Category: Uncategorised

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Raincheck

I was supposed to meet up with Gary today, but he wasn’t feeling up to getting out in the rain on crutches, so Summer and I went out to get some donuts instead. We should have planned it better, because we ended up paying individual donut prices instead of ordering by the dozen or half dozen. The donuts and the jalapeño kolache were good, but it was just a few, short hours later that we went to Walmart to get some stuff to grill burgers for an early dinner.

I baked a couple potatoes and air-fried some sweet potato fries for Eaddie, and we had a good dinner. I always fussed about using propane to grill, but when I’m not feeding a huge crew, it really is convenient to fire it up for just a few minutes.

Everyone was feeling pretty lazy, and I felt pretty snoozy for most of the afternoon, so we called it an early night. There was still some daylight, but I figured I needed my beauty rest for a conversation with the superintendent in the morning.

Cheaper by the dozen.

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Family Matters

I cleaned up some more leftovers by making omelets for breakfast. Then we had Eaddie drive us to Gifts on Parkway so she could get her ears pierced in a second place. I went home afterward to clean up, and while I was outside, a Hispanic lady and her son stopped in front of the house and then backed up to pull into Bác Vân’s driveway. I went over to see who it was, and had to break the unfortunate news to her. She had her son get out to translate, but she knew her name and seemed to know how to speak a little bit. Having her son translate so much seemed a little unnecessary, but I figured she just didn’t want to misunderstand anything. She had questions about peaches, and then wanted to know if she could pick a couple, so I grabbed an old hoe from my garage so they could pull down some branches.

Once I got showered and back up to Summer’s, it wasn’t long before we had to drive up to Dover to test drive a used car for Eaddie. We had her drive, and she said she felt zoomy hitting 60 miles per hour. The little Nissan Sentra didn’t seem to be in great shape, and the brakes sounded pretty bad when Summer test drove it, so we decided to pass. I took us back to town and we stopped at Dollar General for some things before going back to the house.

My parents got home a little late, but I headed over and had some more fish soup, and then the three of us stayed up pretty late chatting at the dinner table. Mom did a lot more talking, and I really enjoyed getting to hear her stories. There’s so much family history that she just never shared because of how painful it was to experience, but I think having that context helps us grow closer together and it’s important to know the things that forged her and the rest of the family.

I eventually made it back to Summer’s around midnight, so the girls were long in bed. I had a bit of a bellyache, but made it to bed as quickly as I could.

The Age of Reptiles

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Don’t Be Alarmed

I woke up around seven this morning because I forgot to turn my alarm on for Friday. We switched our off day to Monday so we could have a four-day weekend, but it didn’t even cross my mind that my alarm wouldn’t be prepared for that. I considered rushing straight into work, but ultimately gave in to my desire for a nice shower, and just accepted that I would get to work really late.

When I pulled up, four of the maintenance guys were hanging out on the loading dock chatting, and I talked to them a bit about my car. I offered to give rides, but Toby said he was too sweaty and dirty at the moment. I went on inside, and that’s when the adventure started.

I sent an email to Gary to decline the offer I got from Green Bay Packaging. I didn’t notice his near-immediate reply by email, but a few minutes later he called and wanted to ask about my concerns. We spoke for a little while about the pay I was hoping for, and the fact that I really wanted to talk to the school to see if they would reconsider my position’s salary schedule. He pretty quickly came up from $60,000 to $66,000, with the disclaimer that he would need to talk to the plant manager for approval. I was a little surprised at how quickly that happened, but not nearly as surprised as I was when he called me back just five minutes later with a general manager-approved offer of $70,000. He joked that he liked to keep things interesting, to which I responded that I also had an interview scheduled at ANO. He understood that I wanted to hear out all of the offers, if there is another one, and just asked that I let him know how my conversations go with both of my other interested parties.

I spent the rest of the day troubleshooting, and pinning down the last few devices that had gotten lost in the shuffle, and then sent an email to SHI with a list of serial numbers with specific failure notes. It got really quiet really fast, which made it easier to get back home in time for Summer’s therapy appointment. I thought we would start her EMDR therapy, but instead she said that Summer wanted her to explain the therapy to me so I would know what to expect. That felt pretty silly to me, since I had already done my research the moment Summer mentioned it to me weeks ago, but we continued with the feel-good talk for the remainder of the hour. I left feeling like we could have just watched some YouTube videos instead.

Eaddie needed a ride to dinner with friends and her flute tutor, so I rushed Summer home to take her while I went to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made fish soup out of some old fish that didn’t taste very good. Dad and I talked for a while, and eventually I made it back home to get the Murano so I could take Eaddie for a drive.

I had her take me to Casey’s for a free drink I won, and then we went further south to find Noah at work. We parked outside and I gave him the hairy eyeball for a while, and then we parked around the side of the building and went inside to sit at a table until he had some time to chat. He had a relatively steady flow of customers, so we didn’t stay long. I had Eaddie drive up Skyline and around the marina before we turned back toward my parents’ house, and then down the road to look at a Mazda 6 we saw for sale the other day. It was quite a bit more expensive than we expected, and it had gotten so dark that Eaddie was having trouble seeing to drive, so we headed back to their house for the night.

I hung out in bed with Summer while she watched TV for a bit, and then got up and found every distraction. I was up until two in the morning, feeling stupid and exhausted for not shutting down earlier. Oh well.

Inconvenient Opportunity

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Time is Money

Summer took the Model 3 to Little Rock this morning since the Model Y wasn’t charged quite enough to get her around to everywhere she might want to go, so I took the Y to work. I made the mistake of stopping by McDonald’s for a coffee on the way in, and I went from being about five minutes early to about 20 minutes late. The drive-through there is always pretty slow, but today was the worst I had seen it.

Shortly after I got there, I received a call from Gary at Green Bay Packaging with a job offer. I wouldn’t know the details until I received the official offer letter from HR later in the afternoon. Kim came in late again today, which had me wondering how she was keeping track of her comp time if she plans to take off extra time during the year. Shortly after she got there, I got another call from Entergy to schedule an interview. Every bit of this has happened at the least opportune time, but this year has been nothing but chaos from the start.

We spent a lot of time tracking down Chromebooks to have repaired under warranty, and I spent a while troubleshooting some of them in the afternoon. Kim left pretty early, and since I didn’t own the entire process, I couldn’t actually lay hands on every single device I wanted to ship off for repairs, so I’ll have to dig into that again tomorrow.

I headed home a bit late and charged the Y for a bit before heading to Summer’s. I had some promo drinks from Chick-fil-A and Sonic, so I stopped for those on the way. Summer shredded some chicken to help finish up some of the taco stuff from the other day, so we ate that, and then I made a root beer float with one of my drinks.

Summer and I chatted for a little bit about the opportunities I have, and then she went to bed with a headache and some sinus issues. Eaddie ended up coming out of her room to hang out with me for a couple hours, and we talked and went through a bunch of old photos together. I’ll have to come up with some answers pretty quickly, all while trying to be respectful of everyone else who will be affected by my decisions. I suppose these are finally some good problems to have, but it would help to know what I really want out of the deal.

Wake up, you need to make money!

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What’s the Sitch?

I was sleeping pretty heavily when my alarm went off this morning, but I made it home and to work on time. I felt like I had spent more time away from work than actually working since I started, but it has just been such a weird time of year to start. I couldn’t imagine starting without any prior school experience. Kim showed up a couple hours in, and hung out with me for the day. We took a walk out to the agri building to check out a malfunctioning vape detector, and then out to the elementary to patch some cables in at the switch.

Otherwise it was really quiet at the office. Kim sorted through some old laptops that had been set aside for repairs, and I did my best not to get too distracted with anything for too long. By quitting time it was dead silent in the building, and I headed straight home to change and hopefully find something to eat. My parents had met the insurance adjustor at my house earlier in the afternoon, and I was anxious to get some repairs moving.

Just as I was walking out to head up to Summer’s, my parents stopped in and asked if we wanted to go out for dinner. Eaddie had gone to Greenbrier with Summer in the afternoon, and they weren’t that hungry after having lunch earlier in the day. We went to Western Sizzlin, and the food on the bar was fairly dry and of poor quality. The service wasn’t much better, but I did my best to make up for it in quantity.

After dinner, I found the girls laying in bed watching TV. Eaddie reluctantly gave up my spot in bed and I watched TV with Summer for a little while, and eventually made it to bed after a slow-rolling anxiety attack.

Dizzying

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All in Time

I woke up hungry this morning, so I made more ham, egg, and cheese biscuits for everyone while they were in bed. When the girls got around, we sat down to watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Then I went home to clean up so we could go see The Dial of Destiny at UEC in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the girls got out and picked up stuff to make fish tacos for dinner. Summer was still prepping stuff when I got back to their house, so we ended up going to a showtime an hour later than we planned.

I thought the movie was pretty good, or at least better than the last one. I still felt sleepy through parts of it though, which made me believe I’m just not as interested in those types of movies. I kept wanting to fall asleep through every single one of them, and being in a theater was no exception.

We made it back to the house and I grilled some tilapia for the tacos. Then we went downtown to watch the fireworks. People were parked all over the place on the north side of the tracks, so we parked at Laws’ and just walked to the corner to sit by the Burris Memorial Plaza. The girls went first while I played on my Steam Deck. Eaddie’s friend Eli met them there. When I finally came out to join them, Marcia and her family were sat right next to them and called out to me as I walked by. We briefly caught up before I sat down next to Summer, and we watched the show. The girls enjoyed it, but without music and with relatively low mortar fire, I was super underwhelmed. It felt like a big residential show more than something a city would put on.

The girls went to bed pretty quickly after we got back to the house. I finished up as fast as I could, since I’d have to go back to work for the first time in over a week. Three days until the weekend, and I already feel like I need the break.

Shut Down

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Undriven

I slept reasonably well last night, but didn’t let myself sleep in too late. Summer went to work and I got up to make a couple ham, egg, and cheese biscuits for Eaddie and myself. I became more and more aggravated as I continued to dig through the refrigerator, unearthing things forgotten and uneaten. I eventually left to shower so I could take Eaddie out to practice driving.

I stopped for a car wash on the way back to get Eaddie, and it seemed like I either got a new chip in the windshield, or the filler popped out of an old chip that had been previously repaired. It was super noticeable because the cracks caught the sunlight, which made me think it was a new crack. I haven’t had very good luck with windshields over the past couple years.

I took Eaddie to the high school so she could drive around. I figured the best way to practice was to have her drive from lot to lot, park, and then walk all the way around the car to see how she did. Doing this repeatedly in different parking spaces would help her learn some spatial awareness, and timing how many times she could park in the hour got her a little more focused on driving instead of parking and talking.

When we finished, I tried to get her to drive us to the DMV so we could upgrade her learner’s license. She got to the Hickey parking lot and then froze, refusing to get into traffic on the main road. That aggravated me because I had just purchased insurance for her, but by then we were in a bit of a rush to complete a task before the DMV closed. We switched positions and I got us there. I figured we should be proactive and get her a “Real ID” which required additional documentation. We raced to Superfast to get Summer, then to the house to get her Social Security card, birth certificate, and a couple utility bills for proof of residency. Then we made it back to the DMV, but we had switched vehicles and I had to run back to Superfast to get Eaddie’s current license.

When I got back to the DMV, Eaddie said they didn’t need any of that documentation because they just got a regular license instead. It didn’t cost any more, and we already had the documentation in hand, so I couldn’t understand why they agreed to get a regular license. The entire race across town was for absolutely nothing, and I felt again like I was the only one doing the thinking for everyone involved. We dropped Summer off back at work, and then Eaddie and I continued on to get some gas before ending up back at their house.

Eaddie was hangry, so she ate a few bites of some leftovers before deciding she didn’t like cold noodles. I finished them, but we ended up not getting back out to practice more driving. We tried dipping more cake pops, but she ended up having to use some new white chocolate, since the milk chocolate froze up on us. When Summer got home, I grilled the last of a couple frozen burgers for them. They ate, and then we watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I wanted to watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but they refused and went to bed. It was late by the time I got everything else cleaned up and wound down anyway, so I just did my best to make it to bed before midnight.

He chose… poorly.

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Too Soupy

I couldn’t get anyone out of bed this morning, so I went to my parents’ house by myself to bid everyone goodbye. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mom was busy making too much food for lunch. Bác Trân was slicing pork for two different kinds of soup. Bác Loan and Mom weren’t even going to eat, but Dad joined us for a couple tiny bowls of rice and soup. They didn’t have very long before they had to leave for their flight back to Houston, so it was a bit of a mad dash to get everyone out the door. I stayed behind to put all of the food away.

Afterward, I went home to shower and then pretty immediately headed back up to Summer’s house. The girls had been up for a little while cleaning the house. Eaddie had been wanting to watch the Indiana Jones movies before we watch the new one. We watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and then took a break to try and dip some cake pops into chocolate. That went pretty poorly, so she gave up and we watched The Temple of Doom. I had trouble staying awake through both movies, and I don’t think I’d ever actually seen either one from start to finish.

After the second movie, we went to my parents’ house for dinner. We didn’t stick around for very long afterward, and went by my house to pick up Summer’s new phone case since she broke her last one. Then it was back to their house for the evening. Everyone was pretty tired, so it was off to bed pretty early. I laid down for a little while, then got up to finish my nightly routine before going to sleep.

It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.

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All of the Thinking

We didn’t get up too early this morning, but as soon as I did, Mom called and wanted me to come shake salt on the steaks for dinner. I tried making the case that it could be done later, but she insisted that I was the only one, and that I should drive across town to do it immediately. I did that and then promptly left so I could complete my own prep work for dinner.

I stopped by the cemetery on the way home to get the tripods that Dad forgot to grab when he got the flower pots last night. Then I went home to shower. Summer had gone to the gym and mentioned possibly going to Walmart by herself to get the things we needed. I suggested we should go together, but then she took the initiative.

When I got to her house, she had a few potatoes soaking in the sink, but not nearly enough for all the people that were coming to dinner. I immediately ran out the door and raced to Walmart to get a bag of potatoes rather than hand picking loose ones, and also got some extra butter just in case. When I got back to the house to start cleaning them, my aggravations were compounded by the fact that she was watching some loud, competitive cooking show on her phone while she was making broccoli salad. I shoved my earbuds in and got to work.

We left the house nearly an hour later than I wanted, because I kept getting pushed back. Eaddie’s friend Eli was at the house and would be joining us for dinner and a swim. I tried my best to rush everyone out the door, and we got to my parents’ house just after everyone else had already arrived. Luckily Dad already had some charcoal started, and the heat of the day got the chimney burning in short order.

My parents bounced around the kitchen as though they had never hosted a large gathering ever before in their lives. Dishes I had probably only ever seen once or twice in my life came out of the cabinets, only to be put back up in favor of disposable ones. Places were set, but then scavenged so everyone could serve themselves buffet-style. It was a cluster that I was almost happy to avoid by sweating in front of a hot grill outside in the humidity.

The one thing we got right was that steaks were the only thing Mom had for me to grill. The charcoal burned out quickly, but I finished the steaks. I got them inside after Dad broiled my twice-baked potatoes, and everyone ate their dinner. Fortunately it wasn’t miserably hot outside, so I joined Summer and the kids by the pool. Then I joined them for a swim after we ate.

Summer was the first one to get out of the pool, followed by Eaddie and then me. Eli was down to float around a little longer, but we did eventually have to get him home, and Eaddie wanted her dessert. We cleaned up outside and then went in for some banana pudding and pumpkin bread. Bác Trân had Radford on the phone when my parents walked out, so he passed the phone to me. I was really happy to catch up with him for a little bit, since I’ve never once had an adult conversation with him in my life. Years of maturity and perspective make all the difference, and it was great getting to share a moment with him. Eventually my parents came back in and took the call. The girls took Eli home while I was on the phone, so they were ready to leave by then.

We wrapped things up and said some partial goodbyes. I planned to be back in the morning before their flight back to Houston. Summer went straight to bed when we got to the house. Eaddie went to her room, and I sat on the couch for a while. I’ll be happy to see next week when my parents can stop overdoing absolutely everything.

Outta the way!

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Grave Mistakes

I slept in a little bit today after sleeping pretty hard last night. I didn’t even hear Eaddie get home, but apparently she was just dropped off and Noah didn’t come back to stay another night. I let her sleep in when I left, and went to Arby’s to pick up a classic 5 for 5 deal to take to Summer. She was at a therapy session when I got to Superfast, so I waited around for a while. Then I inadvertently made her mad with a joke and ended up going home to eat by myself.

After cleaning up, I took the Murano for a wash and then went to get Eaddie. We thought she might get out to practice driving a bit, but we ended up starting her cake pops instead. She had baked the cake a few days ago and it was still in the oven, so she crumbled it up with some icing and made little balls while I cut skewers. Then we stuck them in the fridge to cool off while we went to my parents’ house to visit.

Lelan and Steven were there when we arrived, and everyone was outside talking while Mom was watering plants. We went inside and I warmed up some food for Eaddie and myself since everyone else had already eaten. All the adults gathered around the dinner table while Lelan expressively discussed some issues and kicked around some thoughts about what Bác Vân left behind.

Once they got to a stopping point and Eaddie and I had eaten, they wanted to go visit the gravesite before dark. Eaddie asked whether I wanted to go, and then said she wanted to go too, so we followed along. It was still hot outside, but it wasn’t nearly as humid. They had piled all of the cut flowers on top of the burial plot the day before, so it was easy to find. They cleaned out a couple flower pots that were left, and I pulled flowers out of the three tripod arrangements. We looked around at some neighboring plots, cleaned up a couple of spots very minimally, and then started to leave. Eaddie wanted to see the mausoleum my parents bought, so we all drove to the back of the cemetery as Lelan and Steve left. I thought my parents, Bác Trân, and Bác Loan would get out, but they just kept driving. Eaddie and I parked and walked to the structure, which happened to be right next to a couple of large sarcophagi for some Duffields. They had a bench as a part of their plot, so we sat down to talk for a little bit as the sun set.

When we left, we drove by to see if the ice cream truck was open. Failing that, we stopped at a very busy Dairy Queen on the way back home. We almost went back to the grave because they forgot the flower pots there, but Dad went instead. When we got home, Summer was already in bed, but we went in to come up with a plan for the next day. Eaddie wanted to grill food at their house and invite everyone over. I checked with Mom, and she said she had the same idea for their house, so we planned dinner for there instead.

Foreshadowing