Back To Routine

You know how I gravitate towards routine and with Johnnie back in school online, I couldn't be any happier. And it will even be better when he goes back to school next week officially. Today after his mid-morning class we headed over to Mar Vista Elementary so he could pick up materials for the rest of the week AND an identifier for when he gets dropped off next week. And it was actually nice to see one of the kids from last year's TK class. Just more indications that things are ever-so-slowly going back to some semblance of normalcy. In the meantime, there was still his classes to do this morning and I posted a pick of one of his art classes. The project was to do a cut-out of a dog Henry Matisse style. And I must say if it represented Claire, it was pretty good! Immediately after his noon class we headed over to Grand View Elementary to get him COVID-tested. The mandate of LAUSD is that in order to come back to in-person classes, the child has to be tested weekly. Sounds pretty inconvenient to me, especially if the teachers are already vaccinated. But you can't blame the powers that be for being extremely, extremely cautious. Southern California in general is starting to get really good numbers with Covid, which is really really good considering that the rest of the country is still in the middle of yet another outbreak. I think it's because we have been aggressively vaccinating people and that's a really good thing. So taking Johnnie to Covid testing may be a little over the top and inconvenient, but I guess that's the price I have to pay and I'm ok with that. Other parents are not by the way. To me it's better to buy myself 3 hours during weekday mornings so I'm happy to trade for that. That's going to be yet another new routine starting next week. And so this week really marks the end of online learning for Johnnie and I must say he got through it like the trooper that he is.  And it did not hurt his learning one bit. Today also marked the first time we left Claire at home while Johnnie and I went to Covid testing. So far so good. She didn't cry or complain, just stayed where she was until we got back, albeit we weren't really gone all that long. 

In the meantime, there's still work stuff to do. There's still the HRSA report I had to get cranked out today and ongoing validation with Shilpa's numbers, which still doesn't match mine. Sigh. Still it has turned into a non-event after last week. It only took a week to stabilize and even Eloisa commended me on how far we've gotten with it. There's also the Town Hall tomorrow which somehow I am now the regular host replacing Chad. And speaking of which, Chad himself called me from Iowa because he couldn't connect to the Internet at his home in Iowa. I could only shake my head as I at least TRIED to help. I tried for a good 15 minutes until I realized he probably hadn't updated his Windows wireless drivers. I sent him that suggestion and then got back to work making a presentation for tomorrow's Town Hall. I basically took excerpts from the BIG presentation I'm going to be doing Friday. And I have until Thursday night to start thinking about that. Which means I didn't even think about it tonight. What am I supposed to do? Last night I had to give the dog a bath since Lisa had her all sticky from candy, tonight I posted a pic of Johnnie and the dog hanging around the grass area by the barbecues before we all went to bed. All important stuff obviously. But I kept to routine mostly. I remember this time last year I was still barbecuing Italian sausage on Tuesday nights. That has died down and has been replaced by yet another trip to Panda Express. And tonight I had PLENTY of leftover beef stew from the weekend. Actually I still had shrimp too and I simply cooked it up and put it over Panda Express chow mein. A quick meal it was. And then Johnnie went on to watching his Octonauts Ring of Fire which is his favorite for now, and I tried catching up on over 500 emails I hadn't read. Funny how that explodes if you simply miss a day of keeping your inbox clean. Anyway Johnnie went to bed on time. I couldn't sleep early. I could have used it, but instead I let my thoughts just flit away until my eyes got tired enough to sleep. I didn't watch tv really, but I just sat on the couch and sort of half-meditated myself to sleep. I guess I had a lot more on my mind that I thought.