So last year at this time I was totally focused on Johnnie's first week of TK. The year before that, it was the first and only year at Blue Oak. What did I focus on the many years pre-Johnnie? At USC it was the return to school of students. I wonder how THAT has been in this year of Covid? Anyway this year everything has been exacerbated by Covid, including Johnnie's Kindergarten class. What should have been a nice acclimation period with new friends and new teachers has the added pressure of learning technology both for student and parents. And definitely for Lisa. I had it in my mind I was going to leave her alone this morning and let her navigate through Johnnie's first full class day online. And when she called around 9 AM, a pang of dread hung over me. What went wrong now? was my first thought. Turned out she just needed a little hand holding to be sure things that didn't appear normal were actually ok. And that she got on the right Zoom call. It turned out much better than last week's fiasco actually and by 9:10 AM, I got off the call, satisfied that Lisa was going to manage ok. Ahh.. ever the IT guy right? After that I hopped on my own call which was the Business Continuity Meeting and i was supposed to lead it today. I reminded every that I liked to keep a brisk pace and that they needed to keep up. I was not going to allow this meeting to go beyond an hour-and-a-half. And by 11:40, I was out and about and enjoying a nice day out. Not bad for a Monday... it wasn't hot, actually pleasant and it was another beautiful day in my neighborhood. My smell-the-roses moment actually came doing this walk as I noticed the breeze blowing the trees around. The sounds of that was actually pretty meditative and calming. It was already a good Monday. I made myself another salad for lunch, and it was actually cool to be picking off romaine lettuce from my LED "garden"! I added chicken this time. Could I be actually eating healthy with more salads in my diet? LOL. I was also able to close my eyes and get a nice power nap of 20 minutes. Woke up just in time for the next activity...
Why that would be Johnnie's swim class of course in the comforts of my apartment pool. Lisa and Johnnie were already there when I got there, and she and I just mostly hung out and watched. That Lisa and I were just sitting there in the lounge chairs eating chips and watching Johnnie was a testament of how far we have come as a divorced couple. I told her so. I don't think this is what happens to most divorced couples, at least not a little over a year after it's final. And I totally realize that this is a choice. AND I also realize that it's still not actually cordial 100% of the time. Case in point, when I picked up Johnnie later for hand-off night, Lisa once again had to rail about how bad the internet was in the corner of the house AS IF we could have possibly foreseen that it would be used as Johnnie's study corner at some point. I firmly told Lisa that she needs to stop the blame game and realize sometimes things don't go as according to plan, that I acknowledge that she is frustrated but that THAT is very common. I told her Johnnie and I had been doing Zoom since April and we had months of doing that under our belts already while she herself has only done it 2 times! How can she POSSIBLY think she's up to speed already? I did think she made it today just fine and THAT is a WIN. But at the end of the day I was glad to have Johnnie again. And he made my day actually by asking me: "you know what tomorrow is dad?" It's YOUR BIRTHDAY. Awww! I don't care who remembers anymore. That was good enough for me. And with that I bid goodbye to the summer of COVID, and August 2020. I'm still hanging in there...
I had started to play better golf the last few weeks. I'm still whiffing on way too many balls, but I also realized that I needed to focus more on the mental game. To shed the identity of that golfer who whiffs way too much and to assume the identity of the golfer confidently making good shots. Yes I noticed I am learning how to use my irons. But while I claim to be playing better, it has not exactly translated into match wins. Oh I win a hole here and there. In fact, I average winning or tying for the win on 3 holes a match. But usually it takes 6 holes to win and I hadn't won 6 holes in many months. Definitely not since way before March before the golf courses closed. Which is why it made it IMMENSELY SATISFYING for me to win today's match. OK, I tied for the win by taking 6 holes. But I will add that I had the 6 holes after 8 holes before I blew the last hole letting Chris tie. I tied for Hole 1 and 2. And then had the best tee shot i could have on Hole 3. But I 4-putted from there to give away the hole. Still, I tied for the win on Hole 4 and after 5 holes, it was 3-3-3-1, with me being one of the three. I won Hole 6 outright with a 7 somehow and tied again for the win on Hole 7. And then I won Hole 8 outright with a par giving me 6 holes. That hole was my best played hole. Hit an iron off the tee to the right fringe, chipped it 8 feet from the hole, and sank the par putt. Eezy-peezy par. If only it was like that all the time LOL LOL. Somehow I lost focus on the last hole. Abd even on that hole, I hit a nice iron from 150 yards out that was headed right to the green, but hit something that bumped it into the sand trap. That was where I blew up on the hole. But I sustained my focus long enough through all the holes, even with an unexpected negative energy from a conversation that turned political with Trump's coronavirus response. I felt myself being combative in the conversation in fact and I had to divert the focus from that conversation and talk about something else and actually go back to the friendly, goofy conversations we always have. And I did manage to recover from that and get the next 3 holes! See what happens when I hold my focus and not allow myself to get speeded up by my own thoughts? And so today I went home feeling very VERY good. I finally won a match!
The rest of the day I pretty much just wanted to savor golf this morning and the end of the weekend and actually the end of August which means 2 things: my birthday is coming up AND summer is quickly coming to a close. The summer of COVID smh. I was okay not doing a thing. After all, no need to do any more exercising, especially after golf. I made myself a nice turkey salad for lunch and just watched TV the rest of the afternoon. Lakers already moved on to the 2nd round of the NBA playoffs. Beautiful day out but I waited until the end of the day to go back out again. I decided to treat myself to salmon kabobs and rice and lentil soup at Crimson like I had many a time on a Sunday after golf. I hadn't eaten there since early March. Imagine that... almost 6 months ago. This is sort of my birthday treat to myself although picking up my food brought up a not-so-pleasant memory of me walking there on my birthday one year on a Saturday because Lisa was being Lisa at her office. I was ready to eat alone. On my birthday. Nice wife I had huh? I can only smile and laugh about it now HA HA. Made eating it alone in the peace and quiet of my apartment very much the preferred option. I savored the nice day this turned out to be and the return to Crimson Mediterranean. And I just chilled the rest of the evening. Pretty good last weekend of August. And I needed the rest. after all, next week is the true first day of regular lessons for Johnnie. Should be interesting.
Johnnie called first thing asking when I was coming over to join he and his mom for breakfast. I was actually expecting it. After all, I knew Lisa was scheduled for piano lessons late in the morning and needed me to keep an eye on Johnnie until at least mid-afternoon. And I was glad to do it too since I didn't actually see Johnnie yesterday. I went over and Lisa actually had breakfast ready. I was thinking it was probably some sort of peace offering on her part, particularly since me looking after Johnnie actually was primarily for her benefit. Then again it was probably just Lisa feeling like making breakfast more than anything. Anyway Johnnie got to have breakfast with his mommy and daddy and then I did the dishes and then off we went to my apartment. The first thing we needed to do was to clean up. And by that I meant US. Johnnie smelled like he didn't shower last night (which he didn't) and of course I never did get around to taking a shower yesterday myself either. And so not only did I brush our teeth, and not only did I shave, but we also took a mid-morning shower as it turned out. Felt like we were getting ready for bed. And then having cleaned up, Johnnie wanted to watch Winnie-the-Pooh on TV. I wonder why? Usually we'd be up and about doing grocery shopping but not this morning. Lisa didn't actually need anything from the grocery store. But we actually did get such a late start that Johnnie got to watch no more than a couple of episodes before it was time to get us some lunch. I was planning on making me one of those turkey wraps since I had all this leftover turkey deli slices left. But I still had to get some Panda Express for Johnnie. And it actually turned into a nice day out, not too hot, pretty pleasant. If I were more motivated I would have gotten Johnnie to bike there. But I was still in lazy mode from yesterday. As for Johnnie, he was perfectly happy half-watching his Octonauts, and half drawing whatever he sees and feels like putting down on paper. He's actually getting more and more sophisticated with his drawing and I look forward to him getting some actual instruction from his kindergarten teachers. In the meantime, I tried to take a nap and I actually did manage to get to alpha I think for about 20 minutes. At least I know I was still somewhat awake because I was aware of Johnnie. I did not imagine him getting bored and finally waking me up and doing his usual roughhouse stuff with me. I was happy to drop him off at Lisa's by 2:30. But actually she had called me first. She practiced piano for a couple of hours and decided she wanted to do some shopping for the afternoon and asked if I could watch Johnnie for just a little bit longer. Turned out she wanted to go shopping for a wetsuit. She would later on tell me that she had gotten quite a few offers of friends offering to teach her how to surf. I will admit to feeling a tinge of a jealous pang. But then I just shrugged it off like you would some weird insect that distracts you. Why can't she experience male company and have a little fun? As long as it doesn't get in the way of my relationship with Johnnie, what do I care? As a matter of fact, wasn't Thursday a very pointed reminder that there are parts of her that I really REALLY don't like. And that is saying it mildly. And so I just mentally wished her luck, I gave my son a hug and a kiss, and off I went for the rest of my Saturday. I mentioned earlier that it had turned out to be a pretty nice day. And being that I detected some of that yuk energy just minutes before I left Lisa's house, I shifted myself back to enjoying-the-moment mode. I took a walk around Lisa's neighborhood, around Walgrove Elementary to be more specific, mask and all (see picture). I decided this neighborhood also has its merits though I like my own now too. You're closer to the ocean for one, and so on pleasant days such as today, you could almost feel the ocean breeze. I didn't exactly have to walk too far or work out too hard today. That's because I hit all the week's benchmarks almost by Thursday night in fact. By the end of last night I had already logged in 320+ active minutes, 220+ cardio minutes, and almost 58,000 steps. The active minutes were already enough work for the week. But I decided to go past 10,000 steps tonight anyway. That and make myself some beef stew. Even baked my own biscuits. Like I said, my enjoy-the-moment mode. The question was... did I? How can I not when I spent the day with my Little Bug? And got to do my own chores (laundry, clean up) at the same time? And survived diarrhea probably caused by the turkey wrap? Was the turkey bad? I got to walk around the Maplewood neighborhood so yes I got to enjoy a nice day out. I am sufficiently recharged... for golf tomorrow!
For some reason I thought I had the day off today. It turned out I took a vacation day LAST Friday, when I had that nice TANK DAY. Based on last night's interaction with Lisa I did not expect to be involved with Johnnie's Zoom session this morning. My thinking was that Lisa is a smart person, she can figure things out. Better to let my own negative-influenced state just sort of fade out as I realize that's just me losing focus and letting my ego get the better of things yet again. My ego had basically felt taken for granted again. An old wound that I need to heal. And boy did it fight back. Ergo the shit interaction with Lisa that I now have to clean and clear up from my consciousness this morning. Fortunately without Johnnie this morning, I have all kinds of time to do just that. Except... Lisa called 10 minutes before 9 AM. She sure likes to cut it close doesn't she. Did I not give her the option of being there already this morning? I did not exactly get some kind of apology from last night that my ego demanding. But I had calmed down enough not to pay attention to my ego this morning. And so all I wanted to do was get back to center, get back to balance and help. I stayed on the phone with her until I actually heard Ms Wiley on the Zoom call with Johnnie. And with that knowledge that the computer was working ok, I hopped off the call with Lisa and let them get on with their day, and I went on with mine. I focused on getting back to center. And that meant remembering to be more in the moment. This morning, that was all about looking at my indoor LED garden and noticing that the romaine lettuce had grown to the point that I can actualy pluck some and eat it. I can eat my own salad from my own indoor garden! That's big! Considering the first pic I posted of the garden was on Aug 12 just a little over 2 weeks ago, it means the timeline for the lettuce was 2 weeks. The tomato plants had grown too, but too early to bear fruit just yet. Can't wait until they do. This morning that wasn't my only smell-the-roses moment. I also cooked myself breakfast. But not just the usual breakfast I would have, I made myself a spinach and cheese omelette. And topped it with Trader Joe's pineapple salsa. It was pretty good actually. And I couldn't help but think about the Friday morning breakfasts I would have at the FRB. I would eat them slowly in the porch area and just take... my... time. Like this morning. I took my time not just with breakfast, but also getting ready for the day. Still had to shower and shave you know. But I never did get to those things. In fact, I didn't even change from my sleep clothes. Got as far as responding to a bunch of my emails this morning. Oh work being work, there is still always something to do. But there wasn't anything urgent enough, not for today anyway. I could have taken a TANK DAY today too. And as it turned out... I ended up pretty much cooping myself in the house for most of the day anyway right in the same clothes as I had when I went to bed last night. If I wore pajamas at all, you could say I spent the day in those pajamas. It's really no different when I'm this mode than what I would be doing if I were still working at the FRB today other than being dressed for work. I'd be hopping from website to website, chasing down items of interest for the day. And these days, simply making sense of what is going on in the world could be really challening. Not only are still dealing with the pandemic, we are also smack dab in the middle of the Elections coming up and neck deep in the shenanigans of Donald Trump. We are also in the continuing saga of a sea change in attitudes towards racism, with white cops continuing to do shit like shooting black people. I have a lot of opinions over everything going on. But these days, I know I need to take the high ground and actually see over the turbulence and find the path to the Higher Good. How all this is meant to serve us all. Before I knew it, simply navigating these thoughts throughout the day actually did take up all the day. And when I rose back up to the surface, it was already 4 PM. I was not even at 1000 steps yet. That's gotta be the least amount of steps I had done by that time. Like ever. It meant that I essentially stuck myself on the couch all day long. I don't apologize for it, but I also knew I had to get up out of it too. I did do aerobics in my living room, a lot of it while watching Person of Interest. And I did venture out to do grocery shopping. And I decided I wasn't going to cook tonight. Instead I decided to get a personal pizza from Pizza Hut. Sausage, pepperoni and pineapple pizza. And I watched TV. Hey it's Friday night right? That sweet spot of doing nothing before the weekend. Except that I actually did nothing all day long Whaddya know. I took a TANK DAY again after all.
We had a good day yesterday. A full day. And today promises to be more of the same particularly because Johnnie has a BEACH themed Zoom get-together with his class tonight. As for me it's one of my breath out days which means I'm in the middle of cruise control after having sprinted yesterday. I'm still focused on making sure Johnnie develops confidence in working with his chromebook to do his classes, no different than when I was trying to develop his confidence in his scooter (which he did) and his bike (which he did). And so the morning went tat-tat-tat. Johnnie's class, then before it was even over, my meeting with my team at 9:30, then as soon as that was over the Director's Meeting at 10, which lasted until 11:30 actually. So much for cruise control. I thought my meetings were productive though and I know Johnnie's class was as well and I loved that he is learning to articulate himself in more than a-few-syllable answers. Still I was able to let him engage with me even while I was on my Zoom meetings for a good 2 hours and he at least tried to do things on his own before coming in to talk to me. You get surprised at the things he puts together when left alone. A kite. A paper boat. All kinds of messages and signs and then here I am declaring that it's lunch time and we needed to head out to pick up food. After my meetings I had no intention of cooking anything, and I was happy to eat a McDonald's chicken sandwich for lunch. Man I'm sure putting in a lot of money in that place on a daily basis aren't I? I supplemented Johnnie's Mcnuggets with some udon. And so what made me irritated when he took his time eating everything and started stuffing food in his mouth is something I need to introspect about. Was it that he didn't eat the food after I spent time preparing it? Was it that he was about to throw it all up? Whatever it is that irritated me, what I need to remember was that I made Johnnie cry. And I think it was something I myself created since I was just thinking a little while back that it had been sometime since I did that. And it was just this morning that I remembered it and thought simply that it was a bullying act on my part. And here I am recreating it. Sigh. The good thing was that I do know how to make him feel better no matter what and all I needed to do was snap myself out of my own state, tell him it was all ok and it was daddy's fault, and tickle him a little bit to make him laugh. And then it was all good again.
And so I got him back to his happy self for the afternoon and I let him read all kinds of books from the EPIC library online that he now has access to. Especially his favorite "Don't let the pigeon ride DA BUS!" And although I didn't have any more meetings for the afternoon, I did have a lot of emails to respond to and stuff to follow up on. And so my cruise control Thursday ended up being a work Thursday unlike I would do before in the office. I think you DO more when you work from home actually. Maybe it's because you feel guilty when you don't much more so than if you were in the office. Weird huh? For his part, Johnnie continued to work independently most of the day, even as he kept coming in to my room asking me if I was done with my calls. All the kid wants to do is hang out with his dad. Aww. I would have loved to say we took the afternoon off and rode around the neighborhood like we had before but when I looked up from work it was already 4:30 PM. I did manage to get in a few minutes of fun with him here and there. A swordfight with plastic straws. Our exercise time with YouTube. But before I knew it it was already time to head out to get dinner. Panda Express for him, leftover fettuccini bolognese for me. And then at 7 PM his BEACH ZOOM meeting. That reminded me of Build-A-Tent night with his TK class a few months ago. I ended up doing that at my house because Lisa bugged out. And I'm starting to think she gets really frustrated with all this Zoom stuff. She says so herself. And she said it again when she called to pick up Johnnie right in the middle of his Zoom call. Immediately it took away my focus from Johnnie squarely to her because I sensed a whole lot of negativity. And instead of protecting myself from it, I played into it. I dropped my guard I admit. And so it should not have been a surprise that when she did pick Johnnie up, the usual catch-up conversation devolved into a full on argument. My offer to help again tomorrow morning seemed to have brought out Lisa's feelings of being inadequate. And now she is on the defensive. Blaming this, blaming that. And I couldn't be emotionally supportive becaused I FELT attacked. And i got on the defensive too. And so the evening ended with me simply walking off <better that than to have Johnnie watch us argue> and stewing for the rest of the evening. Well it WAS a good day... until Lisa happened. I really need to work on that. Because I know all that is still up to me...
Today I had a couple of meetings on my schedule. And of course it's mid-week Wednesday and we're well into Johnnie's 9 AM daily Zoom calls with his kindergarten class. And routine has actually changed to a week-to-week thing. As in this week we have not showered in the evenings in favor of taking our shower in the morning. We'll see what happens when we continue it that way for the week. One thing for sure, Johnnie is up and at 'em the second he wakes up. I must say is one of my favorite sights is him bounding off and running the second we get to out of the elevator and he's trying to race me to the front door. Just my son laughing and precociously be-bopping along. I feel like he has grown quite a bit from just 6 months ago when we all got locked down at home from the pandemic. Anyway the Zoom class for him was pretty uneventful. Why wouldn't it be when I'm around making sure NOTHING goes wrong. They had a pretty fun class doing a little reading, a little writing so it felt like an abbreviated day from where I stood. Look at the picture of Johnnie I posted raising his hand and getting called on to participate. Hey as long as he's doing that, we're good to go. In the meantime, when his class was over, it was my turn to lock in on my meetings. There was an hour meeting with Eloisa and Barbara going over what the latter wanted to do with the intranet. She definitely had her ideas, which sounded more like a visual representation of what the G Drive used to be or should have been and that's fine I guess. As long as it helps her find her stuff and it is organized and compartmentalized to her liking. And then when that meeting finished it was already time to go get lunch since I had another meeting at 1:30. We went to El Pollo Loco to get my chicken meal and then to McDonald's to get Johnnie's McNuggets (which I supplemented with some pasta in chicken broth). And we both got done in plenty of time before my meeting got started and so I could set Johnnie up with something to keep him occupied for at least an hour. He has been such a sport when I take my calls that I think he's used to it by now. As in he knows how to keep himself occupied. The 1:30 meeting was our Leadership Summit which I used to enjoy going to in person because it was one of the few times all the director and managers got to hang out in one place and do team bonding type of activities. No different this time, even though we were all on Zoom. Turned out you could do breakout sessions in Zoom. And wouldn't you know I'd be paired up with Barbara! The exercise was about uplifting the other person when they're communicating that they are dealing with negative stuff. In fact the entire session was actually focused on self-care. Very important during these current times. Although I'm coping ok, I can't deny that sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I just don't know that there is anxiety creeping in. Which is why I need to continue to focus on internal work.
When the meeting was done technically my work day was done too. But actually I wasn't done working. First of all, my 24" monitor finally came in and of course I had to figure out where to get 4 screws to mount it to the VESA plate on my desk. Fortunately I was able to scrounge some up somewhere...exactly 4 screws too that fit. And so finally I was able to assemble my desk the way I wanted, even put the new Acer blazing fast laptop in. With the monitor it made for a pretty professional get-up, that I had to put up a picture. I mean I used barely a 32" desk and I'm actually able to work on it. This gonna be my new command center I suppose LOL. After putting this thing together I was not done. I got a text that I got a delivery from UPS and so I hauled Johnnie to the package room. I knew what came. It was for him anyway. It was his plastic desk and chair set. And of course he was so excited about it. And excited to help me put it together. No screws needed for this one. It's plastic so all you do is put the legs in the holes and VOILA! No more using the chairs for his desk. He gets a real desk to work on now. He was SO excited. I was tired after all this of course but one more thing I needed to finish. I was so busy all day that I barely had 7000 steps under my belt when it got dark. I'm used to finishing 11,000 by 9 PM. I stuck Johnnie with his Octonauts and basically walked my way to almost 2 miles just in that small area in my bedroom to the bathroom. And I did manage to finish 11,000 steps by 9 PM! Impressive that I got all of this done today that's what I think. How the heck did it get so busy??
I think that when it is just me and Johnnie, and things are under my control there is considerably less drama. You may even call it boring and I am perfectly ok with thatI simply call it predictable. You can even say that I bend over backwards to make sure it is that way. Look at the pic I posted of him at online Kindergarten class. Everything was tested and ready to go. He had his breakfast all done by 8:30 AM and that was with us taking a shower this morning because I let him go to bed last night without taking one. I figured there was too much activity and drama from the day. I just let him play. And so came this morning and I was determined there was going to be no replay of the internet fiasco from yesterday. I even used my own laptop to make sure. And the result was a pretty smooth session with his teacher Ms Wiley and his class. He even got to use his whiteboard this morning and watching the whole thing from nearby was pretty cool to me. This thing will work. And Ms Wiley did just fine herself. Pretty simple actually and I'm confident now that when full on classes start on Monday where they have longer sessions, everything will be fine. Right now they go for about an hour and then they have assignments they have to finish. Today's assignment was to make a video learning the lines to write on...sky, grass, ground. And there was a video to watch and a picture to send. I think it was simply all about instructions. Here is where Johnnie has the advantage that his dad is an IT guy. Nothing he hadn't seen before, nothing he couldn't figure out how to do online. Personally I don't agree with Lisa about limiting Johnnie's online activities. I agree he has to learn how to do physical things. And I do agree he shouldn't be watching straight up videos for hours on end. To me, as long as he is learning stuff then that's perfectly ok. Children learn mostly by example. And that by itself is what I have to watch for. Because in the end it is Lisa and I that is Johnnie's example. THAT is where he learns from.
I pretty much dedicated this morning to Johnnie's class. Locked out any other activity, work included. There will be time for that later on. Besides, it IS Tuesday after all and we have other rituals to hold to. Except that he didn't feel like having a pizza for lunch and so no biking to Whole Foods today. I understand that mom and Johnnie biked for at least 7 miles this weekend all the way to Playa del Rey. When Johnnie puts his mind to something he actually does it. For lunch he wanted chicken from Carl's jr. and I was happy to oblige and get me an Impossible burger of my own with some onion rings. Hey that isn't too bad is it? I had him do more lessons in the afternoon. Lessons I cooked up. 2-digit addition and subtraction. Want to keep his skills sharp after all. The capitalization exercise. I'm going to make sure he stays ahead of the level of his class. Simply because he can. This is where I see now how parents make a difference. It is where I see how kids can simply be left to the learning pace of their class and peers, or learn faster. Or do both like Lisa and I are doing with Johnnie. And he learns very very fast. What other 5 year old will tell you that "for all actions there is an equal and opposite reaction"? I actually did manage to get some work done in the afternoon, and also pushed myself with steps. Not letting up on that one. And at the end of the day Johnnie declared that we should go to Panda Express and he should take his scooter so he could get dome exercise. Huh. There's an example from Lisa for you. Why would he think he needs exercise?? Still I was all too happy to oblige since he hadn't ridden his scooter in a while. Used to be he loved riding that thing. But that was in June. Soon as he learned to bike, that went by the wayside and so I was happy he was riding it again, even if just for today. He actually has more speed on that thing actually but he gets tired faster. Still going to Panda Express and back was pretty easy by now and dad and son had a nice dinner while watching Octonauts and Sac Actun, his new favorite movie. I didn't have him do any more lessons. We actually did a little reading tonight. See? everything is about balance. And today, everything was about Johnnie. It was sort of me catching up and to make sure he feels everything is working as it should. And for me to feel the same. We're all good today. Everything was as it should.
After a fairly quiet weekend, I guess it would be too much to ask to think this would continue all through this week. But maybe just through today perhaps? It turned out that THAT was too much to ask. I titled today's post what I did because today's version of Monday version went sideways in a hurry. And that's because Lisa was involved. And that's because I almost "willed" it to be so. At least once a week she still does stuff that manages to irritate me and I acknowledge that THAT is me allowing myself to be irritated. That is ME allowing a negative part of me to get pushed out. Last week it was not letting me know she had gone biking with Johnnie making me wait at her house for a half hour. Today, it was about Johnnie's Zoom meeting. I even called much earlier than the start time and volunteered to come over to make sure everything turned out ok. Lisa thought she would be ok... until disaster struck. Zoom went down. It affected everyone. Including us at QueensCare and I even called ahead to Lisa that she would be experiencing problems. But it was like telling someone a tornado is coming and then watching them get swept away by it. And that's because for all her strengths, Lisa is not really computer savvy, not really technologically competent and she gets real impatient about it too. And so with Zoom being spotty and with a new computer to work with and the fact that she positioned Johnnie at a place where I would find out later would be the weakest internet reach in the entire house, the result was frustration for her, frustration for Johnnie and frustration for me. I mean I take these things personally because hey, I'm the MASTER IT guy. This is NOT supposed to happen in my own backyard. But there is also little I can do when I am not in control. And so Lisa was left with doing the best she could and I told her I'd come by after my morning meetings...
I wonder if these down times is simply me trying to make myself feel that important? LOL. No one wants to be THAT needed. Not only did Zoom go down, but now I'm getting a call from Nikki that Lisa's email subscription had lapsed and they're not getting emails anymore. I'm sure it's the GoDaddy DNS subscription but it's been more than a couple of years since I had last checked it and I'm not even sure where to get the account number. One problem at a time though and first things first was to check on Lisa's internet. It turned out that the corner where Johnnie was WAS really slow compared to the rest of the house and I recommended to Lisa that she not work there. Hey I can only make recommendations right? I even restarted her internet. For her part, she did fix me lunch although I had already wolfed down a turkey sandwich on my way there. Here I am working from home and I hadn't been this busy on a Monday even BEFORE Covid. At least the internet thing was now under control and we move on to the next activity. Johnnie's swimming lesson was at 2 PM and I rushed back home because Stacy was already there and waiting. Wow. It's 2 PM already? I took my computer, a bag of chips and just laid out on one of the lounge chairs to work while Johnnie did his lesson. And today he did really REALLY well. I worked on Lisa's email issues <Seems like tody was all about Lisa's computer issues>. I looked up to see Johnnie actually dunk his head in the water and kick and windmill his arms and propel himself in the water a few feet. HEY.. he's SWIMMING! And not complaining about it. And not crying. And actually keeping on trying! YES. What a totally worth it spend. By the time I walked back to my apartment it was already 3:30 PM. I had just about enough time to answer emails and do my in-home aerobics class before I have to head over to pick up Johnnie again. I got to 8500 steps before I stopped. I did the equivalent of 2 1/2 miles in less than an hour. Sort of a jog such as it were. And feeling healthy, I made myself a shrimp noodle stir-fry dinner (see pic) after I picked up Johnnie. I did a review on Johnnie's website to make sure he had actually done all of his exercises that were due today and I was pleased to find that Lisa actually did try to get caught up after the Zoom fiasco. That is all I hoped for. And as for Johnnie? He was perfectly fine when I picked him up that he was back to eating chicken McNuggets for dinner and watching his beloved Octonauts. It was back to the familiar after a hair-on-fire like start of the day for him and for me. I even relaxed enough to watch the Lakers totally blow out the Blazers in Game 4 of their Round 1 series. THAT is the familiar. And something we Laker fans have not experienced in almost a decade. Gonna be fun being emotionally invested in the NBA playoffs again. And i was glad that the day turned out just fine in the end.
Greg made the comment at golf today that a long fairway drive I hit on the last hole was the best shot he had seen me make on this course (Altadena). Fair praise considering we had been playing here for a couple of years now. The shot went 200+ yards down the fairway and landed 100 yards from the green on the longest hole. Actually, I hit a similar shot a couple of holes previously on the long Hole 5 as well. And that earned me a par on that shot. In fact, the pic I posted is one of my landing my 4th shot on the green and within 10 feet from the hole. I would sink that putt for my par, the first hole I won today. And though I wax positively about those 2 fairway shots, it was really an up and down kind of day for me and I only ended up winning 2 holes at the end of it all. I did manage to have some nice shots, but not enough... particularly in the middle holes 5 and 6. Oh well... at least I got to enjoy the day, heat and all. It was so humid today I was soaked in sweat at the end of the 9 holes. The big question was: did I get a chance to apply all the knowledge and distinctions from the last few weeks? Clearly not, at least not consistently. When I hit the good shots, it was because I managed to slow myself down and got relaxed. When I get myself speeded up due to frustration or simply because I lacked sufficient focus was when I hit bad shots. I still need to learn to put the bad shots aside and recover quicker mentally. AND most notably, I am not making my putts. Still. All in all though it wasn't like I had a bad game, just still in progress and I have to remind myself that incremental progress is fine. And at least I have developed some confidence in my irons on the fairway. Hole 8 in fact was a missed par putt, but the first 2 shots were really good. An iron off the tee landing me 10 yards from the green and then a nice chip from there landing me 10 feet from the hole. Didn't make that 10-foot putt but still I remember the hole for how nicely I played it. And I'm not forgetting I had a par on the longest hole too. So like I said, an ok day that could have been better. Gotta keep working at it LOL.
I went home from golf and had it in my mind that I wasn't going to eat fast food for lunch today. No IN-N-Out, no BK, no Carl's Jr. Instead I went to Ralphs and picked myself up some nice tri-tip, which just happened to be on sale. And immediately fired up the barbecue at my apartment. Good thing I got there when i did, because I barely beat 2 couples using the barbecue as well. And so it was that those are my feet resting on the fountain while I was waiting for my steak to get done in the grill. And then I feasted on said steak for lunch. Much better than IN-N-Out right? Today, it was. And then I closed my eyes and let myself chill for about a half hour with my full stomach and all. I was pretty much done for the day. No need to exercise any more, by noon I had already gotten to 78000 steps for the week. No need to get too obsessive. Besides, walking around in the heat of Altadena gave me over 100 active minutes and about an hour of cardio minutes for the day already. I'm fine just chilling on my couch for the rest of the day. Which is really what happened actually. I know how good I am at just lazily letting an afternoon go by. And in between watching the Dodger game (another Dodger blowout), the Mavs upsetting the Clippers (I HOPE they win the series outright so the Clips don't meet the Lakers later on), some internal meditative sounds, and catching up on this journal, when I looked up it was 5 PM already! W-h-a-t? I simply told myself it was ok not to have to do anything, which meant it was ok not to have done anything at all! LOL. For once I don't have any pending things I need to do, not urgently anyway and really all I needed to think about was what to eat for dinner and finish my laundry. The dinner part was easy since I had already gone to Ralphs earlier. I made fettuccini bolognese. I had memories of me making Lisa and I spaghetti bolognese a lot of Sundays in her tiny studio apartment at Lindbrook before we moved to the penthouse. And just like the afternoon, before I knew it I was already drowsily nodding off on the couch. The weekend had come and gone. And that was ok. Turned out to be an uneventful summer weekend. Like everything in this time of the pandemic, the weekend was different but very much the same.
So this being a Lisa work Saturday I'm over her house at 7 AM, after having just been here seemingly a few hours ago LOL. I brought my dirty comforter with me, as I didn't want to wash it in my smallish washer. Lisa's huge washer would work just fine and I called in a favor so I could do it there. Today she reminded me the mission for me was to get Johnnie his own chromebook at Target so he didn't have to use Lisa's computer. It was my idea really and I actually spent some time last night looking for one online. The problem was that this being the start of school for ALL kids, inventory is kind of low everywhere. I wanted to get a smaller touchscreen chromebook and they were simply not in stock anywhere. The next thing was to see WHAT chromebooks are actually in stock. I saw some at Target, but not the Target we usually go to. The one that had stock was the one on Jefferson in Culver City which was fortunate that it was still near my apartment. And so the second I got done with the wash cycle, and put my comforter in the dryer, off Johnnie and I went to Elysee for breakfast. It was another scorcher out there but since we got there fairly early, we had a table in the shade and we got our usual scrambled eggs and sausage and Johnnie's fresh squeezed orange juice. We ran into another patron that used to come every Saturday and it just feels good to be around the familiar, particularly during these times, which is why Johnnie and I continue to come here. And so from there it was on to the game plan of getting him a chromebook. Somewhere. Not at Target Westwood. The girl in the electronics department didn't even bother checking inventory. We did have to buy the book Goodnight Moon that Johnnie seemed to be fixated on to get for his mom. We used to read that book to him dozens of times when he was a baby. And now, apparently it is nowhere to be found. And so he wanted to get it once he saw it on the shelf. Ok then. We did manage to find THE last chromebook in stock at Target Culver City on Jefferson. And after that it was back to Lisa's house so I could pick up my comforter and so I could set up the chromebook so all Lisa has to do is to power it up. All that done, it was mission accomplished and finally we could go back to my apartment. By this time it was already lunchtime. And so I just picked up some McNuggets for Johnnie and a chicken sandwich for me and we were good to go for the afternoon. It was hot out there to be sure and I had no intentions of being outside any more than I had to. Besides I wanted to maximize the afternoon with Johnnie because Lisa already told me her plans this evening. She was having Courtney and Michael come over to spend the night and intended to get done with notes early... earlier than usual anyway. That was just fine with me as I still get to have pretty much the whole day with Johnnie. Of course I had to let him watch his Octonauts. I mean I was pretty hard on him last Thursday and I want him to learn the difference between school week and weekend. Johnnie went all the way to the end of the day until he asked me if we could bike to Panda Express to pick up dinner since it had cooled off considerably by 5 PM. How could I turn that down? So excited was he and so distracted was I that we forgot his bike helmet. And I did not discover that until we were already a mile from the apartment. And so we just kept on going but now with me in a much more heightened "protect" mode. No way I was going to let anything happen to him. It was like I was his personal barricade making sure I was between him and any vehicle and/or person on the way. And we managed to get there and back unscathed. And he happily ate his dinner and I even rushed him so I could hand him back to Lisa by 6 PM. Mark was already there when we got there. Courtney was... being Courtney and who knows when she would actually get anywhere?! Anyway my time with Johnnie was done, he was in play mode with Mike and so off I went home. It was still hot out but I did some steps around Walgrove Elementary just so I could get to 10,000 for the day. I actually made it all the way to 11,000. And then I spent Saturday evening watching the Lakers win, watching the Dodgers win. A very nice double double sports night. And I put on a clean comforter over my bed for the first time in months! And I even took a shower to clean up the stickiness of the day. Turned out to be a pretty good Saturday.
So all the Compliance and contracts stuff? Done. Tech Council Meeting? Done. Johnnie's meet-and-greet with his teachers? Check. First day online? Done. Figure out how to navigate his school portal. Check. By golly I think I got done all I wanted to do this week! And I got paid today! Woo-hoo! Could it be? I have nothing left to do today? Could I be in line for a tank day? YEAH! But wait. Not so fast. I promised Lisa I'd be at her house first thing today to help her with Johnnie's 9 AM Zoom session with his class. I did not want to take the chance that she would have any technical difficulties and so I volunteered to help. And so Lisa made me breakfast in fact and even mentioned that it was nice to have me in house this morning. She made eggs and croissant and made me hot tea. She burned the croissant but who's checking? I certainly didn't care, I just appreciated the effort. And after I sort of helped her start the Zoom meeting, I just took a step back and let mom and son do the Zoom class so she could get used to it. Remember I had been doing these Zoom classes from March when Johnnie's TK class started to do it. And Johnnie is used to it too. Just that now he will have to do it every day. Look at him in the pic kicking back. What I cared about was that he was engaged, that he raised his hand and participated, and that he did his assignment afterwards, this time with mom. And by 10 AM it was all done and I went on back to my apartment to tank the rest of the day. I tried to draw a balance between being on the web and surfing all day, and doing internal stuff... and still keep myself on track for finding ways to help others online. Kind of hard to do when most of my focus is doing QueensCare stuff. Which is why I'm trying to figure out how to get myself funded fully so I don't have to do any more QueensCare stuff and figure out how to do other stuff. I think the lesson here is to figure out how to do that WHILE doing my regular job right? OK then... I ended up eating a pretty heavy lunch, which meant that I would get to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Which, by itself, WAS the main symbol of tanking the day since I would have never been able to do that if I were working in the office. I would have been in the movie theater watching something. Hard to tell which is better. Still I must admit, it's easy to tank the afternoon and then by 4 PM, switch myself back to life by doing my own aerobics class right in my living room. Easy to get from 3000 steps to 8000 steps just like that.
Usually Friday nights are spent making decisions about what to cook myself to eat, whether to cook or to get something and then what to watch. Tonight there would be no such options. Lisa called and asked if I could watch Johnnie while she played the piano. I do remember telling her to think of me as the number one option when she feels like doing that and being that I had nothing else to do anyway, I agreed to come and have dinner with them too. Wow. That would be TWO meals in one day with Lisa and Johnnie. Can't remember the last time I did that. I got to Lisa's house around 6:15 PM. Mommy and son were in the shower. I guess they had gone out biking late and Lisa made a stop at some clothing store that was designing new work gear for her office staff. Which was why Johnnie was already in his pajamas in the picture. Lisa hadn't started cooking yet. I ended up being her sous chef in the kitchen. I can't tell you how reluctant I am to do that because I really have no idea how she cooks anymore, and I have my own ideas about what to cook and how to cook it. But I figured, she's doing fish and veggies and rice pilaf so how could it go wrong? As it was I let her take the lead and then just asked for directions along the way. You want to put onions where? I also made my own suggestions along the way... We should just make spinach, onions, and tomato as a side dish... And then of course you know Lisa would find some imperfection she could latch on to, which is why I didn't like working next to her in the kitchen. This time it was the rice pilaf. The noodles didn't get browned enough. Oh well. And Johnnie's noodles actually took the longest to cook. But despite all of that, we managed to make dinner and it managed to turn out pretty good actually. How can you mess up just cooking swai in a pan? Again, the fact that we had 2 meals together today was the outlier I thought. And so when we got done with dinner, of course Lisa would leave me with all these pots and pans that she used for me to wash. Hey I'm here to watch Johnnie while she played the piano right? Fortunately, Johnnie is kind of used to this and I just left him with his building blocks while I did the dishes. And then when he got bored, which was coincidentally the same time as me getting done with said dishes, he and i sort of did our thing, playing around, him wrestling with Knuckle Sandwich. Look at the pic I posted. I can never have enough of these pictures for later on in life. I did dutifully got him to clean up his toys and then we went upstairs and I brushed his teeth. It was 9 PM already after all. And I had to be back right here first thing in the morning because it is a Lisa work day tomorrow. I tried to get him to sleep while I read him something, but it's just not the same as it is when he is with me in my apartment. Of course he wanted to wait until mommy got done. By 9:15, she pronounced herself done with piano and ready for bed herself. And so I headed home. She mentioned how strange it felt considering I was practically with them today and then I'm back tomorrow. But it is what it is. And I accept that. NOW I could go home and watch stuff on TV. Not for too long though. I have to be up early in the morning...
So last year I don't know who was more nervous on Johnnie's first day of TK at Mar Vista Elementary, which was almost exactly a year ago. Actually I do know the answer to that question. It was ME. Johnnie did not have a good first couple of days if I remember and was simply trying to get acclimated. No such problems this year because for the first day of Kinder, it's all online. And he's here at my apartment with me. But that doesn't mean I was any less nervous than last year. I wanted everything to be perfect at least technologically. It was like this the first time I had my Tech Council meeting online 6 months ago. And now, it's like second nature. Like the last month of TK when everyone was on Zoom then too, all I wanted was for Johnnie to be engaged and paying attention. He has developed a penchant for being fidgety with a short attention span. But then again aren't all kids that way? All I know is I needed to make sure he was listening to the teacher Ms. Wiley and the difficult part is that they are all navigating through the tech stuff together, just like we did at QueensCare in March. They will be ok in time and things will work out I'm sure of it. It has to. Just like with QueensCare. The school plan was actually to slowly acclimate and to ramp up for the next week. Which means all he had to do today was to log on, know the basic commands and be familiar with online etiquette. You know, raise your hands before you speak, don't unmute yourself. And for me it was about getting used to the school portal which will have ALL of his online materials and activities. This could work... I mean it's like me at work with TEAMS and Outlook and stuff and even more directed. The thing I didn't know how it would work out was the interaction with the other kids. There were maybe 6 kids from his TK class in this class and so he knew some of the kids. But not the majority of them and I wonder how that will work out? We will all have to see...
I was actually on Johnnie's case for the good part of the school day. I needed him to understand that the routine has now changed. And I'm afraid I didn't do a good job explaining that. And so he sort of didn't pay attention to his class. Which irritated me. And so I found all the videos they played in the Zoom class and made him listen to them over and over again for the next hour. Finally I reminded myself to watch MY state. It's actually not his fault, it was mine. I didn't prepare him enough for the first day of online school. And now I have to catch him up mentally and emotionally. And myself as well. Fortunately, despite multiple bouts of me yelling at him to pay attention and to stop playing games [yeah right, like that would work after I spent months playing nothing but games...], and throwing whatever little bouts of activity that I could at him, he managed to take it like a sport. See him doing PE activity stuff? And he still did ask for Panda Express for dinner. And tonight surprise surprise, Lisa called a full hour earlier than expected to pick him up. She figured that the first week of class probably has me on overdrive. And it did. So much so, a blip in my resting heartrate from 69 to 71 after almost 3 weeks at 69 happened because of the first day of school, NOT from anything at work. And if I were in the office, today was the day after Tech Council Meeting and the HIT Meeting which meant I was tanking after lunch. I probably would be wandering around 7th and Fig too. But not today. I did do the HIT Roundtable and I did manage to highlight some of my own work... the Approval Center had a few people pretty impressed. But there would be none of that TANK stuff, not with Johnnie in the house. I happily handed him over at 7 PM and updated Lisa on what had to be done for class tomorrow. I'm coming over to make sure Zoom is prepped and ready to roll and they have no problems. And then I finished off my 11,000 steps. Another Thursday night. But it wasn't was it? At least the work week is almost over...
Funny the things that pop into one's head. I woke up this morning thinking that 4 years ago we moved from Lindbrook in Westwood to the Maplewood house. I never did make it to 2 years in that house. I've already been at my Sawtelle apartment more than 2 years. And along with those thoughts was also feelings of gratitude and contentment. The latter feeling because I had gotten all that work done yesterday. And so I wasn't actually pressing this morning in the least. I just was sort of cruising until it was time for my Tech Council Meeting at 1:30. And then immediately after that I gotta change Johnnie to his picture day outfit and head on over to Mar Vista Elementary. I did the El Pollo Loco/McDonald's chicken McNuggets (for Johnnie) combination for lunch and then I was all good to go. As it turned out, there were really only 2 things I wanted to cover at the Tech Council Meeting. There was the IS Internet Survey and the HR Quality of remote work survey. And then the intranet redesign that I was struggling to frame such that it was an I.S. project. I had to figure out a way to not show my disbelief in the design I was trying to present. This was Barbara's idea and Eloisa already told me I had to present it like "this is what we're doing". So if I were presenting it that way, why do I have to present it at all? I mean, there were so many holes in the design and there were so many questions that we were far from settling anything in this meeting. I really just wanted to let people know this was happening and the to-do was that we need to clarify the design further. Gee ya think? Fortunately we only had 15 minutes to talk about it. That's because we took 45 minutes to talk about the surveys. Really all I wanted to present was that maybe we had 1/3 of the people working remotely might need an upgrade on their internet connections at home but since we're already giving people stipends all we can do is let their supervisors/directors know. Still it was probably one of the few times we talked about anything that long. We could have spent the entire meeting talking about the surveys. But I had a hard stop at 2:30 and so another pretty good Tech Council Meeting under my belt...
On we went to meet Johnnie's new teacher Ms Wiley at Mar Vista Elementary and to pick up Johnnie's bag of materials. The whole thing: meet Ms Wiley, take a picture for the school, pick up Johnnie's bag of stuff took all of 10 minutes. And we were back home by 3 PM. I did get the info on the orientation stuff. Yep, we did have stuff to do so they know we read everything. Hey we had to log on at least. Johnnie and I had to watch the orientation about all the stuff in the bag. Boy, I would have been overwhelmed without that orientation. Johnnie was pretty bored throughout the orientation. I'm sure I'm going to need to help him realize he's actually needing to do school work starting tomorrow. They have him checking in every day at 9 AM. To think he's just going to flip a switch from his play all day, watch videos all throughout the day to work mode is too much to ask I think. But it was me that got him used to vacation mode in the first place and so it will be me that will have to get him in back-to-school mode too. I kept telling him this would be the last day of vacation and that starting tomorrow we're going to need to get to work. Kind of like the way I got to work today. I don't think that has sunk in at all with him. And why would it? He's still stuck on the Octonauts. I have a feeling it's going to end up being a lesson in patience for me. Anyway I watched those orientation videos and then I started to get bored. So much so I was sort of fast-forwarding those videos. Digital citizenship? check. Familiarize with the new portal? check. I couldn't wait to get done myself. And by the time it was time to get out to Westwood to get dinner at Panda Express, Johnnie and I were back to routine. After all, it's only Wednesday and I've gotten the 3 things done that I wanted to get done for the week already. I can breathe out some already. And that's good because I can focus on Johnnie's first time on Zoom tomorrow morning. Still I gave Johnnie the choice of not showering tonight. It WAS his last day of vacation it felt like. Might as well let him enjoy it. And so it's only mid-week but it felt like the week's work is done. Now I can gear down to cruise control.
I told myself I'm going to get my butt to work today. No more procrastination. No more excuses. Even though I had Johnnie with me and technically it's his first day of school. Or at least it's the first day they have released material on line for him (and me) to read or watch. Sort of an orientation such as it were. Real learning doesn't start until the 31st which is a good thing because I really wasn't ready to get started today. You can't just flip the switch and so I was glad to have Johnnie do his summer Tuesday routine just one more time. Which means we're getting breakfast at McDonald's, I'm doing my team meeting at 9 AM, Johnnie is watching his Blippi videos and then NumberBlocks. At least they're educational, even though Johnnie has watched them a dozen times by now. Just look at the pic of him engrossed. Took it while I was on the phone with my team LOL. Anyway the outcome I wanted today was to get my Tech Council done for the meeting tomorrow. And at least I didn't have to pull something out of my ass like I had done many times before. I actually do have a coherent plan of what to talk about and present tomorrow. It was just that it would still take the bulk of the day to get all the material together. Today it was like I put my head down and worked on my work for once. I did get up all the time to check on Johnnie watching his videos. And I tried to give him work to do. And really the morning went by like a flash. Before long it was already lunch time and I was going back to my old routine of biking/scootering to Whole Foods so Johnnie can get a pizza and I could get some protein to eat. That protein turned out to be some barbecued tri-tip. Probably from yesterday. I didn't care. It looked pretty good. Especially when you have a nice salad with it. Imagine me, pairing that meat with a salad. But there it was. So proud of myself I was I even took a picture. After lunch I got Johnnie to keep watching Weldon Woods videos of online books. A whole hour's worth. It would have been nice to take a nap after such a nice lunch. But I didn't have any time. I went back to work and worked and worked. And so it was that by the end of the afternoon, I was already mostly done. And I had gotten started on all those Compliance policies too that I wanted to get done last week but kept putting off and putting off. And yesterday, Emma had already pinged me. I wasn't going to wait too much longer. After all, the Tech Council Meeting and the Compliance policies were 2 of the 3 things I wanted to get done this week so that I could feel good about it. It felt like going out to get dinner was just a little break, just like the pic of Johnnie stopping for water in the middle of our bike ride. Couldn't blame him. We're now in the middle of a full blown heat wave here in So Cal, and we hadn't had one all summer long. Well it's in the 90s today and it felt hotter than that actually when you go outside after being inside of an air-conditioned apartment. And we weren't going to bike to Panda Express to get dinner either. And so we had dinner and back to work I went. What I didn't do today was look at any of the required reading and video stuff from Johnnie's teacher. Hey I already spent time setting up his userID and access stuff. I figured I'll just ask his teacher when I meet her tomorrow. That would be the 3rd thing I wanted to accomplish this week. Get through Johnnie's first week of kindergarten. By early evening, I was done with my presentation... well except for maybe one slide that I was still thinking about but i was pretty much done. And after Johnnie's shower and an attempt at going to bed early, I found that I just couldn't. I went back on my computer and finished the Compliance policies. I touched about a dozen of them. No wonder I was procrastinating. But I finished. And I didn't have to stress about anything tomorrow morning. Today turned out to be one of those put-my-head-down-and-get-my-ass-to-work kind of Tuesdays. And I felt bad that I pretty much left Johnnie all day. But it worked out. He didn't actually complain. And it felt pretty good when the day was all said and done.
How I allow myself to get sucked into Lisa's go-go-go frenetic lifestyle even now when we're divorced is beyond me. It is Monday and I get Johnnie later on tonight, but there's also Tech Council I need to put a presentation together for starting today. And then of course all that due stuff from Compliance about my policies and my contracts. And then I got a text yesterday that Lisa had arranged for Johnnie to have swimming lessons in my pool at 2:30 today. Can't knock her for that one because it was I that suggested it. And knowing Lisa and Johnnie were coming later on in the afternoon, I made sure that I had gotten in at least 5000 steps by lunchtime. I never know if I would have an opportunity later. Better to make sure. And so even compresses the day even further. The 10:30 meeting was pretty much a non-event and I spent the whole hour+ working on invoice approvals and such. And I started to formulate what I wanted to talk about on Wednesday. All about the survey really and it's funny that I pulled that one out of my ass just a week ago! The one thing that I did different today was that I went for a brisk walk early. As in before I even took my shower. As I said I wanted to get my steps in early. And so by the time I did get cleaned up from the weekend I felt like I accomplished something already and the walk actually did energize me. After the 10:30 meeting I put on another aerobics video so I could do even more steps and so I hadn't even eaten lunch yet and I was already at 40 active minutes and 30 cardio minutes. It felt pretty good too, so much so I was thinking i should be doing this more often. Of course reality dictates that I can't really do that when I get Johnnie for the next 3 days. But hey, it was a good thought. It would have been nice to take a nap too right after lunch but it was not to be. Lisa was already on the phone by 1:00 PM and she was reminding me again that they were going to be over in an hour or so. I did have a meeting scheduled but it was not a must-do meeting and I was happy to blow it off.
And so the highlight of the day with all the stuff going on was Johnnie's swimming lesson with Stacy at my pool. It's not like I hang out at my own pool either. So going there would be the first time in a while and brought me back to 2 years ago this time when Sylvia and Quentin would hang out here pretty much all day while I was at work. And first we had to deal with Johnnie drama. He has this fear of the water that both Lisa and I are determined to stamp out. He has GOT to learn how to swim. And so I posted the pic of him above complaining about not wanting to go in. He was crying about it. He was crying so much it almost breaks your heart. But Lisa and I both know he was just being overly dramatic and this was scheduled so he was going into the pool one way or another. As it turned out, I posted a gif of Johnnie actually doing a back stroke. It turned out just fine and Stacy is a very good teacher. She has lots of experience teaching kids Johnnie's age and this was actually perfect. By the end of the hour, Johnnie was pushing off the edge of the pool and actually getting his head under the water. It was much more than I was already expecting. As in I'm pretty sure he'll be swimming by himself after a couple of more lessons. That is AWESOME! Lisa and I ended up staying the whole time and then she and Johnnie took off for home while I went back to working. It would have been great to go pick Johnnie up at 5:30 without issue and go on to Johnnie week. After all, it IS his first day of school this week. But even while I didn't get to Lisa's until almost 6 PM, there was no one at her house and the bikes were gone. So it wasn't hard to figure out what they were doing. I tried to call her but her phone rang right there in the kitchen where she had apparently forgotten it. Sigh. Always something isn't it? I waited around until it was 6:20 and I even drove around the neighborhood to look for them. Finally they got back and I'm going to pat myself on the back for not blowing up at all. I showed irritation but that was it. Lisa knew she messed up because she forgot to tell me and even she said she didn't know how to apologize more. She and Johnnie had gone out with Claudia from her office and her niece. I was glad Johnnie got to have even more fun. And I was just thinking about how Lisa is still on go-go-go mode and filling her schedule even after Johnnie had already had his swimming lesson. Anyway, at least Johnnie had had his dinner already by the time we went to my apartment and I was actually surprised he didn't just plop off to sleep. He watched videos while I continued to work. I was determined to get all my stuff done by tomorrow. I was on my computer until 1 AM actually. Johnnie went to bed at his normal time. By the time I went to bed i felt like I accomplished a lot. It was a busy day today and it's going to get even busier. But hey, I'm ready. I'm good to go.
I was set for golf this morning. Another opportunity to practice my internal game. I had a template for doing this from last week. And all that meant was to work on letting go of the program that I whiff on balls a lot. And putting in the program that I hit balls well. This week I focused on the fairway simply because that is the place I usually whiff. And I reminded myself not to install new malware BEFORE and DURING the hole I'm playing. I simply need to practice re-setting every single shot and let the shot come to me. I even identified an NLP procedure to do what I'm trying to do. It's called the Magic Frame. Today it was me, Chris and Scott and remembering last week's fiasco with the uncancelled reservation we were happy simply to get out to the tee on time. Today we were joined by this one Indonesian guy who we had played with before and I remembered him because he annoyed me then. He talked too much. Great. A test right away playing with someone who annoys me. Sigh. As it turned out, my visualization and clearing exercises worked... on the very first hole. I shot a par right out of the gate and then I had to sabotage it all by saying OK I can go home now since I already shot my par and tied for a hole win. That statement alone is part of the program I need to get rid of, that I'm satisfied playing like crap the rest of the way. Which was to say I shot a 7 on hole 2, and then 6s for the next 5 holes! I did have at least one great shot on each hole though. Great tee shot and follow-up on Hole 4 leaving me right in front of the green. Took 4 shots from there, not even 50 yards in. Nice fairway iron to get on the green in 3 on Hole 5, only to 3-putt my way to another 6. Finally on hole 7 I shot a bogey 4. And on Hole 8, I shot a 5... which was actually a 6 because I hit 2nd shot OB. But my drive was nice on that hole and another fairway beauty went 130 yards and straight. On the last hole, I got on off the tee shot. And ended my day with a par. I tied to win the last 2 holes. I won 3 as usual. Gotta work on that program boy, gotta work on that program.
We thought it was going to be really hot today. Turned out it was, but not so bad. At least in the shade you could feel the breeze. But hey I was just thinking that we hadn't had a hot spell all summer long. Guess that changed starting yesterday. And so while we slogged through the golf game, it actually didn't get hot until after. Then again I had no plans to do anything outside anymore, not after golf anyway. I was thinking that I had better stay home and work on all that IS policy and contract stuff I had procrastinated on all week last week. That was my intention anyway, but it was not a strong intention. I found all kinds of distractions anyway. Made myself some nice fish for lunch since Lisa didn't want to take that barramundi from Whole Foods. Did some trimming on that crisp new haircut I gave myself yesterday. And just lay on the couch really with my nice A/C on. And actually a nice, shiny, new toy came in. That would be the Acer Swift laptop I had ordered for myself to replace that crap HP Stream I thought I was going to get to use. Hey this was an octo-core laptop and it had plenty of juice. The desk mount for this and a monitor also came. But I was too lazy to assemble it today. I had only enough distraction tolerance for the laptop. And so with that i just let the rest of my Sunday ease on by thinking to myself that next is sure to be busy what with the TEch Council Meeting and Johnnie's first day of school falling sometime in the middle of the week. Might as well kick back today...
Johnnie called first thing asking when I was coming over to join he and his mom for breakfast. I was actually expecting it. After all, I knew Lisa was scheduled for piano lessons late in the morning and needed me to keep an eye on Johnnie until at least mid-afternoon. And I was glad to do it too since I didn't actually see Johnnie yesterday. I went over and Lisa actually had breakfast ready. I was thinking it was probably some sort of peace offering on her part, particularly since me looking after Johnnie actually was primarily for her benefit. Then again it was probably just Lisa feeling like making breakfast more than anything. Anyway Johnnie got to have breakfast with his mommy and daddy and then I did the dishes and then off we went to my apartment. The first thing we needed to do was to clean up. And by that I meant US. Johnnie smelled like he didn't shower last night (which he didn't) and of course I never did get around to taking a shower yesterday myself either. And so not only did I brush our teeth, and not only did I shave, but we also took a mid-morning shower as it turned out. Felt like we were getting ready for bed. And then having cleaned up, Johnnie wanted to watch Winnie-the-Pooh on TV. I wonder why? Usually we'd be up and about doing grocery shopping but not this morning. Lisa didn't actually need anything from the grocery store. But we actually did get such a late start that Johnnie got to watch no more than a couple of episodes before it was time to get us some lunch. I was planning on making me one of those turkey wraps since I had all this leftover turkey deli slices left. But I still had to get some Panda Express for Johnnie. And it actually turned into a nice day out, not too hot, pretty pleasant. If I were more motivated I would have gotten Johnnie to bike there. But I was still in lazy mode from yesterday. As for Johnnie, he was perfectly happy half-watching his Octonauts, and half drawing whatever he sees and feels like putting down on paper. He's actually getting more and more sophisticated with his drawing and I look forward to him getting some actual instruction from his kindergarten teachers. In the meantime, I tried to take a nap and I actually did manage to get to alpha I think for about 20 minutes. At least I know I was still somewhat awake because I was aware of Johnnie. I did not imagine him getting bored and finally waking me up and doing his usual roughhouse stuff with me. I was happy to drop him off at Lisa's by 2:30. But actually she had called me first. She practiced piano for a couple of hours and decided she wanted to do some shopping for the afternoon and asked if I could watch Johnnie for just a little bit longer. Turned out she wanted to go shopping for a wetsuit. She would later on tell me that she had gotten quite a few offers of friends offering to teach her how to surf. I will admit to feeling a tinge of a jealous pang. But then I just shrugged it off like you would some weird insect that distracts you. Why can't she experience male company and have a little fun? As long as it doesn't get in the way of my relationship with Johnnie, what do I care? As a matter of fact, wasn't Thursday a very pointed reminder that there are parts of her that I really REALLY don't like. And that is saying it mildly. And so I just mentally wished her luck, I gave my son a hug and a kiss, and off I went for the rest of my Saturday. I mentioned earlier that it had turned out to be a pretty nice day. And being that I detected some of that yuk energy just minutes before I left Lisa's house, I shifted myself back to enjoying-the-moment mode. I took a walk around Lisa's neighborhood, around Walgrove Elementary to be more specific, mask and all (see picture). I decided this neighborhood also has its merits though I like my own now too. You're closer to the ocean for one, and so on pleasant days such as today, you could almost feel the ocean breeze. I didn't exactly have to walk too far or work out too hard today. That's because I hit all the week's benchmarks almost by Thursday night in fact. By the end of last night I had already logged in 320+ active minutes, 220+ cardio minutes, and almost 58,000 steps. The active minutes were already enough work for the week. But I decided to go past 10,000 steps tonight anyway. That and make myself some beef stew. Even baked my own biscuits. Like I said, my enjoy-the-moment mode. The question was... did I? How can I not when I spent the day with my Little Bug? And got to do my own chores (laundry, clean up) at the same time? And survived diarrhea probably caused by the turkey wrap? Was the turkey bad? I got to walk around the Maplewood neighborhood so yes I got to enjoy a nice day out. I am sufficiently recharged... for golf tomorrow!
I think that when it is just me and Johnnie, and things are under my control there is considerably less drama. You may even call it boring and I am perfectly ok with thatI simply call it predictable. You can even say that I bend over backwards to make sure it is that way. Look at the pic I posted of him at online Kindergarten class. Everything was tested and ready to go. He had his breakfast all done by 8:30 AM and that was with us taking a shower this morning because I let him go to bed last night without taking one. I figured there was too much activity and drama from the day. I just let him play. And so came this morning and I was determined there was going to be no replay of the internet fiasco from yesterday. I even used my own laptop to make sure. And the result was a pretty smooth session with his teacher Ms Wiley and his class. He even got to use his whiteboard this morning and watching the whole thing from nearby was pretty cool to me. This thing will work. And Ms Wiley did just fine herself. Pretty simple actually and I'm confident now that when full on classes start on Monday where they have longer sessions, everything will be fine. Right now they go for about an hour and then they have assignments they have to finish. Today's assignment was to make a video learning the lines to write on...sky, grass, ground. And there was a video to watch and a picture to send. I think it was simply all about instructions. Here is where Johnnie has the advantage that his dad is an IT guy. Nothing he hadn't seen before, nothing he couldn't figure out how to do online. Personally I don't agree with Lisa about limiting Johnnie's online activities. I agree he has to learn how to do physical things. And I do agree he shouldn't be watching straight up videos for hours on end. To me, as long as he is learning stuff then that's perfectly ok. Children learn mostly by example. And that by itself is what I have to watch for. Because in the end it is Lisa and I that is Johnnie's example. THAT is where he learns from.
Greg made the comment at golf today that a long fairway drive I hit on the last hole was the best shot he had seen me make on this course (Altadena). Fair praise considering we had been playing here for a couple of years now. The shot went 200+ yards down the fairway and landed 100 yards from the green on the longest hole. Actually, I hit a similar shot a couple of holes previously on the long Hole 5 as well. And that earned me a par on that shot. In fact, the pic I posted is one of my landing my 4th shot on the green and within 10 feet from the hole. I would sink that putt for my par, the first hole I won today. And though I wax positively about those 2 fairway shots, it was really an up and down kind of day for me and I only ended up winning 2 holes at the end of it all. I did manage to have some nice shots, but not enough... particularly in the middle holes 5 and 6. Oh well... at least I got to enjoy the day, heat and all. It was so humid today I was soaked in sweat at the end of the 9 holes. The big question was: did I get a chance to apply all the knowledge and distinctions from the last few weeks? Clearly not, at least not consistently. When I hit the good shots, it was because I managed to slow myself down and got relaxed. When I get myself speeded up due to frustration or simply because I lacked sufficient focus was when I hit bad shots. I still need to learn to put the bad shots aside and recover quicker mentally. AND most notably, I am not making my putts. Still. All in all though it wasn't like I had a bad game, just still in progress and I have to remind myself that incremental progress is fine. And at least I have developed some confidence in my irons on the fairway. Hole 8 in fact was a missed par putt, but the first 2 shots were really good. An iron off the tee landing me 10 yards from the green and then a nice chip from there landing me 10 feet from the hole. Didn't make that 10-foot putt but still I remember the hole for how nicely I played it. And I'm not forgetting I had a par on the longest hole too. So like I said, an ok day that could have been better. Gotta keep working at it LOL.
So this being a Lisa work Saturday I'm over her house at 7 AM, after having just been here seemingly a few hours ago LOL. I brought my dirty comforter with me, as I didn't want to wash it in my smallish washer. Lisa's huge washer would work just fine and I called in a favor so I could do it there. Today she reminded me the mission for me was to get Johnnie his own chromebook at Target so he didn't have to use Lisa's computer. It was my idea really and I actually spent some time last night looking for one online. The problem was that this being the start of school for ALL kids, inventory is kind of low everywhere. I wanted to get a smaller touchscreen chromebook and they were simply not in stock anywhere. The next thing was to see WHAT chromebooks are actually in stock. I saw some at Target, but not the Target we usually go to. The one that had stock was the one on Jefferson in Culver City which was fortunate that it was still near my apartment. And so the second I got done with the wash cycle, and put my comforter in the dryer, off Johnnie and I went to Elysee for breakfast. It was another scorcher out there but since we got there fairly early, we had a table in the shade and we got our usual scrambled eggs and sausage and Johnnie's fresh squeezed orange juice. We ran into another patron that used to come every Saturday and it just feels good to be around the familiar, particularly during these times, which is why Johnnie and I continue to come here. And so from there it was on to the game plan of getting him a chromebook. Somewhere. Not at Target Westwood. The girl in the electronics department didn't even bother checking inventory. We did have to buy the book Goodnight Moon that Johnnie seemed to be fixated on to get for his mom. We used to read that book to him dozens of times when he was a baby. And now, apparently it is nowhere to be found. And so he wanted to get it once he saw it on the shelf. Ok then. We did manage to find THE last chromebook in stock at Target Culver City on Jefferson. And after that it was back to Lisa's house so I could pick up my comforter and so I could set up the chromebook so all Lisa has to do is to power it up. All that done, it was mission accomplished and finally we could go back to my apartment. By this time it was already lunchtime. And so I just picked up some McNuggets for Johnnie and a chicken sandwich for me and we were good to go for the afternoon. It was hot out there to be sure and I had no intentions of being outside any more than I had to. Besides I wanted to maximize the afternoon with Johnnie because Lisa already told me her plans this evening. She was having Courtney and Michael come over to spend the night and intended to get done with notes early... earlier than usual anyway. That was just fine with me as I still get to have pretty much the whole day with Johnnie. Of course I had to let him watch his Octonauts. I mean I was pretty hard on him last Thursday and I want him to learn the difference between school week and weekend. Johnnie went all the way to the end of the day until he asked me if we could bike to Panda Express to pick up dinner since it had cooled off considerably by 5 PM. How could I turn that down? So excited was he and so distracted was I that we forgot his bike helmet. And I did not discover that until we were already a mile from the apartment. And so we just kept on going but now with me in a much more heightened "protect" mode. No way I was going to let anything happen to him. It was like I was his personal barricade making sure I was between him and any vehicle and/or person on the way. And we managed to get there and back unscathed. And he happily ate his dinner and I even rushed him so I could hand him back to Lisa by 6 PM. Mark was already there when we got there. Courtney was... being Courtney and who knows when she would actually get anywhere?! Anyway my time with Johnnie was done, he was in play mode with Mike and so off I went home. It was still hot out but I did some steps around Walgrove Elementary just so I could get to 10,000 for the day. I actually made it all the way to 11,000. And then I spent Saturday evening watching the Lakers win, watching the Dodgers win. A very nice double double sports night. And I put on a clean comforter over my bed for the first time in months! And I even took a shower to clean up the stickiness of the day. Turned out to be a pretty good Saturday.
I was set for golf this morning. Another opportunity to practice my internal game. I had a template for doing this from last week. And all that meant was to work on letting go of the program that I whiff on balls a lot. And putting in the program that I hit balls well. This week I focused on the fairway simply because that is the place I usually whiff. And I reminded myself not to install new malware BEFORE and DURING the hole I'm playing. I simply need to practice re-setting every single shot and let the shot come to me. I even identified an NLP procedure to do what I'm trying to do. It's called the Magic Frame. Today it was me, Chris and Scott and remembering last week's fiasco with the uncancelled reservation we were happy simply to get out to the tee on time. Today we were joined by this one Indonesian guy who we had played with before and I remembered him because he annoyed me then. He talked too much. Great. A test right away playing with someone who annoys me. Sigh. As it turned out, my visualization and clearing exercises worked... on the very first hole. I shot a par right out of the gate and then I had to sabotage it all by saying OK I can go home now since I already shot my par and tied for a hole win. That statement alone is part of the program I need to get rid of, that I'm satisfied playing like crap the rest of the way. Which was to say I shot a 7 on hole 2, and then 6s for the next 5 holes! I did have at least one great shot on each hole though. Great tee shot and follow-up on Hole 4 leaving me right in front of the green. Took 4 shots from there, not even 50 yards in. Nice fairway iron to get on the green in 3 on Hole 5, only to 3-putt my way to another 6. Finally on hole 7 I shot a bogey 4. And on Hole 8, I shot a 5... which was actually a 6 because I hit 2nd shot OB. But my drive was nice on that hole and another fairway beauty went 130 yards and straight. On the last hole, I got on off the tee shot. And ended my day with a par. I tied to win the last 2 holes. I won 3 as usual. Gotta work on that program boy, gotta work on that program.