Happy Birthday Lisa

This being a Monday and all, the routine was to get up do some meditation and start doing my steps to get to 5000 before mid-morning. It was going to be a warm day after lunch though you couldn't tell first thing. All I knew was that I very much welcomed the warm sun on my face every time I ventured outside. Which was more than a couple of times because I wanted to get as close to 15000 steps as possible by the time I picked up Johnnie later on. While walking I tried to use the steps as sort of a meditation activity thinking of myself being a millionaire already.  Somehow though there were still thoughts about what happened at golf yesterday morning. I knew I was going to have to resolve something.  If I really do believe that EVERYTHING IS ME PUSHED OUT then that whole thing looks like I was getting REALLY tested for patience and/or however way I was going to react. And somehow my thought was that I am not good with confrontation and therefore saying something WAS the lesson. Was I satisfied with what I did? Yes. The balance is always in how you let people become aware without becoming an asshole yourself. Especially me. I am NOT the quiet guardian angel. I am more the in-your-face guardian angel though I still balk at confrontation. I also realized that there was a heck of a lot of impatience that had gotten bottled up all week long that needed an outlet. I guess I didn't realize how much it needed to get let out. But let out I did and so I'm going to move on to simply watching my thoughts even more so I don't have to manifest other tests of patience. And when I thought of that, immediately thoughts of Lisa came to mind. It IS pick-up night tonight after all isn't it? LOL. In the meantime, I had work to do of course and I had HRSA reporting I needed to get done. I had it in my mind that I was going to use the old laptop, but since the new mini-PC is already in place, I thought I'd just work on the laptop while I was on the couch. Running my HRSA reports while lounging on the couch. Sounded pretty good when I first thought of it. But having the TV on was NOT a good idea. And I ended up watching the movie 13 Days (about JFK) from beginning to end. That wasn't good. In the end I never did get my reporting done. The best I could do was to work on the ETL process to clean up the data and I didn't even finish that. I did get to 13,000 steps and 100 active minutes by 4 PM though. And by then it was already starting to get a little dark. yep, Daylight Savings Time. Gonna be dark by 5 PM. Gonna need to get used to that again...

And so I got a call around 4:30 PM from Lisa. She did remember that I offered to take her to dinner for her birthday. She was thinking tonight after she picked up Johnnie from school. I was ok with that actually. I mean there would be no other opportunities to do that this week and when Silvia comes this Sunday, there would be no "family only" opportunities any more until Thanksgiving. And so I was fine with going tonight. All I was going to do was keep working on my reports anyway. And so it was that mom and son <and Claire> came by 5:30 PM and off we went to Oops. We figured Oops would be the closest thing we have to a sure thing in terms of eating out. Especially with this new mandate that took effect that you had to show proof of vaccination here in LA. Besides, we all had our go-to plates to order. This time Johnnie wanted to flex his new found like of tempura shrimp and wanted to have an extra serving beyond the 2 pieces that came with his udon. I ordered a sushi special which turned out to be very nice. And Lisa ordered the sashimi special that looked very nice too. All in all I dropped almost $100 on tonight's dinner. But I didn't flinch at all. I know that I'm not buying food. I'm buying memories. And no matter where we are with our relationship Lisa and I, even at its most contentious, we both know Johnnie loves it the most when we're doing stuff together the 3 of us. Even I have to acknowledge that. And so doing this would probably count as the best present that Lisa could sniff from me. And I think that is pretty good as well. I mean for all the reflecting on the negative aspects of Lisa and her narcissistic behavior, I also have to be fair and point out when we all have a good time. Tonight was a good time and we had a very nice dinner. And then Lisa dropped us off and Johnnie and I immediately flipped on the switch for Johnnie-at-dad's-house routine. That would include the Wild Kratts of course. That would include an evening walk with Claire. And that would include an attempt at doing my reports some more, which didn't get finished. Sigh. I guess I get to finish them tomorrow. With Daylight savings just 2 days old, I was out like a light at 9:30, which was 10:30 just a couple of nights ago. That's ok. I can catch up on sleep...