So if yesterday's Thursday was a tad different, today's Friday was certainly even more different. That's because Lisa asked me to watch Johnnie while she went to the doctor to get checked out about a possible urinary tract infection. I'm not going to get into how often she's been dealing with UTI over the years. All I had to do was watch Johnnie while he did his 9:25 class so Lisa could make her 10 AM appointment and then hang around until she came back... and she said she'd be back by 11 AM. That didn't seem to be too bad. And so I got breakfasted and showered early this morning, and dispensed with the lollygagging that I usually do on a Friday. Already this felt like a different Friday right off the bat. I brought my Chromebook just so I could have a meeting with the Helpdesk team about laptop issues. Always something isn't there? And while I was meeting right there from Lisa's dining room, Johnnie got done with his class and proceeded to make me some food! It was dried apricots, peanut butter and olive oil on a rice crisp. I was deeply stunned and amazed that he made this for me. Complete with a glass of water and a pad for the plate. He must have thought I was hungry. I told him I'd save it until lunchtime, wondering how I was going to throw out this concoction without him seeing it. No way I'd break his heart after all that effort. It would turn out later that mommy would turn out a concoction not that much better LOL LOL. She came back from the doctor's by 11:15 and asked me if I'd like to have lunch with them. I told her I was on my way to one of our clinics in Echo Park but I had time for a quick bite. Lisa had it in her mind she was going to make Johnnie mac-and-cheese. But tried to cook it from scratch. See the pic of Johnnie grating cheese for this dish. I applauded the effort once again. But she must have done something different because it was very very runny... except for the cheese which had clumped together. There was no denying it... this was a terrible dish LOL! Fortunately I also made myself a smoked salmon wrap. THAT was more like it. And THAT turned out pretty good. We all had a nice team actually eating lunch outside on the front patio per Johnnie's request. How many times did we do this when we were all still a family living here together. I'll play along today. I took off after lunch, stopping by Burger King for a fish sandwich. THAT was much better too. And really I should have taken a nap right then. After all I was supposed to come back to watch Johnnie again tonight so Lisa could practice piano the day before the Vatche lesson tomorrow. But somehow I ended up working through the afternoon. Not only did I have reports I needed to run, Barbara kept sending chats about her computer blowing up. SIGH. I even got on my own Helpdesk team for not responding quick enough. If this Friday was already different, THAT underscored that point. It was 4 PM by the time I looked up from whatever I was doing, too late to drive down and pick up stuff from Westlake North. So I just stuck around at home, walked to Ralphs, picked up some sirloin steak and grilled it to bring to Lisa's for dinner. This ensures me that I am going to eat something substantive for dinner tonight. When I got to Lisa's she was already on rant mode. She was going on and on about the new gardeners and how the costs of fixing the backyard was costing her something like $1000 a week. I could only shake my head and I told her straight out I am recusing myself from the discussion and even commenting because that was a HUGE pet peeve of mine. Her backyard looks like shit right now and is made up of mostly mud. Yes she didn't like the way I did it because I let the weeds grow. She hated the high cost of watering the lawn. But then again it was green and lush back then and I sure as shit wasn't going to spend not even close to $1000. For the entire damn thing. Yet I let her rant so she could find her way to her own solution. Which was to be the boss, take control, put a budget down and stick to it... instead of changing her mind because of some little thing that looked out of kilter. FIND AN ENDPOINT to the project!!! So the 3 things that center Lisa are: to clean something <so she started to mop the kitchen floor>, to socialize and talk on the phone <which was solved when her sister-in-law Christine called her> and to play the piano <which was the sole reason I was there in the first place>. Tonight I let her find her way to at least getting dinner on the table. I brought penne pasta for Johnnie's chicken noodle soup, sirloin steak for us, all she had to do was heat up her mom's chicken soup that she had in the freezer. And so we actually had the substantive dinner I wanted. And after a while Lisa did manage to calm down long enough to get to playing the piano. And Johnnie and I watched Coyote Peterson until she got done, close to 9 PM. This would have never happened when we were still married. In fact, it would have escalated to a full-blown fight... as it did time and time again. But now it's different. Lisa was actually in a much better mood by the time I left... and she was too tired to do anything else but go to bed anyway. Yes it turned out to be a different Friday... with lots of reminders about the way it was when it was bad between Lisa and I. But no negative emotions tonight. It was all good! And by itself, that was something wasn't it. It was very, VERY good.
No comments:
Post a Comment