Golf Sunday

So today's golf round is at Roosevelt and both Scott and Greg joined me this morning. Another Sunday, a little cloudy first thing but I was 100% sure the outer layer I wore coming to the golf course would be off before we even tee off. Another Sunday and another chance to work on my mental game. To work on my mental vibration. To work on getting myself relaxed and not get speeded up. No better an example than my talk on Friday that was yet another example of how I let an external stimulus speed me up and therefore perform below my best. I reminded myself that it is a swing by swing kind of thing but to also be able to compartmentalize to the context. In other words, yes I may hit one bad shot. But I can and should still get it in the hole in 4, which is a very VERY good outcome. I noticed that I drove in feeling a little tired today, no doubt a product of not having good sleep. Something I did to myself staying up to basically let my own mind roam instead of focusing on slowing it down. So on to the game. Right off the bat on the first hole on my first shot I get a test. I usually have great shots off this first tee. Not today. I topped the ball and it went about 70 yards. Great start smh. However, my second shot with a 4-iron got up near the green! A terrific shot. My 3rd shot chip got within 20 feet of the hole, and I made the putt for a par! YES! See? Context. A par on the first hole. I had a great shot off the tee on the 2nd. But the reverse happened. I whiffed the 2nd shot. And I did not slow myself down enough so that I had to take 2 more shots just to get to the green. Sigh. A 7. And then on the short hole following that, although my tee shot cleared the trees, I overshot the hole and ended up with a 5 because I missed an easy putt. Sigh. Now on Hole 4, that was my BEST HOLE OF THE DAY. A beautiful drive and another 4-iron got me to the green in TWO! I missed the birdie putt, but made par. I was doing great! 2 pars on the first 4 holes! What I did was psych myself out from there. I said things like: "I can go home now, I made 2 pars already!". And my conscious self followed suit. I never could find any more consistency. I would have a great shot on all remaining holes but would follow it up with a terrible shot. My consistency left me. My relaxed state left me.  I could never put together a string of shots like I did Hole 4. Or even Hole 1. There was always one crucial shot that could have led to a good score but I missed on. On Hole 5, it was the fairway approach to the green which was not that far. I could have and should have made the green. I didn't. Same on Hole 6. I was already on the fairway, but missed the 3rd shot. On Hole 7, I got a 4 because I missed the par putt from a long ways away. On Hole 8 I had a beautiful drive but shanked the 2nd shot to the rough. On the last hole I teed up hole level to the rough. But missed the chip way hard and past the hole. Oh well at least I did have those 2 pars...

Usually when I go to Roosevelt I would stop at IN-N-Out for lunch on the way home. Not today. I decided to take the freeway and got home before 11:30! I stopped at Crimson instead for the usual salmon kabob and rice and lentil soup. And then finally caught up on sleep with a nap that lasted an hour. Hey I had done my exercise for the day, spent time outside. I actually planned on working on my taxes today. it is the 15th of April next week you know. Instead I finally got to watch one of the movies I downloaded last week. Chaos Walking with Daisy Ridley (Star Wars) and Tom Holland (Spiderman). A curious take on the battle between the sexes. A settlement on a distant planet where a village has only men, and dealing with an anomaly where they could hear each other's thoughts. No women in the village. The men killed them because the anomaly didn't affect the women. They couldn't hear the women's thoughts. It would take a strange holy man who had inner demons about not being able to tell the difference between the voice of God to fuel the movement to get rid of the women. Isn't that how cults start? Like the Trump cult that pushed people to attack the US Capitol. And then prayed inside that they were doing this in Jesus' name. Misguided people. The protagonist helps the one woman who lands from a crashed spaceship. Because there is always an inner stirring when you get past your own demons and clear them. They're not demons. Just bad programming. Hmmm. Very appropriate with what I'm trying to do isn't it? I never did get to my taxes tonight. Instead I took a peek at my organization's KNOWBE4 scores, got disappointed, and prepped a presentation for tomorrow. Sigh. Yes. I worked. And stayed up until way past midnight in the process. But at least it should be a chill week. Shouldn't it?

I Need To Chill

After yesterday's talk I think I earned a chill day today. But that would have to come later. First I needed to pick up Johnnie at Lisa's so she could do her Saturday piano lesson. Before going there I made sure I was emotionally and mentally prepared. I reminded myself that EVERYTHING IS ME PUSHED OUT, particularly those negative feelings that came up yesterday when Lisa was calling me while Johnnie was screaming in the background.  I needed to let go of the reaction and instead focus on feeling peace and harmony. I needed to let go of control and keep my ego from taking control.  It's not about who's right and who's wrong, it's about getting Johnnie to learn. I also didn't want to spend any time with Lisa considering she's not in a good space. Which is why I had breakfast at my house first thing. So I wouldn't have to at Lisa's. It was a good call. When I got to Lisa's she was in the backyard and apparently dealing with the gardeners, who were finally planting sod. Almost 3 years I've been gone and twice she's re-sodded. Unbelievable. It was clear that she had her hands full this morning. So much so I got my wish after all. I didn't have to have breakfast, I didn't have to talk to her at all.  In fact, just as soon as I had Johnnie dressed, she said goodbye to him and off we went. Eezy peezy. Of course I found out right off that Johnnie hadn't had breakfast yet. Why am I not amazed... And so we had to make a pit stop at McDonald's first thing to get Johnnie eggs and sausage before we did anything at all. When he did finish breakfast, we went on my grocery shopping run. First Whole Foods, then Ralphs, then Trader Joe's. Johnnie didn't mind because he ended up with Hershey's cookies-and-creme chocolate. At some point I asked Johnnie to tell me what happened with the dog yesterday and the water hose incident. I know he probably thought it was going to be funny. I also know that HE doesn't know when he physically hurts someone or something. So the learning need is not only in control, but also in empathy. That is to let him know how that hurt feels without physically hurting him. I don't want to do anything to alter his happy-go-lucky play-most-of-the-time nature. Just look at him in the pic when we went to Panda Express. This I don't want to change. So we got his lunch, and I got mine from El Pollo Loco, and I got him a churro for dessert. We're all still good. 

I had this idea that maybe I should use the trip to Universal Studios and Jurassic world as a carrot to get Johnnie to behave better. But when I told Lisa about it at the Johnnie drop-off at her house, she did not like the idea. It's a difference in style to be sure, and really that's all it is. Lisa likes to use the stick and punishment. I like to use a carrot based on that stuff on parenting from Yale. I guess we're just going to do it differently. We will see what's more effective. And so it was that when I dropped Johnnie off, that would be it in terms of seeing him for the rest of the weekend. And finally, I can have SAID alone time. I had a bunch of new movies lined up actually. But somehow I never got to any of them. Instead, I lounged around the couch until it was time to get dinner. And for dinner, I went to TUT's Mediterranean on Washington and Grand View. I felt like getting a kofta kabob is all. It had warmed up by mid-day and I enjoyed walking in the late afternoon to pad up my steps count for the day. For some reason I chose to watch old series tonight. First Travelers on Netflix. Then a re-run of a few episodes of Band of Brothers. Oh and I did watch the Dodgers game against the Nationals. Great to see fans in the stands at Dodger Stadium again. I never did get to my movies. I could tell I just wanted to zone out tonight. Not have to think about anything important. Not have to think about anything at all. I guess it's ok to do that right? Ok to just numb out. After all, looking back on the week I did have a big day Friday. Barbara even gave me some Spark Bucks as a token of gratitude. That and a $25 gift cert from DoorDash and I'm good to go! I really did get paid for speaking didn't I LOL LOL LOL. Anyway that day alone carried the emotional tone for the week. I'm not even going to think about next week, not tonight. Next week already promises to keep me on my toes, but not on the work front. Next week Johnnie goes back to school and that alone I think is sure to suck up my focus and attention all week long. I did think about the energies I was focused on. It was good to limit my interaction with Lisa, and be aware of my reactions. It's like I'm getting tested. You think you've developed patience now did you? We'll see... TEST TEST TEST.  In the end I had a pretty quiet Saturday evening, even though I didn't get to sleep early either. Golf tomorrow you know. I needed to be in bed and asleep before midnight. I lollygagged and blew myself past that. Sigh...

Johnnie On A Friday

I wish I could have just crashed right after my talk. It would have been nice just to get a burger and be done with the day. But I'm afraid I had to immediately put my bedroom back together and then head on over to Lisa's office to pick up Johnnie and Claire. I have to say that no matter how much I mentally prepare myself for drama now every single time I have any kind of an interaction with Lisa, she still manages to surprise me most of the time. And not a good surprise either. Case in point I get to Lisa's office and Johnnie is in the break room eating strawberries. It was 12:30 so I was wondering why he wasn't in front of the computer doing his last class of the day. Simple answer: Lisa forgot. She got too pre-occupied with her patients. It's a good enough excuse but really after 6 months of doing Friday online classes, you'd think she would have been mentally aware enough to stop for just THREE FUCKING MINUTES just to log Johnnie in to her computer and to his class. By the time I was getting him on it was 12:45 already and too late to catch the class. I told Lisa it didn't matter. But I'll be honest... this just reinforces the notion that she simply can't do much of anything else when she is focused on her office and her patients. I was waiting for her to blame ME in fact although to my surprise she didn't. She did mention that I forgot to pack the computer, which I did. But apparently he had done most of the morning classes on Lisa's computer so that wasn't really an excuse. I was thinking leave it to Lisa to CREATE DRAMA out of NOTHING. And that wouldn't be the end of it either, even after I packed up Johnnie and the dog and took them to my apartment. Of course Johnnie hadn't eaten yet. I stopped at Panda Express so he could have a decent lunch.  And then I let him eat and watch TV for as long as he wanted. I was too tired. I needed to crash and take a nap. As it was, Lisa at least picked them up at 5:30 like she said she would. And then I went back to my apartment and readied myself to watch a whole slew of new stuff on NEtflix and Amazon Prime. But that wouldn't be it for Lisa and her drama. She called me at 6:30 PM and I could hear Johnnie screaming in the background. smh smh smh. Oh fucking God! Apparently, Johnnie used the blast setting on the house to fire water at Claire. And Lisa lost it. I would have been mad too, and I think I would have blasted Johnnie with the water myself if I were there so he knew how it felt. Lisa responded by calling me and giving Johnnie the indication that she was going to drive Claire to spend the rest of the weekend with me. That was why Johnnie was screaming. I think he knew he screwed up. I'm just not ok with him screaming either. Not ok with Lisa disciplining him in that way.  He isn't going to learn anything if you torture him, emotionally or otherwise. He'll just learn that it's ok to do that.  I think I was projecting my own irritation with Lisa that made me just hang up after a bit. I didn't want to hear any more of that drama. I didn't like the way I started to react. If that's the way Lisa disciplines Johnnie, then I can't stop her. Johnnie will have to learn 2 sets of behavior as he already has. Hopefully either or both will lead to a positive result for him.  In any case, I knew my reaction was an emotional one and something that I was projecting from myself. After a while Lisa called to somewhat explain what they were doing.  I think she wanted some consensus on the way we were to discipline Johnnie. Or maybe to explain why he was screaming like that. For me I will need to trust that Lisa is doing what she thinks is best. And I will leave it at that for tonight. And come get Johnnie in the morning.

The CCALAC Symposium

So today is D-day. The CCALAC symposium. And I'm speaking at 11:20. I did my morning walk around the neighborhood WHILE practicing the first 10 minutes of my presentation. I think it's going to flow from there once I get going. I got back to the apartment and took a peek at the first session at 9 AM. The morning plenary. 168 people were on. Not all would be attending my talk for sure. Would they? I shrugged off negative thoughts as much as I could and focused on a triumphant feeling after my talk. And then shaved and took a shower. And put on my blue office shirt. Hadn't worn this thing in more than a year. I hated waiting. I spent a chunk of time rearranging the bedroom. Is the Zoom feed going to catch my bed? And the butterflies above it? I decided to move unnecessary furniture out. Including the desk with the lamp. And the rack that served as the repository for all my clothes. I moved them all out of the camera's way. And still got left with the bed. I had to log on an hour earlier than my session just so the "producer" and tech support could ensure my gear is ok and that video/audio feeds are good. I got on at 10:20 for the check and I'm glad we got on on time, we including Aisha and Candice from CCALAC who will serve as moderators. By the time we finished logistics check it was already 11:10! I started to count down. I kept making sure I was relaxed. Just like golf I said to myself. Just stay relaxed... As it was the talk wasn't all that hard. Because I was alone in front of my computer. It was like I was having a conversation with the world but no one was answering back. I was doing ok... until the halfway-point time check. 10 minutes left the producer said in my ear. Somehow that speeded me up. And I think I hit the wrong button on my computer. At some point I hit the END button instead of PgDn, which took me to the end of my document. And I reacted. Like it was the end of my talk. I still had a good 8 minutes to go. I had skipped at least 6 slides. Fortunately, even though I ended way early I was able to work in the material from the slides in the Q&A THANK GOD. And so I don't think anyone even noticed that I had missed stuff. All in all Aisha said I had good comments pretty much. I'll take it. Barbara Hines said I did good. I'll take that too. BIG WHEWW!!! Talk is over. I was on adrenaline that whole time. I'm all done! What a relief....

 

Starting to Feel... Nerves?

It's Thursday and it hasn't been lost on me that this is going to be Johnnie's last online class day! More than a year starting with TK in March of last year. Daily lesson plans back then, daily learning now with a lot of extracurricular stuff I crafted. Music class, dance class, Math. Through it all Johnnie has been a gamer and I'm actually pleased with his progress as he's well ahead of kindergarten level. It's the socializing that I want him to experience more and that is where in-person learning is better I think. Johnnie seems to think so as well as I told him today is the last time he's getting online here in my apartment. There's still tomorrow for him of course, and Monday but pretty much for me it is a sense of MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Sort of a feeling of one way we stood up to the pandemic and kept going. So finally today I had my IS Team Meeting and right after that I forced myself to at least get familiar with the digital platform for tomorrow's talk. And once I got that done, the only thing left to do was to familiarize myself with my own talk. I mean the material is there and everything and I can make up stuff slide by slide as they come up but I want to do better than that. I want to be really REALLY good. I mean people PAID to attend this symposium. People PAID to here me speak! Does that make me a paid speaker now? LOL. I'd like to be able to say that I focused today on my presentation for tomorrow but instead I really just hung out with Johnnie and the dog. I'm not feeling much of anything about tomorrow which is a bit surprising. It's like I'm TOO relaxed if there is such a thing. By the afternoon I kept Johnnie occupied by getting him to build a booby trap so Claire doesn't go running around the living room. She has gotten a lot more familiar with finding areas she could hide in in my small apartment. Maybe she goes to these places when Johnnie bugs her too much. All I know is that she has discovered that there is a place under my bed she can get to. And with all the boxes under there, there are actually a nook and cranny she can hide in. Also under the dining room table. Who knew! I mentioned that Johnnie had been really good all week... or at least he is doing MUCH better about not being so rough with her. He did throw something at her which incensed me but I will continue to work with him. I was actually hoping Lisa would come early tonight to pick him up so I could actually have some alone time to practice my talk. But THAT turned out to be too much to ask. I called her by 7:30 and she was still at the office. And she wasn't coming yet either. It turned out that she is preparing documents for her soccer team that is trying to reassemble and start playing again in the Santa Monica league. I have ZERO emotional investment in that activity anymore, but I will admit to being annoyed that she is yet again not remotely focused on picking up Johnnie. She asked me to drop Johnnie and the dog off at her office. UNBELIEVABLE. I had no choice of course, at least, not if I wanted some alone time to do what i had to do. And so I packed up JOhnnie and Claire, got there, and then she asked me if I could watch Johnnie tomorrow because she had patients. She scheduled a work day on the day I was going to have a big speaking engagement. UNBELIEVABLE. I don't expect her to care about that obviously. But she should ask me ahead of time if she wants me to watch Johnnie on a non-scheduled day. That's just common courtesy. Was I annoyed? Very much so. I chalked it up to Lisa simply being Lisa. And walked off. I told her I couldn't do it until my talk was done at noon. And then I had to go home brush all that negative residue off and practice my talk. I ran through my talk a couple of times and each time I went well beyond 35 minutes <they want a 10-minute Q&A afterwards> I'm going to need to customize it some more I guess so I focus on the points I wanted to focus on. It was 10:30 by the time I was done practicing. I felt ok. I think I'm ready.

The Town Hall

Did I mention that I am now hosting the Town Hall we have every month for Q/QHC? It's not really that big of a deal. I get to pick the music for the thing and then I get to introduce Father Vasile who will do the benediction to start the whole thing. That may not amount to much but it still puts me front and center with the whole organization, as if I am now recognized as one of the prominent leaders. I'm simply going to chalk it up to the fact that I am now recognized anyway if not for the simple reason that I've been here a long time. Coming up on 8 years in July. Although I don't take anything for granted, it seems a cinch for me to get there and that would, in fact, put me at QueensCare longer than any job I have ever had full time. I didn't make 7 yrs at USC Stevens, which was the previous longest. Anyway it is a bit strange to think of tenure now, especially when in my heart of hearts it would really be great to create replacement income in the amount I'm making now (or greater) so I can not have to work for anyone any longer. Anyone other than myself that is. Anyway, with me hosting the town hall, that made me have to do a juggling act as the meeting was going on right at the time of Johnnie's first 2 classes in the morning. And so I had to show him how to get on himself so I didn't have to walk him through it. He's actually gotten pretty good at doing it himself so I wasn't worried he'd be late to his class or anything like that. As it turned out, I didn't once have to help him at all. And so I went from the Town Hall and right to my meeting with the Data Team. And both Johnnie and I got done by 10 AM. Busy busy busy first thing for the both of us. For Johnnie the focus this week was how he behaved with Claire as apparently he had done something to hurt her in front of Lisa and she was mad about it at the Monday hand-off. So much so she wanted me to call her to pick up Claire if he got out of line just once. Johnnie needs to learn impulse control to be sure. And I do get concerned that he's developing a bully streak or a dark side. A cruel side. How does that jive with what I've also observed to be an empathetic side? Lisa seemed to be surprised as if that was the first time she's seeing him act out like that. All I know is that Johnnie behaves differently with me than he does with his mom.  With her I'd be willing to be all he wants is her attention. He wants that more than he wants mine I think which makes my job with him easier. Still he's doing fine I think. And he has even asked for feedback about that which ("How am I doing dad?") is a real good thing.

And so Humpday Wednesday wasn't as hectic as yesterday it seemed, and the only urgency I felt was that I still hadn't looked at all the presentation stuff that would happen on Friday. Maybe it's just me trying to not make such a big deal out of it. Wouldn't want me to be nervous after all. Then again I still have all day tomorrow to figure out logistics and all that. They want me to meet with a "producer" after all. Woo-wooo. F-a-n-s-a-y. Hopefully he can help me through the presentation. I still maintain it's no different than talking to the Tech Council. Hopefully I'll keep it that way. In the meantime, Wednesday means it's Panda Express night at the Westwood location and of course Claire gets another bath tonight as per usual. I sent the pic of Claire hanging out in the doghouse I made for Fuzzy months and months ago. Who KNEW back then it would house an actual DOG?! Of course Lisa had to respond with a question about how Johnnie was doing with her, which tells me she really was DISTURBED about his actions on Monday. I'm still not understanding why it is somewhat of a surprise though. He actually hasn't been bad at all in my apartment. Again more than likely a function of how differently he behaves with me compared to the way he does at his mom's house. At the risk of being snarky, isn't that what happens when Lisa is focused mainly on what the heck is or isn't wrong with her body <which she has been for the last 3 weeks???>. Ok Ok, forget about that. When you break it down, even I ignore Johnnie for long stretches of time when I'm on the computer. But he has gotten very good about writing down his feelings when those get hurt, or simply telling me he wants to cuddle with me while watching his favorite show. And so it was that tonight, Johnnie got an early shower and that's because he got really really wet while giving Claire a bath in the tub. Boy that dog hates her face getting wet! But we got started early tonight and so she got dried a little earlier than usual. Boy and dog were asleep by 9:15 and Claire still isn't accustomed to her new place in the sleeping arrangements next to Johnnie. She finds herself in the place where I sleep usually. Maybe it's my smell?! I didn't sleep right away. I snuck out again to watch the latest episode of Mayans MC. Don't know what it is about that show. Hero's Journey you know. Hero's Journey.

Back To Routine

You know how I gravitate towards routine and with Johnnie back in school online, I couldn't be any happier. And it will even be better when he goes back to school next week officially. Today after his mid-morning class we headed over to Mar Vista Elementary so he could pick up materials for the rest of the week AND an identifier for when he gets dropped off next week. And it was actually nice to see one of the kids from last year's TK class. Just more indications that things are ever-so-slowly going back to some semblance of normalcy. In the meantime, there was still his classes to do this morning and I posted a pick of one of his art classes. The project was to do a cut-out of a dog Henry Matisse style. And I must say if it represented Claire, it was pretty good! Immediately after his noon class we headed over to Grand View Elementary to get him COVID-tested. The mandate of LAUSD is that in order to come back to in-person classes, the child has to be tested weekly. Sounds pretty inconvenient to me, especially if the teachers are already vaccinated. But you can't blame the powers that be for being extremely, extremely cautious. Southern California in general is starting to get really good numbers with Covid, which is really really good considering that the rest of the country is still in the middle of yet another outbreak. I think it's because we have been aggressively vaccinating people and that's a really good thing. So taking Johnnie to Covid testing may be a little over the top and inconvenient, but I guess that's the price I have to pay and I'm ok with that. Other parents are not by the way. To me it's better to buy myself 3 hours during weekday mornings so I'm happy to trade for that. That's going to be yet another new routine starting next week. And so this week really marks the end of online learning for Johnnie and I must say he got through it like the trooper that he is.  And it did not hurt his learning one bit. Today also marked the first time we left Claire at home while Johnnie and I went to Covid testing. So far so good. She didn't cry or complain, just stayed where she was until we got back, albeit we weren't really gone all that long. 

In the meantime, there's still work stuff to do. There's still the HRSA report I had to get cranked out today and ongoing validation with Shilpa's numbers, which still doesn't match mine. Sigh. Still it has turned into a non-event after last week. It only took a week to stabilize and even Eloisa commended me on how far we've gotten with it. There's also the Town Hall tomorrow which somehow I am now the regular host replacing Chad. And speaking of which, Chad himself called me from Iowa because he couldn't connect to the Internet at his home in Iowa. I could only shake my head as I at least TRIED to help. I tried for a good 15 minutes until I realized he probably hadn't updated his Windows wireless drivers. I sent him that suggestion and then got back to work making a presentation for tomorrow's Town Hall. I basically took excerpts from the BIG presentation I'm going to be doing Friday. And I have until Thursday night to start thinking about that. Which means I didn't even think about it tonight. What am I supposed to do? Last night I had to give the dog a bath since Lisa had her all sticky from candy, tonight I posted a pic of Johnnie and the dog hanging around the grass area by the barbecues before we all went to bed. All important stuff obviously. But I kept to routine mostly. I remember this time last year I was still barbecuing Italian sausage on Tuesday nights. That has died down and has been replaced by yet another trip to Panda Express. And tonight I had PLENTY of leftover beef stew from the weekend. Actually I still had shrimp too and I simply cooked it up and put it over Panda Express chow mein. A quick meal it was. And then Johnnie went on to watching his Octonauts Ring of Fire which is his favorite for now, and I tried catching up on over 500 emails I hadn't read. Funny how that explodes if you simply miss a day of keeping your inbox clean. Anyway Johnnie went to bed on time. I couldn't sleep early. I could have used it, but instead I let my thoughts just flit away until my eyes got tired enough to sleep. I didn't watch tv really, but I just sat on the couch and sort of half-meditated myself to sleep. I guess I had a lot more on my mind that I thought.