A Slow Moving Friday

This being Friday and a day removed from Johnnie going back to Lisa's, of course I tried to sleep in. This despite my Outlook calendar beeping as early as 7 AM to remind me of Day 2 of the CCALAC HIT conference I was supposed to attend. That I had no intention of attending LOL. HEy I attended yesterday didn't I? Still I dutifully put the meeting on and then left it on. Hey at least I can have some excuse that I was doing something work-related right? As it was I got a really late start and I didn't even put my Earl Grey tea on until it was past 9 AM already. And to tell you the truth, I even got as far as doing my Nitrous Oxide Dump exercises while still in my pajamas. Then and only then did I take a shower, after I'd had breakfast and it was already 10 AM. Hey it's Friday right? ANd then this being a Friday, of course I had to watch the latest episode of the Mandalorian didn't I? It got so exciting last week with the appearance of Boba-fet, and the week before that with the appearance of Jedi Ahsoka Tano. This week's episode was spent trying to find the coordinates of Mof Gideon's ship which had abducted Grogu, Baby Yoda. And had a lot of rock-'em sock 'em kind of action. I mean that would be 2 weeks in a row, the Mandalor warriors took out a battalion and in this episode an entire army of pirates. And you thought they were the bad guys... Anyway you could sense it is building up to such an exciting season conclusion! By the time I was done watching it, the rest of the day seemed anti-climactic. And it wasn't even lunch time yet LOL. Actually I knew I had stuff to plan for. After all I put myself on the hook for doing the holiday lunch for Lisa's staff tomorrow. I mean I don't do a bad meal, not since the first time I tried this and it was such a disaster. They're going to get a nice holiday lunch tomorrow.  

$36,477 In the meantime, today was payday and I had a double paycheck period in fact because I cashed out 80 hours of vacation that I wasn't going to use. It got my checking account to over $36K! Boy am I feeling tremendous gratitude for THAT! In this time when the majority of Americans are not doing so well because of the economics of the pandemic, I am immune from that and believe me I am grateful. Even more so is that my account balance ensures that I can pretty much not worry about money for an entire year should something happen to my job. THAT is financial security.  

Finally I spent Friday night actually catching up on steps because I wasn't even at 1000 steps yet by 2 PM. That and shopping for the stuff I'm going to prepare for the holiday meal tomorrow. I could pretty much get everything from Trader Joe's, except for the ham itself which was on sale for cheap at Ralphs. I mean the thing was a buck a pound. And so I did not complain at all that the smallest ham was 9 lbs. I mean I'm not going to quibble over $9. I also bought myself a nice top sirloin steak for $5. That was on sale too. And had myself a pretty fine dinner as it turned out. As far as after dinner, it was a night of chopping carrots, and onions, and celery, and peeling sweet potato, and apples, and reading up on how to prepare a good ham. It does feel like the Thanksgiving lunch I prepared not even a month ago, but there's less pressure. That's because we didn't really have anything in the way of holiday traditions at Lisa's except of course for her annual holiday party, which I won't be a part of anymore. And that's ok. I still have memories of the very last one I attended in DTLA and how miserable I was waiting for Lisa to call it a night. Maybe I should have just stopped going with her to all these social things she lives for but I used to hate going to. Boy I have to forgive and forget and clear these things don't I? Perhaps, doing the lunch will help do that. I tried to go to bed early knowing full well I was supposed to pick up Johnnie at Lisa's tomorrow at 7 AM. But I didn't. I ended up watching Picard episodes. I'm in a sci-fi kind of mood you know. It's ok. I'll catch up on sleep tomorrow...