Golf and Halloween

Golf Sunday was at Altadena at 8:40 this morning and it was just Scott and I per usual by now. I was wary about street closures this morning but I made it to the golf course half an hour before tee time just fine. We were joined by another guy and really the course wasn't all that busy, which made for a fairly leisurely game. I wanted to focus on my fairway shots this morning and see if I could straighten out the disconnect between what I want to be happening versus the whiffs that i invariably do. First shot off the tee went way wide right into the practice net. Ok then. I guess I needed to warm up. Fortunately we were joined by this other guy which gave me an excuse to start over. But I didn't do much better. Still I was right in front of the green after the 2nd shot. And THEN I whiffed LOL. Same on the next HOle 2. Ok first shot, decent 2nd shot landing me 50 yards from the flag dead center. And then I overhit it past the green. Sigh. 3rd Hole: A bomb on the tee shot. I'm 70 yards from the hole again. And then a whiff way wide right. How am I missing this ball? Clearly I need to make some adjustment. Clearly I'm not doing it. Ehh, might as well play through it to see if it gets better. It didn't. Long Hole 5 and all I will say is I did 2 whiffs before getting on the green in 5. What I must look like if I were watching myself? Hey is that it? I have to watch myself do the shot I want to do? Sadly, that realization didn't hit me until AFTER the golf game.  Hole 5 and I yanked it wide right again to the other fairway. HAd to do a mulligan. But at least I got to the fringe in 3. Where I then overhit it again. Finally I hit a bogey on the short Hole 6. And then I hit a pretty straight shot on Hole 7 but short. I did not do well on this hole because I don't even remember what I did. Hole 8 I yanked way wide left now. Man am I swinging wild or what?? Still I got it on the fringe on the next shot. And 3-putted from there. Sigh. Finally on the last hole I hit 2 bombs just like on Hole 2 to land me within 100 yards of the hole. And THEN i shanked it right. WHAT.AM.I.DOING??? At least I got out to play. Small consolation these days. And we got done before 11 AM actually. I went home with out a good feeling about the game today though. Sigh. Gotta keep trying... 

I got some lamb skewers from Crimson to console me for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. And finally my frustration vented out when I dropped my entire plate of lunch on the floor. Fuck!! Fuck!! Fuck!! It's good to vent my own anger and frustration at myself. But I also know it isn't going to make my golf game better. What will? Practice. Practice. Practice. Ok. I guess we will just have to do that then... So today is Halloween and last night Lisa let me off the hook from doing trick-or-treating with Johnnie. At first she asked me to pinch hit doing it with Simon and his mom but I couldn't tell her I wasn't comfortable doing that. I mean that's her thing and their thing. If I were doing it with Johnnie I would simply take him to my neighborhood where his classmates are doing trick-or-treating I'm sure. I ventured out after 6 PM to get groceries. Walked to Ralphs and there I saw some trick-or-treaters getting started. It was nowhere near the way it was 3 years ago when the streets were literally full and there was a street party a couple of blocks down. There were some kids, but not a whole lot really, but it was better than last year when it was downright banned by the city. Tonight was pretty quiet for me and I made myself some beef stew for dinner. It is starting to get cold again and next week it's already Daylight Savings time. Time to start doing my soups and stews for the weekends.  I watched the Rams demolish the Texans this afternoon and then the Lakers beat Houston, though not without looking like a raggedy team. I expressed frustration at that though I'm not all that sure it wasn't still about my own golf game today LOL. I actually did work some this evening. It's Town Hall week all next week. And I had some numbers I wanted to present for tomorrow morning at Echo Park. Still, I got done with that inside of 15 minutes. What I really wanted to do was to keep learning about the crypto world. Fascinating economy with seemingly different (better?? Easier??) way to make money and amass wealth. Got some learning to do...

Fun Halloween-y Saturday

I'm at Lisa's at 7:40 to pick up Johnnie, or at least I thought it was that time. I was still half-asleep because I stayed up until 3:30 AM watching Roswell. I'm still wondering why I did that? It's not as if it was THAT compelling. Still I knew I was going to be tired all day now and I was going to need to find a brief stretch to find a way to take a nap knowing full well I had Johnnie for the entire day, possibly until late depending on how late Lisa decided to stay at work. We spent the morning shopping actually. At Target. Carter's. Trader Joe's. Johnnie had this list that he wanted to get done. He picked that up from his mom for sure. Included in this list was to get a neon fish and a new goldfish from Allan's pet store. This kid...Still we managed to do all shopping, half of which was for Lisa BTW and by the time we got done, we simply picked up Panda Express lunch and were back in the house before noon. THAT was when I was able to steal about a half hour while Johnnie watched the Wild Kratts. Afterwards, he reminded me I promised to take him to the fair. We passed a Halloween Pumpkin patch right across the street from Trader Joe's. So close to the apartment we could have walked to it. It seemed like a great idea to pass away the afternoon, especially after I finally got my nap in. What I did NOT expect was that it became an actual M&M afternoon. And I'm simply going to let the pictures tell the story. We had so much fun, including the life lesson on the rock climbing wall when I kept telling him to look up and he made it all the way up. He was so tired he knocked off on the way to the pet store. I simply turned around and let him sleep. And made us pizza. Lisa for her part called late and it was like a Thursday night actually. She was glad he was sleeping. I ended up dropping him off around 7:45 when he woke up and when he got a full pizza in. We had a great afternoon Johnnie and I. We ended up having a Halloween together after all!

Tank Friday

Ahh the Friday before Halloween. Festivities abounded. This is after all one of QueensCare's favorite holidays and our office has had a tradition of people dressing up and winning prizes for best costume. Entire departments had dressed up. Heck I have gotten so much mileage from my Captain America hoodie that I've had for more than 10 years now. And I only wear the thing on Halloween. I know Johnnie was looking forward to dressing up in his Creeper costume from Minecraft and today he gets to do that at school. As for me, I am keeping some distance from all of this. Because I am staying home chillin' today. I started to go through the routine of morning meditation and centering exercises, thinking about what I wanted to do today and then I started to focus on the stock market with the intention of kick-starting some trading. And this was when I got sucked in to some of the cryptocurrency hype going on. I actually opened my Coinbase account earlier in the week and bought myself $100 worth of Shiba Inu token. Yes it's a meme token that has absolutely no purpose whatsoever I know I know. But why is everyone still talking about it? And why does it have a market cap in the BILLIONS?? Heck I even got a call from Bud Elam to talk about it. I bought a little over 1.1M tokens earlier in the week. He had bought 350M tokens! Wow! That means if it pops to just a tenth of a penny (2 zeros we called it), he stood to make $350,000!! And I stood to make $10,000! $100 - $10,000 is good any way you slice it. We didn't care about technicals or business models or anything. We bought simply because people were talking about it. I mean how bad could it be? If it went to 0, I'm out $100 and I'm not crying about anything. It was while thinking about this that I think I uncovered a block or resistance in my subconscious. And that was I was more interested simply talking about doing something rather than actually doing it. In other words, ego satisfaction had been more important than actual accomplishment. I was ok just talking about being in Ethereum, downright lying about it actually to make myself look and sound smart rather than actually getting over the fear of Failure and buying the damn thing and truly make money. Is THAT what has kept me from making money? I feel like I had an A-HA moment. Fortunately, that IS correctible. And I merely need to make a tweak in my consciousness using EFT. And with that I felt like I already had a huge positive to the day. Heck even thinking about turning $100 to $10,000 felt really good. And actually providing some more info to Bud about other cryptos and NFTs satisfied the whole - look and sound smart - thing. I need to research more on NFTs actually. Why are 14-yr olds turning $50 into hundreds and even thousands of $$$? I know I'm missing something. Still I did manage to get showered and even CLEANED the shower and I did manage to get myself up off the couch to enjoy the sun outside and get lunch. I walked to El Pollo Loco to pad my step count and then noted how much I enjoyed the warm sun on my face as I walked back home. M&M moment of the day. Oh and I did think it was nice getting to talk to Bud and Diana and getting invited to Thanksgiving dinner. And getting reminded very explicitly that no matter what I am STILL family. That is worth more than any cryptocurrency in the world. And so it was that this TANK Friday wasn't all that uneventful already. I kept watching videos of crypto buying, NFT investing and when I looked up it was already well past 6 PM. I was still at 3300 steps at this time. A long way to go to 10,000 did I have. So I walked on over to Ralphs got some tri-tip and then barbecued said tri-tip for dinner. And in the course of being out there in the barbecue area, I made up those steps I usually would do in the middle of the day. And I finished with 10,000 anyway. I figured I'd give myself a break from 11,000 just for this Friday. And so what did I do with the rest of my Friday evening? I thought I'd give myself a break from all the crypto stuff actually. And I ended up binge watching the new season of Roswell New Mexico. I don't know what it was about some of the series I end up binge watching, this also being a remake of an old favorite from the 90s even. It had modern themes of racism and social injustice and the universal theme of BELONGING and feeling HOME. I guess those were enough of tugs for me. I actually watched until well past 3 AM. Great. Now I know I will be tired when I pick up Johnnie first thing tomorrow. Why do I do this???

How Is Thursday Busy??

It's another one of those really cold mornings that turns into a warm afternoon kind of day. As in it was in the 80s by mid-day. But you wouldn't know it by how the day started out. Actually the day started with a funny moment when I was in line with Johnnie waiting for the gate to open. Out of nowhere Fisher Rozensweig comes up from behind to hug me real tight. His mom was apologetic about her child seemingly bear-hugging a stranger. But then again that wasn't the first time it had happened to me. And minutes after that Bailey, Brooklyn's sister does the same thing and gives me a hug too. Who says I'm not a huggy person? LOL>LOL. If I'm not, why are all these kids hugging me? Anyway from there it was on to back-to-back-to-back meetings until lunchtime. But I didn't care. The meeting with my IS Team was pretty light-hearted and got done in 25 minutes. My one-on-one with my boss Dennis ended in 10 mins because he wasn't feeling well from getting the COVID booster shot. And then the EHR meeting was only attended by Lainie for a bit before Melina joined us. Turns out her child was having seizures and needed to come home as needed. I could definitely understand when I compare to John-John Lisa's brother. Anyway all meetings got done by 11:30, I took Claire out for a walk to romp around the new grass outside the apartment and then I enjoyed the sun myself by cooking up my Italian sausage in the barbecue area. Felt more like a summer day than anything actually and I kept up with the feeling of gratitude that I get to be there then even cooking up my lunch. Couldn't do that before the pandemic obviously. Couldn't chill and watch and episode of "Y-the Last Man" after lunch either. In fact I knocked off for about 20 minutes. Hey an afternoon powernap is always good.

I had one more meeting at the end of the day. And it was really at the very end of the day too. It was about addressing employee burn-out. I laughed at that. I was feeling burned out so I have to go to a meeting about burn-out. LOL LOL. How do I address burn-out? By being flexible and making sure my team gets to take care of non-work stuff when they have to. I give them only one rule: No surprises. OK 2 rules: And cover each other. As a team we will not only survive, we will thrive. Individually, we can not make it. And so far it has been working. I think the EHR team has been far more productive than they were. The other 2 teams have been steady. Everyone is doing their jobs. And that is all you can ask. For Everyone to do their best. I yanked myself out of that meeting the second it was over at 4:55. Gotta pick up Johnnie after all. He declared that he wanted chicken noodle soup with penne for dinner. OK then. No Panda Express at least. And so we stopped at Ralphs to get chicken soup and some shrimp for me. Gotta make my dinner too.  And we proceeded to have a nice meal. His was different since I also bought him some chicken wings/drumsticks. And he ate 3 of them. Used to be we would buy that at Pavilions Marina del Rey back in the day I remember. He wanted to clean the house too but in the end he got too caught up with designs on a new story book. I love that his creative juices are flowing. I got caught up too. for some reason last night I ended up watching a couple of hours of a seminar on retail traders and why they lose money. And today I got caught up in the frenzy and the media hype of a meme cryptocurrency Shiba Inu. As in I picked up over 1 million tokens! Hey it only cost me $100. But can you imagine if that thing goes to a penny?? My $100 turns into $10,000! What about a dime?? It turns into $100,000! Ok Ok, I need to pump the brakes i know. Heck I get double or triple my money and I'll be happy. In the meantime, JOhnnie hand-off went by pretty quietly if very late. As in Lisa didn't come until about 8:15. I didn't care. Didn't even call her at all. I was fully prepared to keep Johnnie and Claire for the night. That's what you do is that you give Lisa's negative energy nowhere to go. And it will dissipate. Everything is you pushed out. And tonight, I'm pushing out nothing but positive. Still all very good.

Now It's Warm Again

So it rained all day Monday, stopped raining yesterday, and today the sun is most definitely out and has warmed everything up again. No complaints here as I cling to the last weeks of daylight and Daylight Savings Time is coming up at the end of next week. This being a Wednesday and all, I am thinking I should be busier than I am but that's more than likely just a projection of Wednesdays past. I don't really have many meetings booked until tomorrow morning when I have them all in one morning. But I do have a couple later on in the afternoon. In the meantime, I'm trying to catch up on contracts and such and other documentation I'm behind on. I do acknowledge that THAT is the part I miss Justin the most since I had him to take care of all that. But then again it has been over 3 years now since Justin left the company. I think back at that time in 2018 and I have to cringe. I left Maplewood, Justin quit and there was a lot of turbulence at work because of that... as in Data Analytics was taken from me. Which is why I chuckle that I have them back again. As in I don't even think it matters who they are under. But while under me, I intend to keep them a force as a difference-making unit. I mean we are way advanced in terms of Data Analytics as I pointed out at CCALAC last week and I intend to keep it that way. Even as I continue to help James get something done, and I help Shilpa from getting too frustrated and keep learning the data. When I think of that time the more I appreciate where I am today and I am feeling a lot of gratitude about how things ended up. Anyway the pic of me I posted on my laptop while the dog was happily dozing at my side pretty much encapsulated the morning. For lunch I got myself some nice chicken piccata from Trader Joe's. I love their lunch stuff. Quick, easy to fix by sticking in the microwave and very taste. With a little rice and some peas I already had, I was actually full. As in I almost dozed off right after lunch, reminding myself that I had one of Emma's Compliance/Risk Management meetings at 1 PM. I figured THAT shouldn't take all that long and THEn I could take a nap LOL. But nope, I had another meeting right after that with Salesforce. Sigh. Gotta get that implementation off the ground that thing. Just so I can get another quick win. Why did we need another meeting? Because we weren't on the same page in terms of context. Salesforce thought we were managing grants coming in. We were actually the grantors of the money and we needed to manage THAT. Oh well. I think we patched it up at the meeting. And so on we go to the Statement of Work hopefully.

With the weather warming up again, it was very predictable that Johnnie would want to play at the play area where the kids go when they aren't at STAR anymore since they had officially been checked out. It seems like every kid heads to the play area for a little more play time. Who could blame them?! Look at the pic I posted of Johnnie getting his last minutes of play in for the day. And there were a bunch of other kids there too. I hope he remembers the rules: No touching other kids and to be kind. I'm sure I'm going to be talking about those things at parent-teacher conference in a couple of weeks. HIs grades are just fine I think. But the behavior thing is definitely going to be talked about. Of course there is the parent's behavior I need to focus on too. As in I couldn't get a time slot booked for the conference until a 1 PM slot in the middle of the day. And of course, guess who doesn't sound flexible with that? And today she must have got all that info when she was in a pissed off move boy because she blew up at me yet again. Fortunately I know for a fact (a) it wasn't my fault (b) there wasn't a thing I could do about it (c) I could easily do the thing by myself. She has to choose. In my mind, how are you not able to just get away for 15 lousy minutes for your child's parent teacher conference?? heck I would take the day off for such a thing. But I can't judge Lisa. Something I learned a long time ago. She goes by her own drum beat and I will not try to explain. With no one to blame and nowhere for her anger to go, all she could do was hang up on me. And you know what? It didn't even bother me a bit. It doesn't change anything. Why get mad? She can get mad at herself all she wants. Another reminder to be grateful of how things turned out LOL. In the meantime, Johnnie and I have Domino's thin crust pepperoni pizza to enjoy. And I threw in some penne with sausage too. I realized I could make this thing as well couldn't I? And then we went retro and watched the Magic School Bus. Yay Johnnie!I felt very very good that I didn't let Lisa's antics move my state. Hey It's an R&R week for me right? Johnnie must have been tired from all that play. He was out in 5 minutes. All good.

Gorgeous the Day After It Rains

LA is always so crisp and clear and fresh-feeling and fresh-smelling the day after it rains all day. Especially when that day turns out to be completely different. As in the sun is back out and it is warming up again. Not hot, but warm enough so you can tell the that the grass did grow a tad. Anyway it was chilly this morning but not chilly enough to dissuade Johnnie from wearing his shorts. It is basketball day after all and he is very excited to keep playing. I am glad to be back on routine, though we got to our spot a few minutes later than we usually do. Still, we got there the same time as Brooklyn and her grandmother did and the 2 kids ended up walking together yet again, hand-in-hand practically. Anyway, another quick and quiet drop-off, and I even made time to get to 3000 steps before I even walked back into the apartment for breakfast. Like yesterday, my schedule is pretty quiet today and believe me I am NOT complaining in the least. Even my IS Team Meeting was low-key and really there weren't any critical issues to talk about. These days I think I'm going to simply glad I still have a team and that we're still running pretty well. So much talk about the pandemic causing people to re-evaluate and cause a whole bunch of people to quit their jobs. I think that is what is happening with Lisa's office. In that sense I AM lucky. I think I created a lot of value with my talk last week and I did that while showing some proficiency in my job.  Makes me think about what I will be doing once I retire from said job. I need to build something all over again. It isn't easy to get to that point where my expertise is recognized and acknowledged. Then again, how many people have I really helped with said expertise? I do think about my place in the world and see events like last week as practice. Practice for something even bigger. Or maybe not bigger but just as profound and maybe even life-changing. Or maybe I should just focus on something even broader than that. We are here to LOVE. It is that simple. And in my local universe, no bigger an effect that my thoughts and actions would have than my little one. Johnnie. HE is what I need to focus on. He is the one that I want things to get right most of all.

I lazied my way through most of the day, convincing myself that this is the reward for all the work I did last week. Then again I also told myself it's another rehearsal for what my afternoon would look like when I'm retired. Really? Am I just sitting around watching TV until it was time to pick up Johnnie? Not today.  I still had 3 departments I run. Still had responsibilities in a couple of committees I'm in. Oh and by the way, Claire stunk like hell. That's because I didn't shower her last week and clearly, Lisa didn't shower her the rest of the week either.  That became the one thing I focused on after lunch actually. I was going to give this dog a shower. And THAT is exactly what I did. Took her out first to enjoy the sun and the grass outside. Then gave her a good cleaning. She smelled so much better afterwards. I even cradled her on my lap while I was getting work done. And THEN it was time to pick up Johnnie at school. He had played basketball today and was excited that they would be playing 3-on-3 next week. Ahh so it begins LOL. We went to Panda Express Westwood for dinner. And ate there as well. It started to feel like 2019 when we would come here on a Tuesday or Wednesday night and you could eat in. Slowly we're doing more eating in, even if starting next week we'd have to flash our vaccination cards to do so. I don't care. We went home and watched some Halloween stuff together Johnnie and I. With Claire on the couch. Everything is different when she is clean and able to romp anywhere. A week ago I was on a plane flying home. Today I'm just chillin' at home. All is good.

First Rainstorm of the Season

So today SoCal was hit with an atmospheric river, which means rain all day and lots of it. It's not like I haven't done rain for my Monday routine just that the first rains of the season takes getting used to. No more shorts, no more summer gear. Still with the steps though even if I have to do it indoors. And certainly no pics today of a beautiful sun rising while I take my morning walk. Instead its me in my rain gear and umbrella while I walk to Marie Callender's to get my lunch. Why am I even walking out in the rain? Because I wanted to get the exercise regardless. I mean I have all this water-resistant footgear don't I? What's a little rain? So this being a Monday, I had steps to do, and had some meditation to focus on to start the work week.  I thought about all the wins to look forward to this week and was happy to see my schedule was not NEARLY as full as last week. I could finally breathe out finally? Not today though. I had all these HRSA reports and the bi-weekly survey due. Which is what I focused on all day pretty much. I mean I did have timecards to do as well but I had those finished by last Friday. Other than that, I think I'm going to focus on self-care this week. After all, it picks right back up with Town Hall week next week. In the middle of the day I did get a call from Lisa asking me to pick up Johnnie since it's piano practice day in Pasadena and she was sure she wasn't getting back until well past 5 PM. And then since she made plans after, we agreed I should just take Johnnie for hand-off. And she agreed to drop off Claire in the afternoon too. Cool. We won't have to deal with hand-off at all tonight. I am all for that of course! By mid-afternoon I started feeling a little lethargic... and I was thinkiing it was probably the roast turkey I had for lunch. And so I almost knocked off in the afternoon, only to be jarred awake by my phone and some pings from work. Hey, it IS Monday after all isn't it? By the time I was ready to pick up Johnnie, it was 5:30 PM. I had finished my reports and surveys and the rain had actually stopped. As in the sun was actually starting to peek out of the heavy clouds. And I had gotten to 14,000 steps already. Was it already a week ago that I was walking up and down the conference ballroom while I practiced my talk in my head? And I ended up walking up and down Las Vegas Blvd looking for some place to eat? Boy time sure flies fast. 

Johnnie was sure surprised to see me pick him up. All that time I spent picking up his rain boots and apparently they were too big. Sigh. At least the SeeKaiRun shoes still fit. He was layered and up and obviously wasn't cold but he was sniffling when we got home. And he threw off all his layers and started doing Johnnie stuff. Whatever he was doing though, he managed to look for me in the bedroom while I was continuing to do some work. And he managed to keep me apprised of everything he was working on, whether it was a new drawing, some creature from the Wild Kratts he was trying to recreate, and even a story he was storting to build. I love that Johnnie is independent like that, especially after I loaded him up with 3 bowl fulls of penne pasta in chicken broth. I managed to fill myself up too, making a sort-of stew with taco meat and veggies and then dumping a can of Campbells Steak-and-Vegetables soup. That stuff over rice was perfect for dinner. I didn't feel like wandering around outdoors even though the rain had pretty much abated by this evening. I still felt really sluggish at the end of the day although i felt that it was pretty much the 15,000+ steps that made me feel like that. Last week I reminded myself that I had 2 days of high resting-heart-rate activity in the beginning of the week while I was in Vegas. I mean i was at 280 active minutes by Tuesday! But I know I was pretty much on adrenaline that entire time and now I think I'm still coming down from that experience actually. But I was very much feeling good about bonding time with Johnnie this evening as I said even while I kept myself in front of my computer. The kid sought me out anyway and managed to keep me involved in whatever he was doing. I so value that. And he also managed to keep me involved in whatever he was watching before he went to bed. And then of course he ends his day with "Universe, no dreams please". I wonder if he really IS afraid of his own dreams?! Doesn't he know one day that those same dreams will be at his command? I tried to induce my own dreams by going to the couch and laying there with some binaural beats playing when Johnnie fell asleep. All I managed to do was knock off to sleep much earlier than I had the past 10 days. That's good too. I will be well rested tomorrow...

How Bad Do You Want To Play

Sometimes the Universe will test you to see how badly you want to do something. In the case of this morning, it seemed like the Universe was testing me to see how badly I wanted to play golf.  Testing my patience to boot. Most days I head out on a Sunday without a care in the world, other than having a decent golf game. That was me this morning until I got to the Vermont off ramp on the 10 Freeway. I had plenty of time then I thought, 40 minutes before tee time. Until I ran headlong into traffic. On Vermont. I mean heavy traffic that wasn't moving. Uh-oh was my first thought. Immediately I turned around and looked for a detoured route. Normandie? Nope. Roads were blocked. Seemed like there was some kind of cycling thing going on west-to-east. Western? Nope. Still blocked. I kept trying. Arlington? Nope. Uh-oh. It was already almost 8:30 by now. 10 minutes before tee time. I called Scott and told him the situation. He was understanding but I felt bad. And I was going to keep trying. Hell, I was out here already anyway. After trying by going west, I backtracked and tried eastward to downtown. I ended up almost getting to the FRB before finally making it to the 110N AND then finally getting on Vermont to go to the golf course. By this time it was already 9 AM. And Scott was already booked with another foursome and about to tee off. I would get to the starter Charles 5 minutes later but I did get there before Scott's foursome teed off and so I was able to join them anyway. Huffing and puffing and out of breath and very much on adrenaline, I managed to hit my first shot straight and on the fairway. How I did that I don't exactly know. And I did manage to calm down by the 2nd hole although I still didn't shoot any lower than a 7 on that hole. I was very inconsistent today, gee what else is new?! I would hit a great tee shot but then hit an awful shot from the fairway. Gee what else is new. It's like it's a program and I have GOT to figure my way out of killing that program and replacing it with a better one! Even on Hole 6 after a great first shot, it was almost a duplicate of 2 other instances where I almost hit a guy standing to my right just a few yards away with an errant shot! I did that to Daniel already... TWICE! What is it about this hole. It's like I should just walk up and hit the ball... I'm sure I would do no worse. Anyway I did manage a par on the difficult Hole 8. Before wiping out the good feelings of it with a bad shot off the tee on 9. Oh well. At least the win today was that I actually DID make it to the course. And I got to play. So it turned out that I probably wanted to play badly after all. Was it worth it? I think it was really. I think it was.

After golf I stopped at the Mediterranean cafe on Vermont near our Hollywood clinic that was almost a clone of Crimson. And I had the salmon kabobs just like I would have at Crimson. And it was good. I stopped because I was hungry AND I wanted to look for rain boots for Johnnie. It's 100% chance of rain tomorrow and I wasn't sure Johnnie hadn't outgrown his rain boots already. And so I stopped at WSS in Hollywood and got him those rain boots that was apparently not easy to come by right now for whatever reason except online. The restof the afternoon I ended up watching the RAMS but what I really wanted to do was take a nap and maybe kink out some of the stiffness in my body. What better way to do that than to get into the hot tub right? Why not use my own apartment's hot spa? And so after the Rams game I just lost myself in the warm waters of the spa. Ahhh that felt much better. I was so relaxed I didn't actually want to do anything the rest of the time. I knew I still had stuff to do. After all, I had been tied up all weekend. I still had laundry to do. I hadn't done grocery shopping yet. And then what do do for dinner. I decided I would get them all done bam-bam-bam. So I dried up, headed out and then in short order, got me some KFC for dinner, made a stop at Smart and Final, and then at Ralphs to get groceries and then went on home. There would be no cooking tonight. I simply didn't feel like it. I did want to watch the Lakers game. it was only the 3rd game of the season but they had already started 0-2. Am I going to get another sports disappointment tonight? Turned out NO. The Lakers won their first game of the season. And it turned out I was so relaxed I couldn't keep my eyes open after 10:30 PM. Weekend is over. Time to reload for the upcoming week...

Brooklyn's Birthday Party

Nothing signifies that we are closer to being back to normal than our kids getting together for birthday parties. And since today is the birthday party of Johnnie's closest friend in his class Brooklyn, then of course I am just as excited as he is to be going. Brooklyn came to pizza night after all for Johnnie's birthday a couple of weeks ago and I was so glad that she did. And this being one of Lisa's non-working Saturdays I was going to go over for breakfast first thing anyway. The difference was I never know when I'm supposed to bring breakfast over or whether Lisa is in the mood to fix breakfast. Question answered the second I got to their house. I let myself in and I could hear the shower upstairs. It was only 8:30 at the time so no faulting mom and son for sleeping in on a Saturday. But it was clear breakfast was not considered yet. And so I thought I'd help out. I put water on to boil for tea and made pancakes. Lisa already had the pancake mix ready to go in the fridge and everything. All I had to do was make eggs for me. Lisa has this way she likes her eggs that I don't know how to quite get it done just so. But I tried my best. And then i scrambled eggs for myself. Wolfed that down just so I won't go hungry no matter what happens. That is always the priority when you do something with Lisa. You make sure for yourself that you do not go hungry. Do that and it doesn't matter what rabbit hole she takes you down with her. It worked this morning.  We all got to have breakfast in time... in time meaning "at all". And since Lisa wanted to play piano for a bit this morning, Johnnie and I did errands. A little trip to Whole Foods, going to Mar Vista to pick up the Little Boo thing I purchased for Johnnie, even back to the apartment so I could get into more comfortable clothes. And THEN we went back to Lisa's house to pick her up for the party. It was almost 11 AM by this time. Lisa seemed surprised but then again I  am the one that shouldn't be surprised LOL. Is she ever on time really? Johnnie was SOOO excited though. He had his presents all made up, and we even re-gifted the balloons Johnnie got for HIS birthday.  A win-win since Lisa was simply going to throw them away.  Finally, we get there a little after 11:30 AM. Of course there was already quite a few people there. Same cast from Bailey's (Brooklyn's sister) birthday party from a year ago really. Back then we were all contemplating whether to have the kids go back to school in kindergarten. This time of course the kids are already back in school and well into the school year. And so there were a couple of other kids from Johnnie's class there. And there was Cora from TK who is now going to a different school. These were the TK kids who apparently have a bond now that is now years old. I think that is really cool actually. You wonder who your lifelong friends are going to be. For what its worth Johnnie already has a great sense of belonging and that is a very good thing. We were at the party until 3 PM. Lisa is also having company tonight - Mel, and Jacob and Joyanna. This party I do NOT have to be a part of. I don't think I can play quiet in the presence of anti-vaxxers any longer, not in the middle of the worst pandemic the world has ever seen in my lifetime. But for Brooklyn's party, I socialized just fine. I got to talk with some of Mar Vista parents, and I actually spent a great deal of time making sure Claire did not disrupt anything. She has gotten pretty needy as she has grown up and I don't like that Lisa just acts as if everything is ok and delegates "dog-parenting" responsibilities to me. Johnnie parenting I don't mind at all. But with Claire I do mind and she needs to understand I did not originally sign up for that.  Still, she's cute enough where all the other adults kind of just played with her and she of course loved the attention. And so it was that a good time was had by all, at least in our little family. And one more check off the activity list this week... a week which has turned into quite the busy week didn't it? The last thing to do was to line up golf for tomorrow, which I dropped the ball on since I never made any reservations. Fortunately, a slot opened up at Roosevelt and so Scott and i get to go at 8:50 which was our usual time anyway LOL. After picking up my car I went home, crashed on the couch and took a little afternoon nap. I wanted to go to the hot tub too but I got caught up in Saturday sports. UCLA coming oh-so-close to upsetting Oregon but failing in the last minute. And then the heartbreak of the year: the Dodgers lost to the Braves in the NLCS. Season over. There will be no repeat. I spent Saturday night at Target just so I wouldn't have to feel bad about the Dodgers losing. They had their chances. Just that in LA, being Final Four isn't enough. Here we celebrate championships. But that's ok. Now the Rams and Lakers are up.  Saturday blues tonight. Sigh.

Finally End of The Week

Today should have been a tank day and I will say I most definitely have earned it. I haven't work this hard in a one week period since I can remember! Yet I can't tank it just yet, not first thing. That's because that project from Coleman and Associates is having its all-day learning thing today, with attendance requested from managers that are the "levers" of the organization, those with decision-making capabilities and influence, a group I most definitely am a part of, I did not have the usual enthusiasm that I normally would have for a project like this. Maybe it's because of all the work this week but I just am not into it today. In fact, I don't mind saying that I feel inconvenienced. Just get it going already, I already know my role, I already know what my teams are going to end up doing. We just do what we do baby. I also fully realize that THAT is my ego talking too and I realized that when I actually got to sit down later on and finally got to my meditation. Couldn't do it first thing you know. That Coleman meeting started at 8:30 AM. I had barely enough time to get my breakfast and Earl Grey in. And even when I did I could feel myself rolling my eyes at some of the tactics of those consultants. I mean... hold up a shoe if a finding stunk? Really? I was NOT holding up a shoe for that shit. I would hold up a shoe for that idea.  

So anyway the part where my attendance was required finished at 10:30, not that I did anything really. I thought it was a waste of time. But I'm a good soldier so I stuck around until the first break and not one silly second longer. I crashed on the couch and I intended to stay there until at least through lunch. I did said meditation and found this video about a lady that had a NDE and talked about us as energy beings and how everything is energy, every thought, every attitude and as such always has an effect. This is why I think the Universe tests me every once in a while, as if asking if I truly believe what I am saying or doing or feeling.  It is just another reminder of how closely we must watch our thoughts on a moment-by-moment basis. It brought back some of the negative thoughts I had had all week, particularly regarding Lisa. And that the only way to release... is to FORGIVE. But not just the other person. You must also FORGIVE yourself. I know I'm going to get tested again tomorrow about that aren't I? LOL. Gotta learn. It ended up  being sunny by mid-day, so much so I got up off my ass and walked to Subway to get lunch. Should have done El Pollo Loco. But I changed up and I am not really sure why I did that LOL. Felt like i ate crap. I did eat enough to get a 25 minute nap in in the middle of the afternoon, that's pretty good. And then I reminded myself I needed downtime from all the activity of the week. I did that by watching the new movie DUNE. This story is already a re-telling of the 1980s version, the one with Kyle McLachlan and an overacting Sting. I did not like that version. Kind of reminds you of 70s Battlestar Galactica. The technology in moviemaking was not there yet. And this new version was more on point to the original story I think. Although it only told half the story. There's a Part 2 coming for sure. But I liked this part very much. And I also saw parallels to this story to some of the Star Wars plot lines. The Obi Wan Kenobi character. A coming of age just like Luke Skywalker. It was definitely entertaining.  And with the ramen I had for dinner from Mitsuwa, it made for a pretty good Friday I thought. That ramen wasn't enough though and for the 4th Friday in a row, I made a pit stop at Taco Bell, getting 3 soft tacos to fill me up. Fill me up they did and now I was bloated going to bed. This did not end up being a typical Tank Friday. I was still thinking about work at 4 PM. As in I was approving timecards. When do I actually approve those things on a Friday? Still I was able to do some reflection and even did so I was doing my steps for the day. I certainly provided as much value as I could this week, and even though I don't think enough ears and eyes got to see that value, I'm confident it will have reached whoever it needed to reach and that I get the energy back in kind. Karl seemed to be impressed, so much so he wanted to see my presentation. Yeah I want to look back on it too. I think it's something I can be proud of. I ended up not going to bed until 1 AM. I hate that I do that when Johnnie isn't staying with me. All I did was to calm my brain enough to go to sleep. And then tomorrow is a fairly big day, at least for Johnnie. Can't wait...

Last of the Presentations

One more day of presentations, 2 of them in fact for the same meeting the HIT Roundtable. Used to be I'd go to that meeting the day after Tech Council and that day would be my de-facto chillax day. Not today, not when I got roped into doing a presentation about more cybersecurity (Zero Trust) and my PowerBI environment. Fortunately Roman Chapa called me on Tuesday and I actually talked him into doing the talk with me, since he had also done stuff on PowerBI. I don't know why I'm so emotionally invested into these presentations. It's only CCALAC and I doubt if there are even going to be more than a dozen people show up. My ego-brain says don't these mooks know I'm giving them solid gold material? Or maybe is it me and my "ham" self simply doing this so I could showcase how good I am? Is that so bad? But really I am trying to push out useful information too. Just that my audience probably wouldn't be ready to hear it just yet. How many years have I been talking about cybersecurity? This same talk I did this week had its genesis right there at the HIT Roundtable almost 2 years ago. Maybe it just takes a while before folks are ready right? In any case, what I should be worrying about though is that I still have the PowerBI presentation unfinished by the time I dropped Johnnie off at school this morning. Fortunately, the good night's sleep refreshed my brain and I actually woke up with a bunch of ideas. Enough for me to get my full presentation done before I finished breakfast. And so I was able to cruise through my morning schedule... that would be the IS Team meeting and then the EHR Team Meeting *** BTW Dr Liao horned in on my meeting wanting to know if we had any questions about this project he was pushing last week. Silently I answered his questions just to show we weren't sitting on it. But I wanted to tell him the same shit I told Marina. YOU are just going to have to wait goddammit. These people sometimes... 

In the end the presentations turned out OK. I mean it wasn't as if I was presenting to 75 people at a national conference. I think I held a captive audience of 6 and I guess that'll do. I know the material was useful, if not readily consumable just yet. By 2 PM, the meeting was done and at least I thought we sparked enough interest with those that attended. Going to have to figure out a way to get the attendance higher though. I thought maybe people showed up back in the day because I brought pizza. We'll have to think of a better incentive I guess.  Or people will just default back to "I'm too busy..." Anyway just as soon as the meeting was done I got outside and took a nice walk around the neighborhood. All presentations for the week are done DONE and DONE!! Yes!! I did it! And I did good I thought. I shut down for the rest of the day. Crashing on the couch, looking at videos until it was time to pick up Johnnie. He had lots of energy that one. He didn't want to go home just yet. He wanted some more play time on the playground gym. Tonight he wanted to do some more Panda Express. Since I only had him for 2 nights this week, I obliged. I did make myself a nice beef-spinach dish.. the same one I used to make for Lisa. Speaking of which, it is Thursday night pick up night and I spent time this afternoon pushing out positive energy. As in I pushed out the energy that we were going to have a non-event pick up night tonight. And we did. Lisa was even somewhat on time actually. She was still complaining about a physical ailment... and the weekend was set actually since we're all going to Brooklyn's birthday party on Saturday.  I finished my steps and just let my mind go in whatever direction. I have earned a quiet rest of the week I think. As far as I was concerned the work week is done. And I am looking forward to tanking tomorrow.

More Presentations

So I'm back home, I got some sleep and I tried to get back to routine and nothing better to do that than to drop Johnnie off at school. It had gotten cold this morning too but we're still not moving off shorts for this week. I think Johnnie was glad too that he's back to McDonald's breakfasts and Dr Binocs before heading off to school. I hurried back home today because I had to get breakfast in before meetings started. I had 2 more presentations to do today. It is Tech Council Meeting week after all and the usual presentation is at 1:30. But before that we're back to doing the once a month Communications Meetings like we used to do at the FRB.  We moved off that format and to the Business Continuity format when the pandemic hit. But 19 months later and the Business Continuity Meeting is now being reformatted back. I don't think there's much of a difference really, just a rebranding of sorts, and perhaps Barbara going back to stuff that is familiar to her. I thought it funny that Eloisa asked me to please please make sure she doesn't doink around with the intranet too much. I already told her that Barbara's format was already too inefficient for me. It's like going through file directories. Why do that when you have a Google Search button right there for you to find stuff? Anyway I had to have a presentation for the Communications Meeting too. But fortunately I was already ready with my Tech Council presentation and all I had to do was give excerpts of that and then finish it off with my usual cybersecurity Ninjio video. I thought it was very much appropos to show the episode of the hack of someone's bank account where it got emptied because of a phishing email. Something that almost happened for real when HR got a request to change bank deposit accounts from the VP of Finance. Which was of course, bogus. Just something to remind folks. If it scared them, then good. And so I got that done with that meeting and since I was already ready for the Tech Council Meeting I just sort of chilled until after lunch. I had plenty of time so I walked to lunch and grabbed some of their hot lunch which they had just reinstated. Tri-tip and veggies and potatoes, all for $8. That is a dEAL!!! How many times did I do this lunch at the Ralphs on Grand? Even when I was still at the USC campus? And definitely when I was at the Transamerica Building. Any way it was a very good lunch.

And I was ready for the Tech Council Meeting. I abbreviated it really simply because Eloisa and Marina weren't there. But even doing that, I went on for 52 minutes, just barely giving back 8 minutes by the time I got done. And I had plenty of material to talk about too even as I barely glossed over the stuff I already talked about this morning. When the meeting got done I breathed out yet another sigh of relief, as Day 2 of 3 straight presentation days is done. Although only 2:30, I crashed on the couch and closed my eyes for a bit, and like every time after Tech Council Meeting I looked forward to a chill rest of the week. Except it isn't. I have the HIT Roundtable tomorrow and I have 2 presentations for that one. I have to do a Zero Trust presentation and a presentation on PowerBI. How do i get talked into these things?! And naturally I hadn't finished them yet. There were simply too many presentations to do. And so I could only afford to close my eyes for a half hour and then it was back to work finishing up at least one of the presentations. And then of course I picked up Johnnie at 5 PM and we headed off to Panda Express to get his dinner. I made sure we had plenty of food of course since he only eats all the time when he's with me. I had to stock up with ice cream sandwiches and snacks. And besides, I needed to have him occupied since I was planning on working on my presentation at least until one of them got done. By the middle of the evening I at least got the Zero Trust presentation all done. The only thing was that i had to sacrifice taking time to give Claire her Wednesday bath. Lisa will understand. Besides I still had one more presentation to finish. Although that one I think I could just wing it by going over all our dashboards. And so I tried to get as much of it done as I could but frankly I was on empty. I couldn't think anymore literally. LIke nothing would come out. And so I just closed my eyes again and when it was time for Johnnie to go to bed, I went to bed too. I still have a couple of hours in the morning to finish up. It used to be like this for the TEch Council presentation LOL. I just imagined tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM when all the week's presentations are all done. It's going to feel real real good!

D-Day: My Conference Presentation

So it's finally here, the day I'm presenting. I felt ok and ready considering I had gone over at least the first 10 minutes more than just a few times rehearsing it in my head and out loud.  My presentation was right after lunch and I am surprised that I'm pretty relaxed this morning considering I had other stuff on my mind. I had to pack, check out, and figure out a way to lug my extra clothes around. Oh and there was breakfast. Eloisa warned me last night that the breakfast wasn't any good and so I went to Starbucks and got breakfast there. The line was pretty long too. I guess I wasn't the only one that had the idea. Anyway, I made it to the 8:30 keynote (where Eloisa spoke for about 5 mins BTW). I enjoyed the session and I like it when the speakers are uplifting and high-energy. Maybe I need to incorporate some things for MY speech right?  And then for the rest of the morning I sort of just walked around the vendor expo still rehearsing my speech. I did run into Eloisa and Marina at the cafe and I sat down with them to have lunch. Funny that that simple chance encounter enabled me to work out some work stuff. (a) the incident from a few weeks back regarding Daisy and how I cut off Barbara just to stop the barrage on Daisy. I explained that I was trying to protect my teammate. Simple as that. Eloisa understood. Marina? Not so much LOL. And then Marina and I managed to handle the data stuff that I was holding up. All that in a half hour. I didn't eat much. I couldn't. I was starting to get into pre-game mode... 

So I'm going to cut to the end of the day. My presentation went really REALLY well I thought. Better than I expected. The email from Philip the NACHC coordinator said it all. We rocked it. Knocked it out of the park. People were engaged, asked a lot of questions and I was actually approached by a few people afterwards asking more questions. A couple said it was the best presentation of the conference so far. Small sample size I get it. And it's only the first day. AND any positive feedback is always great. No negative feedback either. All in all I think my audience was over 75 people. Pretty decent I thought. Better than the CCALAC conference anyway. Anyway as soon as my talk was over, I changed into my civvies and headed to the airport to fly home. I got a text from Eloisa too telling me how well I did and that she appreciated my candor at lunch today. All in all I felt really really good about how I did. And then when I got to the airport I realized I was a full 2 hours early. And so finally the adrenaline started coming down and I started to feel tired and all I wanted to do was sit and close my eyes. Reflection will come later.  And finally I started to feel hungry. I wolfed down a fish sandwich from Burger King and some onion rings and in a little while I was finally headed home. The flight was less than an hour. So just enough time to ascend the descend really. I told Lisa this morning that I wasn't going to need a ride since I took my car. It would end up costing me $80 actually but that's ok. Also I had parked a full 2 terminals away yesterday morning. I sure got my steps today. To the tune of 12,000+ already and 133 active minutes. I am already close to the 280 benchmark 2 days into the week! When I landed I started to shift myself into back-home mode. Which means I have to pick up Johnnie and think about the rest of the week. I still have 2 days of presentations to go after all. I made a pit stop at Panda Express Marina del Rey because I still felt a little hungry and i didn't want to stop for tacos. Actually I did at Taco Bell Westchester but the drive thru line was really long. I got to Lisa's by 8:20 and when I walked through the door Johnnie practically jump hugged me! I gotta tell ya... I had a really good presentation today but the moment Johnnie yelled "Dad" with a big hug was an even better feeling! And so we started my watch... I was so tired. And we were all in bed not much later than right after we walked through my door. A very VERY awesome day.

Travel Day Hello Vegas

D-day to fly to Vegas. Flight is at 11:40. Arriving around 1 PM. I thought I had lots and lots of time actually, which explains why I was lollygagging so much this morning.  I mean was ready to leave by 8 AM. But I couldn't decide whether to take Uber or to call Lisa at the last second to give me a ride to LAX. In the end I decided on neither. I took my car. Heck, if I'm just going to leave it for 1 night, then maybe I can get QueensCare to foot the parking bill. $40 for overnight is it? Still, I was almost regretting driving there when I rounded the entire airport twice and found all the parking lots to be full. Great. I finally found some open spots in the United terminal in Parking Lot 7. I was supposed to leave from Terminal 4. Guess I get to at least do my steps this morning like I always do Mondays. The flight was pretty uneventful, except for the landing which was real REAL turbulent and rough <what the hell was that pilot doing??>. Fortunately, it was less than an hour flight. And a cab ride and $32 later I was at Caesar's Palace. Since I arrived at 1 PM, I had to stop for lunch first thing, I was so hungry. Sammy's Wood-fired Pizza it is LOL. Hawaiian pizza Sammy's version was a huge pineapple and a large piece of Canadian bacon. It hit the spot just fine. And when I got inside the hotel, a long-forgotten smell of cigarette smoke and casino noise hit me immediately. I did the early check-in thing on the Caesar's app. But when I got to the lobby, there was a whole slew of people there! Like Hundreds of people! WTF?? It took about 45 minutes to check in anyway. THAT was the express check-in. But I finally got my room and just crashed on the bed, wondering how I was going to get rid of the smoke stink when I went out to dinner later... It turned out to be a quiet night actually. I ran into Eloisa outside the lobby while she was headed out to dinner. It had to be quiet for me. I had to spend time rehearsing my talk tomorrow in my head, in addition to walking it through with Michael my co-presenter. I did have some pretty good noodles in the Asian Noodle House inside the hotel. That after taking some more steps outside. Got to 15,000+ tonight very easily. Even did 133 active minutes. Just like a usual Monday. So I posted pictures  to tell the rest of the story for today. Gotta get ready for tomorrow...

Golf Sunday

So today we're at Penmar for the second week in a row. It's just SO convenient to get here rather than any other course. And so if we're just going to be just Scott and I, i think I'm going to keep heading us here. I get to hang around the house and have breakfast no matter how early we head out... and today we had an 8:40 tee time. I still had plenty of time to do some meditation first thing. And have my Earl Grey hot tea and contemplate for a little while before heading out. Yeah, I contemplated about golf too but I think that I'm starting to think a little too much instead of being the good athlete that I am. Or at least I'm too all over the place in terms of my focus.  I do think all I have to do is practice more. It's the only way I can reverse the way I play on the fairway. It's like I have the same old program playing no matter where I am and I just have to keep practicing to put some new programs in. I know it's mental and I know it can be reversed. And so today right off the first tee on my very first shot, I launched quite possibly the best shot I have ever hit off this first hole in Penmar. Straight down the fairway at least 210 yards. Too bad I overshot the hole on my 2nd shot. And missed my putt too to end up with a 6. Like I told Scott before the match. There should be no way we would score less than a bogey on each hole. And so 2nd hole? Same thing. Great first shot. Terrible 2nd shot. Missed my putt. Got me another 6. Sigh. I already felt like I'm out of my rhythm by then. I never did get one putt this entire morning. Not one. How can that be possible? I have got to cut down on the mishits from the fairway! I could feel myself getting really REALLY frustrated. It's even worse when you're paired up with a couple of players who know what they are doing. Today it was a couple of Lisa's neighbors who lived right up the street on Maplewood. Small world. I would have been a lot more social had I not been shanking my shots left and right and short all the time. Smh.

Oh well, at least I can find some gratification in once again being able to come out to play on another typically nice October Sunday. And I did have a great shot or two. Just not from the fairway.  I'll just have to keep at it. Later later on I took a picture of the sunset while getting last-minute grocery shopping done at Ralphs. It was sort of a reminder that this sunday night was not like a regular Sunday night. I have to pack. I'm off to Vegas in the morning. And I hadn't even done any prep work. I did catch almost an hour nap right after I got back home from golf though. Had some chilaquiles from Whole Foods for lunch. And then finished my Tech Council Presentation. I'm ready for at least the first part of the week. I did clean up the kitchen and the bathroom so at least it will be presentable by the time I come home Tuesday night. As far as sports Sunday, the Rams did win in a big laugher. And then the Dodgers lost to the Braves on yet another walk-off in the 9th inning. That's 2 games in a row, 2 days in a row. They're down 0-2 in the series now. Can they pull out some magic like they did last year? On the one hand, they have been up in this series mostly until they implode in the last inning. Do they have a pitching issue all of a sudden? All thoughts that have nothing to do with my upcoming talk I know I know. But then again, I'm oddly not that nervous about it. Like I told Lisa yesterday, i was more anxious dealing with her patients on the phone and at the front desk than I am for this talk. I mean really how bad could it be? So anxious was I that I made myself some nice carne asada for dinner. And wolfed THAT down with some baked beans. It was 11 PM already by the time I actually started to think about the trip. I mean what is there to pack? Whatever I take I have to cram into my carry-on anyway don't I? It will be ok. It's Go time.

Just when I thought I was out... I get pulled back IN

How long has it been since I used to go to Lisa's office to do payroll and admin stuff on Saturdays?! I mean I did that for many years. And when we got Johnnie, I cut that down to going there at lunchtime and then working the afternoon. I still drove Lisa to work all those Saturdays. But it has obviously been a while.  At some point I stopped going altogether and ceded all duties to Nikki and Lisa. I think that was early 2018 already so I would say it has been almost 4 years since I have been in Lisa's office in any capacity other than a patient or visitor picking up Johnnie. But then a favor is a favor and I will tell you I'm more anxious to do a good job here than I am with my talk next week.  And so dutifully, as if we were still married, I brought breakfast for all and then got a very quick introduction and went over the front desk script. Fortunately for Lisa, I AM really familiar with Open Dental and so I didn't have any qualms looking up schedules and due balances and all that stuff. And of course everyone is depending on me to get lunch. Just when I thought I was out... they PULL ME BACK IN!!! And so I posted pictures of the day, it told more of the story. To be honest, it was a real easy day actually and I think I did just fine. I saw that Lisa had comandeered Angie to do some of the previous manager work she used to do. So really she's ok from where I was standing. We had a pretty good lunch, patient flowed, procedures were done, money was collected. Bim-bam-boom, Johnnie and I were out before 3 PM!

It did not escape me that I won't be seeing Johnnie for the next 3 days. In fact, I need to get my head into conference mode starting tonight. But Lisa did not pick up Johnnie until 8 PM and really I didn't mind. I milked every second I had with Johnnie today. Told him how great a job he did at Lisa's office taking patient's temperature and giving them hand sanitizer. Such an awesom kid we have. We even got to play some baseball outside, it being such a nice warm day and all. After Lisa picked him up and I basically didn't get back into work mode. I got a lot done while I was at Lisa's though.  And so my Tech Council presentation is pretty much all done too. I'm good to go.

Back To Summery Warm

As is the case when there is an emotional hiccup involving Lisa at the Johnnie pick-up, the morning is spent really in emotional recovery. And I gave myself healthy doses of meditation and healing frequencies to get me in the right frame of mind. To be specific, that means reminding myself that EVERYTHING IS ME PUSHED OUT. And it is MY emotional reactions I need to observe and determine what needs to be cleared. It is ME that needs to watch my own angry reactions and infuse a healthy dose of forgiveness to everyone involved. And in the middle of all that FIND WHAT GRATITUDE I CAN FEEL FOR ANYTHING. Even thanking Lisa for the learning opportunity. And so with that I almost started to head towards a reprise of last week when I basically tanked Friday and stayed in all day long. First of all, the sense of solitude was already undone by Lisa herself when she called me this morning. I thought we were going to talk about last night again. But nope, she called because she desperately needed help in her front desk tomorrow and asked me if I could man the front desk. I was almost stunned really. But I also realized the level of desperation that she has to call me. It wasn't even an ask. It was more like YOU HAVE TO DO IT. Lisa being Lisa. And so I agreed, even though I realize that would pretty much wipe out a leisurely day with Johnnie, because now he has to come along too. Still, maybe it's a penance of sorts that I have to do this as a good deed. So much for taking Johnnie to Universal Studios huh?! For the 2nd Saturday in a row! Oh well, there was another work meeting this morning, and that was the planning meeting for the Town Hall in November with all the principals involved. That one got done before noon. And so after that I FORCED myself to go out and enjoy the sun. I walked to El Pollo Loco and got myself a double chicken tostada salad. Won't be eating that on Monday when I'm in Vegas. Besides who knows how little I'm going to end up getting to walk some steps tomorrow if I'm working at Lisa's office. I decided I'd get as many steps as I could TODAY. 

It really WAS a beautiful day today. Just look at the selfie I took. Looks like a summer picture.  I was going to hunker in and find a movie to watch, maybe head out to see the new James Bond movie. Maybe put a steak on the barbecue again like last week. I was almost about to doze off when I got another call from Lisa. It was already past 5 PM by this time and it was clear she had already picked up Johnnie because I could hear him in the background. She couldn't find her phone but she was sure it was still at the office. How I end up being her lifeline for these things I don't know. If it were me I'd just grab Johnnie and simply head on over there to look for it. But apparently Johnnie was in the middle of making a "feast" for mommy and son. And now he was inviting me to come over and partake of said feast. I did want to talk to him to see if anything came of the apology letters. Lisa had written to Ms Huang that they were coming.  So much for me getting credit for getting those done huh?! I was going to meet Lisa at her office to look for it, but she seemed more intent that I come over to her house to help Johnnie make dinner. I think she just simply wanted some more work time at her office and get stuff done without Johnnie in her hair. To do that obviously someone had to watch him. Which I was only all too happy to do. After all I will end up losing a day with him next week. Look at the pic I posted of him making that feast. He had everything out! So Lisa took off and I helped Johnnie finish with the dinner prep. All he really needed was the pasta and Prego for his dinner. And I even augmented that with some more chicken noodle soup. As for me, typically there isn't anything in Lisa's refridgerator that I would be eager to eat. Salads mostly. Yawn.  But this wasn't about me, this was about making sure Johnnie got his dinner. And so he did, and I washed the dishes. And 45 minutes later, Lisa came home. The kitchen was already clean. And since I'm coming back at 7:30 tomorrow morning I made my leave too. And detoured myself to Taco Bell for the third Friday in a row. A burrito and a couple of tacos works for tonight. And then I got into some work energy. As in I started to work on my Tech Council presentation. Until 1:30 AM!! Hey it's like I actually worked rather than stay up late to the same time watching something on TV. I was tired and I knocked off very easily. And I have to look forward to working tomorrow. At Lisa's office. Strange to say that... is all I can say.