May the Fourth Be With You

For the first time since we had been sent home to work remotely in mid-March, today actually felt like more of an office day when I'm tanking half the day doing things other than work. That is not only saying that I've been much more productive when I started working from home, but also that it HAS actually been busy. Today was probably the first Monday that I didn't feel like there was something urgent that needed the attention and resources of I.S. and that is after the new facility Westlake North actually did open today for the first time ever. Boy talk about being off. We talked about opening it up by the beginning of the year. It's now the first week of May more than 4 months later. And Chad actually took everyone on a virtual tour at our mid-morning Business Continuity meeting. This being our 7th week working remotely I don't personally feel this meeting is necessary anymore but then again it is Barbara our CEO that is feeling pretty displaced being "stuck" at home. She's probably feeling just as stuck as Lisa is, although not actually displaying illness symptoms like her. But frankly today she asked to be included in one of the problem-solving working groups and my thought was I hope she doesn't get in the way. She sounded very much nagging again today. But then again i was figuring it was simply ME pushing that out especially since I had just spent the morning doing stuff for Lisa. And she was very much in a not-positive state. Anyway after the morning meeting, it was smooth sailing the rest of the day. And not ONLY did I manage to get a nap in right after lunch, I also managed to watch Return of the Jedi mid-afternoon. This being May 4 after all. (May the Fourth Be With You). I thought that was particularly appropriate. Now THIS is what working from home is all about and what I always thought how it would be.

And so I felt very relaxed through the afternoon... all the way to 5 PM when Lisa called for me to pick up Johnnie. That by itself lets me know she is not in a good state. When I got to her house I would find that her rash is now covering the majority of her exposed skin and that her allergist has told her she IS dealing with some kind of virus. When she said that all I wanted to do was grab Johnnie and give us both a really good shower at my apartment. I did feel bad for her though, but other than sending her healing energy from a distance I didn't know how else I could help her. Her mom was there too for the 2nd day in a row, because apparently Lisa had summoned to pick up Zucko. No doubt she is now in full react mode to her physical condition and throwing out all that could be causing something, Johnnie included I thought. But that was ok since it is my turn anyway.  We got some chicken nuggets from McDonald's augmented by some penne pasta in chicken noodle broth and voila... that's Johnnie's dinner. And then he and I finished the rest of the Monday lesson plan that Lisa never seems to get all finished. But today I'm giving her a pass since she's been clearly discombobulated all day long. She was even saying that Johnnie may be exhibiting symptoms of something... which tells me where her mind was. Johnnie was perfectly ok this morning and was perfectly ok tonight... just in need of a really good shower I thought. I made him take an extra long one in fact and an early one to boot. I had him in the shower by 8 PM. And gave him a whole half hour to play in there. I gave him some extra time with Bert and Ernie's Great Aventures too. But by 9:05 PM he was snoozing softly next to me. It was pretty early. And I could have gone for a 2nd 8-hr night in a row. Yes this morning I saw my fitBit record my first 8 hour night of sleep in forever last night. No wonder I had good energy all day long. But you know I simply wasn't used to knocking off this early. And certainly not for 2 days in a row. And so I went to the living room and perused some videos, particularly on re-programming the subconscious. By the time I got done it was a full 2 hours later. And I finally went to bed myself...