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.