Back To Work

So in this new Work From Home world, it is strange that getting up the morning after a long 3-day holiday weekend still feels like drudgery LOL even though you're not going to drive to work. Today it's actually Johnnie's first day back to school too and so he and I are getting up, we're taking a shower, and we're heading to McDonald's as if Mar Vista was still open. I actually had a nice, restful sleep last night: 7+ hours worth according to my Fitbit and I felt really good. By 9 AM, dad and son were in front of their computers for our respective activities, Johnnie with his Zoom class <Library> and Dad with his Zoom meeting with his IS Team. The new normal such as it were. It did not let up for dad from there. Right after the IS Meeting was the hand-off meeting with Emma, the Director of Compliance. Seemed to me we had this meeting already but the other way around less than 2 years ago. It was me handing off Data Analytics to her then, now she's handing it back. Ahh QueensCare. James is apparently still being James and still hard to get along with. Lam is apparently disgruntled because he isn't being given a raise. Sigh. Sounds like Justin back in the day. And from there it didn't stop either. I had to eke out a lunch for Johnnie with a gnutella sandwich right before his 12:10 class and then made him spaghetti for right afterwards since he was still hungry. All the while I was right back in a Zoom meeting at 1 PM for our HR Benefits orientation. That one took a while. 2 hours worth. I jumped in and out of the meeting so I could fix Johnnie food, and myself too. First a salad and then Johnnie's spaghetti with the leftover taco meat over Prego sauce. That's how busy it was. And it still wasn't done after that...

I still had to do the Back-to-school Zoom meeting with the other Room 25 parents, other known as the pitch for the voluntary giving thing for Mar Vista. I'm ok with it of course, especially since it has been framed as the source of money for the Art Teacher, the Room 25 assistant, etc. This is what differentiates this school... that it can raise half a million dollars just for the parents so they can augment resources. And that is a very good thing. I'm ok to give... after all I have already saved quite a bit by simply not sending Johnnie to STAR. Today I actually ramped it up for him, focusing on writing exercises. And I even did so based on the stuff Ms Wiley talked about in the Zoom call. Anyway the Zoom call was done in under 45 minutes and then finally finally finally the busy day was done! It was already close to 5 PM by then though so nothing left to do but head on out to Panda Express to pick up dinner for Johnnie and I. And after dinner, I still had some work to do. QueensCare work. Bills to pay etc. And to catch up on my steps and active minutes LOL. For his part, Johnnie played independently. I took a peek after a half hour stretch and saw him building his dinosaur/octonaut hybrid empire with his dino toys. Pretty creative I thought using the stool as the octonaut base. All this more than likely an extension of this afternoon when he discovered BOTH dinosaur books AND Octonaut books in the library he's supposed to be doing reading (EPIC). He got to level 9 by today in a real hurry. As for me, by 6 PM I was thinking about Lakers Houston Game 3. Battle for the series lead. Been a decade since the Lakers have even been this far in the playoffs.  And like before I avoided it because it made me too nervous. A good thing too... although they did end up pulling it out in the 4th quarter. Playoff Rondo made an appearance and controlled the game. Lakers up 2-1. I'm able to go to bed early tonight. It turned out to be a long day and for once I was tired...