. But I wasn't worried only because I knew I could get everything done inside of a couple of hours. I made my glaze for the ham and then put it in the oven... this time hoping to get some practice in with regards to the glazing of the outside of the ham. And then while the thing was in the oven, I popped one of those YouTube videos about getting x number of steps in. And so I spent the next 45 minutes doing aerobics via YouTube. And I got caught up on my steps in a hurry. So much so I was up to 6000 steps before the Laker game had even started at 5 PM. And so i finished my cornbread stuffing and... voila> A ham Christmas dinner for me, solo though I may be tonight. I spent the next couple of hours watching the Lakers totally dismantle the Mavs. Funny a year ago the Clips beat the Lakers on Christmas day totally spoiling my Christmas. The Clippers were a force then and it wasn't until months later that the Lakers would finally turn into the 2020 World Championship Lakers. Yeah, it's early in the season. It's only Game #2. I also wanted to find a way to watch Wonder Woman 1984 tonight. Christmas Day is when all the good movies come out normally. But this year we only have that one. The rest is on Netflix or Amazon Prime and that's fine by me. The good thing was that I did find a site where I could download WW1984 and so right after the Lakers game, it was on to movie night. Sadly, I can't say that I would recommend the movie. In fact, I would have been totally disappointed if I had shelled out $19 for this on HBO Max. With that said, my search for the movie actually led me to a site that had an open directory to the entire web. And this site had thousands and thousands of movies from the 80s and 90s! One by one I started to discover movies in my old VHS collection that I had kept in the hopes of one day seeing them again. Not anymore. I downloaded and downloaded until well past midnight. And by the time I was done, it was like I got the BEST Christmas present I could have ever hoped for. Almost all of the best movies in my old VHS/DVD collection is now on digital copy! YES YES YES!! It was only a couple of days that I spent a good hour looking for a couple of old funny Patrick Dempsey movies from the 80s (Can't Buy Me Love and Loverboy) and not only did i find these, I found a whole lot more! I even ended up watching Tristan and Isolde the romance from 2006 that I remember watching back then, right about the time before I got together with Lisa. Funny about the things you remember. I also remember Christmas 2005 when Lisa uttered those famous words "you made a dent in my life". Who KNEW back then that she simply misspoke and used the wrong words?! I laugh about that now. Anyway it turned out to be a pretty good Christmas after all. And I didn't even get to bed until almost 3 PM. That's how late I stayed up watching all these movies I got!

A Spontaneous Gift Exchange on Christmas Eve

So today is Christmas Eve and I took the day off officially, even though I still spent time with emails and work stuff. I'm supposed to hand off Johnnie by lunchtime today apparently because Lisa made plans to go biking with Balwan. Still plenty of time for Johnnie and I to do Thursday morning normal, which is to say shower, McDonald's breakfast, and then Johnnie still wanted to do more drawing presents for his mom. Especially after I told him it was going to be a short day with me today. I got as far as making him mac-and-cheese for lunch and I promised Lisa he'd eat it at her house. And she even invited me to stay for lunch. That's because one look out the window and it was drizzling a little outside, which basically takes out Lisa's plans to go biking. Not that it mattered to me, since all I had to do was drop Johnnie off and that would be that for the day. Still I ended up hanging around and helped Lisa make lunch. Our lunch. We ended up having some nice steak stir fry.

And so I did hang out with mom and son for Christmas Eve and it wasn't just lunch either. Lisa was talking about how she needed to purchase another tea kettle since she burned out her existing one. And quite spontaneously, I suggested we go get out. Right then. Right after lunch. And so again quite spontaneously we found ourselves at ACE Hardware since Lisa saw an ad there. Never mind that I had deja vu feelings here. This used to be the OSH hardware I frequented. Who can forget when we bought plexiglass here for the Lindbrook apartment in preparation for a Johnnie?!! And here we are looking for a teapot. Funny thing was that I found one... for me. A single serving tea pot with a filter for loose-leaf type tea. Lisa happily purchased it for me for my Christmas present. And when we went to Bed Bath and Beyond, I purchased HER teapot for her. Funny... an impromptu gift exchange right then and there. And then since mom and son wanted to take out his new Razor scooter he just got for Christmas, they went off to Stoner Park. And I did shopping at Trader Joe's so I could be sure I had food for tomorrow since stores might be closed on Christmas Day.  I not only got grocery shopping done, I also walked back to her car, which got me all the steps I needed and then some. And then some came when I picked up Lisa and Johnnie and they wanted to go around the block some more. And so me did make an M&M with Johnnie riding his brand new scooter in an empty tennis court at Stoner Park. Who knew this would turn out to be a pleasant Christmas Eve with Lisa and Johnnie. And we got to go shopping to boot. Lisa's fave activities. 

Mom and son actually got pre-occupied with one of his presents that he opened early, which was the dinosaur egg creator kit. They had to get duded up for that one since it involved fine sand. That's when I left to go home. I was coming back for Christmas breakfast tomorrow morning anyway. And so Christmas Eve dinner was leftover ground pork and bok choy from last night. Not exactly the sumptous meal I'd be having if I spent tonight with people. But I'll take it. It was merely a wind down from a pretty good day I had had already. I reminded myself that being by myself at any time is a choice. And the choice had always been mine. It was funny to hear Joah call Lisa to tell her when to come tomorrow. Even funnier that I didn't say anything the whole time until we all thought everyone had hung up and Joah stayed on the line to ask Lisa who the guy in the house was... "uh, just Johnnie's dad". I blurted out. I was with my family after all.

Holiday Socializing

So today is my last day of work this week. And I actually spent it, well... working! That is, chasing down James so we could at least lock down some of the reports that are due. He didn't respond to my texts, emails, and chats for the entire morning which irritated the crap out of me. And then I talked myself down by saying that's just me trying to be in control STILL. And when I let everything go, true enough he called and by the end of the day, all was pretty much done... or at least I didn't worry so much anymore. And I got all my other shit done too. Invoices approved signed and paid. Contract uploaded. Release needing Barbara's signature... out via email. I'm all good. And with that I focused squarely on Johnnie. Today is Lisa's last day too for a while and I'm supposed to hand him off tomorrow at lunchtime, likely not to see him again until Monday. And that's ok. I've spent FAR more time with him this holiday than I did last year. And I still had today. Tonight we actually did get some socializing done, as I invited Dexter so we could at least spend some in-person, socially-distanced time for the holidays. Gonna be weird what with the pandemic raging on in LA and the numbers getting bad again. Still we managed to have a pretty good day. I'm not going to write as much in this post. I'm just going to post pictures of the day. I mean what more do I want or need? I got to have lamb chops for dinner, Johnnie got a full martial arts in, Dexter came to visit, and Johnnie got a present! Awesome day.