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Recovery Room

I had to get out right as I was getting into bed so I could cover the fire pit before a storm blew in. Then I slept for a while, but still woke up several times throughout the night. It felt a little like I was too dependent on the higher constant pressure of my CPAP at Summer’s, but my newer one at home shouldn’t have any trouble adjusting as needed. I guess I could bump up my minimum pressure to see if that helps.

I was still incredibly sore when I woke up, but the worst of it worked itself out throughout the day. The girls got up and went home pretty early, so I had some time to clean up around the house.

The oldest male guppy that Brittany brought me yesterday wasn’t doing very well, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to arrange a place for him to go into quarantine. At first I put him into a little container of his own, but then ended up splitting my external breeding tank into three compartments so he could join my two bettas. I could see he had gotten really stiff and would just float in the corner breathing, but nothing else looked really wrong. A few of his fins were a little thin, so I wondered if he was getting harassed in his overcrowded container while I acclimated them overnight. At the end of the day, he finally stopped breathing and I sent him off for a burial at sea.

While I was messing with the fish, I also noticed a bunch more dead leaves floating in my bathroom aquarium, so I cleaned it up a little and added some soda water for a little carbon dioxide kick. I’m hoping they’re still just dying off because of how neglected the tank was, but there could be something else going on too. Only time will tell.

Summer wanted to get Sumo for dinner, but evidently they closed up at the start of the COVID-19 stuff, so I just ate the girls’ leftover Taco Villa before heading up to their place. When I got there, I tried working on Kayla’s laptop with absolutely zero success. Summer went to bed after some TV, then Eaddie and I watched a couple episodes of Jessica Jones before heading to bed ourselves.

But why is work, anyway?

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Burn Everything…

I didn’t sleep very well last night just because I hadn’t slept in my own bed in so long, but at least I didn’t wake up in pain like I have been. Summer had to work, so the girls and I took our time getting up and around. Eventually I started putting together an everything-loaf sandwich for lunch, and we packed a couple backpacks for a bike ride. We rode to Summer’s shop and had a surprise lunch with her while they were slow.

When we finished eating, we rode over to the city park for just a moment, then took the long way around Detroit back to 4th to get home. The girls did a great job of riding together, and the pandemic has traffic manageable, so it was a great time. It was under an hour total, but my hands and arms were still pretty sore by the time we got home.

I let the girls rest for a little while inside, and then we went outside to start cleaning up the yard. They were both pretty slow to get productive, but eventually we got a little bit of a fire going, at least enough to reduce some of the brush we pulled up. They pressure washed the back patio until they ran out of power cord and hose, so there was a strip of black concrete still on the north side.

Brittany stopped by to give me a few more plants and some guppies she had been breeding. I had too much going on, or I would have thought to send her on with a couple little baby shrimp. I guess they’re a little more sensitive to the alkalinity of the water anyway.

Summer came over when she got off, and brought hot dogs to cook over the fire. We spent a good long while trying to get a decent fire going in the fire pit since the logs weren’t burning well at all. It was enough to get the food warm, but it was a lot of work to maintain. I was pretty upset that some embers blew up and melted a couple holes in a couple of the cushions, but it’s all over now. I would have hoped for something a little more retardant.

As the sun went down and we lost all of our light, the girls filtered back into the house and I trudged back and forth getting everything else put away. I could barely move after being so active all day long, but I had to get a shower before bed.

…the calories too!

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The Villa My Dreams

I really didn’t want to get out of bed today, and when I finally did, I got up with some pretty bad neck pain. It worked itself out pretty quickly though as I got to work. The girls got up and ate, and I set them up with the pressure washer again.

Autumn had physical therapy, so I took her in and then went home to shower. When I picked her up, we decided we would be staying at my house for real tonight, and we’d get Taco Villa for dinner. We went to get Eaddie and packed up a few things to take to my house, and met Summer there when she got off of work.

It took me a little while to get my call into Taco Villa, but when I finally did, the girl said it would only be about five or ten minutes, so I headed out. They had the lobby wide open with a posted limit of six customers at a time. I almost didn’t recognize Chelsea in the back corner waiting for her food. I think I’d seen her maybe twice since graduation. After just a little wait, I boxed up my food and headed home.

The girls kept arguing about what to watch, so I put on an episode of New Girl while we ate. They had never had Taco Villa before, and it seemed to really fill them up. Reviews were about like I expected them to be. It’s not amazing. It’s pretty good. Sometimes you just get a craving.

After we ate, I tried putting on Brightburn, but couldn’t get it to play well. I bounced between a few things and settled on Batman v Superman just in time for everyone to feel sleepy. I put Summer to bed, and Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones before I started feeling pretty sleepy and called it a night.

Wrinkles in time, indeed.

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Go Pro or Go Home

Today was undoubtedly the most productive day of the week. I woke up to a little Animal Crossing before taking Autumn on a ride-along to get $1 roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s. We stopped by to feed Summer at work, then went back to their house to eat with Eaddie.

When we finished eating, I set the girls up with the pressure washer out back and had them clean the side of the house and the deck. They didn’t stay outside very long the first time, and Autumn came in complaining about not feeling well. She immediately laid down on the couch and started watching Harry Potter while Eaddie complained that she didn’t want to be outside alone. I gave them a few minutes inside, then made them go back out for over an hour before I’d let them back in. They got a lot more done that time, and the house looked so much better.

I eventually had to run home to clean up, then stopped by Walmart to fill some gaps for dinner. Autumn wanted to try making a copycat Chick-fil-A nuggets recipe along with some homemade macaroni and cheese. Summer got back from work shortly after I got there, and Autumn got to work on dinner. I helped a very minimal amount while Summer and Eaddie went on a run. We ended up deep frying the chicken instead of frying it in a pan, and they came out really great. Everyone was really impressed with dinner, and baking the mac and cheese with some extra cheddar broiled on top was the right decision for everyone’s lives.

Afterward, I finished WALL-E with Autumn, then started an episode of Jessica Jones with Eaddie. We quit after just one episode because we were both really tired, but then she started chatting away, so I sat and talked with her for quite a while.

Earlier in the evening, Julie started asking for my opinion on a waterproof case for her phone. I suggested a purpose-built camera instead, arguing for hours that spending more on camera was a better value than spending less to protect a phone that also has a camera on it. In reality, the resulting photos or videos will probably be seen half a dozen times before they’re forgotten in the great digital cloud vault. Such is the nature of our instantly reminiscent age. She even ended up calling me after she got tired of texting, but in the end I won because I am so smart.

So, so smart.

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Frosty’s Kind of a Jerk

I got up this morning to discover our tomatoes had wilted in some frost last night. I didn’t realize it was going to get that cold, otherwise I would have brought them inside. It looks like a few will survive, but I’m guessing most of them are dead now.

The girls hid in their rooms all day while I answered emails and helped a handful of people start working from home for seemingly the very first time since this whole quarantine thing started. It was pretty dull, and felt pretty pointless, and I just wished I could be out on an island somewhere instead. Homesteading in the tropics would be easy, because there’s no frost.

Summer came home to get Autumn for her driving test, then took her to physical therapy. I picked her up afterward and took her with me to feed the cat. We wanted to come back for the evening, but Summer came home with a headache again. We stopped by Davis for some butane, but they were out of feeder fish. Then we headed back up the hill to start dinner.

Autumn found a recipe for something like Hamburger Helper and whipped it together all on her own, and it was pretty good. I put Summer to bed, and then Eaddie and I binged the last half of the first season of The Punisher. It was more of a military show than I would normally care to watch, but the Marvel banner made it a must-watch that I’m glad I didn’t miss. I just wish there could have been more crossover.

It’s all about the Nook Miles, baby!

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They Say It’s Only Tuesday

I got up a little earlier today, but focus was still a huge struggle. I just didn’t want to do anything. It’s been a little cooler with the rain the past couple days, and it just made me want to lay around and do nothing.

The only thing I really managed to accomplish today was pull a bunch of moss out out of the bathroom aquarium because it had gotten way out of hand, and choked out all my other plants. Hopefully the others take off again, but I had no idea how bad it had gotten.

Summer came home with a headache and was in bed by the time I got back. Autumn threw together some hamburgers super fast, and I got them grilled and fried up some fries. While I was finishing up the cooking, Kevin called just to catch up. I don’t think he’s ever reached out first, so it was a bit of a surprise. I may see if he wants to give us the tour of the Old Post bike trail when Eaddie’s ready to go up there.

After dinner, Autumn went straight to bed while the rest of us laid in bed watching TV for a bit. Then when Summer fell asleep, Eaddie and I continued with The Punisher. We’re only about halfway through the season, but the past couple episodes made it feel like we were nearing a conclusion. I wanted to watch more, but we were both tired and decided to turn in early.

Penny and dime.

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Reluctant Day

With a surprising exception of Autumn, nobody wanted to get around to doing much of anything today. She started a few chores early in the morning and then wanted to sit in her room the rest of the day. I rolled around first thing and tried my hand at day trading, but ultimately only saved myself from losing about 50 cents. Then I spent the rest of the day working between breaks in Animal Crossing. A part of me really hates the grind in that game, but another part of me feels satisfied enough with the progression that I keep going back for more.

The girls went outside for a while in the afternoon and tried cleaning up their weird nightmaremobile that’s been parked under the back porch for as long as I’ve known them. Eventually Summer came home from work and demanded dinner in the way that a working spouse would.

I baked some chicken thighs and legs in some Buffalo sauce and tried my hand at frying some sliced potatoes and onions. Summer warmed up a can of peas to round out the meal, and the girls all seemed pretty happy with it all. After dinner, Autumn wanted to watch WALL-E with us and Eaddie absolutely refused on account of hating wonderful things.

In the end, Autumn couldn’t even finish the 103-minute movie, so she and Summer went to bed. Eaddie and I stayed up for too many episodes of The Punisher. It’s been moving quite a bit faster than some of the others in the franchise, so it’s kept us hooked.

One batch, two batch…

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Rabbit Seeds

BUTT STUFF

Summer and Autumn made biscuits and gravy with eggs for brunch this morning. Then we all colored some eggs for Easter. It didn’t take long because we only had around 20 eggs between the four of us. I guess we could have made more. I think Dad used to make a few dozen for us when we were growing up, so we always had gallon ice cream buckets of eggs for weeks after Easter.

I joked that the girls would have to play Russian roulette to find a single raw egg I had hidden in the batch. Just seconds later, Autumn accidentally cracked one that completely fell apart with a raw yolk, and we discovered that the eggs hadn’t cooked all the way through for some reason. We had a couple different sizes of eggs all mixed together, but didn’t figure that made all the difference. A week or two ago we had frozen eggs because the refrigerator was too cold, so maybe that was the problem. In any case, I ended up boiling them again to make sure they were all done, and the colors all faded to a uniform pink.

We thought briefly about going to my house for the night, but in the end we left the kids home and Summer went with me for a workout while I took care of the cat and cleaned up at home. She was surprised by how much of a workout she got from doing the P90X yoga video.

When we got back to their house, I made a big “everything” French loaf sandwich that everyone devoured, and then played some Animal Crossing until bed.

The wind is always better on the hilltop.

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Caught in the Shower

We slept in a bit today before getting up and ready to venture into town. Summer warmed up a pizza while I cleaned out the deep freezer. Then after we ate, we went to Walmart for supplies for dinner. On the way out of the store we got caught in a rain storm, but it blew over pretty quickly.

Summer made a really good lemon pepper shrimp linguine with some Brussels sprouts, and we had a bit of an early dinner. Then we were going to go to my house for the evening, but I caved and picked up Animal Crossing with a leftover game voucher I had. With no major titles coming out before it would expire, I figured the girls might really enjoy it while they’re stuck at home.

Eventually Eaddie started bugging us to watch some Glee. By the time we finished, everyone decided it was too late to leave. Summer went to bed, and Eaddie and I stayed up to start The Punisher on Netflix. As usual, the first episode was kind of dull for me, but it picked up quickly.

I’ve always loved spring thunderstorms.

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Into the Unknown

I spent all morning learning Wikitext to actually start entering articles for work. The translation took a while because even with a visual editor, the markup text made things look way cleaner. I still didn’t even finish publishing my first article, but at least what I have so far looks nice.

Ben got a Fat Daddy’s gift card for doing some work for someone, so he bought us lunch today. I brought prawn chips to fry since I still had the deep fryer there too. It was a really light lunch for me to choose ribs, but it was pretty good. I think I would’ve been happier with one of my usual orders though.

Ben wanted me to go try to break a touch panel before I left, so I went to the high school to a classroom with known issues. On the way, I had to deliver six iPads to the PAC. They had everyone using the main entrance with a sign-in sheet, but I just snuck in with my Technology superpowers before continuing on to the classroom. I could never get the touch to quit working, but I got so frustrated with how bad the SMART Ink was. I could draw in Paint and it would be flawless, but the SMART software lagged so hard. I hated it.

Autumn called when I forgot about her therapy appointment, so I ran home to drop off some things and then got her to therapy about 20 minutes late. Then I stopped by my parents’ house to wish Mom a happy birthday and chatted with them a little bit. She was outside power washing, and Dad was up on the roof cleaning gutters. I didn’t stick around too long though, and let them get back to work.

When I got home, I cleaned up and played a little bit of Overwatch until Summer and Eaddie came over. Then we rode bikes around the neighborhood, stopping by Allen’s, then going over to the high school. Eaddie wanted to take me to the trail that she and Noah found, so we did that. I tried riding over to Julie’s house too, but the field was so long and rugged with too many back yards that I didn’t want to disturb. We headed back around the new practice facility, then made it back to my house.

The girls headed home and I followed a little later. Autumn had some leftover fish sticks out, so I got the deep fryer going again for some of those, some more prawn chips, and some sweet potato fries for Summer. Then Autumn wanted to watch a movie with Summer, so Eaddie and I went to the bedroom to finish The Defenders. The end escalated pretty quickly, but we were happy with it.

Next up: Jessica Jones