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.