The Visit to QueensCare

One thing about having Johnnie home is that you're always trying to figure out how to keep him occupied for the entire day without parking him in front of visual media. And so today I decided to take him to the QueensCare Health Fair. They had a bunch of booths up including Mental Health assessment, including games from the YMCA folks, including Covid booster shots. I was very much interested in getting my own booster shot considering the current omicron surge going on right now, so much so even the RAMS game had been postponed to today because of players being in COVID protocol. The Lakers did not look like the Lakers last Sunday because so many people were out. And so Johnnie and I did our usual McDonald's breakfast and then headed to the new Vermont facility. There was a problem immediately. The freeway onramp was closed. I went to the next one and THAT was closed. The next one had such a long line because of the other 2 being closed. This was almost 10 AM already! I ended up having to take side streets all the way to La Brea before entering the freeway. And then when I exited Vermont, more traffic. Lots of roadwork happening everywhere it seemed like. It was like it rained hard last week and the city is reacting and doing some retro-fitting. And maybe, I could look at it like the Universe really doesn't want me to come down does it? But come down we did and really I wanted Johnnie to meet some of the folks I work with. He got to have a mental health wellness assessment, he got to play some basketball and even won a prize, which turned out to be a toy raygun I would hear the rest of the afternoon. And as for me, I finally did get my Pfizer booster shot. I was a little hesitant because I'm pretty sure I'm going to be feeling something tonight or tomorrow morning. Or maybe I'll just sleep it off like I did the 2nd Moderna shot. Anyway I thought we had a pretty good morning at the fair and then we headed home just in time for lunch.

And THAT is when doing all that driving took its toll. There was traffic on the drive home to be sure. But I didn't think it was that bad. I got off on Overland and headed to Jack In the Box at Pico to get Johnnie the chicken strips he didn't get yesterday. And what followed next was a lesson for me that I should listen to Johnnie. Particularly when he tells me he feels sick and wants to throw up. I didn't take it seriously. I still took him to line up inside Jack-in-the-box. He pointed to the bathroom and I continued to ignore him. Right up until he started throwing up right in his mask. I yelled in frustration. Not at Johnnie. But at myself. What the hell happened? We did too much driving was what happened. And he got car sick! And I spent the next 15 minutes cleaning him up and cleaning up his clothes as he totally threw up his breakfast right there in the grassy area in the parking lot at Jack-in-the-box. Oh well, at least he did it outside mostly. I still bought him chicken strips... and then I took him home to clean up. "i'm really sorry Dad," he said. Oh it is NOT your fault little one. It's mine. After cleaning him up I stroked his head and his tummy and made sure he was ok. And in a little while he recovered. At least to the point where he was taking his new toy raygun and blasting away. Look at the pic. All in all, I didn't really feel anything from the booster shot. At least not until tonight when I felt like going to sleep the same time I put Johnnie to bed around 8:45. In the meantime, I still tried to get some work done. Work to do with the Kennedy situation. I gotta convince upper management to let me keep him part time which is what he wants. Don't know if I'm going to get that. First I gotta talk to my boss, Dennis, which I did today, then Sheila the HR Director, which I'll do tomorrow. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, this became a normal routine Tuesday and it was like the throw-up thing didn't happen. We went to Panda Express to get our dinner, made chocolate chip cookies like we do on a Tuesday night. And with the thought that the week was already half over, I did feel a little weird but not sick. I'll be ok.