A Tank Day At Home?

I've been busy working the last couple of weeks. And when I hear Eloisa talking about the need to unplug, hear Barbara encouraging each of us to take care of ourselves because after all, how can we help take care of others if we can't help ourselves? And for me, my bad habit of binge watching has again caused me to not go to bed until well past 1 in the morning. Which means that a TANK DAY today would be just what the doctor ordered. In terms of doing that while working from home, that means getting up and not exactly rushing to get showered. Actually, it means not rushing to do anything. Actually I woke up and wandered into the living room... and I had to rub my eyes. I had forgotten that before I took Johnnie home last night, I heard him running around in the living room. I thought he was playing actually but later on I realized he had been cleaning up. Not just his mess, he had cleaned up the dining room from all the drawing stuff, cleaned up his toy area, even put the pillows back where they belonged on the couch. And he arranged all the shoes just so. It was almost shocking to see how clean the place was. Look at the pic I posted. It was like I had cleaned it myself! You KNOW he didn't learn how to do that from me. Boy that Lisa sure is rubbing off on him. Anyway the couch area was so clean it actually felt pretty good to sink into it while still in my undies and try to do some more centering meditations. After a while I did manage to make myself breakfast. And by the time i was done with my Earl Grey it was already well past 10 AM. I ventured out to Trader Joe's before lunch because I wanted to get some bok choy I could make for lunch. And while there of course I had to finish the rest of the grocery run too. It was Friday after all. And so lunch was spent fixing ground pork and bok choy and then trying to take a nap after eating it. 

I never did get to the nap. That's because I started to watch the Umbrella Academy Season 2 on Netflix. Great. Another thing to binge watch. Why do I do that? Anyway I didn't get to the nap because Lisa called. We had talked earlier about possibly me looking after Johnnie at some point today while she practiced piano. She DOES have a class with Vatche after all. Of course I'm ok with that. It's not as if I had so much to do later on LOL LOL. AND the last time she looked for someone to watch Johnnie he ended up with someone I didn't even know. And so I very much preferred that I watched him and she was simply taking me up on that. We made arrangements to meet up at 5:30 and have dinner. Of course I have to bring the cheese pizza too. Double LOL. Anyway by the time I finished talking to Lisa, it as almost time for the Friday afternoon Huddle and so there went my nap. And then right after the meeting I figured i'd get some exercise in because who knows if I'll be able to get anything done while I'm at Lisa's tonight?  I got to 5500 steps when it was time to pick up the pizza from Pizza Hut right down the block. That's when Lisa called again to let me know they had gone to the beach and that they were still there. And that the 5:30 meetup would need to be moved to 6 PM. Which means that it would actually be 6:30PM. I was already at Pizza Hut when I took her call. And I couldn't let that hot pizza right out of the oven not get tasted. I immediately took a slice. We can eat the rest whenever. I was just thinking to myself that the time right after the Huddle on a Friday is my best time. That's because I know 100% I have the entire weekend right ahead of me and I don't have to do anything for work. Anyway I went to Lisa's as she requested and she made us salads to go with the pizza. I even brought the leftover pork chop that Dexter grilled last night. And so we actually had a pretty good dinner together and Johnnie even wolfed down 2 whole pieces of pizza. I did my good deed afterwards and played with Johnnie while Lisa played the piano. Look at the straw space helmets Johnnie made for us. We actually did play with all those straws for an entire hour. And when we got done, he put it away dutifully and then for the 2nd night in a row, I gave him a shower upstairs on nights I didn't have him. Am I letting myself get used or what? Actually I did tell Lisa I preferred to watch him whenever she would need me to and not only did I mean it, I actually enjoyed doing it the last 2 nights, even if it was at Lisa's house. By the time I got him all showered up Lisa had practiced for 2 hours. And I went on home. After all, I'm just coming back early in the morning. I'm watching Johnnie again while Lisa does her piano lesson. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Last Thursday in July

I woke up this morning thinking that July is quietly almost done. Maybe I had focused too much on the timemarkers in this month, a lot of the most recent ones not so happy ones. Other timemarkers though... Google Photos sent me a side-by-side comparison of Johnnie when he was not even 1 year old at the Lindbrook apartment and then him yesterday eating the lollipop I had bought for him to get him to quiet down at Staples while I did printing. He sure is growing up isn't he? And speaking of timemarkers, one of the people in my circle I hadn't seen since we all quarantined 4 months ago was Dexter and yesterday he had confirmed he would be coming over later on after 5 PM to have dinner with Johnnie and I. It would be nice to see him again considering the last time I did was at that Lakers Clippers game in mid-march before the NBA shut down. Anyway today after the fog of those damn CTF applications off my shoulders all I really needed to do for the rest of the week was to focus on goals for my department due to HR this week, and my personal goals too. And I had those in before the day was over and so I might even be able to get in a TANK DAY tomorrow maybe. In the meantime Johnnie was starting to get bored with those lessons I've been throwing at him and really I don't blame him. It IS summer after all. A year ago we were winding down his time at Blue Oak and I was prepping for the annual road trip up to Santa Barbara. I'm sad we won't be able to do that this year but maybe I should still do similar summer-type stuff. 

Anyway it did feel like I coasted today for sure and by the time I got a text from Dexter letting me know he was indeed headed over after 5 PM, I was already ready to host the dinner. So was Johnnie actually. He knew it was pick-up night tonight and of course he was very ready to see his mom. But not just yet. He spent the afternoon actually patiently watching Weldon woods videos until I finished my last phone calls for work and then off we went to Panda Express Sawtelle to get him his dinner. He was hungry and we weren't going to wait for Dexter anyway. He's going to eat at 5 PM no matter what. And so by the time Dexter came by Johnnie was already in the middle of dinner and we had to wait until he was done before heading out and getting OUR dinner. We decided we'd just barbecue either steak or something else at the apartment and eat out there in the patio. Knowing Dexter he would be very much into the whole social-distancing thing. Just look at him in the pic doing the barbecuing. He's all masked up and ready to go. Anyway we just went to Ralphs and got some carne asada, some pork chops because they were on sale for $3. And then we adjourned to the barbecue area. A little salad which I already had all the ingredients for, a little barbecue beans, and Hawaiian bread tortillas. The result was one fine dinner. It sort of reminded me of when I first moved to this apartment and we had a barbecue for Sylvia and Quentin right out there. By the time Lisa called, we were already pretty much all done with dinner. She had already gone home and wanted to take a quick nap from having worked so hard. I even had her talk to Dexter a little bit but really Dexter didn't seem interested in seeing her. And so I just drove Johnnie after 8 PM. Lisa had just woken up when we got there and she seemed out of it still. As in she wanted to go back to sleep. And so without being asked I volunteered to give Johnnie his shower before going to bed. Why didn't I just shower him at my house I wondered LOL LOL. Anyway I did shower him and when the steam from the shower triggered the fire alarm waking the heck out of Lisa, that was my queue to let her take over. She finished up the bedtime routine and off I went on home. Certainly an uneventful last thursday in July. And that's ok with me.

Errands Errands Errands on A Busy Day

I already mentioned I had to do a lot of errands today. That's because I wanted to finish that CTF applications stuff once and for all and what's more let my CEO know it got done. They had been pretty aggressive letting us know repeatedly that our application had lapsed and so at least this way I can respond that the ball is now back in their court. And so just as soon as Johnnie finished breakfast and gotten some NumberBlocks videos in, we headed out. Back to Staples to get our huge print job done. At least I know how to work the thing so it shouldn't take all that long... except that once I got all done and gotten home I realized I had printed double one facility by mistake, which meant I left one facility application out! Drat Drat Drat. Gotta make another return trip. It took me most of the morning to get all that done as it was. And of course you know how Johnnie gets when he gets bored. It was all I could do to print stuff and hold him off from doing his jokester stuff on me! Just look at him in the video I posted giving an academic-sounding lecture on some nautical animal he wanted me to learn about. All mythical of course... or so I think at least.  When he gets in that mode I am tickled and more than just mildly amused actually. But when he gets out of my attention mode all of a sudden he gets really mischievous. Besides by the time we got out of Staples he was already clamoring for food because he was hungry. And so of course the fastest food I knew to get was some McDonald's chicken McNuggets. And of course I got me a cheeseburger too since I was using the $6 menu. All good. I would have liked to reprised yesterday and gotten a nap after lunch but it was not to be. I just got way too busy. I wanted to get everything done before the 3 PM Huddle. 

As it turned out I didn't make it out of the house again until way later, until aFTER the 3 PM Huddle. And I had to go back to Staples to fix that mistake I discovered earlier. And fortunately I got that done in just a few minutes. And then I had to go to the post office to mail the whole lot. And fortunately I got there j-u-s-t as the facility was closing. I guess they close at 5 PM sharp these days. I did everything via the self-service kiosk and then I was done! Boy I can't tell you how much relief I felt getting all that done today. It seemed like it had taken the entire damn day.  But now it's all done, the work day is over, and it's time to do the Wednesday night thing and get dinner from Panda Express. Johnnie was so good all day... not exactly behaved at his best all day but at least he put up with all I made him go through the entire day and that was good enough. He wolfed down his teriyaki chicken in no time at all actually and I wolfed down my chicken and green beans myself.  And finally with my attention on him once again, he got back to his play stuff, playing with the straw kit, doing his Octonaut drawings, and watching his videos. He decided he needed to draw the whole complement of Gup vehicles and he dubbed them all with a letter of the alphabet... which means he made 26 Gup drawings. Yep, 26. But look at that smile in the pic I posted though.  As oddly busy this day turned out to be, I still felt like I maintained a semblance of balance all day. This evening I could be found playing with Johnnie, doing my aerobics in the bedroom until I went well beyond 11,000 steps and by the time we had gotten to Johnnie's bedtime I decided to give Johnnie the choice of taking his shower tomorrow morning. I was way too tired and I didn't think I had the energy to take a shower of my own.  And so it was that by the time Johnnie had gotten to his 2nd Bert and Ernie episode, my eyes had already closed and it was Johnnie that sort of woke me up to put the iPad away to go to bed. Last night I put on Alpha frequencies to help me get to sleep. Tonight I put on Delta. Did it help? I don't know but I was too tired to figure it out. I was already out like a light.

Finding Calm

I woke up to a Tuesday morning starting with the usual trek to McDonald's for Johnnie's breakfast. He didn't feel like eating a full deluxe breakfast though, He was complaining of a stomach ache first thing. Maybe something he ate at his mom's house? Over the weekend? Or maybe he was still hungry? In any case, he said it was ok if he didn't have any pancakes this morning and I obliged. He did eat all his eggs and sausage and then off to drawing. In the meantime I had already done my IS Team meeting yesterday afternoon and so my schedule was actually all clear today. Clear enough to finish those darn CTF applications. AND I actually had a new toy to play with today. A brand new 11" HP Stream laptop that I had Kennedy buy and ship to me to test. Maybe a replacement for those Surface 3s? Or those LG laptops? Anyway I took a pic with the built-in camera (which I posted) and it looked pretty darn clear. It was a pic of me watching Johnnie. I know it's summer and all and I should be lining up play time for him but with the school year ready to open I wanted him sharp so I still have him doing lessons. Today we were focusing on precision, which meant coloring inside the lines, cutting as close to the outline as possible, developing his hand motor skills. OK OK maybe that's because I got his final report card for the year and that was the one skill he needed to work on more than any others. Far more actually it looked like. He was just fine with reading and math. And so it was that i was focused on that today. And of course I had to find something to occupy him while I finished those CTF applications for work.

By lunchtime we had already gone to Whole Foods to get him a pizza, and me a carnitas burrito. And I was able to grab a nap too. Yes Johnnie was still very much there but I did manage to distract him with some Bill Nye the Science Guy videos for a half hour or so, and while half-asleep I was able to reflect on some other internal work I came across this morning. Funny how my attention flip flops all over, but that's how it works when Johnnie is in the house. One of those internal things was an article on slow breathing called Sudarshan Kriya. Interesting how the simplest things make the biggest difference. Anyway when I got myself fully back to the awake state and got myself going, I had to head out to Staples store to print some of these applciations that I finished once and for all. Believe it or not I had to mail these damn things in. State of California must still believe in doing things the paper way. And so by late afternoon we would find me printing just one application and wouldn't you know it would cost $10 to print it and a lollipop for Johnnie to keep him happy. By the time we got back it was already time to think about dinner. And I barely had 3000 steps logged to boot. When we got back I finally found packages on my front door. ONe of them was specifically for JOhnnie. It was just a box full of straws and connectors. Simple stuff. But with these straws and connectors, Johnnie could build stuff. Look at the pic of him getting started. Of course I had ideas for later. But for that moement it was already almost 5 PM. And so Johnnie and I came up with a compromise. I would let him watch the Octonauts and I would barbecue the Italian sausage per Tuesday night routine. And while out there barbecuing, I took steps and steps and steps. To the point where I actually walked the equivalent of a mile and a half while finishing up cooking. And so it was that I got him dinner and made me some fried rice with sausage too. A fine dinner it was. And then after dinner he started working on a house for Fuzzy. It was like he had a construction or erector set, never mind just a whole bunch of straws really. I really got him going on doing something for Fuzzy!! And then I worked some more and actually got to 11,500+ steps tonight. Worked some more means finalizing those applcations. It had only been TWO whole weeks since I got pinged by Barbara on where I was with them. At least I'm almost ready to print the lot.  Even worked on my Brother printer some to figure out if I can print them here at the apartment. Nothing doing it turned out... I needed a cable. Why do I feel like I'm collecting stuff that somehow aren't working anymore? And BTW after printing I still have to mail those things. Still, that would all be for tomorrow's errands. In the end it turned out to be a quiet night, what with Johnnie so occupied he barely watched any more videos. I did get him focused on an ice cream sandwich though (see pic). And I felt like I had a pretty productive Tuesday. No late nights tonight. In fact, Johnnie had barely finished his first Bert and Ernie episode when I could feel myself already starting to drift off. Didn't I have a nap today too? Anyway he fell quickly asleep after episode 2 and then I turned on some Alpha waves sounds. More internal stuff I ran into today. This one courtesy of Jose Silva from the Silva Mind Control Method. All good. I'm chugging on to mid-week.

Reminders

This morning with some meditation I actually got myself pretty centered. Most likely due to all the internal work I had done yesterday. It doesn't take much to remind oneself... the trick is to stay there and keep up a practice so that you are consistently and constantly reminding yourself of your Truth. I've literally wasted decades doing this. In fact, when I look back at where I was last year, I realize that a lot of time has gone by and I really still haven't gotten to the outcomes that I want. Which means that I have work to do on my own consistency. That I still have stuff to clean and to clear. Yesterday I did that clearing on past energies regarding abundance and money. How the mentality of lack still rears its head. I also realize that there is still an energy of not-enoughness. Why else would I think about being fired and not doing a good enough job whenever I get so much as a chat from my boss Eloisa? No matter what fear I have manufactured in my head, she has always been pretty fair actually. And even if I were fired then so what? Anyway I focused on my intention for today. I actually do have some things to finish that I didn't last week, the biggest thing being those gosh-darned CTF applications. I took that on squarely and specifically why I have put off doing them. I know I didn't feel like they were important enough, but then again maybe this is a lesson in doing it anyway because it is IMPORTANT to someone else.  And you know what? After I got done with most of the information gathering, I actually felt like I could finish it by tomorrow. They still have to be printed and mailed of course but at least I got through a bulk of the work. By the end of the day in fact, I was missing just one or two more documents to put the applications together. And so I felt a lot better about finishing this thing by tomorrow ONCE and FOR all. At least I got to have a nice walk out in the sun today (see pic). Meditation isn't just limited to sitting in one spot with your eyes closed. Just feeling the summer breeze actually raises my vibration every single time, although I did manage to slip in a 20-minute powernap too right after lunch. And then I also got a phone call from an old friend... my former co-chair at the CCALAC HIT Forum Roman Chapa, asking me cybersecurity infrastructure questions. I always liked partnering with him. He was the quieter demeanor to my more abrasive nature LOL LOL. Anyway we talked for almost an hour and I even walked around the apartment while doing so, just to ensure I had my steps logged and on track for tonight.

I was already having a pretty productive and centered day I thought. By the time Lisa called to alert me that she and Johnnie were just chilling trying to relax from their heavy activity day yesterday. And so I picked up Johnnie and mommy and son had practically laid out in front of the couch watching Tangled. That's a switch...Lisa watching a movie with Johnnie. I let mommy and son say their goodbyes for the week and immediately he morphed almost entirely into a different kid just as soon as we had left. He asked for McDonald's chicken McNuggets for starters, which meant he was hungry. And then I myself morphed into Monday night mode, which is usually me finishing up the rest of my 11,000 steps and then letting Johnnie watch his videos until bedtime. Johnnie also got a nice, crisp haircut over the weekend and I was glad I didn't have to deal with his overgrown mop anymore either. For some reason I had had my best "workout days" during Mondays for the last 3 weeks and today I actually surpassed 12,000 steps! And so it was that he launched into his Octonauts videos and I told him I had a surprise for him tomorrow. That would be the straw kit I bought on Amazon for another $9. I'm getting pretty good at finding cheap stuff that would keep him occupied. But that's not coming until tomorrow. In the meantime, it was Octonauts and it was sufficient to keep his attention. In the meantime, I gave myself a pat on the back for being pretty centered today and holding my high vibration space pretty much. And with Johnnie in the house, it would be a guarantee that I would get better sleep than the weekend when I do my binge-watching. I knew it would not exactly be a quiet work week, but it's not like last week either. Hopefully tomorrow will be the same as today.

Back to Square One?

Did I just regress after today's golf game? I felt so good about my golf game from last week that I thought perhaps this weekend, I could incrementally get better. I think I found my game with my irons last week. But I just missed with my putts. Maybe I'll do better with that this week. I visualized some yesterday, ran through all the holes at Altadena. I should have known though that I was absolutely not in alignment on my very first swing on the very first hole. Instead of going straight like I wanted, it went to the right. Which meant that I needed to make an adjustment right off. And still I was on track for a par putt. But I missed a gimme putt that led to a 6. That sank my energy right there, and I never really did recover. Well, at least I had a mammoth drive on the next hole from the tee. But then 2 whiffs later, I'm on my way to another 6. On the 3rd hole, I hit a nice 6-iron on the fairway to get to pin-high from the rough after 2 shots. But I whiffed on the shot to get to the green, and missed a hole-tying putt. Sigh. And then on the long hole, I hit a tree on the first shot and never recovered either. I could not hit a long fairway drive which used to be my trademark. Those 160 footers I used to hit with my 5-iron has somehow disappeared. All these reminders about getting relaxed, slowing down my swing, focusing on the ball contact seemed to have left me in the heat. I had maybe one good shot on each hole but with each good shot I also had a couple of whiffs. I NEED TO MINIMIZE THESE DAMN WHIFFS AND FOCUS ON THE BALL CONTACT!! I did manage to win Hole 6 outright with a 4 when everyone hells shot badly. Even my favorite Hole 7 I couldn't hit it straight. I did hit a nice 5-iron 150 yards and on the left rough, which means I can actually hit it that far. I just needed to adjust my feet which I didn't. And although I got it on the green on the next shot, I missed the putt again hitting it way long for a 3-putt. My putting, it seemed had not improved from last week. And then I had another 3 whiffs on the last hole, ensuring a disappointing finish. Sigh. It appeared that I played badly but mainly I just needed to up my focus a bit. I whiff because I rush. I rush because I don't focus. I needed to adjust and learn to wait to unleash until I can "feel" my shot is ready. I need to learn to relax RIGHT BEFORE THE SHOT. Oh well, at least I won a couple of holes. And I get to try again next week. Sigh. One step forward, one step back.

Boing back to square one it turns out wasn't just about golf. I ran into a video by Garret Gunderson about finances which was sort of a more spiritual bent but with strong practicality of Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad message. And that along with the other video on Procrastination (see posted) sort of got me going this afternoon. It made me ask questions:

What are some of the things that I have been putting off that would actually give me the highest impact in my financial life and to further my purpose? If I already realize that my Higher Purpose is to help people, do more lightworker stuff, help people evolve, then how can I set myself up to get that message out? Website? Instagram? How can I be one of those influencers that help others? Youtube site? What about all that money sitting in my Etrade account pretty much doing nothing? How can I put it to work? How can i create velocity to increase cash flow? Buy a business? What? How can I create other revenue streams? Do I still learn about the stock market? 

First I had to clear my mind. I had to declutter. And so I cleaned the kitchen and the living room. The mere act of putting stuff away seemed to do wonders for my soul. Made me feel pretty good actually. And then when I :mopped: up the living room floor I felt even better. And so I ended up doing multitasking... cleaning, and writing in the journal, making dinner which was beef stew. Which also gave me a chance to try the new SaveSealer gadget that sucks up air in a special bag. Hopefully we'll see if my beef stew retains the taste in a few days. And I finished up the few remaining steps I needed to do to get to 78000 for the week. I only needed to get to 10,000 today. THAT is considered a rest day LOL. I will continue to focus on the other stuff that I am now being nudged to remember.  I get to those and then don't focus enough and let the grit and grind of the everyday distract me. Kind of like my golf game. I need to relax and focus more on the shot I want and let that shot come to me. Same in my inner work. Let the outcome come to me. Let the focus do the work to lead me to the next step. What I did NOT do tonight was to work on those CTF applications that I said I'd get done last Friday. Oh well I get to do them tomorrow I guess. Not going to do them tonight. It's still the weekend. I'm not burning myself out for those things... 'still with Johnnie day yesterday and still getting to play golf this morning, it was still a pretty good weekend considering. And also considering all the timemarkers, I made it through just fine.

Lisa Workday Saturday

I'm at Lisa's house at 7:30 AM to pick up Johnnie and Lisa starts me off by telling me of her and Johnnie's day yesterday.  It should have contained nothing of note... until she mentioned she left Johnnie with a "friend", a random friend as she described him named Jacob in Venice for a little while so she could play the piano for a bit. W-h-a-t? I mean.. W-H-A-T? It took a lot of restraint on my part not to react and react negatively. I'm sure she wasn't describing things right or at least was leaving out some context because after all, who would leave their child with just some "random guy"? Still it annoyed me that Lisa seems to have stopped being so careful with the whole "contact with other people thing". What in the hell? She herself admits that she has started to lose control of being quarantined. She, of all people, the one who is immuno-compromised. Why she simply didn't call me when she needed a break to look after Johnnie perplexed me. Maybe this guy is someone she is dating and that isn't really any of my business. But I do wish she would be more careful regardless. She's doing her not-paying-attention thing again and it has always been irritating that she needs to get reminded. I mean I HATE HATE HATE giving her a lecture-type discussion like I was her father or something. But if not me? Who would remind her? I mean if she goes down, I go down. And so it is a matter of my own self-preservation and self-care too. And so with that, I got Johnnie dressed <he was still in his mom's shower> and got going to Westwood for breakfast. We got our usual sausage and eggs and OJ and tea at Elysee and we ate outside and headed to Target afterwards. I promised Johnnie I'd buy some replacement pens for those that have dried up. See the pic I posted of Johnnie at Target? We weren't there all that long I didn't really have much to buy today.  And I'm sure Johnnie simply wanted to go back to the apartment to watch his Octonauts videos. The trick today as always is to make sure he isn't in front of the TV all day. And so I suggested that maybe we could take the scooter and get him a pizza at Whole Foods for lunch OR some chicken teriyaki at Panda Express. He chose the latter to my surprise not knowing that it was a far longer ride. And so it was that we scootered over to Sawtelle and Olympic nearly a mile and a half away, and in the midday heat too. I made sure I was in front of him leading him the whole ride and playing protect with cars and stuff. And I made sure we didn't go too fast so he wouldn't tire out. Result? He made it to Panda Express just fine. And on the ride back it was actually easier because it was a bit of a downhill slope home which I didn't know. So now we know that if Johnnie can scooter all the way to Panda Express, he can scooter all the way to his mom's office from my apartment. He and I had a nice lunch together, to complement this morning's breakfast. And then I tried to steal a 20-minute nap after while he was watching his videos. Funny, back in the day it was him that I would try to get to knock off for a nap after lunch. These days, it's me. I was expecting Lisa to stay at her office and write up her notes tonight and pick up Johnnie around 6-ish. And she hadn't told me there were any family or friends that she was spending time with tonight. Apparently all that was happening tomorrow. She called at 4 PM letting me know she had finished early and had gone on home to take a nap. We made arrangements for me to drop him off at 6 PM so she could get some rest. We also talked about our earlier conversation from this morning. She acknowledged that she may be getting too careless and told me she appreciated my point of view from someone who sees the front lines of all this coronavirus activity. That's actually something that didn't happen before when we were married. She actually made an effort to see things from my point of view. And I appreciated that too. And she basically agreed to be careful. That was all I asked was to make sure she didn't get complacent. And to make sure she remains careful with Johnnie. And with that Johnnie and I hung out for a couple of more hours, I gave him dinner and then at 6 PM took him back. Lisa had a nice nap by this time and was in a good mood. We split the food that she took home from lumch at her office... a whole tray of salmon kabobs and chicken too from Panini Cafe. Ahhh, those Saturday lunches at her office. I was only a part of those for many many years. But I'm happy to get free food for tonight's dinner. She's getting a visit from her parents tomorrow anyway and she's sure to get some more food. We chatted for a bit and then I headed home. I finished my 11,000 steps walking up and down the perimeter of Maplewood Elementary.  It had gotten cool and breezy again, somewhat like a June gloom evening. I got to 10,000 steps and then went back to my apartment.  I had a nice salmon and chicken kabob dinner to warm up and eat.  No need to cook tonight. I don't really want to binge watch anything tonight. Tomorrow's tee time is at 8:20 AM and I don't want to play tired again. Still it was a pretty good Saturday. I spent most of it with Johnnie. That is good enough for me.

Good is the Enemy of Great

I had a big AHA this morning while watching this video on Procrastination and what actually causes it. In the video, Andrew Kirby talked about good being the enemy of great and then it hit me suddenly how THAT one statement underscores the difference between Lisa and I. She constantly shoots for great. Magnificent even. I constantly shoot for good enough. She wasn't like that in the beginning... the beginning as in when we first got together in 2006. She wa ok with good enough. But that wasn't her real self. The drive to be great, perfect even, was not only her basic personality, it was also molded into her by her dad. My parents didn't strive for perfection and THAT was what I learned. The difference grew when we got married and the gap got to the point where we started to lose respect with each other and we did not work together to accept the other as they were. THAT was what led to our relationship falling apart. Not her fault. not mine. It was BOTH of us forgetting how to respect the other. This A-HA moment comes as I celebrate the first anniversary of our divorce which was official exactly a year ago. All these timemarkers this week, and the stuff with Lisa in it is not exactly positive. And so I had to balance that by reminding myself that July 2006 remains the best time I have ever had. And that was because Lisa and I found ourselves pretty much spending every day together mostly at her apartment at th Orsini. Back then we were still running together, eating out together, doing everything. She wasn't working yet and neither was I having just left the dental school. I subsited on vacation money USC gave me. I remember it was something like $10K. And it was more than enough. I didn't think about the future, I just enjoyed the moment day-by-day with Lisa. No wonder I was so happy. And then of course there were those July months spent vacationing in Europe. Paris. Rome. Athens.  OK OK maybe those weren't exactly always good either. Some good experiences, some bad. But memorable to be sure. So really it hs only been the last couple of years <and of course July 2013> has there been some life-changing kind of event. Just that it has been the most recent. Boy I could sure use a quiet July 2020 huh? But so far this will be remembered as the part of the time of the pandemic isn't it? 

The picture I posted was of me taking a walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon. Actually I walked to Whole Foods right after the last phone call of the day, which was the Friday Huddle. I was thankful that the weekend had started. i was thankful that it was payday Friday and my bank account now has over $27K in it! I didn't do much work the rest of the day even though I had a couple of to-do's left on the table. Hey, remember this morning's a-ha? I'm back to doing good enough and minimum possible. That's because I have all these other things I would rather do. As in walking LOL. I must not be used to walking anymore though because I ended up doing a couple of miles <to WF and back> but when I got home, my left foot was sore. So much so, it took all I had to finish up the rest of my 11,000 steps, hobbling around outside. Uh-oh. Why oh why didn't I stick to my low-impact aerobics? Still I found enough energy to walk to Ralphs too and finish my grocery shopping. Hey this isn't NEARLY as bad as when I had those muscle aches way back in May. Besides it was still a nice Friday night out. At 6:30 PM it wasn't hot anymore. It's summer but it hadn't been heatwave hot. In fact, tonight a nice breeze was blowing. It was actually downright pleasant... as if it was a late spring Friday night. Anyway, I had bought some turkey breast last night at Whole Foods and tonight I ended up roasting it myself. Ended up with the main ingredients to my Friday night dinner of turkey wrap with spinach and babaganoush and tomato. Pretty nice and healthy eh? I did try to do those damned CTF applications and got through 1 working survey out of 6 I had to do. I figured I'd finish one and pretty much copy and paste to finish the rest. And then I tanked it. Hey it's Friday. Yeah i would like to say I can do it this coming weekend but I know better. Why lie to myself? it's ok, no need to push. No need to kill overwork myself right? I had my dinner and then watched the last 2 episodes of Snowpiercer including the Season 1 Finale on the Syfy channel app. And then decided not to binge watch too much. I have to be up early and be at Lisa's by 7:30 AM. The new Saturday Lisa workday routine such as it were. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up watching Johnnie for a good chunk of the day...

Back to Doing Bare Minimum; The Return of Sports

So this week is far less busy than last week, but still I had stuff to do. Especially after meeting with Sheila the new HR Manager about her directives from Eloisa. But first things first: Today I celebrate a timemarker. That would be my anniversary at QueensCare seven years ago. This would make it my longest stint at any one organization. <of course I had to break up my USC employment into 2 parts: Dental School and USC Stevens although the total of both was more than 11 years> Hard to believe I've been working here at QueensCare longer than USC Stevens, longer than Cedars-Sinai, longer than USC Dental. I can remember Summer 2013 as a crossroads. A shift in the timeline of sorts. And that I did have a choice. I think I chose right and I give myself a pat on the back for sticking around at least this long. But back to present day. This morning was my Team Meeting. And really there wasn't much to talk about other than making sure they were ok mentally. Especially after that weird Staff Meeting yesterday. And realizing that a lot of people at the Health Centers are starting to get anxious seeing more and more people are testing positive for coronavirus. My message to my team was simple. Be SAFE. Avoid indoors where there are more than a few people. Mask up. Social distance. Wash your hands. Simple. And speaking of that, we had our first Director's Meeting as well since we locked down 4 months ago. A lot looser was our group and we actually talked about how we pulled off getting covid-19 testing done at the Westlake North location starting today. By all accounts it was real successful too. Which we were trying to share with Barbara real time but she was having  internet problems. I thought she had a hotspot? Anyway I spent the morning working actually and it as all I could do to keep Johnnie occupied with something.  He even ASKED me the second he heard me say goodbye if my phone calls were over. Awww... I'm sorry Little Bug.

Actually as early as right after lunch, Johnnie started to ask when his mom was coming over to pick him up tonight. He has developed an acute sense of time Johnnie has. He was so excited to share his new robot with his mommy. Hey it IS pretty cool isn't it?! This afternoon I spent pretty much all I could with him, doing some abbreviated lessons and then letting him watch videos at 3 PM. He was back to the Octonauts today, but after a while I told him we had to spend some time outside simply because... well, it's a nice summer day out and it would be a travesty to spend all day indoors, even if it WAS hot. And so I dragged him with his baseball and baseball bat and I had him hit a few shots. He got his timing after a few swings and then he was hitting overhand pitches even. Kind of appropos today because today is a big day in sports. Major League Baseball is back playing real games. And the Lakers are back playing in the Orlando bubble playing their first scrimmage game against the Mavs. I have really missed both sports, especially the NBA. It as like Yadira, Dex, and I watched the Lakers beat the Clippers and then that was that... the season shut down a couple of days after. The Lakers presumably would have won the NBA title by now. Presumably. Now we can find out if they will. And so Johnnie got his exercise in, and then I let him watch Lego videos on Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers. Lisa actually called at 7:30... from her house. She had already gone home. Why she doesn't just pick up Johnnie is beyond me. Maybe she took a nap. I don't really care. I mean she wasn't dressed in her scrubs which meant she probably changed and did something. Whatever it is, good for her. Johnnie was real excited to show his robot. Lisa had apparently taken a nap. And then asked me if I could pick up some brioche for them for tomorrow. Nice guy that I am, I went to Trader Joe's and took the time to get them the brioche. and some frozen tacos for me. Had to have a late snack now you see. And I spent the rest of Thursday night doing something unexpected... i watched the Dodgers game! Welcome back Blue. Welcome back Purple and gold. Boy did I miss you guys...

Nervous Energy

I had a late night last night, not really as bad as some of my Netflix binge weekends but I felt really tired waking up. So much so I blew off an 8:30 All Staff Meeting. It was supposed to be an abbreviated one so I knew it wouldn't last that long. From all accounts it lasted a whole 8 MINUTES long. Man, why waste time if it's going to last 8 damn minutes? Can you actually convey something effectively in that short a period of time? Oh well, at least I think my decision to skip this Zoom meeting was a good one. As it was I had a lot of nervous energy today and I knew it was centered around the meeting with AT&T later. Somehow there was a part of me that equated a really good outcome with that meeting to the job I'm doing. Which means I had once again slipped into ego-based thinking. Or maybe it was a part of me that was very critical of the job I did with this particular vendor and this particular account. I let it slide and even though it was during the timeframe that Justin left, it still was no excuse and I should have stayed on top of it better. But I didn't and now I have to clean up the mess. All I need to do is focus on the best possible outcome and intend to do the best I can. But somehow there was something in my ear that was buzzing about how I was afraid that I would get exposed that I had done a shitty job. Man the ego is really hanging on to that isn't it? Anyway I wasn't the only one with a lot of energy. Of course Johnnie and is seemingly infinite rewards needed to have some kind of outlet. And so I had to figure out little activities for him to do in order to get him to burn some of that energy. Somehow drawing class was not going to do it LOL. And so I got him to do some "P.E." classes. Stuff on the web that got him to move his body. Look at the gif I posted of him trying to follow along. He was barely tired after about 5 minutes of doing that. Something tells me I had better keep myself in shape just so I could keep up. Already when he races me to the elevator or the car, I actually have to turn on my own jets just to make up ground. Which means he actually does open up a lead now. Wait until he really gets bigger and faster?! And so on to the meeting... The outcome I wanted was to get the entire amount forgive. That would be upwards of $147,000. How it got that big is somewhat of a mistake though. Could they have fucked up that badly? Well, it's AT&T. And they already credited us for upwards of $5K for a mistake on the new contract. I wanted someone to thread through all that happened which is something the guy in charge of it now <Andy> seemed to be incapable of doing. And so a new guy was brought in and he at least seemed to know what he was talking about. There would be no resolution today but he needed to know specific dates so he could follow up. How AT&T is not aware of even those things is beyond me. But he said he'd get back to us by next week and that was good enough for me. That's one more week of me thinking about this thing... which is probably a lesson that I need to do what I can so as NOT to think about this thing. And to realize that's my ego trying to take some kind of control, pushing some kind of negative outcome to stay at the lower vibration. In the meantime, just waiting for the meeting I had cleaned up the fish bowl <which I had putting off for a while>, I put a load of laundry in AND I managed to help Johnnie burn off energy with my own aerobics routine. See? Nervous energy. After the meeting it was back to the usual Wednesday. The Midweek Huddle came right after so really I ended up having back-to-back meetings and I managed to sandwich a performance evaluation out of it too. I want that to get done by tomorrow. Only after all that did I look up and notice it was already 4 PM. It's Wednesday so it's Panda Express night and of course I had to interrupt Johnnie's new interest in Giganto the latest kid's videos I have him hooked on. At least he's drawing stuff as he goes along too, seemingly eager to collect stuff to give to his mom. Anyway Panda Express pickup was uneneventful and we actually ate together in the living room... while he watched Gigantosaurus. And then afterwards, I had him back to the Octonauts. Yeah, yeah that's a lot of videos. But I also got him to do a whole bunch of math and reading games at education.com to keep him sharp. And did my own lessons with him with capital letters. And if you look at the pictures I posted, it's not like he was sitting at home not moving around. He was actually pretty active all day long. The videos are merely a reward just as we had done from early on when he started to write and do lessons. Now it's a given. Tonight I gave him the option of not taking a shower before going to bed. Sort of another reward. Besides, it's summer. We can take a shower in the morning he and I. And I can make up for last night's lost sleep. After all, I was already nodding off after dinner. I didn't think I had the energy to give him a shower. Great... now I turned into Lisa...

Lemon 365

Tuesday routine is now pretty much settled. It is usually not a busy day except for my Team Meeting at 9 AM most Tuesday. Today though I also have a meeting with the new HR Director Sheila, who I find out later is also Filipino. And so I was tied up for a bulk of the morning, which was SO excruciating for Johnnie because he was so excited to put together his new robot toy that I got for him. And so we got to it just as soon as my last phone call of the morning ended. It was already 11 AM by then, pretty close to lunchtime and I don't know what I was thinking that I'd get it done in 10 minutes or so. I have pretty good spacial acuity but reading from an instruction manual is one of my worst skills. It's much easier for me to look at what that robot was supposed to look like in the end and figure out how to fasten this and to connect that. Anyway I did get the project started but had to stop by noon because it was lunchtime already. Johnnie and I went to Whole Foods to get him a pizza and for me I ended up having the special which turned out to be a Cubano sandwich. Pretty good too with ham and pork and mozzarella cheese and lots of mayo. See daddy and son enjoying lunch. I got pretty full too. And soon after that I went on to putting that soda pop can robot together. Ok so it took me another hour after lunch but I did manage to finish it. Johnnie was right next to me the whole time being my assistant. Handing me stuff, holding something when I needed help and basically just my general help. Of course he wanted to be involved throughout the whole thing. And when we got done and he popped in the battery and the thing started moving? Well, let's just say he was SOOO HAPPY!  As was I quite frankly. A project he and I did together! Can't beat that. And something he could play with for a while. And it took most of the day. A win is a win is a win. In the meantime, working on that thing pretty much a good deal of the afternoon meant that (a) I was going to miss my nap, particularly because I had to pad up my steps for the day. But more importantly (b) I didn't get to my homework for the day, which was to do forensics on the AT&T invoices so I could at least present our case regarding our old account which had accrued a final bill of over $140K! I mean WTF?! Someone forgot to turn SOMETHING off. And we're meeting about it tomorrow. The bottom line was that I eventually got to putting together a spreadsheet of the story of that account from our side, just that I didn't actually get to it until Johnnie had gotten to sleep tonight. And so that meant at 10 PM I was still working on it. It was tedious and painstakingly boring and I didn't really realize how anal I could get with something like this because the fact is, I actually did get the damn thing done and I think I have a much better idea of what happened. I'll be honest I had forgotten, it was so long ago. This was one of those things I had Justin handle and when he left I simply did not do a good job of following up. So much so the old contract had lapsed. Anyway I finished byt I didn't actually get the email out until well past midnight. Sigh. A late night. Feels  like one of those Tuesdays when I had to cram a Tech Council presentation out of my ass. Anyway, this particular situation with AT&T bothered me. It clearly had something to do with the job I perceive myself to be doing. So much so I had to do some cleaning and clearing and internal work about it. I assured myself all will be well tomorrow. And I assured myself this is no different from the panic reaction and anxiety I feel when I hear from Eloisa or Barbara or anyone I have to report to. Just old insecurity stuff to clean, stuff to clear. 

In between all that Tuesday night was pretty much routine. I did barbecue Italian sausage like I usually would on a Tuesday night and Johnnie was out there playing with his new toy, hereby dubbed Lemon 365. Lemon from the lemon-lime soda and 365 because it was branded 365 by Whole Foods LOL. Lemon 365 it was. And as you can see from the video, Johnnie had a blast with it. He had his penne pasta dinner with Italian sausage and I really didn't feel like cooking anything else so I had his leftover penne with another Italian sausage and called that a dinner. I also found another cartoon series for him to watch other than the Octonauts. This one was called Gigantosaurus. Hey it's dinosaurs right? How can he NOT like it? And so the rest of Tuesday night was quiet and that was a good thing to simply balance the active energy of the day. Johnnie was pretty much out by 9:30 PM. Not me. I still had work to do... In the meantime I do have a timemarker I have to acknowledge today. This day 2 years ago I moved out of the Maplewood house making the separation from Lisa official. It's almost hard to believe I'm starting my 3rd year in this apartment building. But I also know that I like it here very much. And it has become more than just a refuge from a difficult situation. It has become home. And I am very VERY grateful for that.

Tired on A Monday

How do I wake up tired on a Monday? By not getting to sleep until 3 AM in the morning that's how. And why did I do that? Because I ended up binge-watching again that's why. I still do have some self-destructive behaviors I need to address don't I? I got myself to at least get showered <which would be the first time since a shower-free weekend> and make myself breakfast. And then I thought about the week ahead. After the busy-ness of last week I so looked forward to an urgency-free week this week. But all I saw was that a new set of urgencies still need to be done. I wanted to get that AT&T bill settled once and for all since a bill of almost $174,000 would weigh on anybody, legit or not. And I hope to at least do some forensics on that sooner rather than later. And then of course there is that CTF application that is faux-urgent. But the fact that Barbara is bugging everyone about it MAKES it urgent and I promised I'd get it done this week. There is also stuff that HR needs from me. Policy stuff really. BYOD policy. Work from home guidance. So it appears that this week wouldn't be as quiet as I had hoped. Still there was no escaping how tired I was. And before mid-day, as soon as I had done payroll and cleaned up my email inbox <hey those are accomplishments right?>, I found myself doing the morning meditation that I skipped first thing. I plugged in to some theta frequencies and just focused on creating value today. And then the other side of me reminded me about other things I needed to do. Like the pile of money sitting in a money market in my ETrade account not doing much. I have to unhoard, get rid of my own fears and put it to work. And then of course there is my other persona, the one that wants to help others and use my talents and skillsets in order to do so. Creating value but on my own terms, not for a company. I'm reminded that trading my time for money is not actually the most efficient way to go about creating financial independence. And I must continue to seek guidance here. Before long I would find myself at Whole Foods getting Italian sausage and Steaz pear iced tea. It was nice to be reminded that I'm in the middle of another nice summer day.

I tried to take a nap after lunch but a 15 minute power "nap" where I closed my eyes and still remained half-awake was the best I could do. I guess my brain was going 100 miles an hour still and I didn't do a good job of quieting it. Instead what did I do? Watched another episode of the Magicians. I feel like an addict but hooked on video content.  And then I got an email from AT&T asking to resolve said situation. Looks like I have to do this first this week don't I. Fine by me. I set the meeting for Wednesday and set aside time to do invoice forensics. In the meantime, it IS Monday and it is also Johnnie pick-up day at some point. By 4 PM I was barely at 2000 steps. Man I really didn't do much at all today didn't I? At least I can fall back on doing aerobics as a way to catch up on steps and cardio activity quickly. And I did a very quick 2 miles in less than 40 minutes. That got me past 6000 steps before 5 PM. I'm back on track. And then I got a call from Lisa. She wanted to drop off Johnnie but needed to go to her office to do inventory. <Doesn't she have staff to do these things??> I didn't question nor react. It was perfectly fine to pick up Johnnie at her office and made arrangements to do it at 6 PM. Gave me time to pick up Johnnie's McNuggets dinner AND get almost done with my 11,000 steps.  And gave me time to make Johnnie some udon too to supplement. And by 6 PM I was at Lisa's office picking up my Little Bug. I'm sure he's going to fill me in on what happened over the weekend. Lisa was in the middle of said inventory of course and I don't know if she's merely trying to get away from Courtney who was in her house and going through some issues with her dad. JOhnnie and I went on to the apartment and just like flicking a switch, he's eating udon and watching Octonauts. I did have a surprise for him for tomorrow. I got the tin can robot kit from Amazon over the weekend. And as soon as he found it, he made me promise we would work on it tomorrow. And so it is a usual Monday evening, with me cleaning him up both physically with a shower, food-wise with dinner, and mentally by going back to our routine. Bed by 9:30 PM. For me too actually. I was almost already dead on my feet as of 6 PM tonight. Some sleep would be most welcome...

A Satisfying Golf Game...Finally

And so today is Sunday golf day and we're at Roosevelt and we have our full foursome as well. I was determined not to have such a shit game the way I did the last time our full foursome assembled at Eaton Canyon a few weeks ago. I even visualized each hole this morning the way I did last week but put a little more energy to it. And so right away my first shit was topped off and went 20 yards. What a way to start. But I hit a rocket 2nd shot, got on the green on my 3rd and 2-putted for a bogey 5. Decent. Greg had a par shot but missed a gimme 5 foot putt and so we ALL tied with a 5 on the first hole. Weight off my shoulders...I'm not getting shut out today. The 2nd hole showed how inconsistent I can be. Nice drive off the tee. Whiffed the 2nd. Got on in 4. But 3-putted to a 7. Next hole I deposited my first shot over the fence into the street. Already I need to use a mulligan. But I managed to get on the fringe in 2 shots. And then my putt from the fringe just lipped out of the hole. And then I missed the recovery putt after that. So instead of tying for the win no points for me. Hole 4 I hit a good tee shot again but again whiffed on the 2nd shot on the way to a 6. It was clear by now that I need to focus on the 2nd shot. I also need to use my irons so I could make better contact even if it doesn't go as far as the wood.  it is all about control. And slowing down my swing. And so on the next 2 holes, I had decent drives, but my 2nd shots were much better hit. I missed another tying putt on Hole 5 and then tied outright on Hole 6 where my 2nd shot on that funnel hole went from the left fringe all the way to the lip of the green. It was my nicest shot of the day. And on Hole 7 my first shot went 150 yards past the hole on the green and I shot it with an iron! Too bad I missed another hole-tying putt from 4 feet out. I had a nice drive on 8 but blew my 3rd shot when I hit it right at a tree. And then on the last hole I missed yet another putt from 30 feet that just grazed the edge of the hole. Had I made my putts I would have tied for a win on 5 holes. Instead I think I won 2. Not good but all in all this was the most satisfying golf game I had in a while because I was in on every single hole and I had a good shot on every single hole. And my irons were working. And with that, I drove home, stopped at In-n-out to get me a double double with onion and fries and that was my lunch reward :)

I wish I could say I was productive the rest of the afternoon and then chilled in the evening. I wish I could even say I took a nice long nap considering I only slept for 4 1/2 hours last night... a product of binge watching yet again. But really all I did was veg out on the couch eating my double double and then continuing to watch the Magicians after that. Hey there was this clip in S03E09 where they whole gang sang Bowie and Freddie Mercury's Under Pressure. It was pretty cool I thought. And after that I continued to be in reward mode by getting myself some shrimp pad thai and wonton soup for dinner. OK OK I didn't do a damn thing the rest of the day after golf. After last week I felt like I earned a do-nothing weekend and especially after an incrementally better golf game I felt really good about. It would have been nice to leave it at that and have an early evening actually. But I kept burying myself in content. More Youtube videos, more episodes of the Magicians. I mean who knew they made it all the way to Season 5?? Next thing I knew it was well into the wee hours of tomorrow. Oh well. At least I did have a pretty good weekend. Hope the energy of that is enough to carry me to the beginning of the work week...

Morning With Johnnie, Evening with Me

So since it was a non-working Saturday for Lisa I figured we'd be back to coronavirus Saturday routine, which means having breakfast with Lisa and Johnnie and then me watching him for the next few hours through lunch. That would give Lisa some ME time particularly today since she has piano lessons at 10:45. I keep telling her to be aware of her own patterns. Piano lessons at that time would certainly mean she would need to take a nap soon after. I didn't care, i got to spend time with Johnnie. And then they're supposed to drive up to Santa Clarita to spend the night at Lisa Pereira's house.  And so it was that I posted a picture of breakfast... Brioche French toast, and then Lisa also made an omelette too. Pretty good one if I do say so myself. I got there really hungry and Lisa was still in the shower. Without Johnnie who smelled like he hadn't taken a shower las tnight either. That's ok, he will when we get to my apartment.  And so it was that we had a nice breakfast (see picture) and then I had Johnnie pick out his clothes and off we went for Johnnie-daddy-time. True enough the first thing we did was to get him showered off and brush his teeth. And I let him play in there for a while too. And then of course since it WAS the weekend I told him it was ok to watch videos without doing anything, lessons in particular. And he also started playing with his dinosaurs. I think he knew he was going to be with me for a little while. The last time we did this was 4th of July when Lisa had the exact same schedule except that I went with them to Newport Beach. We didn't leave until 3:30 then. Today I made a pit stop at Ralphs to get some groceries for Lisa. I'm not having to do full on grocery shopping for her like i did early on during the lockdown, just one-offs really and I was happy to do it. And then before we knew it, it was lunchtime already and Johnnie was all too happy to have his favorite Panda Express for lunch. Again a throwback to Saturdays when Lisa would work and I would have Johnnie, except that we ate in. Who knows when we'd be able to do THAT again. It doesn't matter to me actually, in fact today it's even better than he gets to eat at the apartment and watches his Octonauts at the same time. This ensures me he will have a decent meal today no matter what happens tonight. And then we spent the rest of the afternoon goofing around really (see pic). As it turned out Lisa texted around 2 PM that she had just woken up and that she was going to pick up Johnnie. She didn't come until well past 3:30 LOL. Not a surprise and I was just a tad annoyed only because I wanted to take an afternoon nap myself. So with the Johnnie pick up all done, that would be THAT for the weekend in terms of seeing Johnnie. I spent the afternoon catching up on my late day aerobics. After all, I was barely at 2600 steps when Lisa came by. Kind of an ongoing pattern now it seems like... that I find about 45 minutes of time and then get all my steps in then. Today it felt very much like a workout. So much so I had to stop and get water. Felt like I was at the gym. And then I started binge watching the Magicians Season 2 and Season 3. And made myself the rest of the turkey leftovers and stuffing for dinner. Added the Trader Joe's chicken marsala to boot.  I reflected on the day and thought about how it was a nonchalantly nice day with Johnnie. Even the time with Lisa was relatively drama-free. She did have some drama apparently when Courtney showed up out of nowhere apparently having some issues with her dad who was allegedly not being nice to her. THAT was actually the reason why Lisa had to wait until 3:30 PM to pick up Johnnie. Whatever drama Lisa was attracting, I managed to steer clear of. That was just me also being impatient. And so besides the Magicians on Netflix I immersed myself with videos on spiritual awakening stuff. Esoteric stuff too. Ran into an Aaron Abke video with a Course in Miracles study group in the Philippines of all things. Ran into material about the Book of Thoth. And the Book of Enoch and the Gospel of Thomas. I wondered to myself why I'm attracting so much esoteric stuff? Could it be because I AM watching the Magicians which was a series about a school teaching esoteric knowledge? What is sure is that there is more to the physical. And there is much to learn about ourselves as more than just physical beings with physical bodies. I am also thinking that what they call "Magic" in the series I'm watching isn't something that only a select few have. I think we all have it with different levels of potency. And it does require development and practice. No different than any athletic skill that requires mastery. Practice and repetition. Practice and repetition. And that is what I did with my ME time tonight. No more stuff to pressure myself about in terms of TO-DOs. Not today anyway. But there is much to learn. MUCH MUCH to learn...

Clearing Discomfort... Some Kind of Busy Week

And so with the dinner at Lisa's last night, I obviously didn't finish my performance evaluations. Not all of them anyway. Because after I went home, I finished 2 more... Noriel and Nelson's. And then first thing this morning when I got up, I finished Kennedy's. THERE! I'm done once and for all! One more huge thing I got done this week. All before I took my shower and made myself breakfast this morning. This being a Friday and all I thought I'd make me a good breakfast, just like something i would have had at the FRB if we were still working there. <I would find out later on that a couple of more security officers tested positive for covid-19. There is NO WAY I'd walk in there now!>. And so anyway I made myself corned beef hash and eggs and some nice Earl Grey hot tea for breakfast. ahhh Friday! And when I checked and saw that the only other activity I thought I had to do, which was to finalize my department goals wasn't even due until next week, well NOW I could finally breathe out... I'm DONE FOR THE WEEK! YES YES YES!!! See? And i was worried I wasn't going to get something done. tsk tsk. Anyway I did flip the switch into learning mode. After all I don't have Johnnie all day today and I can actually take my time and finish some of the learnings I wanted to get done. And actually I needed to do some cleaning and clearing on the last part of the evening last night where I actually felt discomfort, felt irritated when Lisa did her piano playing thing with Jorge. What about that bothered me? That was just Lisa being Lisa. And she didn't really do anything wrong. It was my ego that was bothered because Lisa was not conforming to the outcome that I wanted. And of course me being me was simply one of my patterns that I always leave early. A lot of that is simply the empath in me being overly sensitive to other people's emotional energies and needing a break.  And so I cleaned, i cleared, I asked for forgiveness. And doing all that gave me the quote of the day: forgiveness is not overlooking the truth, forgiveness is knowing that I cannot be attacked. Nothing was attacking me. In the end I acknowledge my own discomfort and make peace with it. And that is that. And once again simply focus on the higher outcome that I got to see my old friend and be grateful for that too.

And so I ended up dealing with yet another incident of discomfort and that, oddly enough, happened at the Friday afternoon end-of-the-week Huddle. It should have been the last event of the work week and somewhat of a victory lap for me since I had gotten through one of the busiest stretches I've had in quite some time. Instead, the meeting that usually finishes in about a half hour extended well beyond the hour because our Chief Medical Officer (CMO) was expressing astonishment at the number of coronavirus cases in LA County and how bad they were. We're back to trying to prepare for a  surge. And here is this guy telling us, the Leadership group that he was not feeling confident at all. And that he was struggling with the messaging to the rank and file, particularly our provider group that he is supposed to be leading. And thus ensued a discussion on how to message, and who to message. It should have just simply ended with "let the Communications Manager and CEO provide the messaging." They're good about that. The way he spoke today would scare just about anyone. In the end I just bolted from the meeting. 3 of the C's had gone anyway because they had to do an interview. So much for a quick Friday afternoon huddle. Still, it was not even 4:30 when I left the meeting and I immediately went to Trader Joe's to do grocery shopping. And to clear my head. No more work. I had had a good week already. Again I reflected on what gave me such discomfort. I'm still prone to losing patience when people's actions don't match my expectations. And even writing that already makes me aware of how absurd that is. Again, as last night, all I needed to do was to acknowledge my discomfort and know that THAT was a part of me I myself was pushing out. It was fear and indecision and I did not like seeing it. And so I did my grocery shopping, did some aerobics to finish up my 11,000 steps, and made myself a turkey dinner. Yes a turkey dinner. I had so much leftover turkey. All I had to do was buy some boxed stuffing and gravy and voila: turkey dinner. And then I continued watching the newest Netflix series: Cursed. It was a way different twist on the Arthurian story. Same characters but also all different. It was interesting how they dealt with contemporary issues though, persecuting people that are different. In the case of this series, it was the fae: a race of non-humans. Kind of an allegory to our current issues with race isn't it. The good thing was I did not binge watch until the wee hours of the morning like I'm prone to do. I only watched until 11:30 LOL. It was all good, the weekend is here and I remind myself yet again. I had a pretty damn good work week.

Not Breathing Out Yet

Thursdays after the Tech Council Meeting is supposed to be a breathe-out day. Not today I'm afraid. I now turn to the last couple of tasks I have to finish this week. That would be Performance Evaluations for my team. But at least I know I only need a few hours to get that done and get it done today which I fully intended to do. But first all I have to focus attention on Johnnie especially in the morning. This being Thursday I still get calendar notices for the TK class Zoom meeting that has been over for a month now LOL. And it's another day of Fuzzy's birthday of course and I had the privilege of sitting on a bunch of toys Johnnie hid as a surprise present for her. Anyway we both took a shower this morning again as Johnnie chose not to take one last night before going to bed and I let him. eh? Why not. It's summer. This morning he got to read a book by himself, got to do 1st grade Math games on education.com, got to do a hip-hop class for kindergarteners, and did a lesson on geometrical shapes. Gotta keep him sharp you know? Who knows what school is going to be like in a month? And then for lunch he got to have a pizza. Not just any of my frozen pizzas lurking in the freezer mind you, he got to have a freshly baked Whole Foods pizza. And he got to go to Whole Foods on his scooter too, which checks off the physical activity component for the day LOL. And I got to have carne asada with black beans and rice myself. Who knew Whole Foods served that?! And so we already had a pretty good morning Johnnie and I and after lunch I finally started to get into my guys' performance evaluations. I finished Larry's and it took about an hour to do, which gave me a benchmark for the rest of the guys. Really if I could give them all 4s I would. They came through this year and had a very good year in terms of what they accomplished. I would defy anyone to give me similar accomplishments that my motley crue of 4 guys did, and one being brand new to the team at that. I STILL made it work and that may be a testament to MY leadership too. I spent a lot of the afternoon catching up on my steps doing some aerobic stepping. But at 5 PM just as I was going to take Johnnie to dinner at Panda Express Sawtelle I get a call from Lisa. She asked if I could take Johnnie to the house AND asked if I could join them for dinner because she is having someone over. She wouldn't tell me who, just that she needed me to pick up some fish for all us adults. Hmmm. I guess that's ok. And so I went to Ralphs to pick up fish, went to Panda Express to pick up Johnnie's dinner and went to Lisa's. She was already there. And at 6:30 PM the mystery guest arrived... it turned out to be Jorge! I was just thinking about him because his last official day at USC is tomorrow, ending a very long run. AND it was his birthday a couple of days ago. And of course I forgot to call. Or I just never got around to it. And so it would take Lisa to actually be the person to get us together! Lisa made the fish while Jorge and I caught up. We talk on the phone for sure, but have not had a chance to catch our collective breaths and talk about personal stuff. Was it just yesterday she was bringing in Nidia from Peru? Even though technically we still give him a lot of business... after all he is our low voltage cable vendor for QueensCare. We don't really get to talk. Nelson handles that all those dealings for me. Still who can forget all the memories. The birtday Starbucks card prank at the Dental School. Working together in my office at USC Stevens at was then the Transamerica building. Heck I remember he and I buying suits downtown when I got laid off at USC Stevens right before QueensCare. Can't believe that's already 7 years ago. Anyway this was not only a rarity to have dinner with Lisa on a Thursday night, but to have Jorge join us? It was almost unthinkable! Yet here we are. At the end of the dinner, Lisa played a piano piece for Jorge, even though I could see he really didn't want to stay too late. He had almost an hour-and-a-half drive home. But you know Lisa. And I know me too. I got uncomfortable because I felt she was pandering to her own ego instead of focusing on what Jorge wanted to do. And so I helped end the evening by volunteering that I too had to go. Hey we already had had dinner. It was already more than amazing. And as we left I gave Jorge a sideways hug... coronavirus be damned. Might be a while before I see him again. And so I was so glad to get to see him tonight...