Skip to main content

Executive Decision

I was embarking on my workday, which ended up being meetings straight through from 9am to 2pm, and then a series of challenging situations from there on out. Eri told me good luck and have a great day and be happy because it's Friday. 

I do love Fridays, but it's different than it used to be. The weekend in no way means rest and relaxation. It means trading in the mental labor of my daily work for the intense physical labor of raising two incredibly energetic boys. It also means I need to carve out a little more time for self-reflection and self-care.

Thanks to the team I manage, all of whom I can honestly call friends I respect immensely, a bullet was dodged with a human resources move that came across my desk. My boss called an emergency managerial meeting yesterday about a situation with a person in our department, and I can't really explain it and it's neither here nor there anyway in the grand scheme of things, but there was a proposal that came my way that would have had serious, likely negative, implications for my team. So I sought their advice, and they saved me from making a terrible decision.

There was follow-up today of course, and some drama. I do everything I can to steer clear of drama, but sometimes it just lands on you like a meteor.

Eri proposed dinner out, and that was music to my ears. I made an executive decision and said we're going to the Steak Palace. I love their salad bar. That might be the most middle-aged guy thing I've said all week. And there's a lot to choose from. The runner up is probably when I grabbed my tool box and announced, "Let me fix that!" regarding a McDonald's happy meal toy.

The salad bar at the Steak Palace comes with VIP access to the soup bar as well, so I helped myself to a hot bowl of corn potage.

They have that robot waiter there and Kenzo was biding his time and assessing his chances of messing with it. When that robot brought us our water and utensils he tried reaching his hands out from our booth to throw it off, but this robot is smart. It might even be programmed to deal with mischievous boys.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

lookin tired/feelin good

I can't even read the clock right. Eri: "You're going to soccer, right? Aren't you a bit early?" Me: "Yeah! We usually leave at this time and get there right on time. We gotta go! Let's go guys!" Soccer club starts at 10 a.m. The boys know that when the long hand on the clock gets to the 8 (9:40) it's time to go to the bathroom and get our socks and shoes on and head down to the car. The big hand was on 8. The problem that Eri saw was the short hand. It was 8:40, not 9:40. I'm going nuts. Slowly . Rapidly. An hour later, after I slowly enjoyed my coffee and disposed of the last beetle (yes, all four beetles have now gone back to the earth) and cleaned his bug box to make room for new bug acquisitions and the boys chilled out on the sofa watching TV, we set off. While the boys played soccer I headed across the parking lot to grab them some juice boxes for a job well done. This is not standard procedure, but Kenzo made his comeback today after ...

Experiences I Will Never Know About

Eri and I were checking out one of Kenzo's school notebooks tonight. This page has so much going on, and I love all of it. It made me realize something that I can easily forget - he's a person. He has a life separate from mine, lives each day having experiences that I will never know about, and has thoughts and ideas that I can't nor should get in the way of. "Thank you for doing everything," she said. Eri walked with me this morning as I went around the neighborhood and delivered planter box maintenance information and schedules to various folks.  We stopped at the first house and I rang the doorbell and handed the old lady the three-page information sheet I had made and copied and we exchanged greetings and then I realized this is going to take forever if I ring every single person’s doorbell and chit-chat with them. I’ve got 20+ more of these to hand out.  So we started just sticking them in people's mailboxes and made better time. Most folks aren’t home an...

Hug, Kiss, Comfort, and Joke

I clicked Osamu into his five-point harness child seat and gave him a kiss.  "Have a great day, dude." "Have a good day, papa!" Kenzo does his own child seat seat belt clicking, but he still gets a kiss and a high-five. "Have a good day, papa!" Kisses all around. Eri comes racing down the steps and gets in the car, which I have already started. I stand watch at the foot of the driveway and check for cars and college kids on bicycles racing by and give her the all-clear signal and she's off. Then I race back inside, fix up my coffee, dump the filter and grinds into the trash and since it's Monday take the trash out. Eri takes the boys to the kindergarten bus stop. She'll be back in about twenty minutes. I gotta get ready for work and get my morning walk in. This morning it was misty rain. Not really rain, mostly mist. I took my umbrella with me, but I didn't use it. It doesn't help. The moisture is in the air. It comes at you from all ...