With all the stuff about coronavirus going on and all the attention on social distancing and being indoors, and with schools closed, it has almost escaped me at least that it is already SPRING. And it's the last day in March to boot. If it were normal times this would be Johnnie's last week until Spring Break and I'd be starting to gear up for a week long vacation starting next week. Maybe I'd be making reservations to drive down to San Diego and go to Legoland just like we did last year. But alas all that is gone in a puff of smoke now LOL. However, it is STILL spring. And one of Johnnie's homework exercises this morning is to go outside and look for signs of spring. Ahh... the flowers are starting to bloom, grass is starting to grow much faster especially since it has been raining a bit more the last couple of weeks. Look at the pic of Johnnie exploring the "garden" area as he calls it just outside my front door. Pretty cool actually. He had to draw all the signs of spring too for today's class. If anything it got both of us out of the house and walking around. And we even threw in a nice fast 2 laps to the end of my front walkway and back. Hey that's about 160+ yards. Anyway today was a pretty big deal around work as well. Not only are the tents coming up at our health centers today, the telehealth initiative is going live today as well! And as a tech geek, I was happy to hear we actually did 18 telehealth encounters today. That is the real deal! We only had been sitting on this for years as an industry. But now it is suddenly on the forefront of every healthcare provider organization. And we were one of the early adopters that did pull it off. I'm going to stand up with the rest of the clinic operations team and take a bow with them on this one. And so ironically, as I spend my morning happily doing Johnnie's lessons and drawings, I also was cranking in my real job and producing value. The best of both worlds. Funny how that worked out :) About the only thing that is really challenging I think is that Johnnie finishes with his lessons so quickly... usually within an hour or hour-and-a-half or so that I have to spend the rest of the time planning on what to get him occupied with the rest of the day and what to eat for lunch, specifically when I'm checking emails and doing Zoom meetings and working myself. And to make sure I don't replace my parenting with videos. I mean I'm all for getting him in front of videos very much unlike Lisa but I also want him learning and not droning off. Today I even crafted off my own math problems for him... but he polished those off inside of 15 minutes. I certify that he can add and subtract at the kindergarten level at least. He has ventured into 2-digit addition and subtraction as well. He's going to be just fine. For lunch I ventured out to Whole Foods just so I could get him a pizza. And me a turkey and cheese wrap. I know I know I had all this food in my fridge. But half the battle is to keep yourself from going stir-crazy as well. And I figured as long as I followed social distancing standards, then we're ok.
By 5 PM we had made it through yet another one of those Daily Huddles and I am fully aware that I need to work on my own attitude for these. I may not feel they are specifically all that important or that perhaps they may be a waste of time. But I also realize that THAT is my own ego talking and that I need to instead defer to the greater need to disseminate information even though the meeting isn't being done like the style of directness and speed with which I conduct MY meetings. On that note I recognize that even Lisa who had spent a dozen years with a tech guy at her side (ME) had to call me this morning simply to get on a Zoom meeting that I had taken for granted that everyone knows how to do (she was able to get on after a little bit). And I also recognize that other people may be far more thorough than I am as well. It's all about respecting other people and learning patience. Which are the very things I need to get good at if I am to actually be an effective teacher, trainer and wayshower. And sometimes I have to simply get out of the way and let people learn through THEIR instincts. Case in point Johnnie whose gif of himself kicking soccer ball against the wall seems to show that all it takes is practice and repetition and he will be just fine. He did his soccer kicking while I was barbecuing our Italian sausage for dinner of course and we ended up doing our Tuesday night routine just like normal. That would be penne pasta chicken noodle soup for him in addition to his Italian sausage. And same for me. And YES we DID do our cookie night. I bought ready-made Betty Crocker cookie dough from Ralphs with the chocolate chip already in them. And in the end Johnnie ate it up just fine. So NO I did NOT use a rolling pin to make my cookies like Lisa was almost forcing me to do. And I realize with that thought I still needed to clean and clear up that memory. Not hard to do at all since we had a quietly routine Tuesday evening with Tumble Leaf. Added to what turned out to be a pretty productive morning, I'd say we had a pretty good day Johnnie and I. I even got him to do his bedtime routine earlier than usual. Hey he was the one that started to yawn. Maybe it was all those advanced math lessons I was throwing at him LOL. Anyway I was tired too. And so for the last day in March, an early night it was for dad and son.
So it's the last few days of March and it's also start of Remote Work Week 3. So far so good for the first 2 weeks, but then again each week has had it's challenge(s) haven't they? Today I will admit that I didn't sleep well last night, quite likely a by-product of the negative juju I encountered (or is the word allowed) with Lisa last night. You KNOW you're going to encounter it. You better expect it and be mentally and emotionally prepared. And I wasn't. I didn't protect myself. Even with that exercise I did in the afternoon yesterday about the octahedron to concentrate your energy was something I didn't bother to try. Which is why I know I still need to continue the work until it IS second nature. In the meantime, I "clock in" to work by 8 AM this morning and I was glad to actually take a shower and clean up. Something I hadn't done all weekend. And then I posted a pic of me doing my Zoom meeting with the Business Continuity group that now meets on Mondays. That's on top of the Huddle that happens daily at 4 PM... and the morning huddle that the Executive Team do. How do they get any work done if all they do is huddle every day? Simple answer. That's because we the middle managers get to do all the work. Even this morning I'm still wrangling headphones for the Telehealth initiative that is supposed to kick off tomorrow. And I'm directing traffic for my team to help out at the Health Centers to erect a triaging station at the parking lots. The somber message from this morning's meeting though was that reality has seemingly hit home when some of our patients are getting their test results from a couple of weeks ago and some ARE testing positive for coronavirus. Suddenly it's more real when it's on your doorstep. And suddenly the discussion turned into how to protect ourselves and our staff. And how to allay their fears and concerns. I told my staff to have protection with them at all times when they go to the Health Centers. That would be gloves and hand sanitizers. And not to touch anything. And to be very careful. I know I know I do see the numbers and I do see healthy people don't actually die from this thing. But then again I would probably classify Larry and Noriel as immuno-compromised somehow. It's not that people don't get this thing, it's that people don't KNOW they're actually immuno-compromised. And so I passed on the cautionary to my team and kept on with the day.
Today Lisa called at lunch asking to drop off Johnnie at 4:30 PM as she wants to do a piano lesson in Pasadena. I wonder if she gets it that she is one of those immuno-compromised people and the safer it is for her to simply stay in. But she's bugging. I get it. Although she seemed to have forgotten all about the tension between she and I last night, or has decided to sweep it under the rug, I was still wary about shooting anything negative in her direction. I agreed to anything. Johnnie over at 4:30? Fine. Better even. The Afternoon Huddle got cancelled anyway due to the Board Meeting. Of course she had to raise my stress level anyway by not getting there until 5 PM and not bothering to even answer my phone calls or texts. She just has to be the one in control doesn't she? I wonder if she even sees that she does that all the time. I guess not. I didn't care when I saw Johnnie's smiling face. He even asked me why he had to stay with his mom for so long. I have to ask that question all the time. Immediately as he walked through the door I gave him dinner (penne pasta and chicken sausage) which we wolfed down. And then he was still hungry so I got him some chicken McNuggets. Don't tell ME he doesn't eat. Maybe he simply holds on to his hunger while he is at his mom's. With me, he not only can eat all he wants, he can watch videos too. And since he asked to see Tumble Leaf tonight, then Tumble Leaf it was. I didn't care what he did. I was just happy he was with me now. And happy Lisa isn't around to stifle our natural dad-son joy. We watched videos, horseplayed pretty roughly like we do and then on to bedtime routine by 9 PM. He didn't even play in the shower. I guess he was tired. Who knows what Lisa did with him. But he was asleep before 10 PM. And I started to as well. But then I woke up. And caught up on this journal. Remote Work week Monday was quiet. And my team, in particular, bent over backwards again to get our jobs done. And Johnnie is back in the fold. All was good.
Man I'm going to miss Sunday golf. Through everything going on from 5 years back and even beyond that, it helped keep me sane. Especially when I was going through separation and divorce. Golf was the one constant. And I missed it this morning. Greg's cackle. Scott's senior moments. Even Chris's impatience. With LA's stay-at-home order which now includes beaches and trails, I'm not sure when we will get to play again and this will be the longest golf hiatus since I started to play more than a decade ago. I'm sad. And so I woke up, and did some meditation. I was tinkering with the Image Cycling method which I would have learned with the Bengston Method seminar from a couple of weeks back and so I was consolidating and processing my images into words. I think I got those all done. And then by 9 AM I got a call from Lisa asking if I was still coming to breakfast this morning like we had discussed. I didn't want to be presumptive like yesterday. I felt like I had ruined Lisa's routine and really messed her up and put her on overwhelm. It doesn't take much I know, especially now she's dealing with a huge life event like not being able to go to work. So, no I'm NOT doing that again. I had already had my tea and some Hawaiian bread but I did go on over for a late breakfast anyway. Hey, at least I'd get to see Johnnie this morning. And as it turned out I did get to play with him his dinosaur collection and read the Magic School Bus book to him, all while Lisa tried to get some piano practice in. I heard her phone ring though after a while and she picked it up and stopped playing. Which was my cue to let her know I was going home. Hey I have my own Sunday routine to do. Usually after golf, I'd have lunch, clean up the apartment, and then finish laundry. And with a brand new washer/dryer it would actually be get done quickly and quietly. I told mommy and son I'd be back in the afternoon as if it was a regular Sunday and Lisa was still going to soccer and needed me to watch Johnnie. And so I went on home, and had lunch. I had so many leftovers still and lots of food I could cook too. It would have been ok to spend the rest of Sunday at my apartment I think. I still had all these classes I needed to take. I keep signing up for stuff and not actually getting any of them finished. I finished the Yale parenting course. But all these energy healing courses I have yet to finish the I signed up for I have to do. It's like I've been learning bits and pieces from these YouTube videos but haven't really put in the practice time. Everything is about practice practice practice and I should NOT expect to learn everything after watching just 15 minutes of a YouTube video. That is part of the work I have to do. I'm still learning how to be a master manifestor. And right now I think I'm still a practicing "initiate". Anyway I spent my Sunday afternoon watching videos and trying to learn stuff and by 5 PM, I pinged Lisa to see if it was still ok to come to dinner. I had made ground pork and cabbage for myself but I still had the leftover Italian sausage and pasta. She had leftover salmon. That was already plenty for dinner and so I went on over. I should have realized Lisa was still in a negative state from yesterday (and I remind myself I also contributed to that). We made it through the dinner. But to make it all the way through the entire weekend without any more crap would have been to much to ask. After dinner Lisa and Johnnie were making a gingerbread man. I asked if I could take home some leftover dough so we could continue Tuesday night cookie routine. I wasn't able to get some Trader Joe's pre-made cookie dough. Lisa agreed but insisted that I take her rolling pin so I could "do it right". And that basically opened up an old wound for the both of us, one centered around the control thing. She just insisted I take the rolling pin. I insisted that I didn't want to. I mean I'm no baker, I just wanted something ready made. She didn't or wouldn't or couldn't understand this. And when she said "sometimes you're just difficult", well it really did set ME off as it was an old trigger. I'M BEING DIFFICULT YOU DUMB BITCH was what went through my mind. IT'S MY KITCHEN AND I DO WHAT I WANT. Now I know my vibration had hit some kind of low smh. In retrospect it probably would have been easier to just take the fucking rolling pin and not use it at all. I do what I do no matter what she says anyway. I don't pay attention to what she says regardless. But tonight I stood my ground and got stubborn. I'm pretty sure it was because I had spent more time with her this weekend than I ever had and it brought us back to a really huge reminder that at some point WE STOP WORKING TOGETHER and WE BOTH DO THE CONTROL THING. She went off and played the piano. After a while I went on home. Without the goddamn rolling pin and with a whole ton of cleaning and clearing to do. Something always comes up to clean. And I had spent the afternoon watching Ho'oonoponopono videos too LOL LOL. I did get to watch the Walking Dead and then I did my cleaning and clearing exercises. Weekend over. Lisa and I had done so well for a really long time. It was bound to catch up with us. But then after a while I started to calm down. Can I really blame her? She's in worry mode once again. All I can do is keep some distance, and keep cleaning and clearing and reminding myself to ACCEPT and FORGIVE. And not just her. Me too. Ironically I came upon a memory ping from Google PHotos. It would appear exactly 2 years ago was when Lisa and I decided our marriage was done. Maybe this weekend was simply a reminder of that energy. And a reminder that I'm still not fully healed. I've got more work to do. And that is ok. I forgive myself for that too...
So i woke up this morning and immediately sort of ran into Joe Vitale's Mastermind class on Facebook. Didn't really plan it although I did reserve a space. And I ended up listening to this all-day event for about an hour and in that small amount of time I already had a big distinction that I took away. The first is the message that the Universe seems to be giving all of us regarding this coronavirus thing. The message? GO INSIDE. Which is to say do the internal work and focus on the inner self. And then the second takeaway was about goal setting and manifestation and the reason for the object of our intention. This from Jose Silva: Make sure the essence of what you are manifesting or the outcomes yo're trying to bring about benefits not just you but at least three other people. Very cool learning lesson first thing. Unfortunately, it didn't help the rest of the morning. That's because I went over to Lisa's house for breakfast like we talked about last Thursday night. I didn't call ahead, didn't give any warning, I just headed over there. And found Lisa and Johnnie pretty much just lollygagging in bed still. Now that by itself is no big deal at all. It's Saturday after all. But then Johnnie started eating potato chips, which to me meant that he was hungry and immediately I snapped into feed-Johnnie-mode. This while Lisa is telling me that she had lost internet connectivity in the whole house. Apparently her parents came yesterday to visit and then Oscar the Handyman came to remove the Verizon box outside the house. It wasn't doing anything mind you, it was just there. But Lisa is restless and is in the mood to remove stuff. When she is restless like this she is at her absolute WORST and I should have already recognized it. She ended up not only removing the Verizon box but i'm sure she also removed the cable that connected her to the internet. Unbelievable. I would have been livid had I been living her. This is so Lisa. Anyway, I helped her get on the phone with Jorge to diagnose the internet problem. But in doing so, it just distracted her even further and so I got caught up in my own need for control and order. And I made Johnnie eggs for breakfast. And this absolute turned Lisa's morning even more topsy turvy because she wanted to do family breakfast sitting all together. Didn't happen. Which irritated her. I could sense it as she got increasingly perturbed on the phone with Spectrum that she never got a hold of. Fortunately, she called Oscar. Hey, removed the cable, he can figure out how to put it back. And with that I beat a retreat home, apologizing to Lisa that I had screwed up her plans for the morning. I went home, did some meditation. Walked around the neighborhood. Got myself in a good state. And then went back to Lisa's house to see if I could make it up to her by cooking them lunch. But of course she was already stuck on HER plan for the day which was to get her internet fixed. No problem there. She asked me to come back later on tonight so we could all have dinner instead. Good. I get to have my LEARNING SATURDAY then. And so I went back home.
It became clear to me that I needed to clean and clear SOMETHING. I know Lisa spent yesterday with her family, to which she attributes not paying attention while the contractor took off the Verizon box. But she was still the one that wasn't paying attention. It's funny how she always says her mom simply causes trouble. Does she NOT realize that she is the same way and she unknowingly causes chaos and trouble in her world and therefore sucks other people into it too? At least I don't have to be there to be part of that anymore and I did spend the rest of the afternoon just quietly doing lessons and doing internal work. I was even prepared to simply spend the rest of the evening at home. Did I really need to go back to Lisa's house? Well we did talk about dinner and then she asked to bring a movie for family movie night too. Why is she stuck on "family" stuff? Johnnie and I are a family. She and Johnnie are part of a different family now. THAT is by divorce decree. WE are no longer family. I am just trying to be nice. And when she does stuff like this morning, it is a rather glaring reminder of why we are no longer a family. But I did make pasta and I did barbecue some chicken Italian sausage. And I did go back for dinner at Lisa's house. And after dinner, she and Johnnie did make popcorn and we all sat down to movie night. Haven't done THAT in a very, very long time. Years. WE watched Frozen II for the umpteenth time. Yes it was repetitive. But there is no denying how absolutely cute it was for Johnnie to be belting out half the songs in the movie. Although Johnnie did call us both out when in the middle of the movie he caught me on my cell and Lisa reading a book. Not exactly fully present with him weren't we. Hmmm. Thank you for the lesson Little Bug. And so it was that we did manage to get through movie night relatively unscathed. After this morning's warning shot, that was actually a big deal. This as Facebook and Google Photos reminded me that this was the time period of our biggest fights 2 years ago. The time we actually did decide to call it quits. Lisa simply has no mechanism to deal with adversity except in a negative way. She's bugging about her office being closed I get it. She is having a hard time dealing with it. But I remind myself I need to clean and clear myself too. I'm around this negative energy because I invited it in sometime during the week. And it is up to me to control my thinking and to control my state. Back to the lessons this morning that I should have carried with me. I can do that now. Ok. then. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Let go of the past. Accept the present. Forgive. Raise your vibration.
So today is Friday but it isn't the lollygagging Friday that it would normally be as recently as a few weeks ago. Instead of taking my time driving in to work, I'm already checking emails and TEAMS at 8 AM in the morning. AND taking a walk outside as well. It's funny how we all may be social distancing and staying at home but there sure are a heck of a lot of people out and about and walking around all day. Hey we all have to get our exercise in don't we? In the meantime, it's busy-busy-busy at QueensCare. Tents are going up in the parking lots, we're gearing up for telehealth as early as Tuesday and my team of course is involved. If it isn't making sure they have internet connectivity at the parking lots, it's running around scrounging headsets so providers can have their telehealth sessions. Sounds funny? Try getting 30 headsets when you can only purchase 5 at a time. And if you can't get them delivered next week. Solution? Gotta send my team to the stores and get them in person. This weekend. Smh. Fortunately, the team is ok with all that. I'm sure some of them are aching to go out and about anyway. I reminded them to be SAFE. In the meantime here I am sitting on my couch sharing my remote work experiences at QueensCare at the CCALAC HIT Roundtable. A few people on the call commented at how comfortable I looked sitting on the couch. All while eating my Burger King Impossible whopper and also while Mike the apartment fix-it guy is installing my brand new washer/dryer. Awesome! I can finally do my own laundry again. And fixed my blinds in the living room as well (it was stuck and I couldn't open it). I was so excited I did a load of laundry just to try it out and figure out how to work the thing. Just another day at work at home. By the 4 PM huddle, I really had nothing report other than everything was under control and we're good to go with all the initiatives going on. I have other stuff to work on too but I am in priorities-mode. And I had no intention of working past 5 PM. Not today. It's Friday. Working UNTIL 5 PM is already far longer than I work on a normal Friday. And so when Dr Liao closed the meeting with... can the C's stay on for a bit, it was like C'YA GOTTA GO for me. I logged out and thus ended the work week. Remote work week TWO in the books.
As soon as I completed the work day I headed out to Trader Joe's to do replenishment of my supplies. Not that I don't have any food in the house but the new reality now is not to wait until everything is done simply because some items may be available or not available simply due to timing. Toilet paper for example is only available for the first 36 customers first thing in the morning. I wanted to get penne pasta. There wasn't any. Plenty of spaghetti. Not penne. And there was no cookie dough for Tuesday night chocolate chip cookie night! Oh NO!!! and OBTW, I posted a pic of the new social distancing guidelines before you can even make it INSIDE Trader Joe's. 6 ft. 6 ft. 6 ft. Sign of the times for now. So not only was I able to make a pit stop at Trader Joe's, but I also got in to Mitsuwa to get some yakisoba noodles. Very VERY important. So I'm fully stocked again, at least for the following week. And with that I went home and pretty much just crashed on the couch for the rest of the evening. I had done 11,000+ steps by the time I got home and so it was time for Netflix night. It's funny that I have all these new movies but haven't watched them just yet. Instead I ended up watching Shaolin. Yep, an older martial arts based movie made a while back. It's a redemption story and so aren't we all suckers for redemption stories? Ok Ok I did watch a few learning videos too, one from Aaron Abke and I also discovered another new "mentor" or "teacher" via another YouTube site from someone teaching manifestation techniques. I realize that the path I chose was to work from the inside out, instead of doing all the manifestation jiu-jitsu hacks to create "stuff". It's ok though... I am hoping to get a lot of learning in this weekend even as I spend time with Johnnie, which means I have to spend time with Lisa too as an extension of that. And that's ok. It's the new normal. Hmmm?
I find it almost incr
edible that overnight it seems like we're all doing Zoom videoconferences now that everyone is sequestered at home. Even Johnnie has a Zoom meeting scheduled today with his TK class and I, for one, am happy to see his classmates and their parents again (at least a few of them) just to give some hint of normalcy. In the meantime, he still has to go through his lesson plan regimen today, which included a science lesson on FORCE and MOMENTUM. So the pic of him playing miniature bowling with paper cups and a ball is actually his science experience for the day. And actually as long as you make it a game he enjoys these kinds of things. And so it was that we finished his lessons by mid-morning and then went on the Zoom conference right before lunch with Ms Gee, his teacher. It was nice to see Brooklyn, and Cora, and Jennifer and Dylan J, and his other classmates. Amusing to note the stress in some of the parents voices with their kids being home all the time. I think I'm doing OK... but I will admit I stick pretty close to the routine in order to keep my sanity. After all, I'm busier than ever at my job even working from home. And to me, anything that nudges me from routine IS stressful. Case in point, Lisa asked to have Johnnie for half the day since she didn't get to see him yesteray all day and she's feeling much better today. I figured that was ok so that I can attend to my Zoom meetings in the afternoon. I asked her to pick him up after lunch at 1 PM. She was headed to her office to fill out her SBA Emergency Disaster loans. I don't know that filling out those loan papers is going to afford her time to pay attention to Johnnie but then again she hasn't seen him in a couple of days. Besides she said we can have dinner tonight all together. She hopped in to the Zoom meeting with the TK class.. by calling me. I guess she couldn't figure out how to do it on her computer. Sigh. One of those problem providers I'm dealing with on a regular basis. How I equate her to Dr Vakalanka at QueensCare is actually hilarious. Anyway she mentioned maybe picking up Johnnie earlier. I said "NO. Gotta Go. See ya at 1 PM." See? Don't mess me up from my routine. I wanted to make lunch for Johnnie and that is EXACTLY what I did. That would be my way of finishing my "shift" for the week. Besides she gets him all weekend anyway. But there she was at 1 PM and off they went and I was able to complete my spate of meetings for the afternoon pretty much uninterrupted. After the 4 pM huddle, which was yet again an exercise in frustration for me because I see it as merely a way to keep Barbara informed and occupied I went out, got my steps in around the neighborhood and then got a call from Lisa that they needed a dinner break. And that I should bring Johnnie some food. Off to Panda Express I went for the 2nd night in a row and brought him teriyaki chicken. And so it was that we all had dinner at Lisa's office in the break room. I myself hadn't eaten there in forever. Heck I hadn't been inside Lisa's office in months. Lisa was clearly not done with filling out her loan docs. I didn't understand what she was doing for the last 4 hours but then again I wasn't going to say anything. It turned out she needed me to keep Johnnie occupied WHILE she finished her loan docs. And she took another couple of hours to do that. In the end she even asked me to help her by scanning her documents so she could upload them. I'm pretty sure this whole thing would have taken me an hour to do. Instead I got a not-so-pleasant flashbacks to the many MANY nights I would hang around her office to help her to her work. I remember how TIRED I would get but I wouldn't say anything. Here I am doing it again. I chalked it up to the Arnel-good-deed-for-the-day bank. And I better be reimbursed for this somehow LOL LOL. At least I got to spend time with Johnnie and if that was the price, then I guess I have to pay it. It was 9 PM by the time we left her office. SMH SMH. Never doing that again. Off I went home and watched the season finale of Star Trek Picard. And a terrific finale it was. At least I ended today on a good note. And tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!
So today Lisa and I made that deal that she's picking up Johnnie after breakfast, which was 8:30 AM and she would watch him for the day. We did that last week because I simply needed to focus on work for that day and since Lisa isn't working anymore, she wanted to take advantage of being able to hang out with Johnnie more. It was a win-win. And so we thought we'd try it again today. Frankly I should have done it yesterday considering how busy I ended up being and how much I ended up having to leave Johnnie alone, especially in the afternoon. All that, however, got upended with a phone call. Lisa called at 7:30AM. Now she has a head cold and she felt she needed not only to stay home but also to self-quarantine for at least the day. In this time of coronavirus...OF COURSE that woud be the prudent thing to do. And so I ended up with Johnnie for the whole day again today. Same routine as yesterday. Breakfast with Peep and Chirp and then off to his lessons, which he usually finishes in about an hour. In the meantime I had a meeting with my team mid-morning and it got contentious. It got that way because of me I'm not going to lie. We talked about deploying software to change the homepage of the remote work folks because we wanted to make sure they could get to the new Intranet page. Of course being remote, we now have no way of pushing out group policies if they weren't on our network. And so yesterday I thought I'd give homework to my team of finding a way to push out redirection changes to the home page of each browser via script and local admin. It was already too much to ask a couple of weeks ago. I knew this was going to happen. It's too much to ask now I suppose. I mean my guys aren't scripting experts. However, I do lose it when I get the whiff that they aren't willing to try new things. I already feel they stick too much to old ways. The only thing you can be certain with technology is how fast it changes and evolves. Learning something new is built in to your job function as an IT professional. I feel like my team gets stuck too much on the status quo while I am a tinkerer and experimenter. Anyway I hope I wasn't too hard on them the way I can tend to be. No need to be an asshole. Not now. Anyway things were moving pretty quickly in the clinics. Tents are going to be going up by Friday or Monday at the latest. Something about a surge we're supposed to be expecting. Tents will be needed to triage. And then we're pushing out Telehealth to our patients by Tuesday. Boy, very much pie-in-the-sky 6 months ago, now it's a must-do. The challenge there was that I now have to find 30 headsets for the providers to use and now electronic items which I'm used to getting in 48 hours now have weeks of leadtime. Not only is supply short because EVERYONE and their mother is now a telecommuter, but there are not as many delivery people. I guess they're being refocused on delivering essential items. Anyway I'm sure i"m going to find solutions for all these, but some may take more time than I like. Still I was fully aware that this morning my vibration was not so high. And it didn't really improve in the afternoon. Here I am in the middle of that late afternoon huddle and it just looked like Barbara our CEO was just trying to keep herself busy and involved. But really all the things she was making suggestions on were already being handled through normal workflows and processes. In other words, we were humming along. And she involving herself just felt very unnecessary, and very micro-managing like. It was downright annoying actually. Let people do their jobs I say. When that meeting got done I was logged out of Zoom within seconds and off to get our dinner from Panda Express. Except... Johnnie had knocked off in the middle of my phone call. I guess I had tired him out. And he was complaining about some dull headache. I had to go anyway since I already placed the online order. It IS Wednesday night after all. By the time we got back after picking up the order in Westwood, he had fully wakened up and he was ready to eat his chicken teriyaki. And he was ready for more play and he was ready for more videos. I worried that he was having a headache from watching too many videos. But I don't think that's the case at all. In fact, he mentioned feeling better after he ate dinner. And THEN we went back to watching the Magic School Bus. He gets into these preferential moods with these videos. We did have fun with his science activity, which was to make a toy wrecking ball and the use of FORCE. He really liked knockng down paper cups. Shocking I know. Anyway it was another early night tonight. I had logged in more than 7 hours of sleep last night. Looking for pretty much the same tonight.
So Tuesday it is and we're up at 7:30 PM and Johnnie is having breakfast. I tell you I'm DETERMINED to keep him to his school routine as much as I can. And so as soon as he got done with his eggs and sausage and cereal and Peep and Chirp we dove right in to today's Lesson Plan (thank you Ms Gee). I actually have a feel for how his morning goes just going through the plan. There is a focus on phonics and high frequency words, and then a little bit of math and then a whole hour on Mystery Science. This week the topic is FORCES. Funny thing is that Johnnie is usually done with his lessons in MINUTES. That's minutes. I think he needs work with his writing but he can read on the kindergarten level already and he can definitely do math... at least addition and subtraction. And the trick is to get him moving around too. And so after a natural break in the lesson plan, I had him race from one end of my apartment hallway to the other. That would be about 125 steps or about 100 yards already. He was panting pretty hard after 2 laps which he was happy to do. But boy he was panting. And mind you so was I! That done I then had a spate of meetings starting at 11 AM. Eloisa wanted to deploy a centralized COVID-19 site so all resources are in one place and there is no misinformation. And project management was handed off to me so I met with our Communications guy and Eloisa's assistant who would basically be in charge of the content. And then I had to meet with my team about the Intranet which was now a problem because those working remotely won't get the auto-redirect we propagated. You have to be on the QC network for that to work. Gee why didn't we turn on LOCAL ADMIN when we could!!! And so I had to meet with my team about solutions for setting the homepage. Really benign-sounding I know. but it's those little things that make a difference. And then starting today, I was asked to be at the daily afternoon huddles of the Leadership Team. Don't they know we're working? Who has time for all these huddles? And then I recalled my IS Team Daily SCRUM meetings when I got started. Those helped stabilize my operations. OK OK. I'll go to those daily afternoon huddles. Even though they're scheduled at 4 PM - 5 PM! Humph!
Today's huddle actually went well past 5 PM. Crap... I don't even stick around until 4:30 on a NORMAL day at work. And here I am listening to people just drone on. I know it's important to keep communications channels open and I do realize that for me it's a lesson in patience and listening. But boy this sure is not painless. Especially when all I wanted to do was to go on with my Tuesday evening routing. This, of course, was all about barbecuing Italian sausage and then baking cookies together. We've done this since fall. All through the cold winter evenings. And now that it is lighter earlier, you can bet I'm going to take advantage. Although it isn't necessarily warmer out either. Besides, Johnnie needs exercise more than ever now that he isn't running around the schoolyard at Mar Vista Elementary all day long. I made him take his soccer ball out and hit it against the wall while I barbecued our dinner. Just like last week. And a couple of weeks before that. All the while he was doing that a couple of guys were in the other side of the wall doing their exercises. We're all trying to cope our way, finding ways to have a sense of normalcy somehow. Yes things may be different for one reason or other but as long as the intention is there it doesn't matter. Example, no more sweet Italian sausage at Whole Foods, but Johnnie ate up the chicken sausage just fine. He didn't even know it was chicken. I haven't had penne pasta in a couple of weeks. But Johnnie ate up the multi-colored spiral pasta which was the only kind of pasta left at Trader Joe's. You put it in chicken noodle broth and he didn't even care. No more chocolate chip cookie dough but we still did have Lisa's homemade chocolate chip dough from a couple of weeks ago. It worked out just fine. And so we do what we can and you know what? We had a very familiar Tuesday night together Johnnie and I. Right down to the dinosaur train on TV. And a little bit of Tumble Leaf too. And why don't we throw in the Magic School Bus while we're at it. With all the activity I had to do today, I congratulated myself that I did manage to do my work AND Johnnie's lesson plan at the same time. And I even managed to get to 11,000 steps well before 9 PM. Piece of cake! Not. I also managed to keep my head down and away from negative stuff that is now starting to creep into people's consciousness. You listen to Lisa and you may get an idea that situation is dire. And maybe she is right that it is. I choose to look at this whole thing as an opportunity to reset and rethink the way we live our lives. Welcome to the new normal for a little while. At least we all hope, it's just a little while I was pretty tired by the time it was Johnnie's shower and bedtime. And I knocked off just as he did before 10 PM. Tuesday done. Wednesday on tap...
Now that we've all had a week of remote work under our belts and hopefully the shock of it all has started to recede, I'm looking at this week as a time to look at whatever kinks there are in the system and get those fixed. I'm actually one to start up and get used to a new routine quickly and now for the next month at least the Monday routine is at least to get a shower in and start checking emails around 8 AM. That is already WAY earlier than I would normally do had the office were open. I wouldn't even get around to checking until after I've had my breakfast which is around 9:30 AM. But this is a brave new world and today, I'm having a makeshift breakfast sandwich but on 2 pieces of Hawaiian bread. Makes me appreciate all those times I sat and watched Mark dilly-dally making my breakfast sandwich LOL LOL. By 9 AM I not only have had breakfast already but I have also checked off all emails and getting ready for my team huddle. In the meantime, a couple of staff were already exchanging stuff on TEAMS. Brave New World. I posted a pic of me in my makeshift office. One week in and I'm already looking around for a larger more functional desk. I never intended for me to be doing a whole lot of work on this one. Hey it took a week for Amazon to deliver just a couple of USB-C adapters. We'll see what happens. Anyway, it was on to other projects. NOW the organization needs to look at telehealth in earnest, as people are now starting to fully embrace doing everything remotely as reality hits. I remember a couple of years ago already when we had a Teladoc visit when Johnnie had that mosquito bite on his ear and made it look fairly grotesque. Turned out, he just needed an ointment back then. Didn't need to come in at all. I bet we could handle lots of cases like this over Zoom LOL. The trick is always to train the providers, which I anticipate would be no different than training the Finance dept. We got it done... but man it was a challenging 3 hours. So my part was to look at the platform and infrastructure obviously and to me it was no different than what we already had to do to get our staff working fully remotely. Fortunately, Zoom was already integrated into OCHIN, even the pricing was far more cheap than what Zoom offered normally. $30 vs $200 if not through OCHIN. Can you say …. slam-dunk? For lunch I finished off the shaved beef steak on some cabbage and chow mein. Mmmm. Pretty good if I do say so myself. I even shared on our TEAMS page the pic I posted. Today felt busy... busier than a normal Monday and maybe it's really true that you do get more productive and present when there is no one around bugging you. Today there was no Johnnie although I have him for the next 3 days, except Wednesday when Lisa and I agreed he should be with her on my busiest days. By 5 PM, I felt like I got a whole lot done and even got myself to 6000 steps already. And so I just drove over to Lisa's for usual Monday night pick-up. No need to wait anymore until the last second.
BTW, not lost on me was that today was my mom's birthday. And I will admit to being relieved that I didn't need to do anything as she was housebound too. Johnnie left her a message yesterday, and I left her a VM and a FB post. OK OK I'm not the best son. I will work on that. Meanwhile, I was supposed to have dinner with Johnnie's mommy and son. Man... 3 dinner nights in a row. Can I handle it? I was supposed to bring the protein. And so I BBQ's the chicken thighs I bought from Trader Joe's last week. And then stopped at Ralphs to get him some fried chicken. No problem getting HIM food. And when i got to Lisa's mommy and son were pretty nuch still in their pajamas and playing outdoors. I would find out later that this was part of the science lesson Johnnie had for today, which was to dig holes in the sand. But really? Still in their pajamas? This is what would drive me crazy usually. But again this is a BRAVE NEW WORLD and tolerance and patience is something we all are going to need to learn. In the meantime, Lisa had started to get a barrage of phone calls from her family and friends checking in to make sure she was ok. She may think she's alone but really she isn't. And I'm still here for her although my participation in her day-to-day stuff is hugely debatable. I am closest to her in proximity and of course I'm never too far away from Johnnie normally anyway. HE is MY first priority. Look at him making a volcano plume in the sand. Does he realize how lucky he is that he has an entire sandbox he can use to make said plume? Of course he had to clean up afterwards and I cringed that in a few hours i'm going to need to shower this kid up from all this sand in MY shower... smh. Anyway we went on to dinner and Lisa made rice and veggies yet again to go along with the chicken. And so 3rd dinner night in a row was uneventful. I'm not going to lie, I'm looking forward to continuing the Tuesday-Thursday routine with Johnnie at my apartment. And now that we have a handle on the lesson plan, I think we got this moving forward. I packed him up and by 7 PM we were at the apartment and I offered him a video first thing. He had had a video fast for the last 4 days and I'm sure watching Dinosaur Train and Tumble Leaf would suit him just fine. Really for me it's to make sure he's in a calmer state so we could go on to shower and bedtime. For me the new routine is to check on his lesson plan so we're ready to go tomorrow... not that it's going to take all day to do his lessons but I'm trying to simulate his school day and incorporating that with my work day. And THAT is still a work in progress. Still, it turned out to be a pretty good day as I clung on to a new normal. No I don't have a lot of certainty that we've all realized what that is, but no different that we have no certainty as to where we are with the course of this pandemic. But one thing is certain. This is going to go on for at least the next month. And so we have to deal with what we need to deal with. And we go from there. Today, it's "just" a Monday. And the good thing was? With Johnnie next to me... I'm in bed by 10 PM too. I am not complaining...
All told I ended up spending more than 8 hours with Lisa and Johnnie yesterday. I chronicle the amount only because it is the most time I've spent with Lisa specifically since I left the Maplewood house 1 yr and 8 months ago. It was not as smooth as I made it seem on the outside. I was not really mentally or emotionally prepared to do that and so old stuff came up to the surface and it was all I can do not to react and to control my state. But I did that mostly... stayed in control and dare I say I actually made it look like it was pleasant. But there is also no mistaking that the reason Lisa and I lost our marriage was that neither one of us wanted to cooperate with the other's need to control. And the reason we work now, such as it is is that I cede that control to her or at least make it look like I do. I bite my tongue and just clean and clear away right after. It looks like I'm going to need to do a whole lot of that now all over again. Which makes it really important to keep doing the things that have kept me sane all this time. And one of those things is golf. I was really glad that the golf courses were not subject to the lockdown rule, at least not at the time I made my tee time reservation at Altadena Golf Course in the middle of last week. I double checked on Friday and made sure they were still open. And so you can imagine my total surprise when Scott called me from the golf course right as I was pulling up at 8 AM and told me not to bother. The course was closed. W-h-a-t?? Closed? NO! Much as I didn't want to believe it there was no mistaking the chains that bound the unopened gates at every entrance. And that we were the only cars in the lot. I even entertained throwing my clubs over the fence and climbing it. But I didn't want to get arrested either. Oh well. Greg and Scott went for a walk around the neighborhood. I posted a picture of them walking in the far distance. Later on I would verify the bad news. Golf courses in So Cal are closed until the lockdown is lifted. Sigh. There goes golf...
Oh well, at least I got in to Food 4 Less Pasadena and replenished supplies. All except toilet paper which seemed to still be at a premium. Oh and gas was less than $3 a gallon...lowest I've seen it in a long time. I went home and went for a walk around the neighborhood. Lisa and Johnnie were housebound but I figured I'd at least get my own stuff done before heading over there. Stuff like...laundry. And maybe make my lunch. I made some Arnel style Bolognese. Have lots of pasta now. And enjoyed my lunch. I'm still going to cling to as much alone time as I can, especially now that it would appear weekends with Johnnie would have to include Lisa for the duration. Something strange did happen this afternoon though, which was to me merely a continuation of the negative energy I harbored after not getting to play golf. The washer started making high-pitched noises, more than usual. I mean it was noisy before. But now it was a strange noisy. And it smelled like something was burning. Still I was washing my towels when all of a sudden my fire alarms all went off and there was smoke coming out of the washing machine. W-h-a-t in the hell?!! It was all I could do to get my towels out of there and open all windows to ventilate the apartment and get the smoke out. It's one of those...why did THAT happen? Was it really more negative stuff from me? Was I manifesting letting out steam from the extended time with Lisa yesterday? Was it merely a reminder that I also need her, particularly right now since I could easily use her washer and dryer. I mean I already did my comforter at her washer and dryer yesterday. Doing my towels would certainly not be a big deal I don't think. In any case I just went over there with my wet towels. Hey I got her stuff from Food 4 Less too didn't I? I sort of made a deal that we were going to share groceries with each other if we ran short on anything. She was already short on toilet paper wouldn't you know it. And so I gave her a couple from my stash. I had bought a dozen rolls just a couple of weeks ago and I still had half left even after giving her some. Anyway she was running Johnnie through last week's lesson plan that apparently neither one of us followed. She got through 5 days in the whole 2 days of this weekend. I wasn't worried. It wasn't like Johnnie was behind. Certainly not in reading or math anyway. I'm more worried about social development. I helped Johnnie finish the lesson plan while Lisa played the piano. And by nightfall, Lisa made me dinner again like last night. It was more of the same in fact. Turkey quesadillas. It wasn't bad. Even better was that she and Johnnie did the thing they do. Bake dessert. They made a banana bread cake. THAT was really excellent. And so it was that I spent about 5 hours with Lisa and Johnnie today, grateful that I at least got to finish washing my towels. I reciprocrated by taking out Lisa's garbage bins. No little deal since it had started to rain pretty hard by dinner time. By the time I left around 8 PM it had started pouring in fact. It turned out to be a pretty strange day. Part of the new normal I have to start getting used to. I at least ended the evening with something familiar. Watching the Walking Dead. But there would be no pressing clothes for the coming work week, not even any anxiety over what I am supposed to be doing. I have a feeling more rush-rush projects are yet to come. I'm not worried. I'm built for that stuff. That's where I'm at my best. Weekend over. Work week adventure coming up.
So hanging out at Dr Aalam's dental office yesterday seemed to have spooked Lisa out big time. Frankly I was surprised he was even working given the directive the CDA sent out that dentists shouldn't be seeing patients unless it was an emergency. Anyway it seemed to finally focus her attention on her own vulnerabilities and the fact that she could easily get sick given her immunocompromised state or so she believes. And so there was a lot of anxiety in her demeanor this morning, whereas she was mostly concerned about keeping her practiced afloat when I saw her last on Thursday night. This morning I was supposed to come over for breakfast and then per our agreement take Johnnie for half the day since she would have normally been working today. This morning she wanted to do nothing more than stay home but asked me if I could hang around the house with Johnnie if I'm going to be there anyway. That one kind of took me by surprise. Doesn't she remember how terrible we were when we spent a great deal of time together? And that it is working now because I have purposely minimized that time we do spend together? But then again she asked more as I favor than as a statement and I actually agreed simply to assuage her anxiety today. Maybe it will change later, but today in the here and now, I think I can manage to spend the bulk of the day with her and Johnnie. And after all, the upshot is that I do get to see Johnnie and play with him for a good potion of the day. Just look at the pic of us together. Dad and son. In these times, I'm gonna rely on pics like these to raise my vibration after all. And so we had breakfast out in the backyard like I hadn't done in almost a couple of years now. And then I even went back home to have lunch while she and Johnnie took a bike ride together. See? They can do what they want to do and I can do what I want to do. This can work. And then I came back later on the afternoon. And spent the rest of the day at Lisa's house. Had dinner there in fact. It was 8 PM by the time I left. I had spent the bulk of the day with Lisa and Johnnie and Johnnie in particular seemed to have a good time actually and even crafted an entire book to chronicle how the day went. I'm posting it here. It says it all. And the day turned out ok.
So this Friday of work-at-home week1 is unusual only because of the fact that it's clear that we're ALL working from home. No clearer evidence as when one walks outside and sees almost no one on Sawtelle Blvd on a Friday where there is usually a line of cars trying to get on the 405. And mind you I'm only out because I wanted to get a sausage Mcmuffin simply to break up the monotony of making my own eggs for breakfast. That's one thing to be thankful for is that at least SOME places are still open. You can still count on McDonald's and Starbucks drive-thru both a block from my apartment. Another thing to be thankful for is that it IS payday today and I did get paid. There has already been an uptick in anxiety in the general population because it is clear that the economy is going to take a huge hit for this. And people all over, those making less at my company, Lisa's staff just for examples are clearly worried about what would happen if they couldn't come in to work and get paid. This is a prospect that is looking like it is going on for at LEAST the end of next month. As I said, I'm grateful that I am getting paid and that I actually have more than enough to last many months without even dipping into emergency funds. And you know what? I'm actually grateful to be working from home, in my shorts and without taking a shower today. Ok that last part I should have done anyway it's just that it sort of slipped my mind. Today's pic that I posted is actually similar to the one yesterday with one notable exception. No Johnnie around. He's with Lisa at Dr Aalam's while she is with her dad getting an extraction. I don't know how he's going to be able to do homework if he's there but hey, it's Lisa's turn today and I respect that. Especially after I've had him the last 3 days. It's going to be real interesting now that she's not working either how we're going to work things out with the joint custody. For now the game plan is not to piss her off LOL LOL. Anyway I did manage to get things done on THIS Friday, actually more than I would usually get done if I were in the office. I got another virtual platform tested with my team [8x8] and it actually turned out pretty good. And so by the time I had lunch, that is to say trying to finish off all the leftover stuff from last week that I didn't eat, I felt like I had accomplished plenty for the day. It's funny that the one thing I'm not doing when I'm working from home IS catching up on this journal. I would for sure do that had I been at the office. Funny how that works out isn't it?
By 5 PM I had actually gotten 6000 steps in already too. That came from taking frequent breaks and walking around the perimeter of my apartment. This isn't so bad. I'm grateful that I still get to have exercise and that I've been able to keep up on my steps goal. And while I'm in that grateful space, I also noticed that my resting heart rate is down to 67 today. It hadn't been that low in a very long time, certainly not in a year I don't think and I"m very grateful for that as a marker of even better health. And it's been in the 60s for a week now. What have I not done all week? Drive! Hmmm... And so with that I wound up the first week of remote work which was relatively quiet and relatively pain-free. I can't really see what's actually going on because I'm not in the front lines but then again that was the point wasn't it? To stay functional without a physical presence? With the shopping at Trader JOe's that I was able to do a couple of days ago I actually got to have an Asian meal with noodles and shaved beef yakitori sauce style and I threw in the old bok choy that had been around my fridge for a couple of weeks though it was still good and voila: I had a pretty good dinner I hadn't had. Better yet I had already downloaded a couple of movies which was still in theaters and I had at least those choices for my viewing pleasure this evening to chill. And what did I end up watching? The Letter for the King... a Netflix series about a young teenage boy trying to be a knight who ends up getting caught up in a life-or-death quest to save a kingdom. A boy-becomes-hero tale to be sure. I don't know what attracts me to these kinds of stories. Other than there ARE always lessons Yoda-style a la Star Ward Episone 10 the Empire Strikes Back. Maybe THAT is the attraction. There was a scene where young Tiuri was being t aught to sword fight and he had a much heavier sword. The metaphor was that the heavysword was his dark self. All his emotional burdens and perceived inadequacies that he needed to stop fighting against and instead embrace. And when he did that he was able to wield it and control it and use it to his advantage. Hmmm. And I got a life lesson today to boot. Grateful for that too. Fortunately this series wasn't all that long. Only a few episodes so I didn't have to binge watch until the wee hours of the morning like I did last week. I got to bed and to sleep much earlier. Remote work week 1 done and done :)
We made it to Thursday of Remote Work week 1. The sky hasn't fallen, the earth hasn't swallowed us all up and in fact, when Johnnie woke up, declared that it is morning time, it couldn't have felt more normal. But then again we don't really know what normal is right about now. We only have what's going on in the present moment. And today, since it IS Thursday which is usually pretty light at work anyway, I was focused on catching up Johnnie with his schoolwork. After his usual breakfast, which today I joined him with since I wasn't going anywhere and neither was he, I took the pic of what that new normal looks like on a Thursday morning. That would be Johnnie doing his schoolwork on the floor. That would be me on my laptop on the couch. I did my TEam Huddle at 10:00 AM and then once that was done, I turned on the switch to this being just another Thursday. And of course, I realize I basically don't do much of anything on Thursdays, especially the one after Tech Council Meeting Wednesday. It's usually timed such that the Executive Management Team is meeting on Thursdays anyway. And so I can chill as much as I want. As it was I dove right into Johnnie's lessons. They gave him so much stuff! And of course he had other ideas. What did he want to do? He wanted to go see dinosaurs at the Museum. Awww. I told him the museum was closed. But I did give him the next best thing: I took him on a virtual tour of the Houston Natural History Museum! It was a 360-degree tour and everything! And then we still did his reading lessons, his phonics lessons, his math lessons. And when he needed to take a break, I let him watch Peep and Chirp. And that was only the morning. I realized that he needed to stretch his legs and get moving too. As did I. And so as it was it turned out to be a nice afternoon and we went to the barbecue area and I had him kick the soccer ball around, for a good half hour yet. And had him kick it against the wall. Result? I had him sweating almost. And I got a whole bunch of steps in too! By 4 PM, he was tired. So tired he knocked off for a nap. Hey by that time dad felt like knocking off for a nap himself! Why not take a nap together!? And so I took a selfie right before I dozed off. Johnnie was already gone into sleepland by then. I woke him shortly after 5 PM, only because I had cooked him some chicken nuggets. I was thinking I'd pass these off instead of the popcorn chicken I would usually get from KFC. I mean who knows if KFC is even open. The problem was that Johnnie is so particular that he didn't like this version of chicken nuggets. And got so dramatic about it that I lost my patience. I sent him outside to calm down and let him stay there for a good 5 minutes. Apparently it was I that needed to learn a lesson in patience. I let him in and he cried immediately. I hugged him and asked what would it take to make him feel better. He simply grabbed my hand and put it around himself. Awww. And so I stayed there hugging him until he cried it out. And then I told him I simply wanted him to eat chicken. He said can't we go to McDonalds to pick up chicken nuggets? Gee. that was it? And so we picked some up from the McDonald's drive-thru, he ate that PLUS some penned pasta chicken noodle soup. Dinner is done! This being a Thursday it IS hand-off day but Lisa is doing a stealth procedure on her brother and her dad at her office. And so she didn't end up coming by to pick up Johnnie until it was 8:30 PM almost. That was ok. Johnnie was occupied with Tumble Leaf and Dinosaur Train. Lisa picked him up and when we talked for a bit, she had apparently just finished doing an analysis of how long it would take before her office started taking a financial hit. Good that she's thinking in those terms, but she's pretty liquid. She just shares this habit with me of being extra careful with money. Truth is that she and I are better off than most. And that the economy may be tanking now but we will still be ok for a while. A good long while is the hope. In the meantime I finished off my Thursday night by watching Picard S01E09. Season finale next week and it HAS gotten exciting. I tried to keep this as close to routine a Thursday as possible. And I think I might have done that after all...
If this were a normal 3rd Wednesday of the month, I would be at the office cramming on my presentation for the Technology Council Meeting today at 1:30, probably suffering from less sleep than usual because I stayed up late working on said presentation. Many MANY times have I been able to pull material seemingly out of my ass. But there really isn't much to pull out this time is there? This being the first week of a very quickly imposed remote work regimen for the entire FRB staff, all I have to do is report on how things are going out there in remote-land and ask if there is anything the Leadership has noticed that we need. As far as I'm concerned it has gone much better than it could have, and that's because most of the leaders were already conversant and compliant, if not expert in the remote technology. All I needed was for them to lead THEIR staff. Having done that I didn't really anticipate any major issues in all honesty. Besides, my team IS at the ready and they been more than up to the task. And so... if this were a normal Wednesday, I'd be sending out my agenda first thing in the morning and then have lunch with everyone that was at the FRB just to attend this meeting, including Barbara, Art, Eloisa, and Faith... my lunch table that won't be together for a while. Obviously today is NOT a normal Wednesday. I did get up early as usual to get ready and to have Johnnie eat his breakfast. I'm all about routine you know, specifically for Johnnie. Today I dropped him off at Lisa's right after breakfast. I figured if she looked after him today, I wouldn't necessarily have to keep him occupied at the apartment while I held my Tech Council Meeting. Lisa too is scrambling for work and she told me she intended to spend the day at her office so her crew could do some cleaning and so she could continue to pay them. She has her own unique problems doesn't she? And so after dropping Johnnie off, i went home, put on the finishing touches on my presentation, and then had more leftovers for lunch. I keep forgetting that when I cook something, it would usually last for 3 meals, maybe more. And so 1:30 came and I had my meeting. From the house. I had practiced on how it would like and even had another computer so I could see what everyone else was looking at on their screens. And my meeting pretty much went off without a hitch. I had a whole bunch of To-Dos to come out of it, but really they were mostly help desk stuff. As I said, the remote infrastructure was sound and there weren't really any big problems at all. That said I finished my meeting in 52 minutes. And then just as I would had I been at the FRB doing this, I went out for a walk afterwards to breathe out and clear my head.
I posted a pic of me taking that walk. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on emails. And writing down all those to-do things that came out of the meeting. Gonna need to meet with my team tomorrow. And then by 5 PM I called Lisa and she brought Johnnie back. He was asleep when she first got there. But I think the minute he sensed he was back at dad's apartment he sprung back to life wide awake. This being Wednesday of course we would have to get Panda Express for dinner. Of course we had to go to the one in Westwood even though I had no idea if it would even be open. Fortunately, they had takeout service. And I even put my order in online ahead of time. And so Johnnie still enjoyed his chicken teriyaki and white rice, and I enjoyed my fried rice, chow mein and chicken with string beans. Dad and son had a nice dinner together. I checked Johnnie's homework books and he did do some, though not as much as he and I did on Monday. I figured I'd make up for it tomorrow. I didn't really care much if he did any with Lisa at all. Johnnie's as far along with his learning as the Lakers were with their season when it was abruptly stopped. They were leading the West, positioned well for a deep playoff run. Johnnie was already well ahead in most of the benchmarks. He can read, he can write, he draws with more detail. I think he'll be just fine in kindergarten next year. I just want to make sure he stays the playful, happy-go-lucky child that he is, even when he gets a little out of control sometimes. Especially with me. He scratched my hand again and this time, I lost my temper and hit him on the side of his face. Of course he cried. Why did I do that? I NEED to learn to control that reaction. I reminded myself immediately that there was no need for that as the only thing it does is teach him that it's ok to hit. I felt like sending ME to time-out to go to my calm place. How can I advise him to go to his if I'M not calm? THAT is the lesson isn't it? I need to master my state if I am to teach Johnnie to learn to master his. Definitely work to be done. Fortunately I did get him out of his upset state and as soon as he cried everything out he was back to his playful state again. As he did his shower and then went through his stories and fell asleep I reminded myself that TODAY was the new normal, both with my work stuff and with the Johnnie stuff. He's going to be around the apartment all day i suspect through the end of the school year. That's 3 months from now in June. Am I ready for that? I better be...
So it's the last few days of March and it's also start of Remote Work Week 3. So far so good for the first 2 weeks, but then again each week has had it's challenge(s) haven't they? Today I will admit that I didn't sleep well last night, quite likely a by-product of the negative juju I encountered (or is the word allowed) with Lisa last night. You KNOW you're going to encounter it. You better expect it and be mentally and emotionally prepared. And I wasn't. I didn't protect myself. Even with that exercise I did in the afternoon yesterday about the octahedron to concentrate your energy was something I didn't bother to try. Which is why I know I still need to continue the work until it IS second nature. In the meantime, I "clock in" to work by 8 AM this morning and I was glad to actually take a shower and clean up. Something I hadn't done all weekend. And then I posted a pic of me doing my Zoom meeting with the Business Continuity group that now meets on Mondays. That's on top of the Huddle that happens daily at 4 PM... and the morning huddle that the Executive Team do. How do they get any work done if all they do is huddle every day? Simple answer. That's because we the middle managers get to do all the work. Even this morning I'm still wrangling headphones for the Telehealth initiative that is supposed to kick off tomorrow. And I'm directing traffic for my team to help out at the Health Centers to erect a triaging station at the parking lots. The somber message from this morning's meeting though was that reality has seemingly hit home when some of our patients are getting their test results from a couple of weeks ago and some ARE testing positive for coronavirus. Suddenly it's more real when it's on your doorstep. And suddenly the discussion turned into how to protect ourselves and our staff. And how to allay their fears and concerns. I told my staff to have protection with them at all times when they go to the Health Centers. That would be gloves and hand sanitizers. And not to touch anything. And to be very careful. I know I know I do see the numbers and I do see healthy people don't actually die from this thing. But then again I would probably classify Larry and Noriel as immuno-compromised somehow. It's not that people don't get this thing, it's that people don't KNOW they're actually immuno-compromised. And so I passed on the cautionary to my team and kept on with the day.
edible that overnight it seems like we're all doing Zoom videoconferences now that everyone is sequestered at home. Even Johnnie has a Zoom meeting scheduled today with his TK class and I, for one, am happy to see his classmates and their parents again (at least a few of them) just to give some hint of normalcy. In the meantime, he still has to go through his lesson plan regimen today, which included a science lesson on FORCE and MOMENTUM. So the pic of him playing miniature bowling with paper cups and a ball is actually his science experience for the day. And actually as long as you make it a game he enjoys these kinds of things. And so it was that we finished his lessons by mid-morning and then went on the Zoom conference right before lunch with Ms Gee, his teacher. It was nice to see Brooklyn, and Cora, and Jennifer and Dylan J, and his other classmates. Amusing to note the stress in some of the parents voices with their kids being home all the time. I think I'm doing OK... but I will admit I stick pretty close to the routine in order to keep my sanity. After all, I'm busier than ever at my job even working from home. And to me, anything that nudges me from routine IS stressful. Case in point, Lisa asked to have Johnnie for half the day since she didn't get to see him yesteray all day and she's feeling much better today. I figured that was ok so that I can attend to my Zoom meetings in the afternoon. I asked her to pick him up after lunch at 1 PM. She was headed to her office to fill out her SBA Emergency Disaster loans. I don't know that filling out those loan papers is going to afford her time to pay attention to Johnnie but then again she hasn't seen him in a couple of days. Besides she said we can have dinner tonight all together. She hopped in to the Zoom meeting with the TK class.. by calling me. I guess she couldn't figure out how to do it on her computer. Sigh. One of those problem providers I'm dealing with on a regular basis. How I equate her to Dr Vakalanka at QueensCare is actually hilarious. Anyway she mentioned maybe picking up Johnnie earlier. I said "NO. Gotta Go. See ya at 1 PM." See? Don't mess me up from my routine. I wanted to make lunch for Johnnie and that is EXACTLY what I did. That would be my way of finishing my "shift" for the week. Besides she gets him all weekend anyway. But there she was at 1 PM and off they went and I was able to complete my spate of meetings for the afternoon pretty much uninterrupted. After the 4 pM huddle, which was yet again an exercise in frustration for me because I see it as merely a way to keep Barbara informed and occupied I went out, got my steps in around the neighborhood and then got a call from Lisa that they needed a dinner break. And that I should bring Johnnie some food. Off to Panda Express I went for the 2nd night in a row and brought him teriyaki chicken. And so it was that we all had dinner at Lisa's office in the break room. I myself hadn't eaten there in forever. Heck I hadn't been inside Lisa's office in months. Lisa was clearly not done with filling out her loan docs. I didn't understand what she was doing for the last 4 hours but then again I wasn't going to say anything. It turned out she needed me to keep Johnnie occupied WHILE she finished her loan docs. And she took another couple of hours to do that. In the end she even asked me to help her by scanning her documents so she could upload them. I'm pretty sure this whole thing would have taken me an hour to do. Instead I got a not-so-pleasant flashbacks to the many MANY nights I would hang around her office to help her to her work. I remember how TIRED I would get but I wouldn't say anything. Here I am doing it again. I chalked it up to the Arnel-good-deed-for-the-day bank. And I better be reimbursed for this somehow LOL LOL. At least I got to spend time with Johnnie and if that was the price, then I guess I have to pay it. It was 9 PM by the time we left her office. SMH SMH. Never doing that again. Off I went home and watched the season finale of Star Trek Picard. And a terrific finale it was. At least I ended today on a good note. And tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!
BTW, not lost on me was that today was my mom's birthday. And I will admit to being relieved that I didn't need to do anything as she was housebound too. Johnnie left her a message yesterday, and I left her a VM and a FB post. OK OK I'm not the best son. I will work on that. Meanwhile, I was supposed to have dinner with Johnnie's mommy and son. Man... 3 dinner nights in a row. Can I handle it? I was supposed to bring the protein. And so I BBQ's the chicken thighs I bought from Trader Joe's last week. And then stopped at Ralphs to get him some fried chicken. No problem getting HIM food. And when i got to Lisa's mommy and son were pretty nuch still in their pajamas and playing outdoors. I would find out later that this was part of the science lesson Johnnie had for today, which was to dig holes in the sand. But really? Still in their pajamas? This is what would drive me crazy usually. But again this is a BRAVE NEW WORLD and tolerance and patience is something we all are going to need to learn. In the meantime, Lisa had started to get a barrage of phone calls from her family and friends checking in to make sure she was ok. She may think she's alone but really she isn't. And I'm still here for her although my participation in her day-to-day stuff is hugely debatable. I am closest to her in proximity and of course I'm never too far away from Johnnie normally anyway. HE is MY first priority. Look at him making a volcano plume in the sand. Does he realize how lucky he is that he has an entire sandbox he can use to make said plume? Of course he had to clean up afterwards and I cringed that in a few hours i'm going to need to shower this kid up from all this sand in MY shower... smh. Anyway we went on to dinner and Lisa made rice and veggies yet again to go along with the chicken. And so 3rd dinner night in a row was uneventful. I'm not going to lie, I'm looking forward to continuing the Tuesday-Thursday routine with Johnnie at my apartment. And now that we have a handle on the lesson plan, I think we got this moving forward. I packed him up and by 7 PM we were at the apartment and I offered him a video first thing. He had had a video fast for the last 4 days and I'm sure watching Dinosaur Train and Tumble Leaf would suit him just fine. Really for me it's to make sure he's in a calmer state so we could go on to shower and bedtime. For me the new routine is to check on his lesson plan so we're ready to go tomorrow... not that it's going to take all day to do his lessons but I'm trying to simulate his school day and incorporating that with my work day. And THAT is still a work in progress. Still, it turned out to be a pretty good day as I clung on to a new normal. No I don't have a lot of certainty that we've all realized what that is, but no different that we have no certainty as to where we are with the course of this pandemic. But one thing is certain. This is going to go on for at least the next month. And so we have to deal with what we need to deal with. And we go from there. Today, it's "just" a Monday. And the good thing was? With Johnnie next to me... I'm in bed by 10 PM too. I am not complaining...
