Strange to log back on to the shoe company computer at 7ish this morning. I took off the weekend and did not log in on Saturday and Sunday; I am sorry to admit that this was my first free weekend in six weeks. I was rushed as I had a 7:30 meeting, but I was shinny and all clean and ready in time.
I did manage some sleep last night, so it was easier to start today. Unfortunately, the four hours of Zoom meetings in the morning set me back a bit and had me yawning again. But I managed to keep interested and had three days of items to read in email and messages to keep my attention all morning.
Susie had her normal Spa day and was ready and out the door at 9ish. Her toes nails are all nicely painted gold. She is wearing the new Pink Nike sandals she picked up last week with now golden toes. Her driver always takes her to McDonald’s, and she gets her fav Happy Meal with apples.
Returning to Nike items, I discovered last year that I had a mistake in the settings of a tiny part of my retirement paperwork (worth $28), and I finally called to get it fixed between Zoom meetings. As I expected, I need to fill out a paper form. No mail address was provided. I was a bit surprised as I usually just drop this stuff in the mailbox with a stamp.
So when lunch came, I went to the UPS Store in the nearby strip mall and paid them to fax it. They still had limits on the number of people in the store, everyone still kept social distances, and there were screens at the cash registers. I felt OK there. It was $7 to fax it (remember it is for getting a fix on $28 of my retirement savings). Done!
Aloha Teriyaki is next door, and I got a Bento box to-go. A family runs this place. They have a few places to eat in. There is a screen to order food. Only the cook is wearing a mask. They are friendly and happy to see me, even in a mask. The food is always good. I am feeling safe, and everyone is careful.
I return to Air Volvo home with lunch as I wonder about spending seven dollars on fixing the twenty-eight dollar issue.
Work goes on for a while. I take a couple of breaks. And then more Zoom filled hours of meetings. I stop about 5ish.
Mariah text me, and we agree to head for dinner at the Golden Valley Brewery, but we learned from Mariah, who got there first, that they are now closed on Mondays. So we headed to The Rock Woodfire Baked Pizzas.
We are met by the manager at the door, who is excited to see us. No, he is really excited. He offers a handshake, but I tell him I am not ready for that. “No problem,” and we elbow bump. The restaurant is nearly empty. The staff I have not seen before and I have been there many times. I food delivery and table clearing people are clearly lost (and without masks). It takes a while to get our order in. The bartender is our waiter, even with three staff clearing and delivering food in a nearly empty place.
We are apparently on a training mission. We help them by being positive and clearly stating our orders. It takes three trips to get the four drinks delivered and three trips also to deliver the food. We clearly know more about The Rock than they do. We manage.
We brought super glue as requested, and I fail at repairing Mariah’s broken sunglasses.
The food was good, the staff managed, and we had a nice time together.
BTW: I was checking my 401K and the market today. My earnings on the 401K have expanded to more than 11% annualized. I was not expecting to break 10% this year, but here we are in July, already headed to another profitable year. My investments are a bit more conservative than I like but mostly follow the markets on cheap expense ratio indexes (Nike forces you into an age-based risk group of investments on your 401K–I did override my age to 35). I still have Nike shares in my 401K, giving me the benefits of Nike’s huge price run-up. Thusly, I have had another good year so far.
It was a sunny no-smoke day, over 90F. No rain. No rain for at least a week, and it will be 100+ on Friday.
I turned to a short hymn in the Methodist Hymnal and thought it would do: Father, We Praise Thee.
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