A Johnnie Friday Without Johnnie
I thought I would have a relatively easy day today. Friday of a short week, I only have one task to do on my schedule and that would be concluded before lunchtime. It figured to be an easy day. Except... I was in the shower starting my day when I get a call. I looked at the clock and it was 8:45. I knew it had to be Lisa. And I knew it had to be about the Zoom call to start Johnnie's classes today. I am starting to dread these calls from her although honestly they are not entirely unexpected. i KNOW she isn't used to these Zoom calls just yet. Hey it took the QueensCare team about a couple of weeks. Johnnie and I already have had 8 sessions under our belts. This is her 3rd and she hasn't actually been on Zoom for Johnnie in almost 10 days. And so I tried to walk her through getting started and reminded myself to be as calm as possible, reminded myself it is MY frustration that needs to be kept in check. With good reason. When I can't see her screen and what she's saying she sees does not match what I think she should be seeing, its hard to explain to her and it is ME that gets frustrated. Today I decided not to feel helpless while she was fumbling around whatever it was she was fumbling around. I decided to simply drive over to her house and make sure she has Johnnie logged in to his first class. Hey, they're only 6 minutes away and it's 5 minutes before 9 AM. I rushed down there. And when I came in, Lisa had already successfully logged Johnnie in after all. She simply wasn't sure what a successful login looked like is all. I didn't need to come down after all. Of course if i hadn't I'm sure she would have encountered even more problems. As it was I hung around until he went from his first class and on to his second. And I was out of there by 9:30 with Lisa asking if I was available to watch Johnnie tonight while she played piano. Of course I was. And then I went on home to have breakfast and to do my 10:30 meeting. That would be the meeting with AT&T to finally once and for all take care of that $147,000 bill they slapped on QueensCare that I'm trying to talk down. I actually worked out some credits and by the end of the phone call, it was down to $52K. Still a large number. But much more fair in my opinion. After all I did let the contract lapse. That's on me. THe lapse simply wasn't worth a penalty of over $100K is all. And so with an agreement in place I was done for the day...
I tried to take a nap in the afternoon. That's because I stayed up late watching Netflix last night. And Lakers post-game of course. They have a chance to clinch the series tomorrow. But that's not until tomorrow. I'll savor the win today. I did take a short nap. About 10 minutes worth and that was good enough to charge me for the rest of the afternoon. Good enough so I could do my aerobics steps mid-afternoon and get to my exercise goals. The last couple of weeks, I had already done 280 active minutes (that's an average of 40 active minutes a day for a week), and more than 210 cardio minutes (that's an average of 30 cardio minutes), and all that done in 5 days. Which means I don't have to work out so hard over the weekend. And I had been doing that by Friday for the last few weeks. And I did it again today. Which meant that by the time Lisa called me at 5 PM to ask if I was coming over for dinner so she could play piano after, I was already all done with my minimum exercise baselines. And I happily agreed to come. So me coming over on a Friday is pretty rare. But I also appreciated that I get to see Johnnie again on a day I wasn't supposed to. And so I get to experience my son's laughing, smiling face tonight. Just look at him mugging for my camera phone. The picture I posted of him trying to tickle me under my chin is something I will treasure forever and something I consider to be an M&M memory. A Magic Moment such as it were. As for dinner, Lisa prepped some veggies to grill, had hotdogs ready for Johnnie and salmon ready to grill for us. As far as preparing the meal, she definitely does not do things the way I do and to focus on that would only bring disharmony to this post. The bottom line is that you need to just let her take control to do things the way she does in her own house. And if you do that, then you get to enjoy the time. And tonight at dinner, I did that and I did enjoy the time and I did enjoy the dinner. And then of course I ended up washing the dishes. And when Lisa closed the door in the piano room and started practicing, I simply started playing with Johnnie. We didn't play exactly per se. I just got him to start coloring the cardboard dog house that is now Fuzzy's house. I had purposely allowed him to put it up without finishing it BECAUSE I knew he would end up eventually doing it when we had nothing better to do. And that would be tonight actually, and he actually embraced the activity. So much so it was the only activity that we did for the next hour and a half. At least until Lisa was done. And we got to really just finish the roof. And so it was that I got to spend quality time with Johnnie and Lisa got to practice for her lesson tomorrow with Vatche. It was a win win. AND it was only barely 8:30 PM when I went home. Still plenty of time to watch Friday night Netflix although I needed to be right back at Lisa's house in the morning before breakfast to pick up Johnnie. I now pick up Johnnie on Lisa piano practice mornings too. Awesome. More quality time with my Little Bug! And finally some decompression time for me. That's what Fridays are for right?
I thought I would have a relatively easy day today. Friday of a short week, I only have one task to do on my schedule and that would be concluded before lunchtime. It figured to be an easy day. Except... I was in the shower starting my day when I get a call. I looked at the clock and it was 8:45. I knew it had to be Lisa. And I knew it had to be about the Zoom call to start Johnnie's classes today. I am starting to dread these calls from her although honestly they are not entirely unexpected. i KNOW she isn't used to these Zoom calls just yet. Hey it took the QueensCare team about a couple of weeks. Johnnie and I already have had 8 sessions under our belts. This is her 3rd and she hasn't actually been on Zoom for Johnnie in almost 10 days. And so I tried to walk her through getting started and reminded myself to be as calm as possible, reminded myself it is MY frustration that needs to be kept in check. With good reason. When I can't see her screen and what she's saying she sees does not match what I think she should be seeing, its hard to explain to her and it is ME that gets frustrated. Today I decided not to feel helpless while she was fumbling around whatever it was she was fumbling around. I decided to simply drive over to her house and make sure she has Johnnie logged in to his first class. Hey, they're only 6 minutes away and it's 5 minutes before 9 AM. I rushed down there. And when I came in, Lisa had already successfully logged Johnnie in after all. She simply wasn't sure what a successful login looked like is all. I didn't need to come down after all. Of course if i hadn't I'm sure she would have encountered even more problems. As it was I hung around until he went from his first class and on to his second. And I was out of there by 9:30 with Lisa asking if I was available to watch Johnnie tonight while she played piano. Of course I was. And then I went on home to have breakfast and to do my 10:30 meeting. That would be the meeting with AT&T to finally once and for all take care of that $147,000 bill they slapped on QueensCare that I'm trying to talk down. I actually worked out some credits and by the end of the phone call, it was down to $52K. Still a large number. But much more fair in my opinion. After all I did let the contract lapse. That's on me. THe lapse simply wasn't worth a penalty of over $100K is all. And so with an agreement in place I was done for the day...
I tried to take a nap in the afternoon. That's because I stayed up late watching Netflix last night. And Lakers post-game of course. They have a chance to clinch the series tomorrow. But that's not until tomorrow. I'll savor the win today. I did take a short nap. About 10 minutes worth and that was good enough to charge me for the rest of the afternoon. Good enough so I could do my aerobics steps mid-afternoon and get to my exercise goals. The last couple of weeks, I had already done 280 active minutes (that's an average of 40 active minutes a day for a week), and more than 210 cardio minutes (that's an average of 30 cardio minutes), and all that done in 5 days. Which means I don't have to work out so hard over the weekend. And I had been doing that by Friday for the last few weeks. And I did it again today. Which meant that by the time Lisa called me at 5 PM to ask if I was coming over for dinner so she could play piano after, I was already all done with my minimum exercise baselines. And I happily agreed to come. So me coming over on a Friday is pretty rare. But I also appreciated that I get to see Johnnie again on a day I wasn't supposed to. And so I get to experience my son's laughing, smiling face tonight. Just look at him mugging for my camera phone. The picture I posted of him trying to tickle me under my chin is something I will treasure forever and something I consider to be an M&M memory. A Magic Moment such as it were. As for dinner, Lisa prepped some veggies to grill, had hotdogs ready for Johnnie and salmon ready to grill for us. As far as preparing the meal, she definitely does not do things the way I do and to focus on that would only bring disharmony to this post. The bottom line is that you need to just let her take control to do things the way she does in her own house. And if you do that, then you get to enjoy the time. And tonight at dinner, I did that and I did enjoy the time and I did enjoy the dinner. And then of course I ended up washing the dishes. And when Lisa closed the door in the piano room and started practicing, I simply started playing with Johnnie. We didn't play exactly per se. I just got him to start coloring the cardboard dog house that is now Fuzzy's house. I had purposely allowed him to put it up without finishing it BECAUSE I knew he would end up eventually doing it when we had nothing better to do. And that would be tonight actually, and he actually embraced the activity. So much so it was the only activity that we did for the next hour and a half. At least until Lisa was done. And we got to really just finish the roof. And so it was that I got to spend quality time with Johnnie and Lisa got to practice for her lesson tomorrow with Vatche. It was a win win. AND it was only barely 8:30 PM when I went home. Still plenty of time to watch Friday night Netflix although I needed to be right back at Lisa's house in the morning before breakfast to pick up Johnnie. I now pick up Johnnie on Lisa piano practice mornings too. Awesome. More quality time with my Little Bug! And finally some decompression time for me. That's what Fridays are for right?
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