Maia's Birthday

I picked up Johnnie at 7:45 AM right on time at Lisa's house. She's working today and we're headed down to San Diego for Maia's birthday shindig later on. Lisa had made cupcakes for at least 13 people and I thought it was gracious of her to do that. She normally doesn't do well when she's not a part of something, like this birthday. But I'm going to chalk it up that this is her contribution. Her and Johnnie both. Grace had moved the restaurant time to 4 PM and so we had all morning to still do routine Saturday stuff. We still had to get breakfast of course. And of course we had to go to Elysee. Sausage and scrambled eggs and OJ as per usual. And then we had to make our Target pitstop, even more important today because we had to pick up Maia's Target gift card for her present. And of course Johnnie's lunch stuff for next week. And then finally when we got home, I asked Johnnie to make Maia's Happy Birthday card. He wrote it out and folded it up himself. We hung out until lunch since I figured we had plenty of time to get down there and I didn't want to get there too early. We stopped for lunch at Panda Express even. And maybe THAT wasn't such a good idea. I figured that there was at least a 50-50 chance that Johnnie would knock off to sleep on the ride there and I wanted him to have his lunch at least. The thing was that I ate too and so I felt like I wanted to take a nap. True enough we weren't even past the South Bay yet and I could feel myself wanting to nod off. Uh-oh... how am I going to make it another hour-and-a-half without falling asleep? It wasn't easy but I did it. I kept slapping myself in the head, in the temples, doing everything I could all the way through Long Beach, the OC, and into San Diego County, distracting myself just enough so that I could stay awake. And THAT was the goal of this drive...simply to stay awake. When we got off the exit on Palomar Airport Road, I pulled in to McDonald's, made a pit stop in the bathroom and just sat there and closed my eyes for 5 minutes. We did manage to make it to Grace's house by 3 PM and as it turned out they were already getting ready to leave! That's  because the restaurant was a full 45 minutes away still in National City. W-h-a-t?! More driving...ugghh! I reminded myself that this is Maia's birthday and that it was simply another way for me to connect since it was either West Covina and/or San Diego and I did want Johnnie to see his cousins.

As it turned out the place Grace selected was a "Kamayan" place which means the food gets dumped onto banana leaves on your table and you just pick at all the food there. There were no utensils, no plates, no forks, just a bowl where you could dip your hands when they got messy. As for the food itself, it was a Filipino food smorgasbord. There was crispy pata, bistek, fried shrimp, fried fish (bangus), and fried lumpia. And of course lots and lots of rice. Mmmm! There was only one problem. There wasn't anything that Johnnie was used to eating. Thank goodness I had filled him up at Panda Express for lunch. I put more Frozen 2 songs on my iPhone in front of him to keep him occupied and he was just fine. I can only imagine he's like this when he's with his mom at her family functions too. As for Maia, I had memories of going to her first birthday party all those years ago in La Jolla when they lived there. Can't believe she turned 18 today. She has grown into a beautiful young lady albeit she's more bohemian than young lady. That's ok. I drove with mom to the restaurant from Grace's house. She kept asking me the same questions 4 or 5 times. I think she's starting to lose it. But hey she's in her 80s after all. Anyway the great thing was that we got together as a family and that IS important. And I thought it was important that Johnnie knows he also has my side of the family too, like it or not. Joe even brought his partner Michael there, which would be the first time I met him. All in all it was pretty good, up until the time Grace asked me to pitch in for Mom's mortgage. I told her this was not sustainable but that I was going to contribute this time. I tried to talk to my mom about it afterwards but she didn't seem to want to even think about it. For me the only solution was to sell the house and downsize to get rid of the loan. The alternative was foreclosure and then they would have to go find somewhere else to live anyway. Heck, she could live with Grace for all I care. Maia is moving out anyway in a few more months. As for Mike, hey he can fend for himself. Again that sounds cold, but compassion-less and I'm trying to find a middle ground for them that does not involve me, since my solution is cut and dried. I hope they find some way to work it out. If Grace empowers them to do this, then that's on her. Although in my heart, I wish I could just buy her out of her loan and let them live there forever. My mom is not 100% full capacity already mentally. I think it's Mike that has to figure something out for himself. I told Grace I'd do what I can for now but that this has to have a limit. It can't go on. Mom wanted to drive back to West Covina tonight with me. And so we drove back to Grace's house to pick up my mom's stuff. We stopped at McDonald's so Johnnie could have his chicken mcnuggets dinner. And then we drove to West Covina to drop my mom off. I tried to shake off the feeling that this was all so inconvenient for me. But family often is isn't it? How can I think of being of service to humanity if I can't even give my mom a ride without feeling inconvenienced? Got stuff to work on. I know I would love to just be involved to a point and not really throw myself into family matters. And maybe that's something I need to work through. I hadn't really been part of my own family for many many years. Certainly not after I got together with Lisa 14 years ago. And now I'm being asked to get involved. And help finance what amounts to a financial mistake my dad did before he passed. I don't know. We'll see how I can help clean that up if I can. For now, the next stop is Lisa's house so I could drop Johnnie off. He was dead asleep and Lisa was still in her office when I pulled up to her house at 9:40 PM. Just another Saturday for her. She finally got home, I finally put Johnnie in his bed and then we made arrangements for tomorrow. She wants me to watch Johnnie but now she has to go to a classical music concert with Courtney at Disney Concert Hall. Hey I didn't care.. I was glad just to get to watch Johnnie again. She told me she'd call me after golf tomorrow for more details and that was good enough for me. In the meantime, I was barely at 5000 miles when I pulled up to my apartment. I could have gotten to 11,000 for the day. But I pulled up at 10,750. I was tired. It was 11:30 PM. It had been a pretty long Saturday...