In the meantime, as if the coronavirus stuff wasn't enough, now there is another event that has thrust itself into national attention. Yet another black man, George Floyd, died while a police officer- who was white of course - held him down with a knee to the throat. For almost 9 minutes. There are restrictive holds and there are restrictive holds. And there is excessive force. The man was allegedly paying with a counterfeit bill at a store. But should he lose his life for that? I think not. The thing about it is, this is now just one of many stories over the past year of black people being killed... yep killed seemingly because they were black. I think the viral images of the police officer with his knee to the throat really got to people. I know it got to me. I don't care what he did prior to. I don't care if he had shot someone. You apprehend the guy and let him have his day in court. That is how it is supposed to work. Anyway it sure lit a fire under a whole lot of people. That was predictable. There had been protests since Friday and lots more planned for today. But apparently some had turned violent in downtown LA and now there is an atmosphere of unrest. All that to say that I got an email yesterday that Roosevelt Golf Course would be closed today due to all that unrest. And so there would be no golf Sunday this morning. And with good reason too. By mid-morning stories started coming in about violence, but not just between protesters and police although there were some of those. Now there were news of looters taking advantage and today the area the media seemed to focus on was Santa Monica. Yep, the third Street Promenade a mere 2 1/2 miles away. Rediscovering Aerobics One thing I did rediscover today was a walk-at-home exercise video on YouTube. And when I actually did the video, it was simply an aerobics video. Brought me all the way back to the 80s. First I made Resur his aerobics music mixes, then I started attending aerobics classes at Bally's. Met Sonia Parra who became sort of my aerobics partner and later on my friend at Cedars-Sinai. I started teaching myself while at General Dynamics with my own mix tapes. So many memories around aerobics. And here I am doing a couple of miles. Getting more than a couple of miles in, around 5000 times with my heartrate up seemed pretty easy doing the tape actually. Felt much easier than walking around the neighborhood. Even doing the aerobics was different, which is probably why it felt easier. In any case, I got back to 77,700 steps for the week which was a very good thing.
Boy did those images of people looting bring back memories of 1992 and the Rodney King trial and all the unrest that happened back then. LA became like a war zone. The sad thing is that these looters had nothing to do with the protestors at all. I doubt if they even knew George Floyd's name. They came to take advantage of the confusion and the fact that police weren't paying attention. They came to steal merchandise. And it happened all over Southern California. That is sad. It brought back memories of those business owners in Koreatown in 1992 perched atop their stores with guns. Only now it's in Santa Monica, it's at the Beverly Center, it's at Westwood. High-end places. That's because that's where the protests were and I think that was on purpose. You didn't hear about anything going on in South Central. But South Central sure came out anyway. by 5 PM, a pubic safety alert came on that there is now a curfew in LA County starting at 6 PM. W-h-a-t? Uh-oh. There goes dinner at Lisa's. I called to check on them and apparently they had gotten caught up in some of the unrest yesterday that they spent the night at Lisa's parents house in Sierra Madre. And now they are driving back just so they can make it home before curfew. Wow this shit is getting serious and hitting home. I actually drove out to go to the store since I didn't do so all day today. And what I found was that all the stores had closed early because of the curfew. All stores. Fast food stores even. I couldn't get any food! I don't know that this is worse than the coronavirus lockdown! Fortunately I did have some food in the house and I made myself some beef fried rice for dinner. First coronavirus, now this. The messages from the Universe is sure getting louder.
IF there was anything I could count on most Saturdays since we've been on lockdown is that Lisa would call me in the morning first thing, most likely prodded by my son. And the call would be about me coming over for breakfast. This morning I actually got a lot of rest since I did not choose to binge watch anything last night. I still ended up sleeping in and was actually just waking up when they called at 8 AM. If the day would be true to form, then we would have breakfast, Lisa would ask me to watch Johnnie while she played the piano, and she would never get to that anyway since she would end up talking to a whole bunch of people on the phone. That much is certain, that she would get a spate of phone calls. I cared only in the sense that since she was going to be occupied anyway, what would she care if I took Johnnie with me and hung out around my apartment? I got to do that last week and especially if she was going to ask me to do some grocery shopping for her, then I was for sure going to take him with me. But actually, I had anticipated that she would be out of French brioche bread for breakfast this morning and I had already bought some for her last night. And she said she was out of eggs and milk too and so I gave her mine. Small price to pay for breakfast I thought. And so it was that we had a nice French toast breakfast this morning and true to form, just as soon as I washed dishes, Lisa got her first of what I was sure were a spate of phone calls. That's when I took the opportunity to take Johnnie with me since she DID ask me to pick some stuff up at the store for her. Not her usual list, but if I had to pick up just one item, then I was going to go. And I was taking Johnnie. And of course since we didn't get going until almost 10 PM, for sure we were going to hang out at the apartment for a bit. At least through lunch anyway. Johnnie's lunch to be sure. Apparently they had made plans to go hiking with Balwan, Sharon, and Varsha later on this afternoon. And so there would be no returning for me to have dinner with them. And that is perfectly ok. All the more reason to load Johnnie up for lunch. We went back to Lisa's when he got done with the Mcnuggets and my penne pasta in chicken noodle broth. At least you can be sure he had a good lunch with me. And then when we got to Lisa's, she almost insisted that she make lunch for she and I. And so she made one of her turkey wraps. As predicted, she never really got to play the piano. And they were supposed to leave by 3 PM. Oh well, I stuck around until almost 2 PM and then I told Johnnie I'd be seeing them for dinner tomorrow. After all I did buy Lisa some swai to make. And I was grateful that I did get to spend a few hours with Johnnie. Apparently they had gone biking yesterday and went to the beach. I'm glad mom and son had a nice day together too. It is not like we're competing for who gives him the better time mind you. But he does get the benefit of both his parents trying to maximize their time with him when he is with one or the other. I did think about inviting myself for their hike later but then I realized she would also be stopping by her dad's in Pasadena and so I didn't even bother to bring it up. I was perfectly fine just getting some more ME time in too.
I had started to clean the apartment as early as yesterday. I was done with the living room already. And I did the rest of the dining room by late afternoon. And even most of the kitchen. I only had the bathroom left. But by late afternoon, I also realized I barely had 3000 steps logged and so I did an afternoon walk. Was it just a week ago that I was having these muscle aches in my legs? No such problems this week. I'm back to averaging 11,100 steps a day. And felt no such aches. I'm pretty sure I was dealing with some bug. I know this because now I am feeling some pain in my lower right jaw couple with some anomalies in my right ear. As in I'm hearing some thumping against my ear drum that feels like my heartbeat. And so I'm now wondering if this is a new physical thing that has come up? Is the bug still present? All I know is that I'm finally back down to 70 bpm with my resting heart rate which was the normal before it started going down during the lockdown. Whatever I was dealing with last week was pretty much done. But now this? Do I still have energy issues I'm dealing with? What does my body want to tell me? Am I holding on to some more negative energy? Or is it stress starting to manifest itself once and for all? I did get my walk done, though it had turned from being such a nice day to something a little colder in the early evening. And then I ate some leftover bolognese and watched Snowpiercer. I didn't exactly have a ME Saturday, simply because now my focus is on physical issues and I know I have to deal with that. I don't think I had ever handled it well back in the day. Maybe it's time that I do.
I was very motivated when I got up this morning. My pile of stuff to do had been building up for the last couple of weeks now, most of it administrative stuff. Contracts, policies and procedures, invoice approvals. Vendors are bugging me because it's the last weekend of the month and naturally, they are all trying to hit their quotas. Anyway, maybe it was the good day I had with Johnnie yesterday and me finally not feeling any more soreness in my legs (now there is a pain my lower jaw though and something going on with my right ear but nothing as uncomfortable as the leg soreness). The pain started the day after golf last Monday and I hope that goes away too. I was feeling so motivated today I even showered first thing and then I watched myself lollygag until almost 9:30 before I got myself some breakfast. Kind of like when I was still working at the FRB actually. I'd never get my day started before 9:30 AM. I did talk to my team a bit around 10 AM but after that, my motivation left me like air leaving a balloon. I started to watch TV a little, started to watch YouTube clips, did my walk mid-afternoon. By then I hadn't done one list, one contract, one invoice. I actually did manage to get a little work done, but mainly just emails I exchanged with folks. Whatever urgency I had felt at the beginning of the day was no longer there by lunchtime. Maybe it was because I didn' t exactly get through to myself why all those things were urgent anyway. Did I not want to ramp down activity levels? And if not the activity levels, maybe the anxiety levels? Wasn't that why I was having physical issues last week? Again not lost on me was that today was the last work day in May. And it simply fizzled out quickly.
Today though, it wasn't like nothing was going on in the outside world. There was another killing of a black man this week, George Floyd and there was a picture that I'm sure we'll all remember forever about this white cop that had his knee pinning down the guy on the neck apparently for a good 9 minutes. He was begging the officer that he couldn't breathe. And after those 9 minutes, he passed out and eventually died. I'm not going to lie, the picture of the officer disturbed me a great deal and made me angry. Cops are supposed to protect us? What on earth did this guy do to deserve being pinned down on the neck for an entire 9 minutes. He did not resist arrest it seemed. He was apparently suspected of passing a ountrfeit bill. Even if he were guilty, did he deserve to die? Did he die simply because he was a black man? Sure seemed like it. And THAT is why people are angry. And today protests have started all over the country and especially in Minneapolis where this thing happened. Boy this thing is sure sounding like Rodney King all over again. And we now how that turned out in LA in 1992. And so it seemed like just for today, coronavirus took a back seat to angry potests. And by the way, in those protests clearly there was no longer any social distancing, there were people not wearing any masks anymore. I mean We'll see what happens this weekend. We'll see about coronavirus too. Anyway I did manage to do the 3 PM Friday afternoon huddle, and then I just sort of hung out and chilled until 5 PM when I finally ventured out to Trader Joe's to start my grocery run. I'm pretty sure Lisa and son are running out of French brioche and I got out and got some. And then to bring on the weekend I figured I'd just do Netflix night. And I finally got to watch Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems. Unlike his previous roles, this was NOT a comedy. In fact he played a pretty messed up character. A jewelry store owner in NY who had a pretty nasty gambling problem and he seemed to owe everyone in the world. His marriage was failing, he was having an affair and he seemed to be always trying to hit the proverbial homerun. Which he manages to do at the end of the movie, with a betting parlay. But he gets shot by one of those people he owed money to. Anyway not your usual Adam Sandler movie. But a pretty good movie just the same despite the darkness of his character. I am ready for the weekend now.
I had gotten away from setting my intentions at the beginning of each day, gotten away from my morning routine. And today I tried to maybe get back to it a little. My intention today was simple: Keep my vibration up, ESPECIALLY when dealing with Johnnie. That means being a heck of a lot more patient than I have shown so far. In that sense I have disappointed myself more times than I'd like to admit. But I can also FORGIVE MYSELF, and do better. Focus on WHY I lose patience. FOCUS on my expectations and maybe that they are higher than they should be. That somehow maybe it is ME that is projecting perfection that I used to pin on Lisa and her personality. Either way I know I don't need to be as hard on Johnnie as I have been. He's a great kid. A very intelligent kid and already a far higher performer than I expect already. There isn't even any reason to be hard on him other than maybe I don't want him skating around like I do. Back in the day I knew I was smart and didn't try so hard. I don't want him getting that bad habit. Anyway look at him doing his Zoom class with Ms Gee. They were doing some dancing, some reading, and Johnnie was so excited to share his "Friends" writing exercise because he was writing about he and Tony. Even called him his brother. By lunchtime I not only had Johnnie all finished with today's lessons, he was finished with tomorrow's lesson as well. That guarantees that Lisa won't have to find time to do those lessons with him. She can lollygag all she wants then. The best part though was that I was actually able to control my temper with Johnnie all morning. And I ws actually light-hearted while overseeing his lessons. I dare say he even had fun doing them this morning.
By the time I got through the mid-afternoon, I promised Johnnie we'd take his scooter and practice riding to Mar Vista Elementary, almost 3/4 miles away... a mile-and-a-half round trip. He has never gone that far before but I think he'd make it based on his first foray last week. And that was with me yelling at him 50% of the time. I was determined to keep up the morning's effort and not to yell at him at all if I could possibly help it. And you wanna know something, I'm not sure how I did it but I never did yell at him. And he made it to the school and back pretty easily too. Which proves he can actually do it. YESSS!!! This means he can scooter all the way from the apartment to the school from now on! He has the confidence! He did sooo well. He did fine doing intersections and watching out for cars. We even took a picture of him on is favorite tree root for the first time in a couple of months. Anyway he had so much fun and so did I. He just had one little spill right before the light on McLaughlin. And actually, that wouldn't be the only time he would take a spill today. He had a few of them in fact, including one when I snapped him hard with a pillow while he was trying to roughhouse with me. I thought I might have hurt him. But he got up like the energnizer body just fine. By the time Lisa picked him up this evening, it was already 7:30 PM. But I didn't mind one bit. That's because today was probably one of the best Thursdays Johnnie and i have had. In fact, when Lisa called to get him Johnnie and I were just watching TV together, daddy and son in his own words... "resting" together. Kinda felt cool in fact. And so with that I told Lisa we'd see each other this weekend and off I went to finish 11,000 steps tonight. Today was all good. Very very good.
So today we go back to not having to drop Johnnie off at Lisa's at the beginning of the day. With Lisa's office almost officially opening, or at least she's seeing patients now twice a week, we both agreed she wouldn't have much time to watch Johnnie in the morning on Wednesday anymore. Not that she could even get to the lessons anyway. Really I was doing it as a favor for Lisa who was really struggling with being cooped up in the house alone with nothing much to do. But I didn't really need to do it because I had that much work to do on Wednesdays. I just told Lisa that. And so today was simply just like another weekday. We get up, we go get breakfast at McDonald's and depending on the meeting schedule this morning, I let Johnnie do NumberJacks or Numberbots until he's ready to start with his lessons. I swear I do not understand how Lisa can't even get through one day of lessons. We get done before lunchtime and that's while I'm trying to stretch the lessons. Example, I let Johnnie color his math objects, not just draw them. Buys me an extra 10 whole minutes LOL. I even threw in a couple of PE classes, and some extra work everywhere else. Actually, I am trying to also remember that each minute I get with Johnnie is pretty special and in the future I will remember this time of the lockdown and homeschooling and look at it fondly. Already his teacher(s) are sounding more emotional than usual as the schoolyear actually draws to a close in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, it is a short week and that sweet spot between the USC graduation and the mid-June UCLA graduation point. Which means it shouldn't be busy. But I am sitting on a whole slew of administrative stuff and although I am lollygagging trying to get any of them done, I still have to get to them eventually. Today I only have the Wednesday Huddle to do at 4 PM and then off to Panda Express night. Until I get a call from Lisa. It would seem she wants us to meet up for dinner. She probably misses Johnnie a little and I'm okay with meeting up with her. For dinner. I told her we'd bring over our Panda Express at 6:30 and that would be that...
Except that nothing is ever easy with Lisa. Or at least that is the program I keep playing about her. We get there and Lisa is on the phone with Vatche. She apparently had had her piano lessons. And then Eusebio pulls up and starts doing gardening stuff, apparently unplanned. And so of course Lisa had to talk to her. We were supposed to eat at 6 PM. It was close to 7 PM by the time we started to eat because of course, Lisa had to fix her dinner too. She must have sensed my discomfort with how she was proceeding with what was supposed to be family dinner. I mean this was for her. But NOT at the cost of my time with Johnnie. I don't know how she realizes that tonight was just for dinner. We were going to eat and then we were going to go. I had no intention of including Lisa with our rituals. I never have in the almost 2 years since I left the house. Why would she think I'd start now? And so dinner became a pretty uncomfortable experience, at least for me. And really all I wanted to do was get it over with and get us back home as quickly as I could without acting like I wanted to get out of dodge. But see Lisa has all these things that usually happen within her orbit and that is all totally fine. As long as I don't get sucked into any of them. I kept telling her back in the day that she would always hijack my plans. And she keeps doing them now. On the weekend when it is her turn I have no choice but to go along with however spontaneous she wants to do stuff. But NOT when it's my turn. We have a routine. We stick to our routine. And that means dinner by 6 PM. And really it's more about Johnnie than anything. As routine-less he is with Lisa is balanced by how steadfast I stick to OUR routine. And I have no intention of backing off of that. And so it was that we got done with dinner and headed home before 8 PM. Heck it's hand-off night tomorrow anyway, I don't see why coming to dinner tonight was even important. If it's going to be like this I will have to ask Lisa why we even have to do it? And so we went on home, Johnnie got to watch some Cat-in-the-Hat and we did the bedtime routine before 9 PM... with one twist. This time I showered with Johnnie! And boy did he enjoy it. He loves showering with his mom I think and tonight he was really happy he showered with me. I was happy too. I was happy that he was happy. It was most definitely the play-of-the-day.
If I didn't have Johnnie waking up next to me, I could swear it didn't feel like a work day today. The short work week right after Memorial Day is always difficult simply because of the long weekend, but even more so when you're working from home. Still we could be found first thing this morning at Lisa's office. We had to go there right after the usual early breakfast so we could print Johnnie's homeschool lesson plan for the week. Lisa wasn't there yet and I was glad. The less interaction until absolutely necessary the better... at least until I get my head right again. And so we got done inside of 15 minutes and then back home we went to get started with Johnnie's lessons. I even managed to meet with my team for about 15 minutes, solving another gotta-get-done issue that came up, this time procuring 12 tablets ready to go by Friday. The trick about these things is you still have to make a choice, and in my case I always have to hope I did my homework enough to make the right choice. So far so good up to this point I think. For his part, Johnnie has a short week too, but I'm still trying to get 4 days of schoolwork done in 3 days, knowing full well that Lisa isn't even going to attempt to do his Friday work. And that was ok with me. As long as I know in advance, I could make the adjustments. He also had his writing assignment he had to do today and since the subject was FRIENDSHIP, he wanted to write about him being friends with his brother Tony. Awww how cute is that. And he was EXCITED to write about it and already is talking about how he can't wait to do his share tomorrow at the Zoom class meeting. And so what picture do I choose to post to represent our morning? that would be my Little Bug slurping down his spaghetti for lunch. I made myself one of those nice lavash turkey wraps for my lunch, having the luxury of not having any more meetings for the remainder of the day. Not that I didn't have anything to do mind you. I feel like I have a dozen administrative things to take care of, all with end of June deadlines. But I was not going to push myself... not today at least. What for? It's a short week!
And so Tuesday morphed into regular Tuesday, with a reminder that a week ago was the day I chose to end the 11,000 step streak. I made 11,100 pretty easily yesterday and today because I finally got out to help Johnnie do soccer drills with those cones I bought, I was already at 7,000 before dinner time. Quite a different week from last week, and a return to normalcy I think. I barbecued sausage for Johnnie and I, and the thing I forgot to do last week? Was make cookjies! How could I not make cookies?! We've been doing that on Tuesday nights for almost 2 years! How can I let THAT streak end too? I made up for it tonight that's for sure. Even Johnnie said the cookies were extra good tonight. Or maybe it's just that he missed it from last week LOL. I let him watch Pete the Cat all the way until bedtime. The return to nomal thing is a big deal if only to keep up whatever routines we CAN keep up, knowing full well that in the bigger picture, nothing is routine anymore. Just stuff we're doing while the big coronavirus stuff that altered all our lives is still pretty much going on. And we all settle into a new normal. I don't know that all that stuff I was experiencing physically last week was finally my internal thoughs finally giving in to all the negativity around me. Which makes it all the more important to make sure I am vigilant of what is going on in my own head. There was already plenty to work on in terms of keeping my vibration as high as possible at all times. Whatever brought up last week's pains I'm sure I'm still working through. But it does help that at the end of the night, I can give Johnnie a nice shower and clean him up, and let him watch his 2 Bert-and-Ernie videos before he goes to beat. And just hearing him yawn a nice big yawn next to me before dropping off to sleep is plenty good enough for a reminder that everything is OK. It is plenty good enough to help me deal with everything else going on in the world outside.. And helps me settle in myself and get to sleep early. It was all good today. And I'm grateful for that.
So today is Memorial Day and the first off-day I've had from work since mid-February. It was very much welcomed and immediately upon waking up I treated this like it was one of my learning Saturdays from earlier in the year. I didn't have any plans other than to rest and relax and if I could have spent the entire day on the couch i think I would have. I actually tried to make sense of what seemed like a pretty huge anomaly of a week last week. Anomaly in a sense that I had these physical symptoms and they seemed to take control of everything including my thinking. It was as if the ego part of me won out and my Higher Self got pushed to the side. Gone was the routine of raising my vibration... replaced by the fear of being ill, the fear of dying. Fear won out. And maybe that too is a metaphor of what is going on in the outside world. And maybe I've listened to one too many a newscast about how people are starting to act like real jerks out there. COVIDIOTs I call them. Today I feel much better than last week and my resting heart rate is finally turning around and trending back down from the highs of Friday. Did I really have a bug and my body has finally fought it off? Did I sufficiently pay attention to whatever I needed to pay attention to and made sure I was clear of that energy? Now that I am thinking about it, I don't think I handled it well at all. Fear of dying came up, as did fear of my body breaking down, fear of getting old. I saw myself take acetaminophen and start taking blood pressure medication for the first time in months. And really, if there was one thing I was sure of that caused the spike in resting heart rate, it was anxiety and stress. Something triggered it and I never could get relaxed enough all week long. And my routine was most definitely jarred. Not that I couldn't start up all over again, just that I really did not do a good job dealing with this set of symptoms. At least from an energetic standpoint. The key to success is consistency. And so I must also start up all over again with my energy practice. If last week's physical events were merely projections of something negative then all the more harder I need to work to transmute my own Dark side.
I managed to follow up yesterday's 13,000 steps with a back-to-the-usual 11,100+ steps today and I didn't feel muscle aches anymore. I did manage to enjoy my day and had a nice walk around my neighborhood. However, if my contemplation this morning brought out the awareness of my Dark Side, then I didn't do too well acknowledging it and keeping it from taking over either. This manifested itself, as it usually does, with my interaction with Lisa tonight. I went over to her house after 5 PM to pick up Johnnie. I got there and found mom and son reading on the couch. Lisa is apparently in her lazy mode after apparently having spent a day at the beach with her brother Joah and wife. It would have been easy enough to pack him up and leave right then and there. But you don't actually get to do that with Lisa. She will ask you to pick up the mess that's there, and do whatever else she wants picked up. I don't think she gets that I am NOT INTERESTED at all in doing that or anything else as a family thing. The weekends turn out the way they do because it's her time. And I'm merely inserting myself in that and not trying to exert control. but it is WAY DIFFERENT when it's my turn. In fact, all I care about then is to pick up Johnnie as quickly as possible and get on with my week with him. She sensed that I had a negative energy about being there at her house as if I was being inconvenienced. Which was exactly how I felt. I DID feel inconvenienced that I had to stay even an extra second. THAT is my Dark Side. A fight would have been inevitable had I stayed longer. Mercifully, Lisa simply let us go quickly. On the drive back I became aware that this past week I seemed to have lost the ability to focus on what I want, and focus on my intention. And instead let circumstances control myself and my thinking. Which means I have a lot of work to do. A lot to practice. What did Johnnie and I do tonight? The talent video that was due tomorrow. Johnnie wrote a book and he read it with some music in the background provided by...me. It's all we had. Lisa talked about playing the piano, I talked about playing the ukulele, but this was Johnnie's talent. Doing his little drawings and telling stories. Little Spielberg. Hey I saw it first :)
Today was a momentous day indeed. For the first time in mote than 2 months I'm actually headed out to Altadena play golf. And we're supposed to have a full complement today too. Greg, Scott, and Chris are all playing today. It was March 22 when I last drove up to a closed Altadena Golf Course. It was at Penmar the week before when we last played. I didn't care if I played well today at all, I was just happy to get out. I didn't care that at the beginning of the week, I had all but checked off golf for a while since Scott said he wasn't playing and Chris was leaning NO. I was thinking of starting to play by myself actually. It was Greg that finally announced he was back in town and ready to play that started the ball rolling. I didn't care about all that. As long as I got to play. And play I did. To be sure it was strange playing with a cloth mask. I had to pull it down several times just to breathe. After all, it had warmed up out there very nicely. But it was nice seeing all the guys for the first time in a couple of months. Even during the worst times when Lisa and I were splitting up, I had never taken a break this long from golf in more than 10 years! And when we all hit our first tee shots way right, well that told you about how we were in terms of rust LOL. Fortunately I did get better. We all had 6s on that first hole, when usually someone would hit a par. At least I knew I wasn't going to get skunked today LOL. My tee shot on hole 2 was really really good though. 225 yards right down the middle. and although my next shot was crap, it did get to the rough at hole level. One nice chip after, I putted in for a par! Yay! I've got my first par in months! And won the hole outright! On the next hole, I was on the edge of the sand right by the green after 2 shots. And then ping ponged the rest of the way to a 6. And on hole 4, I basically kept topping the ball 3 straight times and was out of contention after just 3 shots. Sigh. Here is where I needed to buckle down. And buckle down I did on hole 5. I got in front of the green after 3 shots, But missed my hole-tying putt. On the next hole, I muffed my first shot to 20 yards and was out of that. I almost did get a par on the next hole though and I tied to win it. On hole 8, my tee shot went wide left but hole level. But again I missed my putts. On the last hole, I blasted the first tee shot 225 yards again and got to the pin in 3. Only it was way past the pin and almost to the carts. I ended up hitting a 6 where I should have hit par. Oh well, at least I won 3 holes. Not bad. Not close to winning, but I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied that I got out to play. And it was nice to be home by 11:30 too.
It would have been nice to go to Crimson for lunch. But I didn't even know what their eating situation was like. I didn't know what Johnnie and mommy were doing but I wasn't supposed to see them until way later anyway. I made myself some spaghetti Bolognese for lunch, only settling on that because the ground beef I had was already a week old. I didn't want to wait any longer to cook it. It would have been nice to take an afternoon nap too, but I only managed to close my eyes for about 10 minutes. There was definitely no need to rush to do anything today. Tomorrow is Memorial Day and I don't have to think about work at all. I didn't clean up around the house, I didn't do much of anything. I just lollygagged all afternoon in fact, until 5 PM when I called Lisa and headed on over for dinner. By then I was almost at 10,000 steps for the day too, a result of the golf from this morning. I wanted to see if I could get to 11,100 at least which was my daily average for more than a year. Or at least if I could get there without exhibiting signs of soreness. So far so good at dinner time. When I got there Lisa was in clean-up mode, even mentioning that she wanted us to help clean up the floors for tomorrow's Joah visit. I just laughed. She must seem to think I still live here. How do I politely say I don't give two shits about cleaning her floor. I only wash dishes when she serves dinner. It's only polite to do that. I take out the trash when I feel sorry for her. Other than that, hey I'd rather clean my own fucking floor thank you very much. Still, although she is clearly in laundry mode, she did make us fish for dinner. And it was pretty good too. She had squash and rice and pretty much nothing for Johnnie. As soon as she said she was feeling tired and headed upstairs, I took him out and got him some chicken strips from Carl's Jr. He was not going to eat anything otherwise. Which I know he sometimes holds back when he is at her house. He isn't like that in mine. I got me some onion rings too. And when we got back, Johnnie checked up on his mom and she declared she was done for the day. That's ok I guess. It was close to bedtime anyway. So close in fact that I ended up doing Johnnie's shower and toothbrush bedtime routine. Man it's been sometime since I've done this at this house in Johnnie's bathroom. It took me back a couple of years. But those times were pleasant for Johnnie and I and it was a pleasant activity for me tonight. And so it was that tonight I did Johnnie's bedtime routine, and then delivered him to Lisa bed-ready. She was in the middle of sending out some email or something or other. Something clearly tugging at her attention. Me, I went home and checked... and found myself at more than 13,000 steps! And I wasn't sore! I think I'm back! Golf and 13,000 steps... I'm all the way back!
I went back to Lisa's house at 5 PM and found her awake and Johnnie still asleep. I asked her if she could maybe stretch my lower back since I was still feeling some tightness and soreness after a week now. What she did was made me use the P.T. ball she had and do some routines taught to her by Sabrina (Mark's ex-wife) when she was having all those P.T. issues years ago. She guided me through her stretch routines and I will say it did help. In the middle of all this Johnnie woke up and so it was that Lisa wanted to go bike riding or walking because she had been cooped up in the house all day. Although i pointed out to her Johnnie and I had already been out and about we were happy to join her. At first we started to walk around the neighborhood and then quite SPONTANEOUSLY, and this was Lisa's idea we would find outselves in my car and driving to Marina del Rey. I guess we're walking there. Which was OK with me. We would need to find something to eat too since by this time it was already 6 PM. We'd figured we'd find something over there. Maybe a pizza place or something. At first we tried near the Venice Boardwalk. And we were horrified to see that the place was buzzing as if there was no pandemic going on. No facemasks, little social distancing. SOOO many people. We're not staying there! But we did find Sampas Pizza on Washington, which was near some pond Lisa had talked about walking around. I guess she bikes this area regularly. I got half vegetale, half cheese pizza. And we ended up eating on one of the outcropping view areas to the pond. And then we did walk the pond, walking and talking and watching one talented heron in particular dive down and keep coming up with fish to eat. It turned out to be a nice walk. And for a few minutes there in the sunset I reflected on the fact that Lisa helping me on the roller was probably the first time we had touched each other in years. It did bring back memories of when we used to stretch when we ran together LOL. And this walk with Johnnie made me feel like we were doing a family thing. Yes our family might be broken. But for tonight at least, it wasn't. And it felt nice. And I appreciated that. Very very much.
I had already finished a half of my mug of Earl Grey before Lisa called to ask me to breakfast. "Would you like to enjoy us for breakfast" I heard my son ask on the phone. How in the world could you say no to that! And so it was that I headed on over there around 9 AM this morning to start my long holiday weekend. I figured if this Saturday rounded true to form, we would have breakfast and then Lisa would want to play the piano and then end up talking on the phone to a couple of friends, usually someone different. And I would end up getting some groceries for her which would be my cue to take Johnnie with me. And then we could have some alone time and then be back after we've had some lunch. This was how it had played out for at least a few Saturdays by now. And it all started true to form, even more predictably so. Lisa had 4 pieces of last week's French brioche left and so she made French toast with some eggs, which worked out perfectly fine. I washed dishes and then since Lisa had an unusually long grocery list, I told her we'd head out immediately. That would be Johnnie and I. We started at Trader Joe's since we needed to get the brioche. And then ended up at Ralphs to get the rest of the stuff. She wanted fruits and fish and Ralphs had the best selection for those. And also where we could get cleaning stuff. There would also be at least one item that would be priced really high. Last week it was chia seeds and Illy coffee. This week it was vanilla extract. $12 for a really small bottle. I didn't make Lisa pay me for this batch of groceries. I'll simply make sure she remembers. She is still acting like she's broke as hell and already groused about not wanting to pay for STAR for the summer. I'm not even going to point out how many resources she has, which also now includes her dad who had offered to pay for her mortgage for the month. I guess I get to go do all that STAR programs alone if I want Johnnie enrolled. Anyway I was NOT going to get into an argument with her today. I took great lengths to establish energetic protection zones in fact. Johnnie and I had lunch at my apartment, which also gave him the opportunity to watch a couple of Cat-In-the-hat videos. It was 1 PM by the time we headed back to Lisa's. I got in a couple of hours with him. And I was all set to go back home to take a nap. When Lisa actually offered to let me stay and take a nap in the guest room. For once I took her up on that. And I did take a nap. And so it was that I ended up spending a very quiet afternoon in the relative peace of Lisa's house. That by itself was no small statement. And I actually woke up to mom and son quietly doing stuff like he would at my house when I leave him alone on one of his projects. He was cutting up some art work and she was helping him. It was pretty nice to watch them go quietly about. I didn't involve myself to help either. This was something Lisa and mom was in the middle of together. And then they went on upstairs to look for something. Before I knew it I wasn't hearing anything. I went upstairs and looked. Apparently both mom and Johnnie had knocked off to sleep. It was after 4 PM. I figured I'd go on home leaving a text for Lisa that I'd be back in an hour if they wanted to have dinner together. It had been a quiet Saturday though and that was perfectly fine.
The Friday before the long weekend is always countdown day. As in I would not have been focused on work at all had I been in the office. But even so working from home, I only had one thing between today and the 3-day weekend and that would be the Huddle at 3 PM. And I was sure that was going to be a quick one. In the meantime I did manage to focus on work this morning because I left myself a lot of work to focus on. I had to do administrative work approving invoices. Lots and lots of invoices. I didn't really do a good job of getting to them in the past couple of weeks and now I have to get to them or they will be paid late. And so it was that I spent the entire morning WORKING! Shocking I know. I'm shocked too. I keep telling people I work harder and work more now that I'm working from home. Still at least I'm not in work clothes, I didn't have to drive anywhere and for the 2nd day in a row, I never even made it to the shower. I hate that I don't do that! I promised myself that would be the one thing i would do daily. And I'm not so sure this was because of all the soreness and aches and pains in my legs either. As far as that goes, I did manage some decent sleep last night and for the first time in a week, my resting heart rate ticked downwards. By a mere point mind you but considering it had doing a fast upward climb in just a few days, it's at least an indication that I am starting to "normalize". As grungy as I looked and felt I forced myself to go outside and enjoy the warmness of the sun and smell the aroma of summer. THAT was the play-of-the-day. Those white flowers that could be found everywhere. It's all around Lisa's perimeter of course and it's all around the barbecue area too. And maybe I reminded myself it's not so important to get to as many steps today. After all, I already did 10,000 steps in back to back days. It was the push-push-push attitude I am working on. And today I was trying to just let things be. Whatever came up, I would just allow to come up. And by mid-day I even found myself closing my eyes for a bit and catching a 10-minute rest. No small feat this week as I had tried it at least twice during those days I didn't sleep well at all. And my firbit couldn't register any sleep cycles. No push-push-push on that either. I was trying to give myself my own advice that I was trying to give to Lisa when she fell ill. Just chill. It's ok to simply DO NOTHING. Your body will tell you what it needs. Mine was testing my own anxiety response. And I did not do so well this week. Not at all.
As expected the last meeting of the day... the late afternoon huddle lasted all of 30 minutes and that's after I felt like Barbara was actually stretching it some. And when it was done I almost let out an"Zippy-dee-doo-dah!!!" After all, we just concluded that long stretch between the last 3-day weekend in February... to this one. Of course it was hard to notice simply because of all the stay-at-home from March on but still. A timemarker is a timemarker. I didn' roll out immediately to Trader Joe's like I had been doing most Friday afternoons. The earlier I got out, the less of a crowd I would face to get in. This afternoon I just went to Ralphs and loaded up. I bought almost $100 worth of groceries. I had not done that since the first experiences of panic buying in late March when we were running out of stuff. Why $100? Because I would buy stuff I didn't usually buy. Like Lavash wrap. And babaganoush. I figured I'd re-create Lisa's turkey wrap special. It's fast and it's pretty damn good. That Lavash wrap was the find-of-the-day simply because I doubt they carry it all the time. You would usually get it just at Armenian or Persian markets. And when would you find me inside those? LOL LOL. I reminded myself I still had quite a bit of food in the fridge after all, but hey it is the 3-day weekend coming up isn't it By the time I rolled out of Ralphs, I didn't feel like heading over to Trader Joe's anymore. Maybe I'll do that over the weekend. After all, I'm sure to be buying stuff for Lisa. If anything that Frech brioche bread is already needing to be replenished I'm sure. But really I didn't want to think about anything tonight. That was the point isn't it? I was only all too happy spending my Friday night drowned in Netflix binge-watching. If these were normal times I'd find my way out to a movie theater I'm sure. Since it's NOT normal times, I checked my fitBit, found that i somehow already made it to 5,000 steps and found no need to go further than that. Not only that I also got an email from my apartment regarding my lease renewal. For the next year the lease is... the same as it is now! Another "Zippy-dee-doo-dah!!!" Of course I'm going to re-up. And so that's one less thing to think about. And now at least I know that the steps baseline is about 5000 at the minimum. That I could get to half the 11,000 goal pretty much just being out and about doing what I normally do already. So what did I do tonight? Watch old Game of Thrones clips actually. It's been a year since it ended and quite some time since I spent time with Jon Snow and Daenarys et al. Maybe this fed my seemingly insatiable need to watch some period piece from Medieval times. I wonder what I was during thosse medieval times? A butterfly perhaps? LOL. I did watch the latest episode of Snowpiercer which is the next sci-fi thriller I had interest in. And so with that went a very quiet Friday night to bring on the long 3-day weekend.
I noticed last night that the muscle soreness in my legs had returned. Could it be that I got back maybe a little too quickly? That maybe my legs and my body could use one more day off? No harm in a little rest right? And then when I noticed that my resting heart rate had still spiked even further to 75 and even 76 that was even more cause for alarm. It meant that I was mired in some ANXIETY. And I don't really even know what I was anxious about. What I did know for sure was that I had to address it thought it would be difficult this morning when I have a full slate of Johnnie lessons to do. In fact, maybe that would be one thing to focus on is not to get riled up with him with his lessons. I know I get pretty intense with him, at least for his age. But that's also because I don't want him shrugging stuff off and not taking his lessons seriously. He IS smart. But he also knows it. He's like me. And so I don't want him goofing around. Like me. And so for this morning at least, my internal work would have to give way to focusing on Johnnie's lessons. Especially when I made up my mind that I was going to get him to finish the rest of the week as well. Who KNOWS what Lisa has in store for tomorrow, the Friday before the long weekend. She already readily admitted she wasn't as good at following the lesson plans. And so I was happy to push Johnnie a little extra this morning. And true enough he got done with reading and writing by 10 AM. And by 10:30 AM I even got him to do some of Ms. Williamson's Music Class. And Ms. Park's Art Class. Look at the pic of him with his homemade maracas. It was pretty cool I thought. By the time the Zoom class came on by 11 AM, Johnnie was eager to share his shapes character. And I was so happy he was engaged and shared readily and easily. That's a big deal to me. I was not like that when I was young I don't think. It means that he is in a nurtured, safe environment. All a parent could ever ask for. The Zoom meeting today had some emotion behind it I sensed, and more than likely because Ms Gee was in the classroom packing up all the kid's stuff. The school year is fast coming to a close and it was a tad bittersweet that it was cut short the way it was. But the kids did have at least 6 months together and I am already starting to think of the Kinder class this upcoming school year.
After the Zoom meeting, I made Johnnie his pizza for lunch and spaghetti for me. And then when I could sense that I could no longer hold Johnnie's attention because he and I both knew he had finished the day's lessons, I took him outside. And made him ride his brand new scooter he got last week. I wanted him to learn balance. And even though all I can say was that in this circumstance, I still observed that I NEED TO LEARN PATIENCE. And be MORE GENTLE when teaching. How can I expect the Universe to be gentle to me when I am not quite so gentle. And I am not gentle because I am not patient. Many times during the ride I ran up to Johnnie and yanked him straight, in a not so gentle way. But to his credit, he rode and rode and rode. We rode all the way down the distance of his school and around to Starbucks. For sure we rode (and I walked) the equivalent of a mile. So much for taking another day off with steps LOL. But at least Johnnie knows now that he can ride all the way to his school from the apartment. For SURE we're going to be doing a lot more of that in the future. Before long it was already time to bring him back to Lisa's. I waited until her call that she was home. She is now seeing patients in her office and so it wouldn't be long before she would be back to her old self in terms of forgetting about Johnnie until the last second. I dropped Johnnie off... told him I'd see him this weekend... and then went on home. I got to 10,000 steps by this time already. And I could have pushed to 11,000. But maybe not doing that would be my idea of rest you know? I push-push-pushed Johnnie all day. And I was going to push-push-push ME. And maybe that was the lesson all along. There is no need to push that hard. Not today. The focus was on JOhnnie's learning... how he learned onomatopoeia. How he rode his scooter the longest he had ever ridden one. That it was such a beautiful day out. How did I let myself turn into Lisa?
So I dropped Johnnie off at Lisa's first thing this morning. She had just finished taking a shower when we got there. And of course nothing about Monday's incident except a declaration from her that she started seeing patients yesterday. Good for her. Now she can go back to exhausting herself working LOL. I did not expect her to do any of Johnnie's lessons today. You know, the less you expect, the easier it is to deal with when it does not happen. I simply told her I was picking Johnnie up at 3:30 and headed home to prep for my big meeting after lunch. In the meantime it had turned into a pretty nice day. I was aware that I felt better this morning after not having done 11,000 steps yesterday and so in the back of my head maybe I simply needed a quick day off. We will see how I feel later on in the day. And I also reminded myself that it is the big 3-day Memorial Day weekend coming up, which means it's officially going to be summer soon. Anyway it was too nice a day out NOT to do any walking outside. And so I did right at lunchtime. And almost immediately went beyond yesterday's total. THAT wasn't that hard considering I stopped myself short of 4,000 steps yesterday. And I was already past that by early afternoon. As far as the Tech Council Meeting went I actually had a lot of material for today. I wanted to cover how I would have deployed some resource tools had I had a little more time, instead of the mad rush to equip and train people that Friday the 13th in March. It's been more than 3 months since of course. And what I wanted to show was that the infrastructure is holding, the remote stuff is working out just fine and I wanted to gauge the group on what the Leadership's plans were in terms of the Administrative Office. It turns out Barbara is in no hurry to bring any of us back and I'm totally ok with that. I'm pretty sure we're already all going to stay remote through June. We'll see about july. Anyway I took up almost the entire hour for my presentation. And I think I did pretty well. Except that now I have to craft a BYOD policy too for the next meeting. Why did I not think I was going to end up with that? We've only been talking about that thing for years and years now. Still, the end of the Tech Council Meeting means a big sigh and breathe out for me and I get to pretty much tank it for the rest of the week I think. Lisa texted me to hold off picking up Johnnie until 5 PM because Uncle Joah was over and I was totally ok with that. We would simply go right from Lisa's house to Panda Express that's all. And today she told me that at least they got through all of his lessons! For sure Lisa must have felt guilty about not doing it last Monday. I didn't care one way or the other as I said. All that meant was that we didn't have to dedicate a couple of hours on it tonight. Instead we could have our nice Panda Express dinner as usual. What Johnnie reminded me was that I did not bake cookies last night. Man I must have really felt out of it. I clearly felt much better tonight because I got to 10,000 steps by 8 PM. I could have pushed it and gotten to 11,000. But I felt a twinge in my lower back when I got to 10,000 and so I decided NOT to push it. Hey, 10,000 is enough at least for today. Let's just say I'm recovering from whatever it is that is afflicting me right now. At least I ate my dinner right next to Johnnie and right as he was watcing Cat-In-the-hat. IF something was afflicting me yesterday, I am much better today. But I hope I did not go back too soon. It's like all of us around the country asking if it is safe enough to reopen? Maybe, maybe not. Is it ok to go back full tilt? You ave to listen to your body. And although my body did fine today, somehow I'm thinking another day of rest wouldn't be so bad either. Besides what's really bugging me isn't just that my legs continue to be sore and achy. It's that my resting heart rate had been steadily increasing all week and reached 74 today. Technically it isn't bad. But considering it had been steadily below 69 for the last couple of months means my body is definitely out of whack about something. And if anything it is an anxiety response. Something I need to work on to be sure. I hadn't really done any meaningful meditation all week long because I fell for the misdirection of the physical symptoms and started to give in to the fear, doubt, and mostly negative thinking. And since negative begets negative, that's how anxiety has been getting stronger day by day. And now that the Tech Council Meeting is out of the way I can breathe out and go back to focusing on queting down all those negative influences and get my head right again. And look forward to the long weekend coming up. And continue to figure out what the next new normal is. I let myself get yanked out of that to be sure. Now to get back to level.
As bad a sleep as I had the night before, I think I even got worse sleep last night. Although I felt less sore, it was a case of me feeling so much better that I actually couldn't sleep! And so I tried to quiet my mind by burying it on whatever I could find to read on the web, including a few dozen pages of Melody Fletcher's Deliberate Receiving. And also some Brad Yates EFT tapping on Pain. I know this pain in my legs is something I need to pay attention to. And it feels like there is something I am holding to that I don't have to anymore. And I tried to clear it tonight. The one thing that came up during tapping was that I don't have to sympathize with someone else's pain. Could it be that I am feeling all this simply because I am projecting someone else's pain to myself? And if everyone is whatever I push out then it's like me writing a scene with me feeling pain and THEN directing it to myself to boot. When I put it that way it seems like a pointless software program. But for some reason this one that is running right now has dominated my awareness. THAT is what I must investigate. The WHY of all that. In the meantime I did manage to sleep until almost 8 AM... as did Johnnie and so we got to have another late start today. He didn't care. In the meantime, the leg soreness wasn't there this morning and so I felt like maybe I'm back to normal? Except that now I'm feeling chills. No fever, but chills. Maybe there is some bug trying to do a probe on my immune system. Something I told Lisa that she was experiencing when she was down for more than a week. Great. Johnnie got sick too for a day. Is it my turn now? Actually I didn't really even care so much simply because I had a lot to do today. I had enough on my plate to manage Johnnie doing a double-day lesson plan because Lisa simply couldn't get to it yesterday and then I had to work on my presentation for the Technology Council Meeting tomorrow at the same time. And I did not feel like staying up all night to do that one. Heck I stayed up all night last night already. I posted pics of Johnnie doing his thing during the day. At least he was a good sport about doing double lessons today not that he even knew. When he got done with today's lesson I just continued it with yesterdays. And we STILL managed to get everything done before lunchtime. Which is all the more perplexing to me. Hey, at least this way Johnnie did not have time to get any video breaks in the morning. And then in the afternoon, I had him do TWO PE classes and another half hour of "extra credit" math on Freckle. All the while as I was organizing my presentation. I still didn't feel right and never did all day long. It's as if I was fighting some bug. Chills at times. Then muscle aches. But no fever. A hot flash or two was all I got. By the end of the day I managed to get mostly done with my presentation and so I still did the Tuesday ritual of the Italian sausage barbecuing. And I got Johnnie out there to kick soccer balls too. I had it in the back of my mind that I'm going to have to start giving him drills soon, if only because I saw a video of Jessie's son Enzo doing cones and he was a full 2 years younger than Johnnie. No competitiveness there in me is there? Even while out there I was still feeling chills and I did not have the energy that I would normally to kick the ball around with Johnnie. Heck by then I only had 2600 steps and for once I felt no urgency to go much further than that. In fact, in the back of my mind I was also thinking that perhaps this might be a good time to give my legs a rest. If I didn't feel 100% did I really need to keep my 11,000 steps streak going? Wouldn't it be ok to rest my legs for just one day? And so it was that I gave Johnnie his usual Tuesday dinner. But I didn't have any more energy to make myself more food either. In fact, I wasn't really hungry... a sure sign that I was not 100%. Instead, after dinner I let Johnnie finally watch some Cat-In-the-Hat videos. And I continued to work on my presentation until it was done. And by the time 8:30PM rolled around and it was nearly time to start Johnnie's bedtime routine, I realized that I was going to break the steps streak today. That's because I was barely at 3600 steps. For the longest time I thought the lowest I had reached was 5800 steps. Upon review, it would turn out that the last time I didn't make 70,000 steps in a week was January 2018 when I had the fever from the flu or something. Oh well. at least I managed to do an average of 10,000 steps a day for a year after that time. And then I ramped that up to an average of 11,000 steps a day for more than a year after that. The 3900 steps was the lowest I had done in all that time. But I still had a chance to keep the 70,000 steps this week alive. Or is it really worth it? We'll see how I feel the rest of the week...
And so I woke up this morning to a relatively new sound... that of raindrops outside and I look outside to see that it had been raining this morning. It was not unwelcome and that much of a surprise considering the string of beautiful days we've had for a month. Which is probably why I chose to post the pic of an empty downtown LA with ominous rain clouds over it right about the same time I was looking outside from my bedroom. That I woke up past 8 AM is very notable because I had a TERRIBLE time getting to sleep last night. My legs were so sore I couldn't sleep! That by itself is odder than odd. I had no temperature so I didn't think it was muscle aches from the flu. No respiratory symptoms either. Whatever it was, it wasn't coronavirus. But it could very well be some bug. OR it could very well be my body detoxing in a major way, purging emotional crap. It took elevating my legs and sleeping on a different side of the bed before I was finally able to go to sleep last night. And although my sleep logs say I did get 6+ hours of sleep, it was not a good 6+ hours. Maybe I needed to give my legs a rest... was that it? How long does emotional detoxing last? How can I be sure I'm not sick? These are the distracted thoughts that waifed through my mind this morning and if anything I was even more sure my vibration was getting pulled lower by something fighting my own desire to get to higher levels of vibration. Trying to find peace ensures I keep looking for it because it isn't there. Of course.. pull out the "afraid-of-death" card. Needless to say I struggled through my routine through the morning. Breakfast was late, I barely got a shower in... but I did manage to make it through the morning Huddle and then I still managed to get a whole bunch of steps in through the mid-afternoon. And I made my ground lamb tajine casserole for lunch too. I didn't really think I got untracked all day. And maybe also because it was raining all morning... that was a surprise. I was only able to get out and get a walk in because it stopped raining. And when the sun came out in the afternoon it was all good again. Except my legs which were still sore and achy.
And so right when I thought the energy of the day had turned I get a call from Lisa around 5 PM. She was supposed to drop Johnnie off for the week because she was going in to her office today. But then again that wasn't any different than any old Monday. But here she is once again whining about how tough she's had it today trying to get ready to open her practice. One minute she's bugging about not being open, now she's bugging about having to open. I swore is there anything she isn't bugging about? And then she had to tell me she never got to any of Johnnie's lessons today. Why wasn't I surprised? She simply doesn't focus on it. Or at least she can't focus on that and her practice at the same time. And then she asked me to pick up Johnnie. Damn man. that's when I snapped back that I had a full time job too when she kept talking about how she was overwhelmed. I should have been more sympathetic, but damn that shit gets old you know?! She didn't like the tone in my voice. She hung up the phone on me. gee what else is new... So I just rushed on over there and picked up Johnnie. Gee... just when I was starting to feel good about the day. It's ok. Time for Johnnie to be with me for the week anyway. We didn't do any lessons tonight. I figured I'd double up on all of it tomorrow. And so it was that I had to deal with this new disturbance this morning. And a familiar old disturbance in the evening. NOT exactly a great start for the week... At least I got out to Rite-Aid and got some Tylenol to help ease the muscle soreness. So I wasn't as sore going to sleep tonight as last night. So hopefully I'll get more sleep...
Without golf Sunday I now no longer have to wake up early on Sundays and head out for a tee time. Which is not a good thing. Used to be I would allow Saturdays to be those do-nothing days where I can almost meditate all day long. Today I woke up still with that odd muscle ache in my legs. I would like to think it is just some detoxing my body is doing after something has clicked with regards to cleaning and clearing up some old pain. I would NOT like to think it is some bug or coronavirus or anything like that as this definitely means my thought are once again not in the right place. At least I did manage to get a tiny win first thing in the morning. After lollygagging so much it was almost 9 AM by the time I ventured out to get some breakfast, I wanted to get a Starbucks double smoked bacon and egg sandwich like I had gotten on many a Sunday morning before heading out to the golf courses. Only there was this HUGE long line of at least 10 cars in front of me. I waited for 2 minutes before I pulled myself out of the line. And thought to myself... I could go walk up to another Starbucks. And remembered one at Ralphs right across the street. And that is where I got my breakfast with no waiting whatsoever. That and the picture of the nice violet flowers lining the street on my drive back home was the play-of-the-day. I wish I could say I was energized for the rest of the day but in fact the opposite became true. With my legs and now my back feeling achy I was perfectly okay to just sit on the couch and veg today. For lunch I was happy to eat leftovers. I had plenty anyway. And fortunately I did to stages of 1000 steps doing a version of powerwalking which got me my cardio minutes and active minutes before I even got to 5000 steps today. Those I was determined to keep up, although I'm also thinking my stepped up cardio activity might also be wearing on my legs some too. After all, it was that run on Friday that precipitated all this soreness.
Still, I veged through the afternoon until I decided I would clean the bathroom. At least THAT would give me some feeling of accomplishment for the day. Sad when you have to clean your bathroom and your toilet so you can feel good about yourself but that's all I got today. By the end of the afternoon I was still feeling sluggish but I at least DID clean my toilet and my bathroom and by 4:30 PM I got a call from Lisa. I didn't expect to hear from her today and didn't expect to see Johnnie. That's because I thought her dad was coming over as was Joah. And so I was happy to leave today as her family day and looked forward to seeing Johnnie tomorrow. But I also know that half the time she calls to invite me over, it is actually JOHNNIE who is goading her to get me to eat with them. Especially when she doesn't have food ready. As I was talking to her in the background I hear Johnnie asking for chicken strips from Carl's Jr. Why am I not surprised. And so it was that I find myself stopping to get gas, then getting chicken strips for Johnnie, and then making a stop at El Pollo Loco to get chicken for Lisa and I. I threw in churros too for dessert since I'm here now anyway. And had dinner with Johnnie and mom. She had been making tabbouleh for the last hour and it was too liquidy even for her. But I thought it was fine. There was no rice and I actually was expecting some. But I think this is more so to get me to watch Johnnie while Lisa played piano. I was happy to let her do that. And I did get to spend at least a good hour playing with Johnnie although I'll be honest that for 20 minutes I snuck in some Tumble Leaf that he watched. What would Lisa care anyway? She got at least an hour-and-a-half of piano time in. She herself mentioned afterwards that her hands were about to fall off. it was almost 8:30 when I went home and I had barely enough energy to finish steps tonight. I couldn't even make it to 10,000. I needed 9700 to get to the target 77700 which would mean I still averaged 11,100 steps per day. And once I got there I just stopped and tanked it. My legs were even more sore today. It is starting to really bug me.
