Last day of August

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...