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...