Last Day Of January

I was well aware that today was the last day of January. I was also aware that today was a Friday. Be that as it may it didn't feel like a January day. First of all it was nice and warm out. So much so I didn't even wear my jacket. As far as today being Friday, much as I would have loved to tank it today, I couldn't. I had to deal with a financial issue with one of our vendors and right a mistake that one of my guys did. This is the time where i bemoan the fact that I don't have a manager to help me run the department, particularly the budget and operational aspects. But then again it's been more than 15 months hadn't it? I did ok last year so actually I really can't use it as an excuse. In any case, we had the meeting with the vendor, which weighed on my mind yesterday and I think we got on the same page and I think we came away with a win-win solution. And so we're good again. After THAT I could call the TANK DAY. But then again Chad has us doing an EPIC demo for another health center considering OCHIN EPIC this afternoon. And at Hollywood yet. I made up some excuse so I didn't have to go there. After all, I wanted to be home early tonight. And I wanted to finally make my way to LA Live at lunch to check out the Kobe memorial. Which is exactly what I did. We all heard how people were just flocking to LA Live and started to leave stuff. Flowers, candles, memorabilia. All kinds of stuff. I did not expect what I saw. It was far bigger and grander than I had imagined. The entire plaza across the street from Staples was filled with people. A whole bunch of writeboards were erected. I even felt compelled to write on one of them. Tonight, the Lakers are returning to the court to finally play a game. And you KNOW there's going to be a memorial and it is going to be grand and amazing. Heck, this scene was already grand and amazing. I stayed away all week because I knew if I came to check it out, I may not make it back to the office. Today I prodded myself back, making a stop at Subway for lunch. And then I went to my desk and did the meeting from 2-4:30 remotely. I think I contributed some, answered questions that were asked.  We [QueensCare] are just paying it forward, as other health centers helped us out when we were trying to decide. Has it been 5 years since implementation? Seems like eons ago. When Alex was still here and encouraged me to go do my analysis and helped push it forward. I miss Alex. Sad that the people that didn't get along way back in those days, none of them are even here anymore. Anyway I did the meeting and at 4:30 I was on my way home.

Driving home I got a text from Lisa that she was on her way to pick up Johnnie and then they would pick me up at the house for dinner. We did talk about getting together tonight, because I wasn't going to be seeing Johnnie all weekend. I appreciated that Lisa at least gave me some time with him, if just to sit down for dinner. But then again, with Lisa you never really solidify plans until she calls to actually follow through sometimes an hour before. And I was ok with that one way or the other. I was going to be home anyway. I got to the house BEFORE she got to Mar Vista. And I started to walk over there to kind of meet them halfway. I needed to start padding up my steps anyway. I got all the way to the school before I saw Lisa buckling Johnnie in the car. And then we went to Oops. I was so glad we were eating out instead of Lisa making something. I ALWAYS prefer that we eat out. And we hadn't eaten sushi in a while. Wasn't it a couple of years already that we would go eat sushi every Thursday night after Cornerstone violin lessons? As it turned out tonight was the last night for the DineLA Special menu and we were happy to share one portion and ordered some other stuff too. And ordered Johnnie his udon. One thing about eating at Oops was that we were all guaranteed to have a pretty good meal. And tonight was no different. And so we ate, we talked, Johnnie regaled us with what happened at school today and then off we went home. I walked to the apartment from there, knowing full well I'd get to 11,000 right about the time I made it back. And by that time the Laker game would just about be starting. Of course I was right but I also didn't account that the pre-game ceremonies which included the Kobe tributes would start earlier. Fortunately, I had Spectrum SportsNet loaded on my Google Pixel and I got a chance to watch the ceremony even while I was walking. The Lakers too, did not disappoint. The tribute ceremony was amazing and emotional. And of course the Lakers were crying. All of them. LeBron. Quinn Cook. AD. And I got emotional yet again as well. How do you play a game like this? As it was the Lakers put up a valiant effort. But the opponents were inspired by Kobe too. Damian Lillard came out firing and had himself a monster game. The lakers lost, but that result too didn't seem all that important. Not tonight. Tonight, it just seemed ok that we all took one step forward, we played a game, and we got to pay respects. In moments of grief like this, you go one step at a time. And we're glad this one is done.

Is It Just Another Thursday

Today started with the feel of just another Thursday which would be just fine with me. With tonight being hand-off night, I was focused on being in Johnnie DAD mode mostly because with Super Bowl Sunday coming up this weekend I didn't think I would see Johnnie again until Monday night. I hate these 3 day gaps although I also remind myself that I did manage to have an entire day with him on Tuesday. I was finally able to write something to Christine yesterday because it was on my mind, particularly in light of the Kobe tragedy this weekend. We're all in the mode of just reaching out and expressing stuff we had been "waiting around to do until next time". The Kobe tragedy just snapped into perspective that until next time might never be. From the time she left LA for Vegas, I actually had been wanting to express to her how much I appreciated the connection we had as couples, Lisa and I and she and Dylan and that although Lisa and I are obviously no longer together, our kids are and always will be COUSINS just as she and Lisa will always be cousins. Anyway I did write to her finally and that was on my mind as I walked Johnnie to school this morning. 2nd day in a row I would take a picture of im on top of his favorite tree root. He calls it Johnnie's tree LOL. Anyway the only other difference this morning was that it wasn't cold. As in it felt like spring and it was supposed to get into the higher 70s later. And so it was that I would go to work with nothing on my schedule just like a normal Thursday and our CEO leaving for her vacation today. I was actually operating with a little less weight on my shoulders today because I thought we were able to solve another financial blip that came up out of the blue in the beginning of the week. We got notice that we were in the hole $7K for storage overages in our new cloud provider Druva. Turned out Noriel my network engineer had completely misunderstand the charging and storage fees and we really screwed it up. But fortunately despite my usual Arnel-in-yo-face style, the sales people managed to let me know they wanted us as customers anyway and that they would work toward forgiving the overage if we continued to work with them. We were going to meet tomorrow to make sure we did things right this time moving forward. That is all I could ask. And with that I was confident we could work something out. That is what I can bring to the table. To work things out. AND after Monday the network has been ok so the work day did manage to slip along fairly quietly. I did stay at my desk mostly because what do I do when I'm not working? I am on the internet looking at Youtube videos. Still with the Kobe shares and Kobe stories. Always brings me to tears still. And of course the metaphysics videos. I did muster a surge of energy towards the end of the day so that I actually looked like I spent the entire day working. Just 3 or 4 emails can do that. And then off I went to go pick up Johnnie at school.

Like last week I went to KFC to pick him up some popcorn chicken for his dinner. And then I picked up some stuff to make ME dinner, which was my tagine-style ground beef dish. He was still in the middle of eating when I got the call from Lisa that she was done. I guess she got done early today. And that she was coming by at 6 PM. That's about an hour earlier than usual. But at least Johnnie got to eat dinner sort of with me. Lisa came, we talked for a bit about possibly getting together for dinner tomorrow night. She seemed to be sensitive about missing Johnnie when you don't get to see him for more than a couple of days. And she wanted to make sure I saw him tomorrow. I appreciated that very much. But I also could use some alone time. I made myself dinner in my Instant Pot and let it simmer while I walked around the neighborhood to finish off my 11,000 steps. I was done before 8 PM actually. And when I got back I ate dinner and sat in the couch in my "aloneness". And just at that moment I did wish I was watching Magic School Bus videos with Johnnie and waiting for 9 PM so I could make him take his shower. Funny how routines do get ingrained in you. Also interesting that I didn't have anything lined up to watch tonight. And so I watched a Gregg Braden webinar on The New Human Story all weaving into the paradigm that it is all about our consciousness and about how and what we do to manage that. And more broadly, that we are all far more powerful than we have ever imagined. Not too far fetched to see how we all subvert ourselves, particularly when I spend time with Johnnie. At this point in his life, he does seem like a LIMITLESS BEING. And I do have to wonder how much of my own projections, my own mental and emotional constructs I am imprinting on him. That's the key isn't it? How to keep him THINKING he is limitless, and how to keep him curious, and let his personality grow and let him become himself. I remind myself that it isn't too late and that I am just now reclaiming that for myself. I had all the tools from a long while back already. But I didn't have the follow-through and I simply wasn't ready. Took long enough. But I'm ready now. Ready for what? I know what I want to be ready for. Now we will see...

Feeling A Little More Normal

Just the act of walking Johnnie to school this morning and then heading off to work made things feel a little more normal today. Taking that pic of Johnnie on his favorite tree root makes things feel ok again. At least Johnnie is back to normal I think. And when I walked back to my car I reflected on yesterday. I was gifted a fully-paid day off where I can experience yet again how it feels to have a day where I can do what I wanted without nary a care in the world except to be with my son and hanging out together. Now I can create that same feeling of that day EVERY DAY of not having to go to work to a job anymore. I've got all the money I need to sustain my current lifestyle and then some. I can once and for all line up all the lessons I need to learn and then embark on the path I can as a healer without having to worry about money because I'm already fully taken care of. And then I can have the biggest smile on my face just like Johnnie has on the pic. However, current reality also demands that I make it to work today and today is also the monthly Communications Meeting after lunch. And I'm supposed to present something. I had nothing prepared. But I didn't have anything to worry about. In fact, I ended up simply recycling my Tech Council presentation and massaged it into my Communications presentation. It took all of 15 minutes to do that. I was done before it was even time for lunch. As far as the meeting itself, it was kind of same old same old. I think it's pretty good that we all sit around talk about what every department is doing. That by itself is good from a team building point of view. But as far as the actual content, it wasn't really all that interesting. Yes we keep looking at the performance of the clinics. But really can they be prodded to do any better? If they could, wouldn't we have already? Isn't everything still a matter of getting clinicians and providers in to see patients? We don't have a problem getting patients. We have a problem seeing those we have. Same old issues from years ago. It does appear as if we're doing well as a company though, except that we seem to keep missing those blasted visit goals and hence keep missing those financial targets. In my world, I'm just glad I haven't been blasted ever since that faux pas I did a week ago that manifested us having downtime simply because I had mentioned jokingly and in passing that IS is the villain. And so I spoke it into existence without ever having a need to do that except to get attention. And today I did it again. I mentioned jokingly and in passing that we had a 10-year retention period of all the files in O365. And I said I'd be long gone before that. I'd meant that I'd be retired of course. I hope THAT doesn't cause negative repercussions. I mean with regards to speaking something into existence. I'm going to need to get better at being aware of my thoughts and words. Anyway the meeting came and went uneventfully otherwise and before I knew it I was headed home to pick up Johnnie. It's Panda Express night after all. I remember taking a picture of him running to me 2 years ago at Carmen's Daycare. One of my favorite pictures. He still does that today when he sees me. He's bigger now obviously but it's still the best feeling when he sees me and hugs me and chirps out "Dad!" "Dad!" As it was we did go to Panda Express and he ate most of his chicken actually! It virtually guaranteed that he would be drowsy in the backseat on the drive home. And he was out before we even got to Sepulveda. Oh well, at least it gave me some time to do some errands. As in go to the ATM and get some cash. As in get my steps in. I started at 4000. By 7 PM I had gone all the way to 10600, leaving a little for when Johnnie woke up. that's 3 miles I did simply walking around the perimeter of my apartment, not even venturing outside. I did a lot IN the apartment actually as well. And so when I woke Johnnie up at 7:45 with some dinosaur videos playing on the TV, he didn't resist much. And he did get to watch about an hour's worth of videos until it was time for his shower again. AND got to play with his dinosaurs. You know he's himself when he does his little dinosaur arrangements and vignettes all over the living room floor, like he was doing a movie shoot or something. I thought about letting him sleep through but I figured it would be better not to risk him waking up in the middle of the night and then waking ME up. After all, I have finally caught up on some good sleep the last couple of nights. I'm not going to lie, you still can't escape the Kobe tragedy, whether it's getting on the Internet, YouTube, TV. His reach has turned out to be really massive. His influence, far greater than probably HE himself would have imagined. Anyway I do know that for all grief, for all wounds, for all sadness, all we have, all we really need is TIME. For me specifically, I'm going to continue to be Johnnie's dad which is the best job I could ever want. I go to sleep tonight knowing that today we had a good day. And that is all I can ask.

Johnnie Home Not So Sick

So LAUSD has this rule that if you pick up your kid from school sick, he can't be back for 24 hours. Which meant Johnnie couldn't go back to school today. Which meant I had to stay home to watch him. Oh well, I guess I get a day off at home too. I think I needed it anyway. Last night I finally got more than 6 hours of sleep and it felt good not to have to go anywhere. Johnnie and I just lazily had breakfast at home and we didn't get out of our sleepwear. As far as his supposed illness... he did have a fever last night, a slight one I think. And he was warm when he slept last night. But he must have just simply slept it off because he was already just fine when he got up this morning. In fact, if I wasn't forced to keep him at home, I would have sent him to school today, that's how ok I think he is. In fact, it was a weekday as usual for him. He had breakfast, watched his dinosaur videos and I was actually concerned I wasn't going to give him enough learning time. I did not want to sit him in front of the TV not even for a couple of hours. But I did relent to him watching Frozen again. Gotta love Frozen. Look at the video of him singing along. It's the cutest thing ever. And then afterwards we finally did go outside and it was an awesome warm day out. It did not feel like winter at all. More like late spring actually. And look at him kicking around a soccer ball. Does that look like a sick child to you? Anyway we played in the outdoor area, and then we went out and got lunch... chicken noodle soup for JOhnnie at his request, and I drove through Burger King so I could have an Impossible Whopper. Hey it's great that I can still have a BK burger and it's made of plant protein. And then we made one more stop. We stopped at Best Buy so I could get a new iPad. I had given up my old one for lost and that's ok. I had bricked it already anyway. Just means it's time to get a new one is all. And so I went and got one with Johnnie in tow. I will say that now that he's used to not taking an afternoon nap, he didn't take one today. In fact after lunch I launched a bunch of lessons for him. I made up some Math lessons, some reading lessons, and we even read a couple of books too. I made him read one himself. And in the middle of all of that, one glimpse on the internet and there continued a total outpouring of emotions from other people affected by the Kobe tragedy. I tried to keep from seeing them all lest I would start to cry again. I completely appreciate that I am here. now. with my son. And we're getting to spend the entire day together. And so I tried to do the afternoon as if he were at STAR. We did lessons, we played baseball, and finally right about the time I would pick him up I let him watch videos. I would transition into regular Tuesday night routine of course, which meant I would barbecue some Italian sausage and Johnnie would eat more penne pasta. And then of course I would make chocolate chip cookies. What would Tuesday night be without chocolate chip cookies. In the meantime, Johnnie was all over me on the couch. All our kids want is our attention right? I made sure he had mine. And so it was that by the time I gave him a shower and tucked him into bed I closed my eyes and felt an immense amount of gratitude that I got a nice day to spend with my son today. I thanked the Universe very very much.

Still Crying

I had about 3 hours of sleep last night. I couldn't take my eyes off the TV and when I finally did it was well past 3 AM. And wherever I looked, there was grief. NBA players crying while playing games. Doc Rivers crying while giving an interview. Jerry West in tears on TV. And these weren't even the people he was closest to. For now there were Instagram posts. From Shaq. From LeBron. You can only imagine what it's going to be like when you hear from them in person. Heck he was even memorialized at the Grammy Awards last night, which was held in the house that Kobe built. Already a slew of people have started to build small memorials at LA Live. And so there could be no getting away from this. And I had to deal with my own grief. Not just because other people were grieving. I had to admit: I was grieving too. The closest thing to what this felt like was the day Michael Jackson died. We drove to UCLA and heard MJ playing in every car practically. But this was different. Yes Michael Jackson was a universal celebrity. As was Kobe. I'm already reading about how reaction was like in the PHILIPPINES for crying out loud. I guess this affected me personally because I was starting to get accustomed to his latest role. Which was simply: a dad. And so I obviously related to that one. And no bigger reminder when I got a call from Mar Vista asking me to pick up Johnnie. I guess he was feeling sick today. I was disappointed at that one. He was supposed to be in a how tonight. The kids were supposedly practicing for weeks. I was looking forward to seeing him on stage. I was looking forward to being his dad. And now I guess he's too sick to perform as Lisa went to go pick him up. But that was ok. I admit that I was skeptical that he was even sick. I thought maybe he simply didn't feel like performing or maybe was feeling anxious. But Lisa reminded me that he needed the benefit of a doubt and that was good enough for me. In the meantime I kept a real low profile at work. I was obviously tired from not having slept much last night. And my eyes were still red and puffy I'm sure from all the crying. And I still just couldn't keep away from the internet. Which meant even MORE shares from people who were grieving.  It's amazing to see Kobe's reach actually. People I didn't know were close to him. Kyrie Irving considered him his mentor and called in sick altogether for his game. Simply couldn't play. Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets a so-cal kid was in tears and talked about being mentored by him. I didn't even know he was a local kid. Obviously D-Wade, Melo, and CP3. DeMar deRozan said he wouldn't have a career if not for Kobe. Me? It affected me because Kobe brought 20 years of joy watching him resurrect the Showtime Lakers. First with Shaq in the early 2000s. and then again 8 years later. That was before the Lisa relationship obviously and so I was heavily emotionally invested in the Lakers. Like Magic, he represented LA. He was OUR son. Our hero. Our idol. And then he transcended that and belonged to the world. Look I'm not going to explain why I feel a connection to Kobe and the Lakers other than sports and entertainment become our escape no matter what is happening in the world outside. And it sure did bond LA as a city. The Lakers were a constant no matter what. And Kobe was OUR connection to each other. I may not know you, but I'll high five you no questions asked if you're wearing a Kobe jersey. And so when he retired he was going to go on and do other magical things. But starting with being a dad. And that is what breaks my heart the most. He died doing the thing he loved the most. Being a dad. Oh how i relate to that one. And now he's gone...
I went home and snapped into hand-off mode. That meant doing my steps, getting from 3000 to 8000 when I got home. Nope I didn't finish 11,000. I didn't do any walking during the day in the office. And I was tired coming home. I simply just wanted to catch up on sleep. I did get to 10,000 and that would do for today. Heck I had thought of quitting at 6000. But I couldn't thank God. I thought about Kobe. He outworked everybody and pushed himself.  Damned if I couldn't push myself too. And actually it did manage to ease the pain some. I went to Lisa's house and Johnnie was asleep on the couch. He still had a fever. I did know that whatever happened between when I saw him last which was last night and at that moment, i could undo it and make him better.  I took him home and did some energy work on him. And wouldn't you know he would wake up 10 minutes later asking for water. I do think he's sick. But I think he'll be ok. We skipped tonight's shower. I needed to catch up on sleep too. But there's no doubt about it, I'm still feeling sad. I'm still grieving.

Sadder than Sad

How do you process news that just doesn't compute? Crazy sad day I"m sure for not just us in LA about the passing of Kobe Bryant. And then when I watch ESPN and all the reaction, NBA players in tears while playing their games and I'm reaching for Kleenex all over again. Not used to processing sad. Rest well Mamba. rest well.

Golf Sunday January 26 version

Tee time this morning was at 8:30 PM at Eaton Canyon for the FOCUS LESSON called GOLF LOL. Our complement of 4 was there this morning and this morning the lesson came early. I was on my way to the course still at the 10 freeway and my thoughts were disjointed, but not just that. I realized I was having a full on anxiety attack right then and there. I reminded myself it was all about breathing. But even the act of trying to calm myself down brought about an anxiety of its own. I put on Schumann frequencies, did some EFT exercises, Hoonoponopono mantras. Eventually I did manage to calm down. And I reminded myself it was simply energy trying to bust out and it was up to me to transmute it. That alone was a great lesson for the day. And then came the golf. My first shot off the tee was a beauty right down the middle. And I followed that up with a fairway wood right on the green. I ended up with a par on the first hole, on a hole I had never shot a par on ever. My visualization was spot on. And on the 2nd tee, I did the same thing, great tee shot, iron right on the green. On in 2. I would miss the par putt though, but still I felt really good. On Hole 3 I made it over the fence just fine and just needed to get on the green from right in front. But I would mess up that shot and end up with a 5. And on Hole 4, I would mess up the tee shot, because I had focused on getting Greg to get the pic of me that I posted. I tied for the win on the next hole and so after 5 holes I was tied for the lead 2-2-2-1. And I had a chance to tie again the next hole but i blew the putt. Chris would win the next 2 holes to seal the deal. I was one stroke off both holes. And on the last hole, I would put my first tee shot on the street. I knew my focus was totally gone by this time. I was in a position to win the last hole 2. I was on the edge of the green in 3 shots, everyone else was sprayed all over the place. But I blew my putts again. We all did so bad on that last hole we just sort of waved it off and didn't even score it. The lesson for the day was clear: I was supposed to slow myself down but I didn't. Again. I started great but could not sustain in after Hole 2. I need to work on what I need to do in order to sustain that focus. Even in the face of the anxiety attack in the morning. Lesson acknowledged.

Lisa asked me to come by at 2:30 PM. Kinda early but I didn't care. I get to hang out with my Little Bug today. I brought my iPad in case I needed to get him to watch stuff. Lisa talked about having dinner together when she got back and I was fine with that. She wanted fish and to cook the udon she had. My thought was to get some easily made stuff from Trader Joe's. A clash of styles. Me: quick and eezy peezy but good. Lisa: Gotta be done from scratch and why don't we use up what I already have. Funny. I gave in. Didn't need an argument today. Besides, my focus was having fun with Johnnie. Just look at him in the pictures. He blew bubbles outside. It had turned out to be a warmer day than usual. And then when he got done with that we played soccer in the backyard. I pushed aside thoughts of Lisa having spent all that money and really the backyard didn't look all that much better than when I had it the way it used to be. It's all about tending it and it was clear it wasn't being tended now. But I reminded myself that THAT is no longer my business. The backyard grass anyway. And besides, Johnnie and i really did have fun playing in it today. Afterwards he and I went to Ralphs to pick up dinner. And on the way back I noticed my iPad wasn't in the car. Nothing to do but to look for it at Lisa's house of course. And by the time we got back, Johnnie had fallen asleep in the back seat. I put him up in his room and then started a frantic search for my iPad. Fortunately I had the find-my-iPhone app on my phone and I actually got it GPS-located. Right outside where I was parked. Did I leave it on the roof of my car and drove off? I didn't remember. But it wasn't physically where the map said it was either. Damn. Did I just lose my iPad? In a fit of panic, I wiped it. Bricked it clean. Which meant I would never be able to find it again. Sigh. Oh well. Time to get a new one anyway. And THEN I finally decided to make dinner although now I didn't feel like sticking around and eating. Because of the iPad. Another lesson in controlling my state. Still I managed to fix dinner and Lisa and I managed to have dinner together. Johnnie had screamed and ran downstairs in a fit of fear. But I did get him to continue sleeping. And so he laid there on the couch asleep while his mom and dad ate dinner and talked for a bit. I left before 7 PM. It was Sunday and I still had stuff to do. Gotta get mentally ready for next week. When I got home I got the worst news of all. Kobe Bryant had gotten killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas. No wonder I got a text from Karl earlier in the day. It merely said: Kobe? Could it be real. Nah. Can't be. He's 41 years old. He was easing into retirement and doing well. He was coaching his daughter in basketball. He seemed like... me. Enjoying being a dad. That was everything. Being a dad. And when I realized it wasn't a hoax, I turned on the TV. And watched NBA players playing games with tears in their eyes. And I started to cry. And cry. And cry. And cry. 

An Abbreviated Johnnie Saturday

I'm still trying to reflect on what happened last night at work and what I could have done from a vibration standpoint to avoid it. Or maybe not even to avoid it but to simply let it through without affecting me so much. I didn't do so well with controlling my state and now I know that is the first thing I need to keep working on. But not this morning. That's because I needed to pick up Johnnie first thing at Lisa's. It is work Saturday for Lisa and I've got Johnnie through the afternoon. Usually I would have him until tonight... whenever Lisa decides she is done with work. But today Lisa's dad is visiting the office with John who has an appointment. And so Lisa asked me to bring him by earlier than usual. MUCH earlier, at least in order to avoid crossing paths. Sounds juvenile still I know but why tempt fate? I absolutely do not need to cross paths with any of the Kederians outside of Lisa and I am just fine with that. As far as time with Johnnie? All this means is that I have him for a couple of hours less is all. We still have our Saturday morning routine to do. And we were at Elysee having our breakfast like we do every other Saturday. And then we were at Whole Foods and then at Target doing our grocery shopping run. Johnnie made me buy him a soccer ball too. Not that he doesn't have one at Lisa's. But I think it's fine keeping a ball for him in my apartment. Anyway we were all set to have what Johnnie called a sports morning. Soccer. Baseball. Feeding the birds in the park. He even packed away a piece of his croissant so he could do the latter. We never made it to the park. We went home and he started drawing away like he always does. And then we watched Cat-In-The-Hat goes camping. In the meantime I had started a load of laundry. Before you knew it, the morning had gone! It was already 11:30. Oh well. It was already time to think about lunch. At this time, I didn't feel like having Panda Express and Johnnie didn't either. He mentioned as much. Instead I went to KFC and got him a box of popcorn chicken. And got me some fried chicken as well. Funny that I thought Ralphs fried chicken was actually better. But they didn't make popcorn chicken. And by doing this and bringing our chicken home, we could eat at home. Which is what Johnnie wanted to do in the first place.

It would have been easy enough to just put him to bed to take a quick nap and then wake him up at 3 PM to deliver him to Lisa's office. But since I didn't have him this evening, I thought I'd just let him stay up and take advantage of the time to hang out with him, even if it was just watching Cat-In-the-Hat and playing with his dinosaurs. I told him he was seeing his Grandpa Koko this evening and his cousin John. He told me he was scared of cousin John. Awww. I packed him up with some paper and coloring pens and scissors and glue and I told him to be nice to cousin John and make him a present like he makes us. And that was it. I was off and away for the rest of my Saturday. I immediately went home and caught on a nap. I didn't sleep well last night and it was good to get an hour in late this afternoon. For dinner I finally polished off the rest of the beef stew I made a week ago. The thing about cooking for yourself is there never is such a thing as small portions. When I make beef stew, that's 3 nights worth of leftover food right there. AND I gave out some to Lisa already. Anyway I finally had some ME time. I knocked off my 11,000 steps before it got dark, walking around the neighborhood and doing some mental clearing about yesterday. I reminded myself that whatever happened, was something I had control of and somehow it was me that had anger that needed to be expressed. I saw myself fling my cellphone to the ground and I was embarrassed for myself. What was THAT about? There was no reason for that. And so I spent my walk working on my patience and/or impatience and my expectations. And then I went home and worked on exercises to control my state. I have all this NLP knowledge already. I'm just rediscovering switchwords again to change my own energy. I have lots of work to do. And OBTW it did not escape my attention that GOLF is a sport I can do to work on my mental "game" as well. I did some visualizing on tomorrow's golf game. Imagined what I needed to do in order to have a good game. Really the main thing that kept coming up in my awareness that I got myself all speeded up last week. And I needed to slow myself down somehow. Yet another lesson in controlling my state. Good deal! I can't wait for tomorrow. 

End of The Short Week

It was a short week this week but somehow it did was already somewhat marred by the downtime of yesterday. And because it still didn't feel like it was sufficiently resolved. I hadn't even talked to Noriel after yesterday. At least today felt like all I had to do was get through the New Hire Orientation which was first thing in the morning and I had the rest of the day to chill. That NHO (New Hire orientation) is always sort of my opportunity to ham it up a little bit. And the showman presenter in me always comes out. No different this morning, and especially since I had practically retooled my entire presentation. Anyway I put on my show and I was done before I even had breakfast and I was treated by a pan de sal sitting at my desk (no doubt Jose from HW brought me one). My intention was to cruise the rest of the day, even get in a class or two since I have a long list of them now waiting for me to take. It is pretty clear that looking at some of the modalities and energy technologies I'm looking at and some of the books and e-books and notes I've had since before I even started to be with lisa in 2006, I have had a lot of this information from way back in the day. The question I have to myself WHY DID I NOT FOLLOW THROUGH BACK THEN? Anyway I'm getting around to following through now although I still don't think I'm being consistent enough. And so I got around to catching up on stuff at least and then had myself a nice late lunch. I felt like having lunch by myself today, and not wasting time on trivial pointless lunch conversations. I wanted to appreciate the moment and being alone helped me do that. Just look at the pic of my lunch backdropped by the skyline of DTLA. Pretty cool. It would have been nice to get to cruise the rest of the afternoon. But it was not to be. At 3 PM, suddenly the internet went down. And I had to put Nelson and Noriel on red alert. It wasn't like the network hadn't gone down before and typically I would just let them do their jobs and let them tell me what was happening. But today was different because (1) parts of the system was just down yesterday morning and I don't think we had recovered from the user fallout from that (2) Like yesterday Chad the COO was around and he was in my office every 15 minutes. He had an agitated anxiety that I allowed to affect my own state. So yet again this was a lesson in controlling my state. And I did not do well. Before long it was me that was anxiously agitated and I projected it to both Nelson and Noriel I guess, being totally aware that I was simply irritated that they were not as agitated as I was. At least I was able to send out notices almost real time. Eventually the issue was traced to a fiber outage with AT&T. They fixed it by 5 PM and we were back up by 5:15 PM. Total downtime was 2 hrs 10 min. Still within SLA tolerances I thought but the fact that we had downtimes 2 days in a row makes it harder to shake off. Anyway at least we did bring the network back up and I was out of the office before 6 PM, feeling like I worked really hard and sprinted that last 2 hours of work...

I needed to decompress and I did that by walking to 7th and Fig and had myself a do-it-yourself pizza from Pizza Studio. My favorite spinach sausage and pineapple pizza seemed to do the trick. Anyway it gave me a chance to clear my head and got me to 8000 steps before I even started my drive home.  This being a Friday night and all I figured I'd just watch something on Netflix on something. I actually found a show I could binge on for the next few weeks anyway. The new STAR TREK PICARD series just premiered yesterday and just like the Mandalorian I wasn't going to get a subscription to CBS All-Access to watch it. Simple enough to just download it. Which is exactly what I did. And so i enjoyed watching the first episode of the series. Brought me back to the 90s when I was watching Star Trek Next Generation. I'm looking forward to watching Data and Number One and I hear Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine is even going to have a prominent role. Cool! Here it was, Friday night, munching on chips and guacamole, my feet up, and watching Star Trek all over again. Felt like a pretty good Friday night to me. It would have been perfect if I had just went to bed before midnight. But I found myself binge watching whatever I had downloaded and tonight it was Avengers EndGame. By the time I got done it was 1:30 AM in the morning. I could kick myself for doing this. And I still have to wake up early to pick up Johnnie at Lisa's in the morning. Why did I do this? To punish myself? OK I consider myself punished. Not quite the great Friday night anymore was it? What an annoying way to conclude it. Oh well, all I can do is keep trying. And to keep reminding myself of today's great lesson. TO THE DEGREE THAT I CAN CONTROL MY STATE AND TO EXERCISE PATIENCE, THAT IS HOW I WILL BECOME SUCCESSFUL IN MY NEXT LIFE PROJECT.  And I began to see things differently. I asked myself in the beginning of this post why I had not followed through? I thought the timing was not right? NO! It is because I hadn't learned the lesson fully. That's OK. Like golf, I get to try again. Sigh.

Mercury in Retrograde or Something?

The day started off innocently enough. I did a reprise of yesterday morning breakfast with Johnnie, which was to say I made him breakfast and I walked him to school. EEzy pEEzy. I should have known something was happening at work. It had been way too quiet since the holidays. I got a text from Chad this morning that our HW site didn't have any internet connection. I come to find out later on it was because they did a fire test and didn't let us know and so the network equipment was out of sync booting up and we had to go there to reboot our gear. I thought that was that. But then I get another text while I was already on the way. Now our Bresee site was down. And no sooner had I gotten to work that our CMO was telling me his doctor over there was not happy. I was already dealing with 2 sites being down in the same morning and now a provider isn't happy? Hell, I'M not happy. Is Mercury in retrograde or something? And then I remembered something I said at the Leadership Summit yesterday. We were talking about CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS and how we tend to use other people as the villains. Sometimes other departments. "It's I.S.'s fault" I heard myself say. Did I just screw up my own department by giving the Universe a self-fulfilling prophecy? Not that we're the cause for our network going down. But we are sure to take some portion of the blame. And in the case of Bresee, my network engineer Noriel had been fucking with the VPN gear and hadn't gotten it right since Christmas Eve. So THAT irritated me. Fortunately, we cleaned up ok and got everyone up by 10 AM. An hour's worth of downtime. From an SLA standpoint that was more than acceptable. But when you have COO Chad in your face because apparently he's under pressure with the providers and the CMO was just in my face minutes before, it isn't something I can just ignore like business as usual. I can provide answers because my team IS competent. And I remind myself it is merely myself being irritated that people are not being patient. Merely another lesson in controlling my state isn't it? And then when my boss was looking for a mini-projector and I couldn't tell her where it was I really did get irritated. That's me irritated at ME not being so perfect. Sigh. Still with the "state" thing. Fortunately I made it through the rest of the morning relatively unscathed and I told myself it is merely my "turn". I had been pretty drama-free so far since the beginning of the year. I couldn't expect that to hold up all month of January now could I?

The afternoon turned out to be much easier and that was because I sat down and spent the whole afternoon updating my New Hire Orientation presentation that I was supposed to give in the morning. By the time I looked up it was alredy time to go home. Time to pick up Johnnie. And it was hand-off night. No pressure to get him food like it used to be when we had to be at Cornerstone by 6 PM though. Tonight I was just focusing on having fun with him the last night we're together this work week. THAT after all is what matters. Not the network being up or down, not some provider being upset, not about me. I wanted to make sure Johnnie had a good day at school, that we got some sort of math or reading lesson in (we did card counts tonight LOL) and that he ate dinner. Tonight I made him spaghetti. But before I even got that he made me get him a Happy Meal at McDonald's. That's ok, we hadn't eaten out the last couple of days. And then he was off to his happy playful, dancing, dinosaur-loving self. It was 7 PM by the time Lisa called to let us know she got done with her notes, 7:30 PM by the time I handed off Johnnie. He had HAD a good day and a good week, and we both can't wait to see him in his STAR show on Monday night. Mommy and son drove off and it was back to ALONE time for me. Got a chance to do my 11,000 steps. The thing is that when Johnnie isn't with me, I don't go to sleep at 10 PM. I go much later and I have to work on that. I don't even know what I ended up watching on TV but I know I didn't get to sleep until midnight. That's ok. I'll take it as a one-off. Better not do it again though...

Wednesday Observations

Lesson of the day: The Law of Analogy: Patterns repeat at different levels of reality. EVERYTHING repeats at these different levels of reality. You just have to ask the right questions.

Johnnie playing with his friends Wasn't it nice to make breakfast for Johnnie today? Usually I'd be running 100 miles an hour trying to do this. But today I figured I'd do something different... and besides Johnnie really wanted to do it. The cool thing was that I managed to slow myself down. I made him eggs and allowed him to watch his dinosaur videos too. I'm not so sure THAT was a particularly good idea but it did give me time to get MYSELF ready as well. And we were out of the house and headed to school even BEFORE the usual time when we would be done at McDonald's. And then on the walk to school, we ran into his classmate Leo and then his classmate Dylan J. And those 3 got to run around and play as if we the parents weren't even around. They were having fun even BEFORE class started. Made the drop-off so nice and simple. And then it was off to work for me. The day was pretty full actually but not because of many things to do and many meetings. It was because of one meeting specifically, which was the first Leadership Summit of this year. I have to say that I appreciate our executive team for at least recognizing that these get-togethers were necessary if not just for the bonding experience. I mean we had a specific ice-breaker where we had to break into teams and we had to create a structure made up of balloons and the tallest structure won. I posted a pic of my team and our balloon creation. We didn't win. But we did have fun making the thing. Sometimes you gotta go back to being a kid to realize life isn't all that serious and that you gotta have fun no matter what you're doing. Just like the 3 boys were doing this morning on the way to school. I had no doubt then that Johnnie would tell me later that he had a good day. In the meantime, we did other stuff in the meeting too, we had a speaker talk about CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS and I think what was being addressed was the old culture at QueensCare of passive aggression and nobody really speaking up to challenge whatever where being said at the meeting. Now mind you, I hold back these days only because I think I'm a little too in-your-face actually and i realize I need to think and not react. And most of the time I speak as exactly that... a reaction. Except if it was my meeting, which is always a planned kind of thing. I realize that I talk a lot of the time to get a laugh, smart-ass that I am and I did so quite often at this meeting. I'm simply making observations now. And asking myself why I need so much attention on me. Truly something to work on IF it becomes something that needs working on for specific situations. In the meantime, I thought we had a pretty good summit. At least I got a free lunch too. And by 4:36 I was off and headed home.

It took me 25 minutes to get to Mar Vista Elementary, which I thought was a huge surprise considering my late start and that it was Wednesday humpday. i thought maybe people were headed home early to watch the Lakers and Knicks play tonight? Maybe not. In any case, it IS Wednesday night and it IS Panda Express night and I picked up Johnnie at the auditorium where they were practicing for an upcoming show. And as per routine, to Panda Express Westwood we went. Johnnie asked if we could eat at home... definitely a routine with Lisa, but when we got to Panda Express, our routine kicked in and he himself decided to eat there. He ate a lot tonight... as in most of his chicken. And so it was no surprise to me that not a half mile from the apartment, Johnnie was snoozing in the back seat. Oh well, at least it gives me time to finish my 11,000 steps tonight without much effort to keep Johnnie occupied. As it was he slept until 7:30PM, which was a little over an hour. Or at least I went to wake him up at that time.  I didn't want him sleeping a lot and then waking up at 1 AM later on and keeping me up all night. He was so groggy at first he sort of just wanted to lay on the couch. And then I asked him if he wanted to watch something? I asked him if he wanted to watch...Frozen 2. He all of a sudden got excited. And so it was that we ended up watching Frozen 2 for the next couple of hours until it was really time for him to go to bed for real. You could hear him belly-laughing at Olaf the Snowman a couple of times during the movie. And all he wanted was to watch with me sitting next to him. Awww. And so it was that we got a movie in. All before bed. And so it was that we got to bed before 10 PM too. A pretty good Wednesday this day turned out to be.

Tuesday = Monday

It is Tuesday and it is back to Tuesday weekday routine, which actually felt more like a Monday because of the 3-day weekend. Back to waking Johnnie up with Dinosaur videos and back to breakfast for us at McDonald's [it simply is much faster and takes far less energy to do it that way than make him breakfast at home]. And it's also back to taking Johnnie to school. Look at him waiting for his classroom to open this morning. Pretty uneventful. And then it was off to work for me. 30 minutes to the office. Gone are those traffic-free days from the holidays. Had to listen to sports talk radio about the football results of this weekend. and Cynthia Borders at work crowing about the 49ers. God I hope they lose! Had to listen to how the Lakers were massacred yesterday. Doesn't anyone remember the Memorial Day Massacre in Boston in 1985? It was back to breakfast at the FRB Café though this time it felt totally different because the cafeteria seemed to have undergone a make-over over the weekend. I didn't know where anything was?! I did appreciate that everything seemed more visually appealing and that there seemed to be more in terms of choice. Anyway my schedule seemed to be pretty open all day today which allowed me not to be stressed in terms of going back to work. In fact, I actually got to spend time re-setting and figuring out the priorities for the week. There were still stuff going on in my IT world. Network down here (Bresee) but one of my guys is already deployed there. Security cert expired there (again, one of my guys is already on it). The key is to make sure we're covered. Blips happen. Getting these things fixed... that's the job. And so went the hamster wheel today. I did manage to also knock out a couple of tasks all the way from the holiday break that were sitting there, most notably Kennedy's 120-day review. All that to say it was a quietly efficient day for me. And I STILL managed to get in an hour learning session with David Snyder and some NLP Law of Attraction stuff. It is amazing that all the NLP stuff was stuff I had already been exposed to. But if you do not make a consistent practice out of it, you tend to forget it. I'm thinking I have lots of such knowledge that I've dabbled at but haven't really made a deep dive into. Trading is one of those things. Stuff to work on. Before I knew it it was already time to go home. Time to go pick up Johnnie. 

So I played up Tuesday night for Johnnie today. It's daddy-barbecues-sausage day. And of course it's chocolate chip cookie night. And already Johnnie is lining up whatever he can do in the house WHILE I'm barbecuing sausage. The kid's way too smart. Which was exactly how it played out tonight. We went home and immediately he asked for chicken noodle soup, which was really simply penne pasta in chicken broth. I got started on that right away and got him to start eating. In the meantime, I went to the barbecue and got started with the Italian sausage. When I got back he was already drawing his dinosaurs. Cool! He was occupado! Which gave me the opportunity to just stay at the barbecue and finish cooking. It was also pleasantly strange for me to realize that by the time I got done cooking (5:45), I had already logged in 9000 steps! How did that happen? Let's see, I did walk to the bank this afternoon and got me a snack. I did do my Nitric Oxide exercises for once, which I hadn't done in a week. Still I wasn't going to think about it. Just a checkmark is all. And then Johnnie ate one of my sausages. He was fed very well tonight. And we actually even did read a book: I don't Want to Be a Frog. He could read that book himself by now. And then he asked to watch the Dinosaur Train! We hadn't watched that thing in months! I wonder why he asked for it now? Do I really care? Anyway we both discovered we hadn't watched a whole bunch of episodes from Season 3 that I had purchased a long time ago. COOL! Even more dinosaurs he can get immersed in. We had an eezy-peezy night tonight. But then again that's more the norm with he and I. And both dad and son were in bed before 10 PM. Even better for me! I can finally get more than 6 hours of sleep!

MLK Day off

Lesson of the Day: Altered states of consciousness --> If you can not control your state of consciousness you can not change the frequency at which you vibrate. If you can't change the frequency at which you vibrate you can not access the Law of Attraction.

I guess we'll be remembering MLK weekend 2020 as the weekend Lisa moved back into her house. And that I was a part of it all. In a nice way. I was already supposed to join them for breakfast this morning, and then supposedly I was going to watch Johnnie for a few hours so Lisa could continue with her move-in process without having to deal with him. Hard to get anything done with him around to be sure so I understood that. Selfishly it's yet another pocket of time that I could spend with him so I was all for it. And if the price for that was to have breakfast with mommy and son? Then I'm happy to pay. I got a call around 8 AM that they had just woke up and so Lisa wanted for them to take a shower first and asked me to come at 9:30 AM. No problems there. I relaxed and woke up gently myself. Had my Earl Grey tea and even made a stop at Whole foods to get THEM breakfast. I brought vegetable quiche AND bread pudding. The earlier we would get to breakfast that way otherwise we would have to get on Lisa's timetable and who knows when breakfast would be at that point. This was where we would usually clash. I wanted Johnnie to be done with his breakfast as early as possible and keep as close to routine as I could. Lisa was clearly off on one of her spontaneous day-off routines was completely unbound by time. Bringing breakfast I thought would be a nice meeting in the middle. I know Lisa still wanted to fix it. That was their routine. But then again I focused on the fact that she still had a lot to do. In the end, the meeting in the middle worked out ok. As in no conflict, no tension, no nothing whatsoever. That would have resulted in a fight a year or two ago. So I guess Lisa and I really HAVE made some kind of progress with our new relationship as co-parents. We had breakfast, talked some more and then I let her sort of talk herself into letting Johnnie go with me for the rest of the morning and through his afternoon nap time. THEN and only then did we get to go, and off to the apartment we went.

I shifted us into :Saturday: routine at that point. Johnnie plays with his dinosaurs, does a couple of drawings. And then we get some lunch at Panda Express. Only this time, we didn't get to head out until it was almost 1 PM since we didn't actually make it to the apartment until it was almost 11 AM already. Of course Johnnie and I would do some fun things too... see the pic of him playing baseball in my outdoor patio area. Also helped me kickstart getting my steps in for the morning. Not lost on me was that it was Monday. And I would usually be at work at this time. But since it IS MLK day, and I did have the day off, spending time with Johnnie doing whatever we felt like seemed like a much better alternative. This is what we would be doing if I didn't have to go to work I suppose. Except that Johnnie wouldn't be around either, he would be at school. Today we did go to Panda Express, and I did manage to get him to take a nap, although he didn't actually knock off until it was almost 2 PM. Look at the pic comparing last year with this year. Almost identical with the afternoon nap LOL. I read that last year Lisa had dinner with Jennifer Chikes and I had Johnnie for pretty much the entire day. The year before that I hung out with Johnnie too (2018) and then Courtney came over in the afternoon. Little did I know that would be reprised today as well. I brought Johnnie back to Lisa when he woke up around 3:30 PM. I figured I'd let her have some time with him until it was my regular time to pick him up this evening. That was when I ran into Courtney at Lisa's house. It was a good idea dropping him off though. It gave me a chance to get my steps in. I walked almost 3 miles to get to 11,000 steps by 7 PM. And then I made myself some beef stew. I made so much I had to bring HALF to Lisa's house. Maybe she and Courtney could eat it. As it was they had already had dinner when I got there at 7:30 PM. They had Thai food. That was another reprise from 2018. We had Thai food then too LOL. Anyway Lisa's house looked normal again. And her move-in was almost done. Finally. I thought to myself all this time I had spent with her this weekend was simply HER not wanting to do her move-in alone. And Courtney was probably not available until tonight. Lisa merely wanted someone to socially interact with I think. And when Courtney was there tonight, I was no longer needed and that was perfectly fine. I was there simply to collect Johnnie as per Monday routine. I did appreciate that my interaction with Lisa this time around was more than just cordial. It was actually pleasant. Definitely HUGELY different from past January's. And maybe the start towards finally emotionally recovering from that past for me. As for Johnnie, we went to the apartment and it was like regular Monday night. Cat-In-the-Hat, TumbleLeaf, chocolate cat cookies and milk. I did watch myself lose my temper and yell really loudly when he playfully tossed his sock into the toilet. OK so he tossed his sock in the toilet. Did I have to scream and yell? Why did I do that? Clearly I still have some more work to do... on myself. And I will. I have to. I actually apologized to Johnnie and told him I was sorry for yelling. These things are what creates his programs later on in life. I know that now. Fortunately the little episode didn't get him too upset. He just knew that I was mad. It was I that needed to go to my calm place. Which I did. Hopefully he learned. We both did. And MLK day-off 2020 was in the books.

Golf Sunday and Helping Lisa

I intended to continue last week's stellar golf performance today, especially since today we have our full complement playing (Greg, Scott, Chris, and I). What I did not count on was that I would get a parenting lesson too right there on the golf course. We ended up getting a 5th player, which was this young girl named Lauren who we had played with before on this course. Back then she was accompanied by her grandfather who was coaching her. He was Filipino (she was clearly hapa). I remember he made a tweak on Greg's fairway irons shot and it worked for him. He made suggestions on my tee shot swing and it did NOT work for me. Anyway I remember that Lauren played well that day.  And she seemed on her way to doing the same, at least after the first hole. She had this beautiful chip from the edge of the sandtrap that just stopped spinning 10 feet from the hole. I wish I knew how to make the ball spin like that. As it was I did not start well. I was lucky to get a 6. Chris won the hole by hitting par. Lauren though missed her putt. I mean missed it barely. It was in and then just popped out. We were uneventfully walking to the 2nd hole tee box when we noticed Lauren't grandfather kept talking to her about the shot. It would seem Lauren had gotten upset at missing her putt. And now her grandfather was almost lecturing her about the fact that she was crying. And he kept going on and on. And even brought us into the fray, almost asking us to talk to her. A couple of things came up in my awareness at this point. (1) that Filipino way of lecturing was something I got to experience too I think many a time when I was Lauren's age (2) I thought about Johnnie and the times he would get frustrated and upset with himself at something. All he really needed was a hug. Some reassurance. The last thing he needed was a lecture about repressing his feelings.  And so the grandfather's "coaching" bothered me. It clearly bothered Lauren too because she could never get herself to stop crying through the 2nd hole. So much so, her grandfather simply chose to take her home midway through the hole. I felt so bad for her. I made a note that this would be a reminder for me in the future when I am dealing with frustration and upset from Johnnie. I had a terrible 2nd hole, probably still thinking about the episode. Didn't have a good one on the 3rd either. In the meantime, Chris was on fire. At one point he had won 5 of the first 6 holes, his streak only being broken by Greg's win on Hole 4. Gone was the groove I was in last week, and I simply could not focus on raising my vibration. That was clear because I was missing much more than usual. I at least won Hole 7 outright. And it would be the only hole I would win too. At least I was not shut out. Chris won easily 7-2-1. Greg won the last hole to win the 2nd place sweepstakes. Interesting morning. Bad golf but a good life lesson for parenting. And the golf lesson? I simply was not able to slow myself down today. And so the old patterns crept back in. Gotta work on that.

So I grabbed a quick lunch at Ralphs (fried chicken) and by the time I got home which was 12:45 Lisa had called. She was expecting me to come over to help her move in course as we had discussed last night. I was already on board with that. I had already cleaned my house yesterday, I was done with laundry, I was good to go. I packed up some drawing materials for Johnnie and then headed over. Mom and son were still in pajamas, something about this being THEIR routine on a Sunday. I didn't care actually only that it appeared Johnnie hadn't eaten lunch yet and it was already well past 1 PM. But it was also clear Lisa was already caught up in "moving in" mode and was putting up her dozens of pictures on various walls all over the house. I was happy to help her spot the pictures, but she was doing fine putting them up on her own. In the meantime, I put the TV and the electronics in the living room together, which took all of 10 minutes. And then the whole purpose of that was so that she could get her books arranged which were all in the garage. Didn't seem to be complicated to me but I reminded myself Lisa has a process on how she does things, including when and how to put the books up. And that much i know and if I agree to do anything with her, I also implicitly agreed to do it her way. Still, I moved her books, a couple of other heavy items inside and upstairs when asked and by the time 5 PM rolled around, she even requested I take Johnnie for a couple of hours so she could finish doing more stuff. Nothing doing. I made it down the block before i hear Johnnie's soft breathing in the back seat. He had knocked off to sleep. Well of course he would do that wouldn't he? I brought him back, took him upstairs to his bed and then told Lisa I'd be back to bring her some dinner. Reciprocity right? What I did was go to Whole foods, get some ingredients and even though I didn't want to dirty up my just-cleaned kitchen, I cooked up fettuccini and salmon and mushrooms. And brought it to her still in the pan.  Hey she wanted a home cooked meal? That's what she got. And so we shared another meal together she and I. It was almost like she was now beginning to remember pleasant memories between she and I. She brought up her wedding ring and how much we went through to have one made...right at the Westside Pavilion. Why she would bring that back up I don't know.  She talked about how moving in this time around reminded her of our first move-in in this house. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was one of the bad experiences that I try to forget and push aside. I left it at the fact that today she and I enjoyed dinner together. No expectations, no nothing. Just dinner. Because she made me dinner last night. She asked me to come back for breakfast tomorrow so I could yet again watch Johnnie while she finished moving in. Hey I had the day off. Why not? Tonight I went to bed happy that the weekend wasn't over yet. And it had been a pretty full weekend already.

Saturday Cleanup Day

So as I mentioned in yesterday's post my intention was to make this one of my "learning conference-style" Saturdays. I had so many things I wanted to get to, so many online learning things I wanted to do. And I started with some nice meditation right as I woke up. 
And made myself some nice breakfast too. Eggs, sausage, raisin bread. Earl Grey hot tea. ahhh. And as I washed my dishes suddenly the dominant focus turned to cleaning my apartment. I mean I also intended to clean up my apartment at some point today, fully aware that the last time I did that was 2 weekends ago and I did it in spurts and phases. And I thought to myself: why can't I get it done in a couple of hours? That's how long it takes a professional house cleaner to do it isn't it? At least for a measly 1 BR apartment like mine. Actually I had already gotten started yesterday. It was while I was taking my shower in the morning when I had it in my head that I was going to clean my shower and bathtub, which was exactly what I ended up doing. And so again, I had already gotten started. This morning I ended up cleaning the kitchen. And it already took about 45 minutes to do that, which OBTW included mopping the floor. By the time I was done it was already past 11 AM. Again I ask... how do the pros do it? The morning was already almost done. By noon I was already headed out to get lunch as if I were already taking a break from cleaning the house. And for sure I had not even started on any one of those online classes I intended to get done. Oh well... I went to Bristol Farms Playa del Rey to get one of those thick turkey sandwiches and cole slaw. And got some chips and guacamole too (the guacamole was a sample). Ahhh, I may not have finished any tasks this morning. Doesn't mean I couldn't still enjoy lunch. And of course after lunch I had to have my afternoon nap... although today that didn't go for more than a half hour. Good enough to give me energy to attempt to finish cleaning the rest of the house! Next was the bathroom, mostly done already since I did the shower yesterday. And then the bedroom. Man did time fly though. By the time I got done with the bedroom it was already 4 PM! How did that happen? I could not NOT do the living room after that. And although I did it in pieces, I DID do it and I DID get done. It was 6:30 PM already when I did but I did it. MY APARTMENT IS CLEAN!

So I was sitting there on my couch... tired but appreciating what I had accomplished when I get a call. It was Lisa. She was inviting me to come over because she had marinated fish cooking in the oven. Yep, she was inviting me for dinner.  I knew there had to be some ulterior motive of course but at that point I really didn't care. I felt like I accomplished plenty today... although I was barely at 7000 steps at this point. Besides, I hadn't had dinner yet anyway. AND it had the added attraction that I would get to spend some time with Johnnie. I was barely beginning to think about what I was going to eat tonight for dinner at the time she called. And so I packed up some Chee-tohs for Johnnie and I headed on over. As it turned out they were out and about the whole day and Lisa wanted to plan on her move-in process. Now mind you it is one of those things where you just do it. At least that's how I would do it, but Lisa is Lisa and she has to have her process and I had no problem with that.  So I went over and Johnnie was in the middle of eating his "chicken noodle soup". And of course he was really glad to see me. Lisa made us these prosciutto appetizers. And then sprung out the fish. She had stuff all over the dining room table. And the doors to all her kitchen closets where not up. I didn't want to ask what was up. But at least we had a very nice dinner right there in the nook. We had talked about putting a breakfast nook in there when we first bought the house. It was a conversation we both remembered in a pleasant way. Tonight, although she was clearly a bit overwhelmed still by the process and the prospect of moving in and doing it alone, she managed to provide some pleasant company in fact. It was like she had a friend over and they had dinner together. And that was perfectly fine with me. And while she started to clean up, I did get my time with Johnnie in albeit we were roughhousing for a good half hour. As far as ulterior motive, she needed some help putting the TV together and getting some stuff hauled in from the garage. Like her books and stuff and I didn't mind doing that since it wouldn't be until tomorrow anyway. I told her I'd come right over after golf. To say we had a nice, pleasant dinner and to contrast that with previous interactions a year ago would be a huge understatement. Lisa was actually nice and really wanted to put a nice dinner together. I mean look at the plate in the picture. Lisa was always so good at that and the a very good counterbalance to my own lack of attention to aesthetics and detail. The price of course was that I had to bring them dinner tomorrow night. I'm fine with that.  Hey I'm ok with reciprocity. Especially if I get to see my Little Bug again. So tomorrow planned, I went on home. I missed a big NBA game which incidentally was the Lakers and Rockets playing for the first time this year. And the Lakers won too going away on the road. The evening turned out to be pretty good after all. And needless to say I knocked out my 11,000 steps even though I was already done at 9,000. Tired and unmotivated, I still managed to slog out an extra 2000 steps to keep the streak going.  As soon as I got done I crashed on the couch and slept right then and righ there. It was a good end to a pretty good day.