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Drive All Day, Sleep No Way

I got to bed really late last night, slept super hard, and then crawled out of bed really early this morning to finish loading up for our trip. I was surprised that we ended up waiting about an hour and a half for Genesis to meet us at Superfast, where we left the Murano in an unused shop bay. She was supposed to be at Summer’s house at seven, but we didn’t leave town until about 8:30.

We hit the road, but then stopped early in Conway so we could wash Summer’s car. I used all of their fancy, foaming chemicals since she had a key to bypass the payment system. The Model Y had never looked so clean, even when it rolled off of the assembly line. We made our way out of the state, skipping the charger in Brinkley, and making it all the way to Memphis to stop and eat.

We had quite a bit of range anxiety since the arrival percentage just kept rapidly dropping, but we made it. The Supercharger was on the outskirts of a parking lot, and then we walked to a place called Kami Ramen Bar for lunch. The food was awesome, and the service was fast, straightforward, and friendly.

Our next stop was Nashville, where we walked through Target while we waited. When we left, I had Summer stop at Sonic so I could get a drink. What I got ended up being mostly ice cream though, so I stayed thirsty the rest of the day.

Our next stop was in Knoxville for dinner. We charged to 100% while we ate at Blaze Pizza. I wasn’t at all impressed with what Summer ordered, so I ordered another custom pizza online and ate that instead.
We powered on through the night, stopping one last time in Atkins at a Supercharger that happened to be in the parking lot of a Comfort Inn. Then Summer finished the last leg of the trip to get us into Roanoke for the night.

When we pulled up to the Best Western, two of the EV spots were ICEd out, with one of those vehicles being an SUV with handicapped tags parked over the line, nearly blocking the last available spot. I contemplated parking behind those two cars and running the charger out to ours, but I didn’t want to risk retaliation. Instead, we risked parking too close to a handicapped beater vehicle with the wheel cocked right into our car. I took pictures of the license plate and handicapped tag just in case we found their paint on our car the next morning.

As we got into the hotel, we were assaulted by a variety of smells that I attributed to body odor and weed. Luckily the room didn’t smell awful, and I was able to drop the temperature way down before we made it to bed. Genesis was the first into the shower, followed by Eaddie. I wrapped up my chores, and then it was off to bed for me.

I would get a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot, so why wouldn’t they get a ticket for parking in an EV spot?

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Sent Packing

Summer had to work a long day today. I slept in a little bit, but had to get home to do some laundry for our trip. Eaddie slept a couple hours later than I wanted her to, but it sprinkled on and off, so she had to mow in the dry periods. I cleaned up a bunch of leftovers, and once she finished the yard, I headed home.

The day went by relatively quickly. I got my laundry done and took a shower, but then I had to take Eaddie to Pasta Grill to meet some band friends to celebrate Kim’s retirement. I circled around to my parents’ house from there so I could visit before our trip. I ended up having dinner there, and Dad showed me the landscaping they had done.

I left their house to pick up Eaddie, but she decided she wanted to go to the movies instead. I went home and got caught up in deciding which vehicle to take to D.C. The Murano would be really straightforward, but I kept thinking the Autopilot on the Model Y would make the drive so much less exhausting. We’d have to stop a little more frequently and for longer, but driving for three hours at a time seemed like long enough for me anyway.

Summer stopped by after she finally got home from work, and I cleared up some confusion about the hotel. I couldn’t figure out how she booked the one she did, but it was twice the distance from the University of Maryland as the one that was actually advertised on the National History Day website. I booked the correct hotel and cancelled her reservation, and then we went outside to compare vehicles.

She went on home, but then I followed because Eaddie was on the way home from the movies. We needed to make sure her project would fit in the trunk, and it did, so we loaded it up and then I headed back home to charge and pack.

I didn’t get to bed until a couple hours later than I wanted, but I felt fairly confident that I had packed everything I should need for such a long trip. In reality, I was sure that I still overpacked, but travel makes me highly anxious.

It’s easier to unpack and repack than to do the Tesla Shuffle.

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Finding Priorities

I wasn’t quite as tired this morning as yesterday, but it was still rough getting out of bed. I even woke up a couple minutes before my alarm, but I was still just exhausted. I made it to work a little earlier today, and had my leftover croissant for breakfast along with a McCoffee I picked up on the way. Kim showed up and quietly did her own thing most of the day.

I had a couple people come in for some new RFID fobs for door access, and then I just grasped at random things throughout the rest of the day. At one point, Kim and I went to the elementary to get the last two iPads into my inventory spreadsheet, and near the end of the day she collected some touch panel serial numbers from the high school. Nicky was on the hunt for a bunch of asset tags, so I spent a while trying to figure out the tag printer.

I left a little bit late after penning a long email about Chromebook planning. I won’t be there to meet with the administration next week, but hopefully I made some good points and showed them how much money they’re bleeding out.

Autumn called as I was leaving, but I didn’t get to answer. Evidently she went by the house and bothered the girls to fetch some more stuff. Summer said she wanted a hug and cried a bit, but it wasn’t very effective. I made it home and took care of a few things before making it up to Summer’s.

As soon as I got there, I uncovered the grill and cooked some smoked sausages for dinner. Summer was mowing, so she came in to shower, and then it was a pretty quiet night after that. I laid down to relax for a bit with her, but then had to get up to finish my chores before bed.

We’re going the wrong direction!

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Good Answer

I felt like I was dead when my alarm went off this morning. I dragged all the way to work, through the Burger King drive-through for some coffee and croissants. As I neared the school, I passed a truck that I guess kicked up a rock somehow, and it sounded like I had gotten shot. I got a thumbnail-sized crack, nearly dead-center in my line of sight.

Once I got to the office, I felt pretty productive all morning. I hardly left my office, but I felt relatively focused compared to my usual days there. I remember fixing my one thing for the day pretty early, but I can’t remember what it was now. I also filed a glass claim with Progressive, and the girl said I qualified for a whole new windshield. I guess I feel better about that than a repair. Hopefully my insurance premiums don’t go up.

I took a break for some soft tacos from the cafeteria, and then the afternoon kind of dragged on. Blake came into my office to ask about spending the rest of some money, and I felt like I had some pretty good answers for him. Then Carla came into the office to look for Kim, who wasn’t working, and I learned of our shared disgust of the lack of accountability with Chromebooks. She seemed excited to help call the list of literally hundreds of parents to try and recover missing devices.

I left work a bit late, and last as usual. I went home to change, and then headed straight up to Summer’s. She and Eaddie had hiked down to the Petit Jean waterfall during the day, so they weren’t up to much when I got to the house. I made a leftover burger, and then struggled to get to bed early because Summer was on a very loud and gossipy work call in bed for what felt like hours.

Seriously, why do I even come here.

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Gators Out of Water

I squeezed into work today, but things were unusually quiet. It wasn’t long before I learned that they sent everyone home because a water main had gone out somewhere up the road, so the school had no water. I tried to stick around for a bit, but eventually went home since I knew it would take me half an hour to get back home to my own bathroom.

Just after I got home, the mail lady came by with my new sun shades for our cars. I tried them out and settled on using the umbrella type for the Model 3, since I didn’t really have anywhere to store the folding one. Then I decided to surprise the guys at Taco John’s for lunch. I tried to see if Allen was going, but from what I could hear over the phone, he was out doing something else.

I stopped to wash my car first so I wouldn’t be too early, but even when I arrived, I had time to eat all of my food before Zach, Greg, and his wife and kid showed up. They didn’t have a whole lot to say, but I did learn that Old South had burned down. Shortly after they got their food, a bunch of the maintenance crew came in, so I moved over to sit with them once Zach and Greg left.

After lunch, I headed up to see if Eaddie wanted to go driving. She was cleaning and doing laundry, so I helped pick through some crap Autumn had left in the floor when she left. Noah left with the promise of coming back to help us move a grill up from my house. I had texted Autumn to see if she wanted to come get some more stuff, but when she came by after DEP for her school records, she said she still hadn’t unpacked anything. She seemed humbled though, and even offered to come back and mow the front lawn so Eaddie wouldn’t have to do it herself.

After a while, I convinced Eaddie to go grocery shopping with me, and we got everything to grill some burgers and took it back to my house to wait for Noah. We ended up waiting for nearly two hours, but he eventually showed up and we successfully moved the grill. Eaddie got to work right away baking a cake, while I started up the grill. The three of them went back out to get some fries while I mixed up the hamburger meat, and then I grilled everything as quickly as I could.

Dinner was awesome. They were some of the best burgers I’d made in quite a while, and it made the girls realize why I scoffed at the $80 it cost for us to eat at Big Orange the other day. Noah had put on The Guardians of the Galaxy while they were waiting to eat, so we finished watching it after we ate, and then everyone was off to bed.

They drained the swamp.

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The Bed is Too Full

As expected, Summer had a pretty sleepless night last night. I didn’t do much better myself, but I did manage to shut my eyes for a little while before I woke up to an empty bed. She had gone to the living room and was playing on her phone, so I had to fetch her back. She mentioned that Eaddie had been up, so I went and brought her into the bedroom with us and we all snuggled up together for a bit. There really wasn’t much room, and I didn’t really get to fall asleep again for most of the night. Eaddie didn’t stick around for too long, but I think it helped Summer.

I gave up on getting to work by seven, and stopped at McDonald’s for a frappé. I had forgotten that summer school started today, and there seemed to be more kids around than I expected, but maybe only a few of them needed Chromebooks. A couple teachers came to fetch a cart from me, and we settled on leaving it in the front office where kids could pick up devices on their way in.

I was alone all day, so I spent the morning scanning damaged devices and moving what was left of a pallet of Chromebooks outside of our office. I broke a pretty good sweat, and spent the rest of the day in a pretty quiet office.

It started raining pretty hard around quitting time, and I think I was the last one to leave by quite a while. I headed home and retrieved the phone mounts I ordered for the Teslas. Then I continued up to Summer’s for the evening. Noah was supposed to come over late, and the girls had been out to eat earlier in the day, so I had some leftovers. Then the three of us watched a couple episodes of The Office while Eaddie ate in the floor. Then Summer and I watched some Modern Family until she was ready to go to sleep.

How does she always pick the ones into pseudo-science???

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On the Subject of Pedestals

Eaddie has been wanting to go out on a hike, so she and Summer decided today was the day. I suggested Pedestal Rock, a place I hadn’t been there since I was a child, because it seemed like an easy enough hike for someone in my condition. They jumped right out of bed and were ready to go, so I took the opportunity to shower while they went to the store to get lunch materials. Then they brought the Model Y over to charge while we took mine up to Pelsor.

Nobody had eaten yet, and I didn’t want to drive for an hour and then hike for just as long before we could sit down and eat sandwiches, so I stopped at Sonic before we got to Dover. It was a pretty middling experience, made slightly worse by the fact that we then weren’t really hungry enough for lunch on the trail afterward.

We walked the Pedestal Rocks trail, which was longer than Kings Bluff. It wasn’t too incredibly hot or humid out, but the slight changes in elevation got me huffing pretty quickly. Even micro changes wear me down really quickly, so I tried to pace myself. We made it down to the rock formations fairly easily, and I took a short break while the girls wandered around at the bottom of the formations for a bit. The hike back up to the car was much worse for me, but once we leveled out I recovered fairly quickly.

The girls ate some pita chips and hummus, but didn’t get out any of the sandwich stuff. I found a large chunk of something in what was left of our cranberry slush from Sonic. It had broken up a bit in the drink, which led me to believe it was a chunk of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, but nobody was brave enough to taste it.

Eaddie was pretty anxious to get back home by that time, so we left. As we got back into town and service, Summer noticed that Autumn had stopped by Adam’s house on the way home from Clarksville, where she had been overnight. It was clear they had spent the night together at her father’s house. Autumn’s lies about their plans pretty well sealed her fate.

We swapped vehicles at my house and then went inside to chat for a bit before deciding to go to Summer’s parents’ house to talk to them first. We felt we owed them the courtesy, but that turned toxic absolutely instantly. We had barely pulled up when Autumn called Summer wanting to know if we were there to talk them out of paying for her band camp trip. It was a short conversation before Autumn hung up on her mother, and then Summer had to talk JoAnn into coming out to talk to the three of us.

Everyone seemed to be concerned about band camp, because that’s what Autumn called them about. Gerald stomped out, white as a ghost, a few moments later and banged his fist in anger. Summer told him we were kicking Autumn out, and he said, “Good! You don’t deserve her!” I think we all felt a brief feeling of relief until he pulled the rug out from beneath us and said she could come live with him. Then he tried bringing up Summer’s past when she moved out of their house, as though that made any kind of point at all. He cast Summer away and told her not to come back. She and Eaddie went back to the car while I stood there in shock.

I tried to calmly explain the situation, but it was clear he wasn’t going to listen. He was locked into blind support of Autumn’s parasitic lifestyle, and she’ll only suffer for it. I told him that I knew they loved the girls, and for some reason his only response was that he didn’t love Eaddie. That just seemed like a cruel and pointless thing to say, and I had absolutely no response loaded for that. We headed to the house to confront Autumn, but of course they had already told her she was being kicked out, so she was packing by the time we got there.

Autumn tried ignoring us at first, but finally came out long enough for Summer to talk to her. After over a year of hearing her say she hates it with us, she said she wasn’t ready to move out, and then turned to me to ask if I was “okay with this.” I don’t know what kind of answer she expected from me after she tried to send me to jail with false accusations. Summer did a great job of laying out the expectations and where Autumn failed to meet them. We gave her twice the amount of time we told her, and then sent her off with her car title and birth certificate. We’ve wasted enough time afraid for our own safety with her around. She can mooch off of someone else from now on.

I think Summer and Eaddie handled it relatively well, but it was hard. I didn’t really expect to tear up myself, but I did while giving my parting words. They took a moment to breathe, and then Summer took me home to get the Murano. While we were there, she called Nick to explain the situation. He played dumb enough that I didn’t even think to be angry at him, since he was the one that allowed Autumn to stay the night with her 15 year old boyfriend. What an absolute putz.

Summer spent a while on the phone in her car when we got back to the house. Eaddie had taken a shower, and we were trying to decide what to do for dinner. When Summer finally came in, I suggested pizza and both of their eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and they had just found all of the surprise presents under the tree. I ordered some Little Caesars, and spent the next 20 minutes waiting for it.

When I got back to the house, we watched Modern Family while we ate. Then the girls went to bed. New challenges await us tomorrow, but at least for now, we can breathe a sigh of relief.

If it were up to me, we would have given her car to her in cube-form.

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Spider Across

I tried to sleep in a little bit this morning before heading home to shower. I took Summer’s car to charge it enough for our trip to Little Rock. Then before I went back to get the girls, I stopped by my parents’ house to print off a quick “YOU ARE MARRIED” card for them to take to Randall and Danielle’s wedding.

Summer and Eaddie came out as soon as I pulled up to their house, and we headed to Little Rock for lunch. Traffic was pretty stupid, but we made it to the Promenade with plenty of time to eat. Big Orange didn’t have a wait, so we didn’t even have to queue up before we got there. Then after we ate, we walked the length of the strip and stopped in a few stores. We spent the most time in Home Goods, which seemed like an expensive version of TJ Maxx. Then we ended at Maggie Moo’s to share a banana split before the movie.

We arrived at the theater pretty early, so we had to wait a bit for the IMAX to be cleaned out. The concession stand got pretty busy, so our preordered snacks were a bit late, but it worked out alright. The theater was fairly cold, but livable. I didn’t like Across the Spider-Verse nearly as much as Into the Spider-Verse, but it had some really great moments. Overall I thought it was a good movie. It just didn’t have me punching the air as much as the first one. I was surprised to see it was a two-parter, but I was excited that there would be another.

The girls wanted to head straight home after the movie, which was a bit annoying. I could have gone for some dinner out of town. Instead, I took them home and everyone went to bed pretty immediately. I was up for several more hours by myself, which felt incredibly boring and wasteful.

Bad things are gonna happen. It makes us who we are.

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Old Tomato

Things were tense with Summer every time I saw her today. She and I both slept in a bit. She tried to wake Autumn up before she left for work, and of course I could hear mild yelling from the bedroom. Once she left, I had a bagel and then quietly went home myself for the day. I wanted to read up on some Ubiquiti networking documentation, but I could never get myself into it. The best I could do was complete a load of laundry.

I thought Mom was working, but she texted around lunch time and it looked like she was at home. I thought I’d visit her, but I didn’t get out until after my laundry was done. I had to go by Walgreens first for my medication, but that was a failed trip and a phone call to my benefits line, because apparently my insurance paperwork hasn’t made it in yet. I decided not to pay full price and just ride out some higher blood pressure for a few weeks to see what happens.

From there, I stopped to wash my car before heading to see Mom. By the time I got there, I saw the garage was empty and it looked like she was at work. Confused, I headed back home. Summer was home by then, but the girls had been out shopping all day. By the time I got to her house, she said they had left again for the art walk downtown. Things were still tense, and I likened the situation to beating a dog for peeing on the carpet the day before. I told her I was sick of nothing being done. There’s been no accountability. Autumn simply doesn’t understand the difference between not being a shitty person and working to earn something. I’m not going to keep my mouth shut any longer.

I ate some leftovers, and Summer went straight to bed. I just sat there wishing I was at home all night long. What a waste.

First fireflies of the year.

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Murder Campus

I rolled in to work a few minutes late today, but that seems to be the atmosphere there. I think as long as work gets done, nobody really seems to care too much about anything else. I didn’t get too deep into much before Kim got there, and then we ended up at the bottom of the hill to finish up our inventory and hunting for Chromebooks. That project was going to take us most of the day, but I wanted to take a break and visit the Plainview campus for the first time.

We had to track down some keys for the building, and then we were on our way. As timing would have it, we had to accept a delivery from UPS anyway. Then I got a quick tour of a hallway they use for preschool, and then a walk through the back side of the building that was blocked by storage. It was padlocked shut, and everything was pretty gross inside. There were some neat things, like a giant, old safe, and an old stage with theater seating in surprisingly good condition. We looked at some carts that I might want to put back into circulation if they’re firm on keeping a cart in every single room, used or not.

By the time we finished there, I was pretty hungry and insisted on taking Kim out to lunch at the Junction Café in town. I tried the Cajun baked potato with shrimp and crawfish, and then Kim got the Cajun fries, which looked like a slightly better deal, though my potato wasn’t bad.

We finished the elementary inventory in the afternoon, which took us right to quitting time. I didn’t even bother unloading everything when we got back to the office. I raced home with very little traffic and stopped by my parents’ house to visit with Mom, but she wasn’t home from work. The landscapers were there, and evidently they cut down her favorite magnolia tree, of which I wasn’t even fully aware.

I ended up leaving well before she got home, stopped by Walgreens where the pharmacy had already closed at three, and then ran home to change before going to Summer’s. She made dinner, so I ate while she and Eaddie watched baking shows.

Summer had told Autumn the other night that she couldn’t go to band camp because she declined the offer earlier in the year. Autumn pitched a fit over it, and evidently spent the afternoon with her grandparents to get money to go. The whole ordeal burned me up, because I’m sick to death of her sidestepping Summer’s parenting, and Summer not doing anything about it. I almost left, but calmed myself down enough to talk to Summer about it. Of course she was just dead eyes through the entire conversation. I know she has it worse, but I can’t feel sorry for her if she does nothing to change the situation. Autumn is just making all of our lives worse by existing, and I wish Summer would put her foot down.

Maybe a trip to Plainview.