Last Workday of 2021

So it started raining hard last night and it didn't seem to have stopped raining through today. Of course it HAS been raining off and on since before Christmas even. I know we here in SoCal need this rain and all, but this much this fast this long? The last time I remember it raining like this was about 4 years ago... and it was a La Nina year that year too. So today is the last work day of 2021 and I at least kept to script by having my team meetings as per usual. This being Kennedy's last day as a full time employee, I wanted to emphasize to my IT guys it won't be business as usual for a bit, not until I can replace him anyway. Because they tend to get complacent like that. I also wanted to emphasize to Kennedy that we do have expectations still and I hope he keeps working as he usually does. So I did my EHR Team meeting too and that one didn't even go a half hour. A good thing too because minutes after the meeting was over, my internet gave out. It just stopped working. I turned the router and modem on and off and still no go. You never expect the internet to go down, or maybe you just take it for granted because it is something you just expect to be on, just like electricity or something. But a call to Spectrum's tech folks confirmed it... my internet modem is dead. And I need to get a new one. And so I wolfed down those turkey quesadillas from Trader Joe's for lunch and headed to the Spectrum store. Yep, and it was still raining pretty hard. I thought they had a store in Santa Monica but I guess they don't anymore. I went to the one in Westchester by La Tijera. I waited about 15 minutes and then I got bored so I finally reached out to Lisa to see how they were doing. It was 2 PM. I hadn't heard from her since the apology on Monday. I was hoping to see Johnnie maybe for a little bit until they headed out to whatever she had planned for New Year's weekend. I left a VM since she didn't answer. Then i got my modem and went home, plugged it in and I got my internet back! Thank God! 

It didn't end there though as an hour later we would have a systemic Spectrum outage in the area. Great. Anyway, I got a text from Lisa asking if I wanted to come to dinner tonight. Of course I wanted to go. But I wasn't sure what Lisa wanted to eat. Remember the whole thing about food was how we got into a big fat mess last weekend to begin with. Johnnie asked for a churro though and so I told Lisa I was going to get him one at El Pollo Loco and if she wanted me to bring chicken from there. Seemed to be safe enough. If she didn't want to eat it she didn't have to. I was pretty sure like last Friday afternoon she wouldn't have anything to cook in her fridge. And so I brought a can of chicken noodle soup for Johnnie, all the veggies I had in my fridge - which wasn't much mind you and then went over to her house. All I wanted to do was see Johnnie. I got a lot more than I was expecting. Lisa was playing Minecraft legos with Johnnie one minute and then the next she was on a call that lasted for a while. And so I ended up making Johnnie his dinner <still chicken noodle soup> and with the churro, that was sufficient. I ate a couple of pieces of the chicken for myself, leaving Lisa with a piece. It was almost 8 PM and Lisa was still on her call. Johnnie was already done playing Minecraft so he ventured upstairs to see what his mom was doing. It was then that Lisa suggested that I take Johnnie to sleep over my apartment tonight. And to bring him back at noon tomorrow sort of like it was a Saturday thing. MUCH MORE THAN I expected! And so it was that I got Johnnie back in my house tonight. He immediately went for my fridge and started eating junk like he always does. I have to say when he went to bed, him breathing softly with a warm blanket around him on my sofa made me feel like everything was back to normal. Or back to usual such as it were. I mean it was THURSDAY night but I hadn't seen him all week. Thank you Lisa for letting him spend tonight with me. Thank you very much.