A Different Monday

So Mondays had been pretty quiet though sometimes different, see last week's start at the Eagle Rock location. Today started off different too, if only for the fact that I had to drop Johnnie off for the last week of summer camp at Penmar.  And then right after that I had to get my car to the Honda dealership in Santa Monica for its 25,000 mile maintenance cycle. I thought it was pretty good that I had made it more than 3 years and it is barely at 26,000 miles actually. For sure it will still be under 50,000 miles after 4 years. Of course the way the dealership technician talked about the car, there were things that needed attention. Already I had to pay for this maintenance being that I own the car outright already and past the 3 years maintenance I purchased originally. But there's a huge difference between the $140 it cost me today than the additional $600 it would cost for alignment and brake fluid and a new battery yet. It felt like I was being upsold to tell you the truth. And so even though I made the appointment for a follow-up next Monday, I had absolutely no intention of keeping it. Hey the car still starts just fine. What the -eff do I need a new battery for? The good thing was that I was able to focus on my steps walking around Santa Monica while waiting for my car to get serviced. Even if it did cost me my first meeting of the day.  I'm not even going to talk about how annoyed I was at the service technician I got assigned to. A rookie yet and just something about her that put me off. Oh well. I guess that was the energy of the morning. Of course in the middle of all that I got a call from Lisa letting me know she had yet another doctor's appointment at Cedars-Sinai. AND that she had already booked Johnnie to hang out with Brooklyn after camp. So the question was if I was ok to do that. I made it clear to her that THAT was not my preference, and that I did not like the socializing thing for 3 hours, even if I liked Blair and Jason, Brooklyn's parents. I would much rather be in front of my computer. Still, she asked if I could do it. And so being that it meant a lot to Johnnie, then I agreed. 

I was already running a tad late today too. I walked to Ralphs to get fried chicken for lunch and it was already 1 PM by then. I just got caught up with doing my Monday routine work stuff. Before I knew it, it was already 3 PM and time to pick up Johnnie. First I had to stop at Lisa's house to pick up Claire. All this meant a much earlier pick up is all. I spared Lisa all the thoughts and comments about her physical state. And then Johnnie, Claire and I went to Brooklyn's. The two of them have an affinity for each other, that's for sure. When Blair told me how she envied that her husband Jason has friends dating back to kindergarten, I of course had to think about Johnnie and Brooklyn all the way back to TK 2 years ago now when they first met almost to the day. We still didn't have any info on what classrooms they were going to be assigned to in the upcoming year. We were all hoping they get assigned to the same one. Anyway at least they got to spend a couple of hours playing together today. They got so much chalk on them I was sure Johnnie was going to need an extra long shower later on tonight. The kids played while I tried to help Blair get used to the new stuff she is going to encounter once Brooklyn goes to school in person. Like that blasted Daily Pass. I thought I'd be free of that. Turned out all I got was a 9 week reprieve. And then of course there is the After School stuff. Lisa and I know already decided to enroll Johnnie in STARS like in TK. Not that I couldn't come get him at 2 PM most days. Just that sometimes I would be meetings during that time during the week. Better to have Johnnie taken care of until at least 5 PM.  Besides, we saved so much money not having to pay for STARs for an entire year. And then we still had a credit from the TK year of over $1300! All in all we'll just have to spend $1900 each for the entire year. Anyway I signed Johnnie up as quick as I could and worried about explaining the financials to Lisa later. Like I will worry about replacing what needs to be replaced in the Honda later. I was actually fixated on Johnnie's class... heck school opens in a week! I called Mar Vista earlier just to find out when we were going to get the info. And as it turned out, I logged in to Schoology this evening and there it was. Class assignment for Johnnie. Room 7. Miss Hwang. And Brooklyn is in his class too! How cool is that! Johnnie went to bed earlier than usual tonight. He played himself into a ton of tired all day today. First time back at Penmar camp then playing with Brooklyn. He almost knocked off in the backseat of the car at some point. Plus he ate 3 bowls of chicken noodle soup too. He had himself a day. What a Monday it was.