Another Monday, Back to School for Johnnie

It is another Monday and although it feels like a run-of-the-mill Monday, I do want to build on the momentum of last week and how I managed to experience pretty much everything I intended to experience, at least what I noted at the begining of the week LAST Monday. And also on the heels of an Easter Sunday that was spent at Lisa's house for a fam dinner with Feifei and kids. I kind of see today as a recovery day even though I knew I was going to have another full workout day like I have the past several Mondays. So I did a nice meditation session to set my intention for the week. And this week really it was just THE one event, which is my speaking engagement on Friday for the CCALAC symposium. I wasn't really stressing over it, it feels like just another Tech Council Meeting and I feel like I'm simply giving people their money's worth even for THAT QueensCare meeting. Friday should be just more of the same. And anyway, that's a many days away. What comes with Monday is all that COVID vaccination reporting too. And so my Monday went BAM-BAM-BAM really. Meditation session, then up walking around the neighborhood until I got to 4500 steps (over 2 miles), and then breakfast and shower, and then the Business Continuity Meeting. If that sounds like a full Monday morning already, that's because it was. I got such a nice start with steps first thing, I continued through lunchtime, even walking to Ralphs to pick up fried chicken and cole slaw for lunch. I was already well past 8500 steps mid-day. I'm already assured I'd be able to finish another 15,000 steps today. As far as the reports, I'm also developing a rhythm there even though what i'm doing is very much manual. I still got all the data posted by 3 PM in the afternoon. And I even got a big head start working on the HRSA numbers that are due tomorrow. And THEN I also remembered I was also asked by Eloisa to host the Town Hall Meeting on Wednesday. Which means I have to pick out the music at the beginning of the session. I already made up my mind last month everyone is going to listen to Israel Kamawiwo'ole Somewhere Over the Rainbow so really there wasn't much to do. I was supposed to talk cybersecurity but I was just going to pick out excerpts from my talk on Friday. Yes I really am cruising on this Monday. A very good thing.

In the meantime, the other to-do of course was to pick up Johnnie. Lisa called me earlier than usual... as in 4:30 PM because she wanted us to have a conversation with Johnnie. It would seem he's being a little rough with Claire. No surprise there. I yell at him about that all the time it seems. He still needs to learn control. But he's also being rough with Lisa. No surprise there either. I told her the stuff I would do to deter him from doing either. Of course it would be easy for me to just tell Johnnie he doesn't get to watch videos. For Lisa I don't know what that carrot and/or stick would be. But I was willing to go along with whatever she felt was appropriate. I noticed Courtney was still there at her house doing her best to look busy. I can only hope Lisa is not affected in a significant way. She just broke it to me yesterday that she thinks she's allergic to Claire. Great... she was the one that brought the dog in! And NOW she's allergic? What's going to happen now? All you can do is shrug your shoulders and let Lisa make her decisions. As far as the dog I am not really all that emotionally invested. Not just yet and I told her that. It's not like when we got Johnnie. Not even remotely close. But I would feel sorry for the dog. She HAS imprinted with us I think. And with me particularly. She knows me. It is me she runs to whenever Johnnie gets rough with her. Me she looks for when she is trying to sleep at night. We will see what happens, But for tonight, I picked up Johnnie and immediately went into Monday night routine. Lots to do tomorrow to prep for his return to in-school sessions next week., including a COVID test at Grand View Elementary.  Tonight, Johnnie ate 3 whole bowls of penne pasta in chicken broth. And I put away some of my awesome beef stew as well. I let him watch whatever he wanted knowing full well he was going to try to watch some more Octonauts. And so this turned out to be a quiet Monday night. As expected, I blew past 15,000 steps before it was even 8 PM and got to 110 active minutes pretty easily. And i wasn't even tired or sore. Here's to hoping the rest of the week goes by just as quietly. 

Easter Lunch at Lisa's

And so it was that as soon as I headed home from the golf game I shifted into Easter Sunday mode. I was supposed to bring some appetizers to Lisa's and so I stopped at Trader Joe's to pick up some hot dogs in puff pastry and some mac and cheese balls. Lisa made some fish, rice, and spinach... and pasta for the kids. And surprisingly, we actually had a pretty good lunch. And the kids had loads of fun playing with each other. Johnnie always has a kick playing with his brothers Tony and Neal. And it was nice to see Neal now talking and Johnnie holding his own rough-housing with Tony. He wasn't one to back down from the big kids even from way back when. And so I spent my afternoon at Lisa's and then after everyone left, so did I. I leave pictures as a memento of this year's version of Easter Sunday. At least the kids got together again. Pandemic or not.

Easter Sunday Golf

It's Easter Sunday, Lisa has plans for an Easter Egg hunt in her backyard, and I'm off to Eaton Canyon Golf course for another round, this time with Scott and Chris. Hadn't played here in a while and I wanted to at least go back to practicing what I now believe is a correlation between manifestation skills and how my golf game turns out. Plus I wanted to commiserate with Scott about the UCLA near-win yesterday. No moral victories I know, but BOY did we come oh-so-close! Besides Chris hadn't played with us in a few weeks so this round was a good starter for the day. The first hole was ABSOLUTELY a model for how I need to play. I was relaxed, didn't focus to much on how I was going to hit the ball, just visualized on where the ball was going to end up. Right in the middle of the fairway. And wouldn't you know I hit the ball nice and smooth and smacked it right in the middle of the fairway for a good 200 yards! And same thing with the iron right after it. Just focused on where I wanted it to end up and smacked a line drive all the way to the edge of the green! I ended up with a bogey on this hole. But I had a par putt to be sure. Same on the 2nd hole. Got another bogey 5. And then I got the yips on the 3rd hole where my tee shot tested the fence and I never could find the ball. I took a double bogey on that one. And from there I had 3 straight bad shots off the tee. Still I hit the ball pretty well to recover after such bad shots. Except on 6 where I had my only blow-up hole of the day. Maybe one day I'll get to the point where I'm not having any more blow-up holes. But that was not to be today. In fact, it was clear that after having such good focus and rhythm to start the game, I had lost in within a couple of holes and had reverted back to my old rushed, hacking away self. I think I need to find a way to focus better is what I need to do. As my tee shot from Hole 4 had no resemblance in any way to my first good tee shot off the 1st hole. That one on Hole 4 was an old program playing and I was in no way relaxed at all. I did manage to recover on Hole 7, and on Hole 9 and really I didn't feel like I played badly at all. But just not as good as I could have and certainly the work is now to sustain that rhythm from the first couple of holes. Gotta keep at it huh?

So CLOSE Yet So Far

 

Article by Bill Plaschke, LA Times

No way. That ball didn’t go in. That shot didn’t happen. That shot couldn’t happen.

No way. Are you kidding me? Jalen Suggs of Gonzaga did not just dribble the ball downcourt and throw up a 40-foot prayer over UCLA’s David Singleton and watch it bank into the basket for the victory as the buzzer sounded.

No way. The ball banked in? The shot counted? The outmanned Bruins fought their jerseys off against the unbeaten Bulldogs on Saturday night and still lost a national semifinal overtime game, 93-90?

On a Hail Mary? Good heavens.

It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem right. UCLA deserved better. In one of the best games in NCAA tournament history, on the verge of the biggest tournament upset in UCLA history, the Bruins did not deserve to lose on one of the most unlikely final shots in tournament history.

The Bruins did not deserve to get Laettnered.

Remember when Duke’s Christian Laettner hit the last-second shot to beat Kentucky in the 1992 East Regional final in what was then considered the greatest college basketball game ever?

This was that shot, that moment, that miracle.

Only this time, Bruins fans weren’t watching it, they were living it. This time, occurring at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, the moment was even more monumental. This time it was deeper in the tournament, farther from the basket, and crazy off the glass.

This time it was UCLA’s Johnny Juzang tying the game moments earlier with a fighting follow-up layup, then Suggs taking over with three seconds remaining.

Dribble, dribble, dribble…shot…bank.

Bank? Bank? Bank?

“We made a lucky one at the end,” Bulldogs coach Mark Few acknowledged.

Good for Gonzaga, which advances to Monday’s title game against Baylor with a chance to make history. The 31-0 Bulldogs have a chance to become the first college basketball team in 45 years to finish the season unbeaten. Gonzaga has not lost in more than a year. It has 35 straight wins over two seasons. The Bulldogs are a great team that is also now a magical team.

But you know something? Good for UCLA too.

The 11th-seeded Bruins’ attempt to become the first double-digit seed to get to a title game fell one miracle short, but they went down swinging. On the 26th anniversary of their last championship, they played like champions.

They were the biggest underdogs in modern Final Four history — 14½ points — yet they pushed Gonzaga to the limit. This was only the second time this year anybody had even come within double digits of the Bulldogs, and the Bruins consistently had them on the ropes until the red backboard light threw their season into darkness.

In the middle of all the buzzer-beating madness, as the Bulldogs raced and danced and bounced across the court, the Bruins held their ground for one last time, huddling up on the middle of the court, mourning and sticking together.

“Jalen makes an incredible shot, didn’t go our way, but, immediately, we come together, we weren’t going to let anybody have their heads down,” Juzang said. “There’s no other way we’d rather go out; we went out fighting. … There’s no better way, there’s no regrets, just everybody fought until the last play.”

Before the game, Bill Walton sent the team a video message in which he said, “Do your best, that’ll be enough, you’re already champions, you are UCLA.”

He was right. That’s who they were. That’s how they played. They were UCLA basketball at its finest, and the fact that it eventually ended in tears and sobbing hugs and jerseys pulled over heads didn’t change that.

“I just told them they got to let the last shot go, and as much as they want to be down right now and gutted and miserable, they’ve got to let it go, because they’re winners,” coach Mick Cronin said. “As a coach all you can do is ask your players to give you everything they got, and come on guys, all you’ve got to do is watch, to see a team improve the way we improved.”

From losing their final four games before the NCAA tournament to winning a First Four game after trailing Michigan State by 14 points to surviving two overtimes and to end up putting Gonzaga on the brink? Yeah, it was something to see.

Cronin added, “These guys, they deserved a better ending, but like I told them, as Coach Wooden would say, true greatness is giving your best effort, and that’s what they did.”

After he hit the shot, Suggs told CBS, “It’s crazy, I can’t find the words right now.” It’s crazy how UCLA almost pulled this off.

After trading blow for blow with the high-powered Bulldogs for nearly 40 minutes, the Bruins sent it to overtime with defense. With the score tied in the final minute of regulation, Cody Riley blocked a Suggs layup attempt out of bounds, then the suffocating Bruins pressure forced a long three-point attempt by Corey Kispert that bounced out.

Juzang tried to win the game but was hit with a charging call against collapsing Drew Timme while driving the lane in the final seconds. The video replay showed it was the right call, even if UCLA will spend the summer wondering about it. If nothing else, the Bruins went down attacking the basket.

“I was hoping they’d call a block. … Sometimes things aren’t meant to be,” Cronin said.

In the overtime, they couldn’t stop Timme inside and trailed by five with 57 seconds left, but Jaime Jaquez Jr. hit a clutch three-pointer, and Juzang hit that follow shot, and the game was seemingly going to double overtime.

Then — a bank shot, really? — it was over.

Cronin wanted to trap Suggs, but he didn’t have a timeout to set his defense, and he couldn’t direct his players in time.

“I got their attention late, and they came to him late, and it’s not their fault, because we trained them to get back,” Cronin said.

There’s no blame here, only credit for an incredible run that could be only just beginning.

Almost all the team in uniform Saturday night, with the possible exception of Juzang, is probably coming back next year, and they could be joined by injured top scorer Chris Smith and the absent Jalen Hill. They will also add two top-50 recruits, five-star small forward Peyton Watson from Long Beach Poly plus shooting guard Will McClendon from Las Vegas Bishop Gorman.

“You know, it’s tough, I’m not going to lie; we feel like we could have done it all, but still at the same time, I know I can say I did realize what an amazing group this was,” Juzang said, adding, “What I realized walking off the court was just how incredible this group was, and just the brotherhood and camaraderie and cohesion, just everything about this group, man, the heart that’s really it, the heart of this group.”

On a night the UCLA basketball heart was broken, it was renewed, and beats on.

Prepping for Easter Sunday

So today is a work day for Lisa, which means I'm at her house at 7:30 AM to pick up Johnnie. Immediately she gives me a to-do assignment, which was to pick up stuff at Party City to put in the plastic eggs for the Easter Egg Hunt. Oh, so there's an Easter Egg hunt now. News to me clearly, but Johnnie is all excited about putting the eggs together later. And so off we went to my apartment so that he could at least start the day with a shower. And when we got that done, of course we had to head out to Elysee for breakfast don't we? Today was a definite marker in time in that this was the first time we were allowed to eat INSIDE of Elysee since March of last year! That is most definitely something of note and I had to post a pic of Johnnie eating his croissant at one of the socially-distanced tables. There were people eating there obviously... not as much as it used to be on many a Saturday, but it's a start. And I'm happy to be able to eat in again. We went from there to Target for our every-other-week run and got started with buying M&Ms and other candy here. And then it was off to Party City where we were able to find some little toys and knick knacks that would fit inside the plastic egg. Like a little yo-yo toy. And some mini wall-stickers. Lisa told me there would be 3 other kids. And finally she told me Feifei and her kids were coming.  Johnnie would LOVE that for sure. Anyway, after going a little bit nuts at Party City we went home. And Johnnie got to watch the Octonauts - Ring of Fire yet again, his latest favorite.  Me, I was just happy to hang out on a Saturday without thinking about doing anything. I was fine just chillin' on the couch, which is where I spent most of the day even after Lisa picked up Johnnie when she got done with work. Johnnie was amped to put together the Easter eggs for later and it was all I could do to get him to have our normal Saturday Lisa-workday routine. Today we went to Panda Express Westwood for his lunch and then I ALMOST got a 20-minute nap in. I kept closing my eyes and Johnnie kept interrupting me as if to make sure I didn't get to sleep. By the time he had left, I couldn't sleep anymore. There was one more thing on my mind today. UCLA plays Gonzaga in the Final Four of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. And I was sure as hell not going to watch. Not yet anyway. I'm back to my ways of not watching a team I root for because i get too nervous.  Gonzaga is favored by 14 1/2 points. That is so disrespectful Wouldn't it be cool if UCLA could pull off what would be the greatest upset in college basketball history then. But I couldn't watch. So I went to Marina del Rey Rubio's Grill to pick up fish tacos. This also gave me the opportunity to do my walk steps considering i was only at 3700 at this time. I remember a while back i'd walk around this same Marina del REy neighborhood on an early summer evening. Hmmm. Could it be I'd live in this neighborhood at some point in the future? Hmmm... In the meantime, on my way back Lisa asked me to pick up Coke for tomorrow for Feifei's kids. And so I dropped those off on my way home from Marina del Rey Pavilions. She asked me to pick up udon too for Johnnie. I didn't care.. I just wanted to be distracted for sure.  I went to Marukai for one more shopping run. And then I went home. Should I turn on the TV? Should I watch the UCLA game? It would be halftime right about now. I can't do it! I can't do it! Argghhh!!!

A Good Friday

So one more activity today and the week is all done. And it's a big one. IS is hosting the FRB Birthday party for the month today, because I screwed up last month by not hosting it like we were scheduled to. I got screwed up with the schedule. And so i had it my mind we had to do really well with today's party. It's just not in my DNA to do mediocre work, and so last month's faux pas stung. Fortunately Kennedy felt the same way and pitched in by committing earlier in the week to put content together. I was glad to get the help but I also needed him to understand I had very high standards.  And this morning I assembled the team to see what he had.  We did sort of a run through and the bottom line was that I was satisfied we would have a good presentation. It's the little details that matter and I wanted to make sure we had all the bases covered, including that lame way we sing Happy Birthday and botch up all the names when we get there. I figured how about we DONT  say any names and just say Happy Birthday everybody. Anyway I was so focused on the event that I didn't end up taking a shower this morning, what with meeting with my team and all. And after the meeting it was on to getting lunch and maybe taking a nap. Except that I was too wound up to do the nap. And the lunch was the frozen Cuban chicken bowl from Trader JOe's in the freezer. I did go to Whole Foods  to at least get started with the grocery shopping routine for the weekend. An early start for that. And I decided to at least stop by Coffee Bean to get a hazelnut frozen drink like I always used to do before one of these things. But i hadn't been in charge of one of these things in a while and it turned out I couldn't drink that thing either. I was simply too wound up. And finally when 2 PM hit I was the first on the call. I will make a long story short... 10 minutes in and everyone already put in a chat that I was doing pretty well. Even through a terrible Happy Birthday singalong. Not even my Stevie Wonder version of Happy Birthday helped with that. But Kennedy's Jeopardy game went over very very well, even if he had a couple of categories that were iffy in my book. I was very impressed with the amount of content he was able to put together. And then after the Jeopardy game, we did the staff trivia thing and for sure that went over very well too. Lots of laughs, lots of bad guesses, lots of trivia. Hey my idea was to humanize the staff and maybe get to know each other a little bit better. I THINK that was mission accomplished. So today, we were supposed to leave by 3 PM for the day, this being Good Friday and all. And after the FRB Birthday thing, I was done for the day I was done for the week. I reflected back on the week, feeling jubilant about today. It turned out all the things I intended to experience at the beginning of the week, all came to pass. And so it was a vERY VERY good week indeed. I spent the rest of the evening chillin'. Had me some fried swai from Ralphs and a cucumber and tomato salad. Hey, it IS Good Friday right? Although I am definitely not a practicing Catholic, maybe I'll do the no-meat thing tonight just for the novelty. I earned that I think. I spent it watching the Falcon and the Winter Soldier late in the afternoon, and then another werewolf movie on Hulu called Blood Moon. I just needed to turn my mind off for a while, at least through the weekend. It's WELL EARNED this week. It was well earned indeed.

Already A Good Week

Quietly, yesterday was the last day of March and today is the first day of April. April Fool's Day such as it were, though because of the pandemic, even Google isn't doing it's usual prank day with the Google Doodle. The one thing I wanted to knock off today was to run through tomorrow's FRB Bday party festivities which my team is hosting. We're hosting because I fucked up last month with hosting and I wanted to make up for it this month. "We have to go BIG", Kennedy said after last month and he was supposed to show us what he had managed to put together. After this morning's meeting, he showed us that he had put together a JEOPARDY game, in addition to the FRB Staff trivia game, which everyone seems to be much more comfortable talking to him about than me. Actually I don't care... I was just glad I got some help this time. And did I ever. He actually put together lots of content for the Jeopardy game and with my Trivia game, we know we can at least entertain everyone for 45 minutes. All I did this morning was work on the other details like music and the other rituals we do at these things (2 TRUTHS AND A LIE). And so after the meeting I felt good that we're ready to go for tomorrow. And then after that meeting, I met with Candice and Aisha about my talk next week. And after THAT meeting, I felt good that I'm ready to go for next week too! Awesome awesome awesome. With the Bruins winning, it was already a good week. And after another meeting with my new boss Dennis, who made it clear he wanted no non-patient data in EPIC specifically for payments, that locks THAT up. The last meeting of the day to discuss that very thing ended with the decision that we're going to continue to do Community events in MyTurn for now. Which is what I wanted to happen and stated so at the beginning of the week. And so already a good week got better. At the end of the afternoon meeting I allowed myself a sigh of relief and made Johnnie and I some paper airplanes so we could do paper airplane races outside. Exercise + everyone outside + dog getting to poop and pee outside = WIN/WIN. Might not sound like a big deal at all actually. We're just throwing paper airplanes, which I made for both of us. But the way Johnnie was squealing and laughing showed me the power of innocence with kids. It doesn't take much to get them to that sense of natural play and natural joy. And once you get them there? It's golden. From that point it was a countdown to when Lisa was going to come to pick up Johnnie and the dog. And to discuss what the weekend was going to be like. After all, it IS Easter Sunday coming up. We gotta do something don't we? Don't we? All Johnnie knew was that we were going to do something. Or at least his mom was. We picked up his dinner at Panda Express tonight and he was done with that AND cleaning up in no time at all. As if he expected his mom to come early. As it was, she was a little early. She came around 6:45. She told me she was spending tomorrow at her mom's with Johnnie and then of course Saturday is a work day for her. Which was perfectly fine with me. She mentioned something about Sunday but nothing definitive. Mom and son took off and I just finished my steps for the day. And then hunkered down on the couch with a big sigh.  Just the FRB Birthday party tomorrow and we're all done for another work week... But first one more pic of Johnnie, dad, and Claire to finish the day with. Gotta love that right?