A Spontaneous Gift Exchange on Christmas Eve

So today is Christmas Eve and I took the day off officially, even though I still spent time with emails and work stuff. I'm supposed to hand off Johnnie by lunchtime today apparently because Lisa made plans to go biking with Balwan. Still plenty of time for Johnnie and I to do Thursday morning normal, which is to say shower, McDonald's breakfast, and then Johnnie still wanted to do more drawing presents for his mom. Especially after I told him it was going to be a short day with me today. I got as far as making him mac-and-cheese for lunch and I promised Lisa he'd eat it at her house. And she even invited me to stay for lunch. That's because one look out the window and it was drizzling a little outside, which basically takes out Lisa's plans to go biking. Not that it mattered to me, since all I had to do was drop Johnnie off and that would be that for the day. Still I ended up hanging around and helped Lisa make lunch. Our lunch. We ended up having some nice steak stir fry.

And so I did hang out with mom and son for Christmas Eve and it wasn't just lunch either. Lisa was talking about how she needed to purchase another tea kettle since she burned out her existing one. And quite spontaneously, I suggested we go get out. Right then. Right after lunch. And so again quite spontaneously we found ourselves at ACE Hardware since Lisa saw an ad there. Never mind that I had deja vu feelings here. This used to be the OSH hardware I frequented. Who can forget when we bought plexiglass here for the Lindbrook apartment in preparation for a Johnnie?!! And here we are looking for a teapot. Funny thing was that I found one... for me. A single serving tea pot with a filter for loose-leaf type tea. Lisa happily purchased it for me for my Christmas present. And when we went to Bed Bath and Beyond, I purchased HER teapot for her. Funny... an impromptu gift exchange right then and there. And then since mom and son wanted to take out his new Razor scooter he just got for Christmas, they went off to Stoner Park. And I did shopping at Trader Joe's so I could be sure I had food for tomorrow since stores might be closed on Christmas Day.  I not only got grocery shopping done, I also walked back to her car, which got me all the steps I needed and then some. And then some came when I picked up Lisa and Johnnie and they wanted to go around the block some more. And so me did make an M&M with Johnnie riding his brand new scooter in an empty tennis court at Stoner Park. Who knew this would turn out to be a pleasant Christmas Eve with Lisa and Johnnie. And we got to go shopping to boot. Lisa's fave activities. 

Mom and son actually got pre-occupied with one of his presents that he opened early, which was the dinosaur egg creator kit. They had to get duded up for that one since it involved fine sand. That's when I left to go home. I was coming back for Christmas breakfast tomorrow morning anyway. And so Christmas Eve dinner was leftover ground pork and bok choy from last night. Not exactly the sumptous meal I'd be having if I spent tonight with people. But I'll take it. It was merely a wind down from a pretty good day I had had already. I reminded myself that being by myself at any time is a choice. And the choice had always been mine. It was funny to hear Joah call Lisa to tell her when to come tomorrow. Even funnier that I didn't say anything the whole time until we all thought everyone had hung up and Joah stayed on the line to ask Lisa who the guy in the house was... "uh, just Johnnie's dad". I blurted out. I was with my family after all.

All About Johnnie

So it is Tuesday of a short work week and other than my team meeting, which would be the only one I am doing for this week,  I didn't have anything scheduled for work. That doesn't mean I didn't have anything to do mind you. I realized though that any feelings of un-ease around work centered around James and Data Analytics as there were at least 3 things he was supposed to be responsible for yet here he is taking the day off sick today. Which meant there was nothing i could do about pushing things forward. Still people that needed their reports were bugging me about them which is why I was also feeling some irritation. I had to tell myself that things were still under control and the fact that James wasn't here today only heightened a sense of lack-of-control. My feeling of un-ease was a control issue? Seems to be the case isn't it. And so the lesson today was to find a way to put all those negative feelings on the shelf and find a way to better deal with things positively. Fortunately for me I did have one thing that commanded far more attention and that I considered far more important. That was finding something to do for Johnnie ALL DAY today since he had no school. From the moment he woke up this morning he was already in GO mode and he even announced he wanted to draw stuff after breakfast. And so I did my team meeting, let him watch some animal stuff on YouTube and then got him to doodle something with watercolors. The good thing about Johnnie is that you can always get him to do some artwork. And you can always get him to draw dinosaurs. And you can always get him to do stuff under the guise of making his mom something for a present. While I did try to do work - and after all I had at least a dozen purchasing invoices I needed to catalog and approve - before long he had at least half a dozen things he had drawn. He was eagerly showing them to me of course. He was trying to tell me what each drawing was. And then I had the most BRILLIANT idea. "Johnnie, I asked him, why don't you write down a sentence about each drawing?" After all, you want mommy to know what each drawing is about don't you? HOMERUN! And so he spent another hour writing something. He had to ask me how to spell stuff but hey that part was easy. The astounding thing I realized was after the end of the activity, he had written himself a dinosaur book! I mean how amazingly cool was that?! He had a cover and an END page and everything. I mean it wasn't like I told him to write a book or anything. It just sort of worked out that way.   

And then later on after lunch I had another A-HA event that sort of just unfolded organically. We were taking an activity break or a video break. I started to watch something Christmassy and I chose the video "Closing of the Year" from the movie Toys by Wendy and Lisa. I was thinking how this was a bit of a ritual listening to this song and watching this video and it brought me back to a time when I was listening to it when I was still living at Maplewood. It was then that it hit me that we hadn't taught Johnnie any Christmas songs. I mean I know we're not at all religious but at least we have to teach Johnnie some holiday rituals right? Like the Christmas tree he helped his mom put up? And so i decided that I was going to teach him a Christmas carol today and we were going to sing it together and we were going to post the video of it in FB. THAT is sort of my way of getting into the holiday spirit right? I chose Silent Night. I figured it would be nice and short and mellow. And I had Johnnie write the words even. And then we sang it and sang it. The video I posted is us practicing it. The final version I posted on Facebook actually turned out very well. Ok, so maybe Johnnie is way out of pitch. He hasn't really learned how to sing. More like yell really. But he tried. And his facial expressions were totally priceless. As we were heading home from picking up his Panda Express dinner, he actually broke out into the song and knew all the words. See? Mission accomplished. One Christmas carol taught. All good.  With these 2 activities alone that Johnnie got to do with me, it was already a day I won't forget. In these times that doesn't feel like Christmas, we made it feel like Christmas. Way to go dad.

Golf Friday and the Vietnamese Dinner

Last year I remember playing golf with Scott the Friday after Thanksgiving at Penmar. This year we were a little more intentional than a last second text. I made a reservation at Eaton Canyon and the regular foursome all agreed to play which was pretty cool and considering only 2 of us are playing on Sunday, this works out. The morning started out really cold. To the point where I was double layered when I first got to the golf course. But after just one hole, both layers came off. I was simply trying to play much better than the last time we played here 2 weeks ago when all 3 of us Scott, Greg, and I really butchered our first 3 holes.  After my first 2 shots I already played better than the last time. Too bad I missed the putt for a bogey. But the 6 still ended up winning the hole! Ok good... I'm already on the board after 1 hole. It turned out that was a good thing because I would not win another hole until Hole 8. Not that I didn't have any chances either. The goal was simple: slow down my swing, cancel the negative thoughts and negative programming, visualize good shots. Easier said than done though because I simply could not get it done all morning long. I was either too distracted or more accurately, too easily distracted. Even some good-natured yapping with the golfers right behind us did not help and did not put me in a more relaxed state. I did hit some good shots... but not good enough when Chris is swinging well. And with a resurgent Greg hitting even better shots. Even my signature Hole 5 swing went into the sand trap at pin level. I got on to the green after that, but missed a hole-tying putt. Yet again. As I did on Hole 3. And then I started whiffing badly on Hole 6 and Hole 7 and even Hole 8. It was like I was already flustered and out of it and I couldn't back into it mentally. Sigh. Oh well... at least it turned out to be a nice day out on Black Friday. And I still did manage to get out and play. The thing was we got done so quickly I was home by 11:30. If this were a Sunday I'd be getting out and getting a nice meal somewhere. But since it IS a Friday I figured I'd get an IMpossible Whopper and a couple of tacos for lunch and then finish off the mid-day with a nap. Especially since I didn't really have a good sleep last night. Hey it's still a day off and nothing could be better than that really.

Lisa had called by mid-afternoon asking me to come over to watch Johnnie. Since mom and son didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving weekend, that was to be expected actually. I was happy to take her up on it so I could spend QT with my Little Bug. I even had a novel idea for dinner when she mentioned she didn't have any food in her fridge. Why not eat takeout? And why not eat Vietnamese food I volunteered? I remembered Blossom had opened right next to Crimson and I had never eaten there although it used to be the go-to Vietnamese place in DTLA even from the USC Stevens days.  So I was glad when Lisa agreed. I even brought up the Grubhub menu for her to choose what she wanted. She picked pho of course and I was very happy to choose the old favorite of rice noodles with meat egg rolls, shrimp, and lemongrass beef. That dish brought me back to memories of that nondescript Vietnamese restaurant we frequented when Lisa still lived downtown. Those were the early days of our relationship. Pretty good days too that I fondly remember. Even Lisa remembered eating Vietnamese pho the day we hiked Mt Wilson with Courtney. Yep, it is a nice anchor all around. And to top it all off, even Johnnie enjoyed the rice noodles. All we should have done was order extra rice noodles for him and he would have been just fine. Needless to say I enjoyed this meal much more than the regular fish fare we usually do. And the food alone made it already a memorable dinner. And after dinner, Lisa went on to playing piano, I went on to washing whatever few dishes there were (the beauty of ordering takeout) and then playing with Johnnie. We rough-housed for a bit and then he seemed to tire of that. After Lisa had been playing for at least an hour, Johnnie decided he wanted to play where his mommy was. Oh well then. I left at around 8 PM only because Lisa had planned on playing the piano again tomorrow morning and so I was invited over for breakfast. Hey it IS Saturday after all right?  I went on home, turned on the Mandalorian which was an especially good episode today because it centered on Ahsoka Tano one of the less famous Jedi but no less skilled. Lots of connections to past Star Wars events in this episode. I would have been happy to go on to bed right after that, but nope. One more phone call. A frantic one too. It was Lisa. And Johnnie. They had lost Blue the gecko and he was nowhere to be found.... Sigh. Always some drama isn't there? I don't know what I could have done to help except to stay on the phone and offer emotional support and ideas. I told Lisa to close all the doors since he was likely still in the house. She had found some gecko poop in her bedroom. And then they will have to wait until he turns up. Hopefully Johnnie didn't lose track of it outdoors. We'll have to see what happens...

Finally After 32 long YEARS!

I remember the 1988 World Series. I was at home with my foot up because I had sprained it playing volleyball. I can't believe that was the last time the Dodgers had won a World Series. Yet here we are tonight, with the Dodgers playing for for the title. They had gotten here 3 years ago against those cheating Houston Astros. But in THAT Game 7 Yu Darvish got rocked and that was that. That was painful. They made it again the next year but the Red Sox seemed so much better. Now the MVP of that World Series, Mookie Betts is wearing Dodger Blue. And so far in this Series he had been much better than advertised. It didn't look good at first. Their ace had completely dominated Dodger hitters for 5+ innings. But then in the 6th, inexplicably, their Manager pulled him from the game! Immediately the Dodger bats came to life. Scored 2 runs to take the lead. Added another run the next inning when Betts homered. And so it was that the Dodgers won, winning the series and winning the championship! How sweet it is! After 32 long years, the weight of dodger lore is off their shoulders! What an October this was! First the Lakers won after 10 years and now the Dodgers! The 2 biggest sports franchises in the city. Both got the job done. Both got the championship trophy home. YEAHHHH!!!!!

Watching My State, Teaching Johnnie

Today being Tuesday it was back to Johnnie classroom mode. Too bad I forgot about where his first class was supposed to be, hence we missed it entirely. Fortunately, it was just for Library and getting books read. So I don't think Johnnie was missed. AND we made it to his Social Studies class at 9:30 anyway. But really today was some parts about me. Somehow I got a sense that I was back to reactive mode, which means that I've been giving in to negative thoughts. I got a sense of this because I wanted to explore what it was that was giving me feelings of anxiety in the morning. Some of it was about work to be sure, which was why I did affirmations on providing massive value yesterday. But I think that some of it is also just thoughts trying to fill a vacuum. In other words, with the absence of something positive, the negative sometimes wins out. And so I wanted to be sure to watch my state today and to focus on trying to keep in a high vibration as much as possible. Not very easy considering that half the time when I am in Johnnie class mode, I find myself reacting and basically trying to control what Johnnie does instead of simply letting him learn on his own and in his own time. The child is in kindergarten for God's sake. And he is bright, and engaged, and willing to be curious. Who cares what people think in the here and now. I need to be sure his creativity, his sense of wonderment, his curiosity and his problem-solving skills are cultivated. There is absolutely no need to lose patience, and definitely when he makes mistakes. He simply needs to learn the right way and fix his mistakes. Already he is prone to his mom's tendency for perfection and dramatics. "It's a disaster!" is a common comment coming out of him when he makes mistakes. And I'm sure my disapproving looks can't possibly help.  Which is what made his swimming lesson today all the more important.

So Stacy forgot to bring his goggles with her and right from the get-go this made Johnnie very uncomfortable. He did not want to go underwater and when he brought his head up, he would immediately forcefully try to wipe the water from his face. So much so his face started to turn red from being scratched inside of 5 minutes. And we had to talk to him every single time to not wipe his face. It was clearly bothering him. And so he didn't have a very good lesson at all. It seemed like he reverted back to his old, very fearful self. I think I underestimated his very strong fear of not being able to see underwater. After 45 minutes I had had enough of watching him almost cry every time he did a stroke. And so we stopped today's lesson 5 minutes early but really just so he could get going with his computer class. But I had every intention of coming right back to the pool to fix this. Which was exactly what we did. But first I had to remind myself that i am a loving parent and that I have the best interests of my child and such interests do not include terrorizing him. I need to find a way to make him feel like he is safe. And so after his computer class, we went to the small pool in my building. yep, the small spa. It was only about 3 feet deep. Not deep at all, but deep enough where I could get him to practice being underwater and trying to look around with his eyes open. Besides, the water was warm and so he would not be able to complain about being cold, even though it was almost 90 degrees hot in mid-afternoon. I posted the video of me tossing an object in the pool and making him find it. That's the thing... I needed to make it a game. That's how Johnnie engages and learns. And you know what? After a couple of times I actually got him to feel comfortable doing that. Enough to get him to do the backstroke too and get the motion of pushing off and easing into the water like it was a mattress. After about 20 minutes, we went back to the big pool in the next building. The result? I posted the video above. He did the backstroke fairly effortlessly in the deepest part of the pool, all the way across and without me even being in the water. I'd say we managed to overcome today's uneven lesson. And he didn't have goggle the whole time. I patted myself on the back too. I was patient, I didn't raise my voice once and was a reassuring parent. THAT is how we do it. That is what I will remember about today.

the LAKERS: NBA Champs!

I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't wait until the end of the game until I found out what was happening. I took a peek at halftime. 66-38 was the score. Were the Lakers getting blown out? It turned out they came out with a fury in the 2nd quarter and just annihilated Miami. It was the Lakers that had a 28 point lead at halftime! And so now I could breathe. No one comes from that far down. I checked in after 3 quarters. Still a 30 point lead. I think by then the end was inevitable. And when I started to hear fireworks outside, I knew. The Lakers had won the game, the Lakers had won the NBA title! YEAHHH!! It has been TEN LONG YEARS! But now we are BACK! 

A Deja vu Kind of Saturday

So one would think that since Lisa is working today and I have Johnnie pretty much for the bulk of the day, it would be one of our routine Saturdays right? It should have been... right up until she asked me if Johnnie could have lunch at her office.  Apparently it was Johnnie that had brought that up. And since she actually has a very rare light day today, she asked Johnnie to ask me to go to her office for lunch, and then she actually invited me to come as well. When I got over the surprise, we did agree to go. But for this morning, I kept to routine and went to Elysee for breakfast, to Target for shopping and even made a stop at Ralphs Westwood. Man, going to that Ralphs always brings about a huge deja vu. And we were there only to pick up stuff for Lisa anyway.

So by the time we got back it was already almost time to go to Lisa's office since she starts lunch at 11:30 AM. I had to make a stop at Panda Express to get food for lunch but Nikki actually called me earlier this morning to get my order for Good Burger. I reminded her that if there was any time that I had gotten the most mad on a Saturday in years past it was because my burger order would be missed!!! LOL. 

It was surreal to eat at Lisa's office today. I hadn't done this in YEARS after having done it for 9 years every other Saturday. It was basically just a deja vu experience except with social distancing. And then since I was already there, of course Lisa had to find a way to fill an empty slot on her schedule at 1 PM. That would be me of course and she manufactured a filling that she had treatment planned from a while back. Which is why we have this pic below. Pretty self-explanatory.

And so I got a very unexpected dental procedure done today, after which I just chilled at home the rest of the afternoon. I was supposed to keep Johnnie until 5 PM so Lisa could go home and rest up or play the piano. She was supposed to have Henry and wife over for a barbecue dinner later and so my mission was just to deliver Johnnie. When I got there by 5 PM, Lisa wasn't there yet. And so I took Johnnie to the VANS store on Washington Blvd so I could replace his much-too-tight VANS shoes. This would be his birthday present. When I dropped him off, Henry was already there. And so quite spontaneously, Lisa invited me to stay. Not that she couldn't have done so earlier. I think she was just hesitant that I would turn it down LOL. Since I had nothing better to do, I did stay and I did help Henry and wife barbecue veggies and steak for dinner to make fajitas. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. I had to catch up since I hadn't seen Henry in more than 2 years. Hard to believe we used to see him almost every single weekend. And in the end, since technically this was for Johnnie's birthday, we had to let him blow out a birthday candle for himself LOL.

I went home around 8:45. Gotta get up early for golf tomorrow you know. Except I didn't exactly fall asleep as soon as all that. I had to watch Netflix. It was not a good idea...

Labor Day

I stayed up late last night watching TV and I slept in this morning, not waking up until it was almost 8 AM. Hey it's my day off after all and I totally planned on using this day as my Rest-and-Recharge day. Which simply meant I was perfectly happy to cruise through the day with no plans whatsoever. But of course the Universe had another idea. I got a call first thing from Lisa. I guess she had it in her mind that today was a good day to head out to the beach and go swimming (for her) and it would be nice if I could go with she and Johnnie and watch him. This was totally all about Lisa, but the thought of actually spending just a little time at the beach if only for a couple of hours and before the crowd got there actually sounded pretty good to me! It IS Labor Day after all, the symbolic off-day marking the end of summer. I still have a memory of David Begil and I heading down to Laguna Beach to mark the end of yet another awesome beach summer. That was the 80s though LOL. For me in the here and now, it marks the end of Covid summer. And we simply survived it and although it was a pretty boring summer considering many summers in the past, it wasn't really all that much different from LAST summer for me. Hard to forget about summer just yet considering how stinking hot it had been all weekend. But today, Lisa Johnnie and I had breakfast together and then headed out to Venice, on a direct line from Palms Blvd. This part of Venice is actually pretty nice, although there were tons of people at the skate part and I was definitely concerned with how many of them were not wearing masks. Still, this was the first time I had gone to Venice and touched the water in a really long time, and certainly not with Lisa and Johnnie for a few years now. The last time we went together we were just walking around the bike path at night. But today, it was all about Lisa and off she went donning her wet suit and heading out to the open ocean. She went down 2 lifeguard stations before I lost sight of her and I just hoped she was safe enough out there. She was out for a good half hour before we saw her walking up. In the meantime, I was trying to acclimate Johnnie to the waves and he did not appreciate the waves slapping on his face with such force. Hey I didn't either. But at least we made it out to the water. And Lisa got her swim in for the first time and we were all unanimous that this was a good thing to do today. We headed home before 11 AM, before all the crowds came and then we spent the rest of the morning cleaning up at Lisa's back yard. Johnnie and I in particular had a water hose fight. It was actually nice that this would already be a memorable Labor Day off and it wasn't even lunch time yet. Johnnie still wanted a real shower so mommy and son headed in and I headed home to dry off completely. It had been a pretty good morning.

So we still had Johnnie's swim class to do. Unfortunately, i didn't read the email from the Management company that the pool would be closed today. DRAT. Totally my fault obviously. And I was sorry Stacy drove all the way up only to turn back. At least she and Lisa got to talk about Lisa's swim this morning and possibly doing it together next week. And so afterwards, I got to go home and take a half hour nap. I really needed it since I didn't get lots of sleep last night yet again. When I woke up I didn't do the Monday afternoon aerobics session where I usually load up on my Cardio minutes and my active minutes.  I figured I'm okay doing maintenance marks today, and as it was I still did 12,700 steps today! And 60 active minutes. And 37 cardio minutes. Maintenance marks alright.  By the time I picked up Johnnie at 5:30 I could tell Lisa was ready to hand him off, just like I am ready to hand him off come Thursday night.  This is why joint custody is working. Johnnie has gotten bigger and stronger and his rough housing antics are no longer benign. He's not such a little runt any longer which is a very good thing. By early evening, he's back to eating fettucini in chicken broth and chicken McNuggets, and watching Octonauts. I tried to get myself in the frame of mind of caring about what classes he's in tomorrow. Not quite used to all of them myself. But I'm sure I'll manage. Today I went to bed early. As in I knocked out before 10 PM myself. It had been a pretty eventful Labor Day. And I was glad :)

Best Day of This Week

After yesterday I already started looking forward to the end of the week and the long 3-day weekend. And all that made it feel like today was ALREADY the end of the week. After all, my schedule was clear and I had already pretty much finished all my work for the week. And with all of us working remotely, specifically at QueensCare, showing signs of covid exhaustion, I'm sure I'm not the only one already feeling like tanking it for the rest of the week. How do I know this? I led 2 Zoom meetings this week and not one person objected to me zipping it along so much so that they both got done WELL before they were scheduled to finish. Of course there is really no "TANKING" anything when Johnnie is in the house and it's a schoolday. However, today seemed to be the most interesting day in his schedule by far. First, there was computer class at 9 AM and then MUSIC class right after that. The computer class was interesting to me because the teacher - who Johnnie already worked with last year in TK - spent most of the period teaching everyone how to use Zoom more effectively. I mean I should have taped it because it's something I could use for MY end users. What 5-yr olds can pick up, I could expect my adult users to pick up too couldn't I? Or not?? And so Johnnie did his back-to-back classes and I had back-to-back meetings of my own. First with my IS Team, and then with Lam who just got moved to reporting to me like it was originally when he got hired. We chatted a bit about it, since he's now a MANAGER, it actually makes my job much easier because I don't actually have to deal with James now. That's his job. Nor do I need to be as granular with Data Analytics work. that's his job too. And he is already doing a fine job as it is, at least from where I had been watching. And so just like that it was already time to get Johnnie some food before his last class at 12:10.

I'm not too crazy about the 12:10 class because it cuts into MY lunch and already it feels like I'm having to make sure I have some leftovers to eat just in case I get hungry while Johnnie is in the middle of his class. Today I actually watched his class and they were doing shapes and it was cool to watch Johnnie get his shapes right because this was something I had him playing for more than a year now. And then right after his class, with nothing left on my schedule, I told Johnnie we were heading to the pool. I was met with pretty loud, whining resistance. But which made MY own resolve stronger that we were going to go swimming today. Johnnie was extremely resistant all the way to getting in the water. So much so he had to pee and I had to let him do that on one of the pots of plants in there because I gave the key to Lisa. But something surprising happened. The longer he was in the water, the more I got him to just splash around and kick to go further and further, he got more and more comfortable. And a half hour later, he was actually dunking himself in the water and trying to walk on the bottom. THIS WAS HUGE! All of a sudden he wasn't afraid anymore! And not only did he keep on kicking and swimming to the edge, which was big in that this assures ME he won't drown. Johnnie even wanted to go all along the edge. He was only going a few feet each time, but whatever helps him get confident is always a good thing. He just needs to learn how to breathe while doing swim strokes now, but that's it! He's actually SWIMMING! Trifecta complete! Ride a scooter? check. Ride a bike? check. Learn to swim? CHECK! I was so happy and so was Johnnie actually. He squealed when he realized that he did it himself with no help from me! Considering how scared he was when we left just an hour ago, this was more than huge! Because now we can keep doing it whenever we want as often as we want. After swimming, we weren't done either. The cardboard doghouse I bought from Amazon which I just got a refund for because it didn't come a couple of days ago like it was supposed to, actually got delivered today. And so we had to put it together obviously. The result is the pic I posted. And THEN the rest of the day flew by, Lisa picked up Johnnie around 8 PM and I went to bed tonight feeling that Johnnie and I had a very, very, vERY good day.

Highs and Lows

It must have been a reflection of the work I was doing on my patience yesterday. It was clear today that I still had work to do. This should have been an eezy-peezy Thursday as Thursdays usually are. But not today right from the get-go. We have that meeting tomorrow with the FRB Staff letting them know we're going to keep working remotely through March 2021 and so myself and our very new Director of HR is pretty much doing the talking. She's a bit nervous it seemed putting stuff together. I know everyone already and I could pretty much wing it, but I did have stuff I could present that I already compiled from past Tech Council Meetings. Still with my team meeting at 9 AM and the meeting with the HR Director to talk about our presentation tomorrow, I was pretty much occupied all morning uncharacteristically for a Thursday. And I was still working on stuff as lunchtime came. Which as really the reason I got impatient. And when Johnnie asked if we could bike to Ralphs where we could pick up spaghettios for his lunch (absolutely his idea, probably from a Blippi episode), I thought it was a good idea. I had pretty much left him alone all morning and I thought it would be good for him to get some exercise in and get outside at that. Except that when he fell right out of the gate, right where I almost fell myself, I found myself yelling at him to get up. W-h-a-t? Who is this guy? His little child just fell on his bike and had trouble getting up and he's yelling at him? What asshole does that? Fortunately I snapped myself back to sanity, interrupted my own state and got back to center such that when we got to Ralphs, Johnnie actually seemed to forget about me yelling and was actually more focused that he got there on his bike all on his own. So much so that after e got his spaghettios and I got me some fried chicken, he asked to eat outside my front door at the patio area. Kind of a picnic such as it were. I thought it was really cool actually, us having an outdoor lunch and all. And THEN I spent pretty much most of the afternoon working on my presentation for tomorrow. Feels like a Tech Council week all of a sudden LOL. One thing I do have to conclude: FOCUSING ON WORK MAKES ME IMPATIENT. Which means I need to do better at switching off when I'm done with work as in when I was riding to Ralphs at lunch with Johnnie. [Also why the title of this post is Highs and Lows]. The HIgHs and LoWs theme would continue through the rest of the day.
I did finish my presentation before the afternoon was over, which gave me time to catch up on my aerobic steps. I do those in the bathroom now when Johnnie is around simply because that's all the private space I have left. Johnnie actually did very very well left by himself. So much so that I rewarded him with another bike ride after I got done working on my presentation. It was such a nice day out. Not so hot, nice cooling breeze. And simply being outside and on our riding vehicles (Johnnie on his bike, me on my scooter) was easily the PLAY of the DAY. We biked all the way to Mar Vista Elementary and back. And hearing Johnnie exclaim "I can't believe I made it all the way there and back!" was priceless. Such a HIGH. That said that also brought a low. First I got an email from AT&T about that bill we're still working on. It appears that it's biting me in the ass again. The CTF discount wasn't applied and it appears unlikely to. Which immediately snapped my HIGH mood back to ANNOYED, and definitely LOW. And when Lisa called and we agreed for me to bring him to her office because she had to work late, I told Johnnie. The problem was he wanted to take his bike with him. And when I told him he couldn't he was crying within 5 minutes. Sigh. Definitely a LOW. How could I bring him to Lisa with his mask all wet from his tears?! I at least got him to agree to wait until his mom is ok with him bringing the bike to her house. Fast forward: we went to her office, Lisa got to see Johnnie, Jorge was there and I got to talk to him for a few. We went back to the apartment and when Lisa was ready I brought him to her house... WITH his bike. One last problem... He didn't have Fuzzy. OMG!!! He started to cry again. That's twice in one day! We had no choice. Lisa took Johnnie back to her office where he thought he left it. I went home... to find Fuzzy on my couch!!! LOW..HIGH.  I called Lisa, mom and son came by to pick up Fuzzy. All was good. I went to sleep because I had to be back at Lisa's at 7 AM. What a day...

Lemon 365

Tuesday routine is now pretty much settled. It is usually not a busy day except for my Team Meeting at 9 AM most Tuesday. Today though I also have a meeting with the new HR Director Sheila, who I find out later is also Filipino. And so I was tied up for a bulk of the morning, which was SO excruciating for Johnnie because he was so excited to put together his new robot toy that I got for him. And so we got to it just as soon as my last phone call of the morning ended. It was already 11 AM by then, pretty close to lunchtime and I don't know what I was thinking that I'd get it done in 10 minutes or so. I have pretty good spacial acuity but reading from an instruction manual is one of my worst skills. It's much easier for me to look at what that robot was supposed to look like in the end and figure out how to fasten this and to connect that. Anyway I did get the project started but had to stop by noon because it was lunchtime already. Johnnie and I went to Whole Foods to get him a pizza and for me I ended up having the special which turned out to be a Cubano sandwich. Pretty good too with ham and pork and mozzarella cheese and lots of mayo. See daddy and son enjoying lunch. I got pretty full too. And soon after that I went on to putting that soda pop can robot together. Ok so it took me another hour after lunch but I did manage to finish it. Johnnie was right next to me the whole time being my assistant. Handing me stuff, holding something when I needed help and basically just my general help. Of course he wanted to be involved throughout the whole thing. And when we got done and he popped in the battery and the thing started moving? Well, let's just say he was SOOO HAPPY!  As was I quite frankly. A project he and I did together! Can't beat that. And something he could play with for a while. And it took most of the day. A win is a win is a win. In the meantime, working on that thing pretty much a good deal of the afternoon meant that (a) I was going to miss my nap, particularly because I had to pad up my steps for the day. But more importantly (b) I didn't get to my homework for the day, which was to do forensics on the AT&T invoices so I could at least present our case regarding our old account which had accrued a final bill of over $140K! I mean WTF?! Someone forgot to turn SOMETHING off. And we're meeting about it tomorrow. The bottom line was that I eventually got to putting together a spreadsheet of the story of that account from our side, just that I didn't actually get to it until Johnnie had gotten to sleep tonight. And so that meant at 10 PM I was still working on it. It was tedious and painstakingly boring and I didn't really realize how anal I could get with something like this because the fact is, I actually did get the damn thing done and I think I have a much better idea of what happened. I'll be honest I had forgotten, it was so long ago. This was one of those things I had Justin handle and when he left I simply did not do a good job of following up. So much so the old contract had lapsed. Anyway I finished byt I didn't actually get the email out until well past midnight. Sigh. A late night. Feels  like one of those Tuesdays when I had to cram a Tech Council presentation out of my ass. Anyway, this particular situation with AT&T bothered me. It clearly had something to do with the job I perceive myself to be doing. So much so I had to do some cleaning and clearing and internal work about it. I assured myself all will be well tomorrow. And I assured myself this is no different from the panic reaction and anxiety I feel when I hear from Eloisa or Barbara or anyone I have to report to. Just old insecurity stuff to clean, stuff to clear. 

In between all that Tuesday night was pretty much routine. I did barbecue Italian sausage like I usually would on a Tuesday night and Johnnie was out there playing with his new toy, hereby dubbed Lemon 365. Lemon from the lemon-lime soda and 365 because it was branded 365 by Whole Foods LOL. Lemon 365 it was. And as you can see from the video, Johnnie had a blast with it. He had his penne pasta dinner with Italian sausage and I really didn't feel like cooking anything else so I had his leftover penne with another Italian sausage and called that a dinner. I also found another cartoon series for him to watch other than the Octonauts. This one was called Gigantosaurus. Hey it's dinosaurs right? How can he NOT like it? And so the rest of Tuesday night was quiet and that was a good thing to simply balance the active energy of the day. Johnnie was pretty much out by 9:30 PM. Not me. I still had work to do... In the meantime I do have a timemarker I have to acknowledge today. This day 2 years ago I moved out of the Maplewood house making the separation from Lisa official. It's almost hard to believe I'm starting my 3rd year in this apartment building. But I also know that I like it here very much. And it has become more than just a refuge from a difficult situation. It has become home. And I am very VERY grateful for that.

Civil Unrest Getting Serious

In the meantime, as if the coronavirus stuff wasn't enough, now there is another event that has thrust itself into national attention. Yet another black man, George Floyd, died while a police officer- who was white of course - held him down with a knee to the throat. For almost 9 minutes. There are restrictive holds and there are restrictive holds. And there is excessive force. The man was allegedly paying with a counterfeit bill at a store. But should he lose his life for that? I think not. The thing about it is, this is now just one of many stories over the past year of black people being killed... yep killed seemingly because they were black. I think the viral images of the police officer with his knee to the throat really got to people. I know it got to me. I don't care what he did prior to. I don't care if he had shot someone. You apprehend the guy and let him have his day in court. That is how it is supposed to work. Anyway it sure lit a fire under a whole lot of people. That was predictable. There had been protests since Friday and lots more planned for today. But apparently some had turned violent in downtown LA and now there is an atmosphere of unrest. All that to say that I got an email yesterday that Roosevelt Golf Course would be closed today due to all that unrest. And so there would be no golf Sunday this morning. And with good reason too. By mid-morning stories started coming in about violence, but not just between protesters and police although there were some of those. Now there were news of looters taking advantage and today the area the media seemed to focus on was Santa Monica.  Yep, the third Street Promenade a mere 2 1/2 miles away.
Rediscovering Aerobics One thing I did rediscover today was a walk-at-home exercise video on YouTube. And when I actually did the video, it was simply an aerobics video. Brought me all the way back to the 80s. First I made Resur his aerobics music mixes, then I started attending aerobics classes at Bally's. Met Sonia Parra who became sort of my aerobics partner and later on my friend at Cedars-Sinai.  I started teaching myself while at General Dynamics with my own mix tapes. So many memories around aerobics. And here I am doing a couple of miles. Getting more than a couple of miles in, around 5000 times with my heartrate up seemed pretty easy doing the tape actually. Felt much easier than walking around the neighborhood. Even doing the aerobics was different, which is probably why it felt easier. In any case, I got back to 77,700 steps for the week which was a very good thing. 

Boy did those images of people looting bring back memories of 1992 and the Rodney King trial and all the unrest that happened back then. LA became like a war zone. The sad thing is that these looters had nothing to do with the protestors at all. I doubt if they even knew George Floyd's name. They came to take advantage of the confusion and the fact that police weren't paying attention. They came to steal merchandise. And it happened all over Southern California. That is sad. It brought back memories of those business owners in Koreatown in 1992 perched atop their stores with guns. Only now it's in Santa Monica, it's at the Beverly Center, it's at Westwood. High-end places. That's because that's where the protests were and I think that was on purpose. You didn't hear about anything going on in South Central. But South Central sure came out anyway.  by 5 PM, a pubic safety alert came on that there is now a curfew in LA County starting at 6 PM. W-h-a-t? Uh-oh. There goes dinner at Lisa's. I called to check on them and apparently they had gotten  caught up in some of the unrest yesterday that they spent the night at Lisa's parents house in Sierra Madre. And now they are driving back just so they can make it home before curfew. Wow this shit is getting serious and hitting home. I actually drove out to go to the store since I didn't do so all day today. And what I found was that all the stores had closed early because of the curfew. All stores. Fast food stores even. I couldn't get any food! I don't know that this is worse than the coronavirus lockdown! Fortunately I did have some food in the house and I made myself some beef fried rice for dinner. First coronavirus, now this. The messages from the Universe is sure getting louder. 

Breaking A Very Long Streak

As bad a sleep as I had the night before, I think I even got worse sleep last night. Although I felt less sore, it was a case of me feeling so much better that I actually couldn't sleep! And so I tried to quiet my mind by burying it on whatever I could find to read on the web, including  a few dozen pages of Melody Fletcher's Deliberate Receiving. And also some Brad Yates EFT tapping on Pain. I know this pain in my legs is something I need to pay attention to. And it feels like there is something I am holding to that I don't have to anymore. And I tried to clear it tonight. The one thing that came up during tapping was that I don't have to sympathize with someone else's pain. Could it be that I am feeling all this simply because I am projecting someone else's pain to myself? And if everyone is whatever I push out then it's like me writing a scene with me feeling pain and THEN directing it to myself to boot. When I put it that way it seems like a pointless software program. But for some reason this one that is running right now has dominated my awareness. THAT is what I must investigate. The WHY of all that. In the meantime I did manage to sleep until almost 8 AM... as did Johnnie and so we got to have another late start today. He didn't care. In the meantime, the leg soreness wasn't there this morning and so I felt like maybe I'm back to normal? Except that now I'm feeling chills. No fever, but chills. Maybe there is some bug trying to do a probe on my immune system. Something I told Lisa that she was experiencing when she was down for more than a week. Great. Johnnie got sick too for a day. Is it my turn now? Actually I didn't really even care so much simply because I had a lot to do today. I had enough on my plate to manage Johnnie doing a double-day lesson plan because Lisa simply couldn't get to it yesterday and then I had to work on my presentation for the Technology Council Meeting tomorrow at the same time. And I did not feel like staying up all night to do that one. Heck I stayed up all night last night already. I posted pics of Johnnie doing his thing during the day. At least he was a good sport about doing double lessons today not that he even knew. When he got done with today's lesson I just continued it with yesterdays. And we STILL managed to get everything done before lunchtime. Which is all the more perplexing to me. Hey, at least this way Johnnie did not have time to get any video breaks in the morning.  And then in the afternoon, I had him do TWO PE classes and another half hour of "extra credit" math on Freckle. All the while as I was organizing my presentation. I still didn't feel right and never did all day long. It's as if I was fighting some bug. Chills at times. Then muscle aches. But no fever. A hot flash or two was all I got. By the end of the day I managed to get mostly done with my presentation and so I still did the Tuesday ritual of the Italian sausage barbecuing. And I got Johnnie out there to kick soccer balls too. I had it in the back of my mind that I'm going to have to start giving him drills soon, if only because I saw a video of Jessie's son Enzo doing cones and he was a full 2 years younger than Johnnie. No competitiveness there in me is there? Even while out there I was still feeling chills and I did not have the energy that I would normally to kick the ball around with Johnnie. Heck by then I only had 2600 steps and for once I felt no urgency to go much further than that. In fact, in the back of my mind I was also thinking that perhaps this might be a good time to give my legs a rest. If I didn't feel 100% did I really need to keep my 11,000 steps streak going? Wouldn't it be ok to rest my legs for just one day? And so it was that I gave Johnnie his usual Tuesday dinner. But I didn't have any more energy to make myself more food either. In fact, I wasn't really hungry... a sure sign that I was not 100%. Instead, after dinner I let Johnnie finally watch some Cat-In-the-Hat videos. And I continued to work on my presentation until it was done. And by the time 8:30PM rolled around and it was nearly time to start Johnnie's bedtime routine, I realized that I was going to break the steps streak today. That's because I was barely at 3600 steps. For the longest time I thought the lowest I had reached was 5800 steps. Upon review, it would turn out that the last time I didn't make 70,000 steps in a week was January 2018 when I had the fever from the flu or something. Oh well. at least I managed to do an average of 10,000 steps a day for a year after that time. And then I ramped that up to an average of 11,000 steps a day for more than a year after that. The 3900 steps was the lowest I had done in all that time. But I still had a chance to keep the 70,000 steps this week alive. Or is it really worth it? We'll see how I feel the rest of the week...

Mothers Day at Lisa's

It is weird celebrating anything while in quarantine. That is to say, there is nowhere to go, nobody to see when you're locked in with the small circle of people you are quarantined with. In my case the circle is very VERY small. That would be Lisa and Johnnie obviously and with Lisa being sick and all pretty much all week long, I urged her and urged myself to exercise even more caution. Whatever she got, I didn't get as I have had absolutely zero symptoms of anything remotely resembling an illness. I even got out for a little bit of a run/walk this morning, just to get some cardio minutes in. I wasn't due at Lisa's until 1 PM to do her bididng...err to grant her her Mother's Day present request. That would be to wash her car. I agreed only with the stipulation that I could wash mine as well. I know she is a perfectionist nut when it comes to cleaning anything but I was pretty sure her car would be nowhere near as dirty as mine, even with dog Zucko hanging out that vehicle quite a bit. So anyway I got a chance to have breakfast at home, and then as I said I got to do some cardio. It was nice to see all these signs put up by some houses on McLaughlin. "We're in this together", one sign read. Yes we are aren't we? Never mind those fools protesting the stay-at-home order demanding that businesses open. Don't these fools get that businesses have just opened and that we're not going back to the way it was, at least not for a while. Anyway I got my exercise in and I even made myself some nice homemade chow mein for lunch. That shaved beef seems to have lasted well over a week. And so it was that I got some ME TIME in this morning. Of course it would have been my time to play golf and the only reason we didn't play today was that it WAS Mother's Day. But I'm looking forward to playing again as early as next Sunday.

As I drove to Lisa's house on what turned out to be a very nice mild Sunday, I thought about Mother's Days of recent past. Last year was the Pitfire Pizza debacle at Lisa's house with her brother Joah and his then fiancée. Also was the Series finale for the Game of Thrones. The year before that in 2018, Lisa and I had started to get used to doing things apart and we definitely did not do anything together. Gee, not exactly memorable times huh? Or at least memorable for the wrong reasons. Which is why I mentally focused my intention on merely getting her car washed and mine as well, and might as well enjoy myself while doing it and brush aside whatever comments and actions are sure to come from Lisa that could draw a negative reaction from me. I reminded myself that those negative reactions are nothing but programs. And that I would do well to hit the ALT-CTRL-DEL button, end the program and quarantine the malware and also insert in the program that "I AM LOVED" and that "EVERYTHING GOES MY WAY". And with that I arrived at Lisa's announcing to her that I was ready to get to work on her car. And get to work on her car I did, first vacuuming the inside and then surviving a mini-scream fest when Johnnie started getting her garage floor wet. Who knew it wasn't supposed to get wet? Why would anyone put in a garage floor that couldn't get wet? Why would you not expect Johnnie to play with water? That's what he does. All these questions I brushed aside nonchalantly and focused on my task at hand. Lisa, in her weakened state, maybe felt too guilty not to help. And so she did. She did the soap of the outside of her car, with Johnnie. Look at him in the pic getting to work LOL. And lo and behold she even gave me the supreme compliment of doing a nice job with the vacuuming. Wow. Coming from her, that is high praise! She even mentioned that knowing me for 15 years, who knew I was capable of that?! smh. With her car all done, I now threw my focus on my own car, which was far dirtier especially on the inside. It took a little longer to do, even though I had no intention of detailing it as closely as I did Lisa's. To me, simply getting the inside vacuumed was good enough. And vacuumed it was. Johnnie helped me soap and rinse the outside. I asked Lisa not to participate to ensure neither she nor I could possibly say anything resembling rudeness to the other. Hey she's done with her car right? She went in and got herself something to eat. And so it was that my car got washed for the first time in months. And got the insides cleaned out for the first time in longer than that! Getting her wish done Lisa retired to play the piano. I went and got us all dinner. Cheese pizza for Johnnie and Lisa, ham-and-pineapple pizza for me. When I got back from the pick-up Johnnie was asleep on the couch. Hey he had a full afternoon. Lisa and I at least got to eat our pizza even though Lisa made comments about how she didn't really like it. Of course not. Why would she? She hadn't liked anything all weekend LOL. Having fulfilled Lisa's request I headed on home. It was only 6 PM but I planned on winding down my Sunday evening right on my couch. I not only exercised this morning, but the mere act of washing 2 cars ratcheted up my activity level to more than an hour of cardio and over 100+ active minutes. I think I earned a chill Sunday evening. And I was glad to do something that Lisa approved of. At least this Mother's Day, we were just fine. The week started with Lisa's cry for help and me ending up "working" at her office because she was sick. She didn't get all that much better the rest of the week, and then Johnnie picked up a 24-hr bug but still it ended just fine. 

A Saturday Not the Least Bit Ordinary

So hanging out at Dr Aalam's dental office yesterday seemed to have spooked Lisa out big time. Frankly I was surprised he was even working given the directive the CDA sent out that dentists shouldn't be seeing patients unless it was an emergency. Anyway it seemed to finally focus her attention on her own vulnerabilities and the fact that she could easily get sick given her immunocompromised state or so she believes. And so there was a lot of anxiety in her demeanor this morning, whereas she was mostly concerned about keeping her practiced afloat when I saw her last on Thursday night. This morning I was supposed to come over for breakfast and then per our agreement take Johnnie for half the day since she would have normally been working today. This morning she wanted to do nothing more than stay home but asked me if I could hang around the house with Johnnie if I'm going to be there anyway. That one kind of took me by surprise. Doesn't she remember how terrible we were when we spent a great deal of time together? And that it is working now because I have purposely minimized that time we do spend together? But then again she asked more as I favor than as a statement and I actually agreed simply to assuage her anxiety today. Maybe it will change later, but today in the here and now, I think I can manage to spend the bulk of the day with her and Johnnie. And after all, the upshot is that I do get to see Johnnie and play with him for a good potion of the day. Just look at the pic of us together. Dad and son. In these times, I'm gonna rely on pics like these to raise my vibration after all. And so we had breakfast out in the backyard like I hadn't done in almost a couple of years now. And then I even went back home to have lunch while she and Johnnie took a bike ride together. See? They can do what they want to do and I can do what I want to do. This can work. And then I came back later on the afternoon. And spent the rest of the day at Lisa's house. Had dinner there in fact. It was 8 PM by the time I left. I had spent the bulk of the day with Lisa and Johnnie and Johnnie in particular seemed to have a good time actually and even crafted an entire book to chronicle how the day went. I'm posting it here. It says it all. And the day turned out ok.

Last Day at the FRB Until... TBD

So today is the last day for us to work at the FRB, at least through the end of the month. My team is still in the middle of last-minute preparations for remote work of our staff, including doing department training. I admit I've been driving my team pretty hard, though really not harder than usual I would think. I would hope they realize the urgency of the time, which is something they sometimes fail to grasp and it requires a loud reminder, usually from me. Still, by mid-morning we had everything pretty much in place and I acknowledged my team that they did pretty well in handling the current "crisis". During the morning meeting where Barbara finally addressed our situation with everyone on the FRB team, and she acknowledged my team for meeting the challenge, and we got an ovation from everyone. Later on when she left, Eloisa said my team's performance this week was "impressive". I'm going to accept that pat on the back and I can only say at the end of the day that I breathed out a sigh of relief for a job done well. I said in the beginning of the week during one of my morning ask-a-question meditations, that I wanted to focus on providing massive value this week. I think I did just that. Not only where we able to provide hardware and training for the staff, that was not as easy as it sounds. The Finance Department in particular was particularly challenging. Let's hope they do ok when they're working from home in a world-full of change. By 5 PM we were still helping people who had lots of questions. By that time it felt like the time we had packed up and left the EEB the day USC Stevens moved out of the USC campus to the Transamerica building. It's probably going to be as confusing as that for a while, at least for the next week. And so my team's job is not quite done. But I think they'll be up to it. Before I drove home I got a call from Lisa. She was cautioning me that she had tried to go grocery shopping and the shelves at all the stores were getting emptied out fast, especially for the basic stuff. W-h-a-t?  Now what's going on?

So this morning the announcement came that LAUSD is closing all schools for 2 weeks. So as I prepare to work from home for a while, it appears I won't be alone at home from Tuesdays to Thursdays. Johnnie will be with me and I have to figure out how to continue his studying regimen. Lisa and I had talked about the possibility last night. I just didn't think it would come so soon. And then I got a call from the people sponsoring the Bengston Energy healing event this weekend. THAT is cancelled too. Sigh. I was really looking forward to it. But I guess not. Leaves the weekend wide open for me. So this afternoon, with all these things going on, cancellations and closings left and right, It turns out that Westside Angelenos and probably the rest of the locality and even the state are in hoard mode. Everyone is buying up everything. It makes a little bit of sense considering we've all been advised to socially isolate for the next couple of weeks. I have to admit, when Lisa told me I had to go to the store and see for myself, and I too got a little bit caught up in it. I mean there were no eggs and milk left except for a couple of the expensive kind, which of course I felt compelled to buy along with other stuff I don't usually buy. At least for the next week I think I have enough supplies for Johnnie and I. Lisa also invited me to dinner this evening and I agreed. I knew I was going to end up eating fish and vegetables at her house but I also figured I wasn't going to be seeing Johnnie all weekend and so I appreciate the chance to see him again tonight. And that I did. I went over, Johnnie and Lisa were dancing, I got her to start cooking after a while. And then I put on YouTube on her Amazon Fire TV which I'm sure she didn't even know she had. Of course Johnnie had to put on Frozen 2 songs. And regaled us both with his renditions. He was way off-key in a way that I'm sure would have driven Miss Annie at Cornerstone Music Academy mad. But it was also so so cute! Anyway we ended up having a pretty nice dinner together... one of Lisa's "family" dinners such as it were. And then I went on home. Finished my steps and it would have been nice to go to bed early. But I was still somewhat amped from the week. I ended up binge-watching Iron Fist on Netflix of all shows. Went to bed at 3 in the morning. Hey it's ok. Gonna be a quiet weekend.

A Most Satisfying Sunday

So today is a busy busy day for me. And not because it's already Daylight Savings time which means we lose an hour. The LA Marathon is today too and I bring that up only because I'm up earlier than usual to try to bypass all the roadblocks to get to golf which is at Roosevelt this morning. And I booked an earlier than usual start because of course I'm going to the NBA game of the regular season. Lakers and Clippers. Mano y mano at the Staples Center at 12:30! I am SO excited. And so I had to make sure I'd be done with golf at 10:30. I'm having one of those Lisa days that is one activity riding on top of the other. So on to the golf. I made it to Roosevelt before 8 AM even! Even while stopping for breakfast. Made it there before Greg and Scott and Chris. We have our full foursome this morning. And it would have been really nice if I'd have brought my golf game too. The first shot off the tee was a long, blistering 220+ yard straight down the middle. And only a missed putt by less than an inch kept me from winning the hole outright. Still I tied for the hole and it was a great start. Why I said that I was satisfied since I was sure I wasn't going to get a donut today I don't know. Because that turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy from that point on. Hole 2 was a disaster. Hole 3 I hit a tree. Hole 4 I missed my 2nd shot after a great first shot. Hole 5 I missed my 2nd shot after a good first shot. Same with Hole 6. See a pattern there? What the HELL was going on with my 2nd shot??? And putts. I missed by less than an inch at least 3 times.  Should have gotten a par on Hole 6 but nope, missed the putt. I totally imploded on Hole 8 from the get-go, missing my first shot into the trees. And then on Hole 9 I finally tied for the win to get another point. No need to analyze my game today. I simply did not focus. I thought I did. But the results said otherwise. I will work on that. In the meantime, at least we got done by 10:15. And I drove into my office parking log before 11 AM! On to the next activity.

The next activity of course was the highlight of the day. The Lakers - Clippers game and an annual ritual of sorts since Yadira and Dexter are here with me. No Lisa of course... no need to waste $175 for that. I took it easy on both mooks, just asking for a brunch at Panini Grill. Had me a nice eggs and avocado sandwich. And better yet, got to catch up with Dex and Yadira. I figured I'd eat some more inside the arena. To make a long story short, the game did not disappoint. It was a heavyweight bout between 2 evenly matched contenders and the game was close all through-out. You can feel the tension in each possession. The Lakers were up 2 after a quarter, Down 4 at half when the Clippers felt like they were about to take control. But the Lakers DID take control in the 3rd quarter and finished the quarter up by 4. And then the last quarter was ALL LeBron and a showcase of his basketball genius. In the end it was the Lakers winning 112-103. I've never watched a more exciting, more satisfying game in many many years! To me the feeling of satisfaction was worth everything in the world to be here in person! It was already going to be a great next couple of days just reliving this win! As it were I hurried home just in case Lisa still needed me to watch Johnnie as she had her usual soccer game. But I went to the field and everyone was already done playing...

All I could do at that point was to text Lisa to see if she still needed me to watch Johnnie. I would have just crashed the rest of the day watching Lakers highlights. But Lisa did call and kind of invited me over for dinner without actually asking if I wanted to come over for dinner LOL. I stopped by the store to get food for Johnnie and then got there just as Lisa was prepping fish and veggies and udon for Johnnie. I would say this would be the umpteenth time I would be eating fish and veggies at Lisa's house but why ruin things by even bringing it up?! Candidly I was just happy I get to see Johnnie again today. Who cares if I have to eat fish and veggies again... I'm also grateful that Lisa did cook for us. And after the meal, she goaded Johnnie into going for some ice cream while she got some piano practice in. I was happy to bring him to McDonald's of course and happy to have him wolf down some vanilla ice cream topped with M&Ms, even though I was sure all that sugar would have him bouncing off the walls when we got back. Which was exactly what he did, rough housing with me while Lisa played the piano. She made me stay and listen and critique her of course which is something I HATE to do since you never know what Lisa wants to hear from you. It's like some quiz. I don't have her musical ear she knows that. But I tried to be supportive as I can or at least to the best of my ability and then finally I got to go home! I was tired. It had been a very, VERY long day. I watched the Walking Dead but couldn't stay up much longer than that. A great Sunday it was though. A great Sunday indeed.