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Lickety Split

I woke up early this morning to meet some of the guys at Taylor’s Grocery down the road. I expected Josh and Aaron, but Aaron was running late. Josh showed up first, but nobody could get a hold of Aaron. Then Clint, Landon, and Johnny showed up, which was a surprise to me. Clint ended up buying everyone breakfast, which seemed to be fairly reasonably priced. I wanted to try a little of everything, and it all tasted exactly like what I would make at home.

Josh left after a while, but then Aaron showed up super late and had breakfast while the rest of us sat around and talked. We were there for just over a couple hours, and then everyone went about their day. I went home to shower, and then came right back up to Summer’s.

Eaddie had Gavin over, and Autumn was getting ready to take them to the movies. Summer decided she wanted to go out for an early dinner, so we stuck around the house for a little bit and then headed to Pasta Grill just before they opened.

There was a crowd of people waiting to get in the locked doors, and by the time we got inside, they said it would be a 20 minute wait without a reservation. We decided to take off, and I took us to La Villa instead. I don’t care for the food as much, but at least they’re not usually as stingy with their inferior bread. I had been suffering some indigestion for a few days, and dreaded eating Italian, but it wasn’t awful.

After we ate, we stopped by the pet store to try and get some face time with Adam’s father and grandmother. He recognized us right away and came over to chat, but she didn’t realize how we were all connected. We talked for a little bit, made a quick walk through the store, and then headed on home, stopping for some ice cream along the way.

I put on The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special for us, and then Summer headed to bed to watch more TV. The girls got back home a little after that, and then Eaddie and I watched a little more than one episode of The Umbrella Academy before she got too tired to stay up. Autumn went to Adam’s for the evening, so I waited up to make sure she made it home on time, and then it was off to bed.

Make it better.

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Work Wives

I got a bit of a slow start this morning, but made it home to shower before lunch with Brandie. She suggested the newly re-re-opened Old Bank, so I met her there. Just as we got seated, Mollie got my attention from the booth right next to us. They had some pretty good looking nachos that at least filled the plate, unlike the bacon-wrapped, goat cheese-stuffed dates that we had.

Brandie got the Reuben, so I felt obliged to get something different and went with the off-menu wagyu burger. The food service was disappointingly slow, but at least our drinks stayed topped off. Overall the food was good, but quite overpriced. I didn’t really feel like anything we ordered was anywhere near worth the price.

After we ate, I took her for a ride up and around town, and we chatted for a while longer before she left. Then I went by Superfast to find Summer in the pit. She didn’t have time to talk, so I ended up leaving to get another quote on some tint for my car.

I went by Clear View this time, and there was nobody in the office for a couple minutes. Eventually a younger guy came out from the back, surprised to see me, and chatted with me for a bit about some options. Evidently he didn’t really have the pricing, so I’ll have to give them a call next week to really find out. He did at least say they’d be likely to offer a cash deal. The operation itself appeared to be less put-together, or at least had a less professional atmosphere, but that didn’t matter a great deal to me for what I needed.

Robert texted that he was getting an oil change, so I tried to catch him at Superfast. They were too fast, though, and he was already gone. Summer was just leaving work, so I saw her out and went to my parents’ house alone for some phở.

After I ate, I headed home to swap vehicles, and then beat Summer home since she stopped at the gym. Eaddie wanted to watch The Umbrella Academy, so we started on a couple episodes of that before bed. Autumn arrived home late after spending all day with her boyfriend, and then immediately gave us attitude when we called her out for being weird about the plans she was making for New Year’s Eve. We just laughed it off though, and continued watching our show until bed.

It’s called allowance, you ignorant skank.

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Long Con

Autumn showed up at home just as I was walking out, and said that Eaddie was supposed to ask us for permission to go to the Garage Arcade for Autumn’s four-month anniversary. I didn’t immediately recognize how ridiculous that sounded, but I did call her out on the fact that she rattled off a list of people she invited before she had permission to go. We didn’t have anything else planned though, so I told her to work it out with Summer, and headed home for a nice shower.

My stomach was pretty rumbly all morning, so I didn’t get out until later. Summer made it back into town early, so I met her and Eaddie at La Huerta for lunch. After that, I ran to the DMV to submit my loan paperwork that they should have already had, so I could get my title. I was in and out of there within about five minutes, which was incredible. Then I stopped by River Valley Tinting and Glass to get a price on tinting the Model 3. I’d have to make an appointment, and ceramic tint would be around $375, which seemed high after I paid under $300 for two windows to be tinted and a brand new windshield for the Murano.

I took a card to possibly schedule an appointment later, and then headed to the car wash to get Eaddie. Summer got caught up at Superfast for a bit, so I ended up waiting awkwardly in the office until she showed up. Then I took Eaddie back to my house for a minute so I could help Bác Vân with her iPad. Autumn was going to come pick her up to go to the arcade, but Maristella wasn’t going, so Eaddie decided she didn’t want to go either. We laughed at how stupid Autumn was for trying to manipulate us over something so stupid, and I took her home.

Eaddie wanted to start on her new paint-by-numbers, but had to finish her last one first. I ran across Con Man on YouTube, and we plowed through both seasons while she painted. Summer came home in the middle of it and watched with us for a while, but then went to bed. I stayed up quite a bit later than I intended, but I’ll get up earlier to make up for it.

I’ll see yooouuuu iiinnnn heeeeellllllllllll!

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Like a Teen With a Learner’s Permit

I thought I was onto something with Metro by T-Mobile this morning. Eaddie and I left the house a little early so we could get to Clarksville, which showed to have the only retail store within 75 miles. When we got there, it was an old Radio Shack, run by a singular, super old guy. It was neat to see a store like that again after losing our Radio Shack nearly 20 years ago. Having Eaddie along prevented me from browsing around more, but it looked like a neat place that made me nostalgic for the times that Dad and I used to go for parts.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the iPhones we wanted, so we made our way out of town, where I dropped Eaddie off at Gavin’s. Then I headed back toward home and decided to stop at my parents’ house for some food. They still had lots of ham left over from Christmas, so I ate that in front of them. Mom got eyebrows tattooed on, but they were incongruent and misplaced. I don’t know why she bothered, but I disliked them very much.

I continued home to do some laundry until Summer finished up at work. Then she came to get me, and we went back to my parents’ house for some spaghetti. It wasn’t ready as early as I expected, so by the time we finished, it was about time for me to head back to Clarksville to get Eaddie.

Summer dropped me off and went on home for the night, and I ran by the car wash to get some of the grime off of my car from the ice a few days ago. The trip on Enhanced Auto Pilot was absolutely infuriating. There were cars and trucks on the road, but hardly any traffic to be concerned about, and plenty of room for navigating between the lanes. Still, I ran into places where my car wanted to continuously change lanes, back and forth, back to back. There was no one to pass, or anything to avoid. It just kept changing lanes, and nearly made me miss my exit.

It was a fun drive through the curves through the hills, but I had to watch for deer. Once I secured Eaddie, we ran home to change and then headed home for the night. Autumn stayed the night at Hannah’s to dog-sit, though she spent the entire afternoon at the pet store. Otherwise it was a relatively early night to bed.

Who is also, possibly, very drunk.

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Fleeced

Summer went to work in Conway today, which meant Autumn left the house first thing to spend most of the day at the pet store. I reminded her to straighten up the house a bit, so Summer would be less likely to gripe at her for not having chores done. Then I went home to get some of my own chores done.

I only really completed two loads of laundry, but I rinsed my fleece jackets multiple times to get all the soap out. Other than that, I mostly just fought the cold all day. As Summer got closer to home, I started thinking about dinner. She wasn’t very hungry though, so I just went through Taco John’s for a bunch of tacos.

When I got back to her house, I realized they gave me an extra order of nachos on accident. Fortunately they at least got the rest of my order right, so hopefully it was extra, and they didn’t short the previous customer. The nachos were awful anyway. I ended up eating too much after all that though.

Autumn had picked up Eaddie to go visit their grandparents, so they came home after they had dinner. By then, I was cold and ready for bed.

No phone deals to be had.

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Just a Phase

Summer was back to work today. I got out of bed shortly after she left, and then Autumn came out saying they were going to go shop with their father. I hung around the house for quite a while longer than I really wanted, but didn’t have much ambition all day.

I got home and tried to clean up a little bit. I should have started some laundry earlier, because then it wouldn’t have been such a wasted day. Summer ended up working pretty late, so I ended up meeting her at the wash around the time she expected to leave.

We went through the Christmas clearance at Walmart, and I bought her some decorations for next year, along with quite a few snacks. When we got back up to her house, she made an old stir-fry meal she had in the fridge for way too long. Autumn had left to hang out at the pet store all afternoon, but we didn’t expect her to come home to eat anything after getting McDonald’s in the morning and then some rice and soy sauce in the middle of the day. Trash in, and trash out.

I watched a little bit of Liar Liar before Summer was ready for bed, and simultaneously continued playing Phase 10, which was my biggest accomplishment of the day. I’ll try harder tomorrow.

Run of Dumb

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Escape Trap Room House

We slept in fairly late today before I got around to some leftovers. I made some tea that turned out to be super weak, but at least I’ll burn through it faster if I actually drink it. I was pretty cold all morning, so I think I’m just more of a seasonal tea drinker. Hot coffee is fine in the summer, but hot tea seems less appealing then.

The girls went to Denny’s with their father, but came back home not feeling so great. Autumn came home fussing that he had gotten rid of a dog he had. After a little while, she left for Adam’s while Summer started on some potatoes and deviled eggs for our late Christmas lunch.

I thought it was a pretty good Christmas day, but I’m sure Dad was probably still tired from three days of travel after a vacation with Julie. She had work to do, and couldn’t make it to lunch on time. Autumn actually did a good job with time and beat us there. Bác Vân and Doug came along after we got there, and eventually Julie showed up after everyone else had already eaten.

Julie brought a package of Oreo houses for the kids to build, but Summer and Eaddie were really the only two that could be talked into participating. Eventually Julie and Dad built a couple. Eaddie and I ate most of hers. I think I would have rather just eaten some regular Oreos.

After we all finished eating, Summer broke out The Scandal, a Puzzle Post escape room game in an envelope. The puzzles were pretty straightforward, and I think just about everyone contributed something. Eaddie’s solutions were probably some of the most impressive, but it took everyone. Overall we didn’t really have to damage anything, so we could easily pass the game along to someone else to play, but it wouldn’t be repeatable for any of us.

We eventually headed home, and the girls pretty much went straight to bed. They were all tired from the belly aches they got from Denny’s, or from staying up too late the night before. Autumn came out of her room at one point and wanted consolation for the anxiety she was feeling over growing up. I genuinely tried to listen and help, but who knows if it’ll make a lasting, useful impression on her.

Last holiday we all played Phaaaeeeese 10!

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Rebut

I couldn’t quite sleep in this morning, and got around to some leftovers. Autumn actually wanted to go to the gym with Summer, so they left and I went home to get some errands started. While I was there, Clint messaged me looking for some old video games to collect. I wasn’t prepared for that, but I offered to meet him at my office so we could catch up a bit.

As soon as I got to the office, I realized I forgot my keys. Clint hopped in and we ran back to my house to get them, and then we went to my office so I could finally submit my disciplinary rebuttal. I hate it, but I tend to agree that I should probably seriously look for new work.

When that was done, we went by Ben’s old house and I rang the doorbell to see if they had a package he had accidentally had delivered there. The wife of the guy that answered the door said she dropped it back off at the post office this morning, but they were closed, so I wasn’t sure if she just dropped it into a box or something.

I dropped Clint off back at his car, and then went home to grab a couple presents before heading back up to Summer’s. She had icing colored and ready for me to help load into bags, and then the kids came out to decorate cookies.

We probably only did about half of the cookies she baked before we got tired of it. I think it was partly because of their age, but also partly because everyone was just feeling super lethargic all day. We got everyone back to the table to play a partial game of Phase 10, and then everyone went to bed when Noah left for the evening.

The computer’s a lot faster at this than you.

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Cold, Cold Heart

Summer and I left the house this morning and stopped by Superfast and the wash to check on things. It was brutally cold, and the office at the wash didn’t have any heat. It was actually warmer in the wash than it was in the office. One of the gates had broken off, and I tried to help reattach it, but we had trouble in the frigid air.

When we finally finished checking in for work stuff, we went to Walmart for cookie materials. Then Summer dropped me off at home while she went about her day. Sheri texted me shortly after, and wanted to meet up at Oakland so I could diagnose her laptop. I tinkered a bit there, but then took it home to try and pull parts until it would POST. It never did, so I’ll have to get an adapter to try and recover data for her instead.

I spent a good portion of the afternoon rewriting my write-up rebuttal, and felt pretty good about my timeline. I just know it’s painting an even larger target on my back, but my facts were straightforward and well documented. I’d been writing it with the assumption that it would just go into my file without anyone reading it, but it’ll be interesting to see if it’s actually ever reviewed.

Eventually I got showered up and headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Dad and Julie had their return flight delayed by yet another day. Summer baked cookies all day so we could decorate them tomorrow. Noah came over late when he finished up at work, and he and Eaddie stayed up late watching a horror movie. I kept trying to fall asleep early, but had to get up to finish blogging. I read my rebuttal to Eaddie, and she said it was the most professional burn she’d ever heard, so at least I’ve got that going for me.

#4word

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It’s Better Than Diggin’ a Ditch

Summer left early for the ribbon cutting at her new wash. I was sleeping really well after a rough night, and had to get up in time to make it to Summer before the big ceremony. I thought I would be going back to pick up Eaddie, but Autumn decided to bring her down herself. I brought a little PA system for them to use, which was moderately helpful. The girls showed up looking absolutely homeless in the baggiest clothes they owned.

Cindy showed up, which was a great surprise for Summer, and played into her own speech after Paul’s, about how she found a new home, a new family, and a new career after teaching. It was a beautiful, tear-jerking, fist-pumping welcome home speech.

I stuck around to mingle and help with random things after all the important people left, but as the wintery mix quickly blew in, I ran to Orr to get Julie’s car keys before they closed. Evidently Tim was working there now, so I gave him a ride around the block in the miserable weather.

From there, I went home and waited on Summer to get there so we could go back and actually get Julie’s car. We dropped it off at my parents’ house, and then she took me back home while she went to the gym. I was pretty sure that I was down to two ghost shrimp, which was a bit of a surprise after watching them appear perfectly happy. My new JBL Studio 550P came in to replace my prematurely-failed Polk PSW 505. It felt unnecessarily heavy, and then after I got it set up, sounded pretty underwhelming. Hopefully that’s due to settings.

When Summer finished at the gym, she came back to get me and we went to Ridgewood Brothers in the ice for some barbecue. Even with the weather, they really never had much time between customers coming through the line. As Summer and I picked at our huge platter of meats, Kyle came through and took some to-go. It was mildly frustrating, because I’d seen him call in to work due to better weather.

After we ate, we went to visit with Mom for a bit, and I put out some fresh, not-frozen water for the stray cat(s?). The girls had their boyfriends, Noah, his roommate, and his girlfriend over to the house, so we headed home right after that. They were playing cards when we got home, and eventually the visitors filtered off while Summer went to bed. The whole day felt super short, though it was longer than yesterday. I stayed up to see that Adam made it out the door, and then it was off to bed.

This isn’t your home.