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Iced Out

I woke up this morning and cautiously waited for a notification that never came. Work was happening, in spite of any remaining ice. I went outside in the dark and tried to get into my car, but there was a quarter inch thick sheet of ice wrapped smoothly around my entire door. I managed to get to my door handle, but the more I pulled, the more I felt like I was going to rip the handle right off. It just wasn’t worth the damage, so I opted to work from home for the morning.

I answered some emails, had an hour and a half phone call with Aimee about bus driver pay and benefits, and tried to help someone with a VPN issue. As I wrapped that up, Bác Vân called to offer some sweet rice she made for the new year’s celebration. As I walked next door, I was able to get my car door open, so I started the car and let it defrost while I went nextdoor. She gave me a big bag of fruit and a couple rounds of rice.

Heading in to work was a piece of cake, as the roads were almost completely clear. I arrived just as a big group of the guys were headed to lunch. I wasn’t much interested in La Chiquita, so I just went inside and shared my rice ball with Thomas and Tammy. I didn’t have a lot to work on right away, but eventually the guys made it back from lunch and I went over some CPPC stuff with Zach.

Eventually Thomas came back to socialize with everyone, and after a while he sent us on home for the weekend. I went home and tried to keep up my momentum to clean up a bit. It was less cleaning, and more trying to organize a bunch of random stuff that ended up in the bedroom floor. Time got away from me as I documented healthcare receipts for later HSA reimbursement. Eventually I gave up and took a shower so I could go to bed grime-free.

It’s poteen, me boys!

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Hot Ice

I woke up this morning and found myself to have quite a high blood pressure out of the blue. I’d gone several days without medication, so I was surprised to see it spike. I took some medicine and tried to chill out as I waited for the message that work would be closed due to the ice. I preferred Ben’s later policy that just said we were out of school was out, since at least then we would know well ahead of time. I felt bad for those that live further away and might have actually started the drive in before getting the call.

I never got up to much after that. I didn’t go back to sleep, though maybe I should have. I just sat around the entire day. I watched a little YouTube, played on my phone, and otherwise bounced around the house while constantly checking my blood pressure. At one point in the early afternoon, I started to doze off on the couch under the heated blanket.

The biggest thing I did all day was watch most of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I just love that movie. That just about got me to sundown, so I wound everything up super early and went to bed.

Notivation

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Stand Up

I got in to work this morning and continued work on what I had to say for the CPPC meeting. Justin happened to call me with some thoughts just as Gary came back to review it with me, so he came down and they both listened to what I had to say before the meeting at 9:30.

It was drizzly out, so I drove around the building to our central office. I got there without much time to spare, so once the meeting started I actually took a little bit to get myself situated to make my speech. I got all kinds of looks, but I was too concentrated on breathing through my mask to notice much. I said what I had to say, and I got roughly the response I thought I would. It’s our meeting, and we’re welcome to come up with whatever policy changes we would like. Janie was back after being out for the last meeting, and her response was actually less incendiary than any of us expected. I think overall it went well, because everyone was pretty involved in the discussion of every policy moving forward for the rest of the meeting – at least until people started to disappear, one by one.

I made it back to the shop about half an hour before lunch, which gave me just enough time to get settled before Gary came around and said we were going to McAlister’s. I drove him, Josh, and Thomas there to meet Greg, and of course my online order that I submitted while we were still halfway through the line came out after they had gotten theirs at the table and already started eating. Mine was deliciously customized though, with every free vegetable they offered.

After lunch, I spent most of the afternoon working on the CPPC minutes. I decided to leave out my 30 minute diatribe about Chrissy, and instead stuck to the policies we changed. I’ve felt better, but it didn’t feel bad to stand up for something I believe in either. Near the end of the day we got an email announcing the closure of school for the students tomorrow. Thomas’s policy is that we would work unless Central Office closed, which was a break from what we were used to with Ben. I’d much rather just have the day off like everyone else, obviously.

Just as I got home from work, Julie called to talk about our Disney trip. She felt that I was making a grave mistake by threatening Autumn over her grades. She didn’t think it was right to position our family vacation either as a punishment or reward. I tried to stop and let her know that it was a non-issue, but she stood on principle. It was clear there was nothing I could say to satisfy her. She started the conversation with clear intent. Frankly, I had run out of polite ways to tell her that it was none of her fucking business how we choose to parent. She ended the call by saying that Disney was cancelled, and hanging up on me.

I’ve only ever had one other person that was able to stress me out so instantaneously, and I swore myself out of that situation. Julie is evidently incapable of accepting that there are things that she cannot change, and she refuses not to fight over it at every chance possible. I’m absolutely through with it. I’m mustering every bit of will that I have to make good decisions for myself and for my family, and I will not have anyone bring me down from that. She can blame me or our family for all of her issues, and I do not care. In the end it is personal responsibility that you can rely on. I hope she makes a better life, but I won’t have her making mine worse.

I walked a brisk 1.6 miles on the treadmill with a glass of apple pie moonshine and a cream ale to calm the nerves, and ended the evening with a couple tacos and some fries because I’m no stranger to bad decisions either. Eyes forward.

Quit wasting my time.

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Wanna Fight?

I got in a couple minutes late this morning after a split night of sleep. I wasn’t as sore as I thought I might be, but I still felt pretty gross in general until I had my shower. Thomas was out again, and Zach was transient all morning until he took off for the afternoon. That left me with a grumpy Gary to sort through everyone’s messes.

Several of us went to Taco John’s for Taco Tuesday, and I had a light lunch that left me surprisingly satisfied, if not a little peckish. The afternoon was pretty quiet, but I had Justin come down to chat about our meeting tomorrow. It’s time to put thoughts into action and stand up for what I believe. At least I won’t be completely alone, and maybe I can get a couple raises out of the deal.

After work, I ran home to change before going to my parents’ house to wish them a happy new year. Then I stopped by the bank so I could be prepared to put my money where my mouth is, picked up my “free” taco, and headed up to Summer’s for the evening.

Noah came over, and all of the kids went to some kind of wrestling event. I showed Summer a bit of what I was working on until the kids made it back home. Then Eaddie and Noah stayed up being super loud until Noah went home. I kept feeling like my blood pressure was up, even after being pretty good over the last couple of days without medication, but I didn’t have my cuff to check. I guess that’s one more thing to check during my morning prep.

Opinions are like armpits, and yours are wrong.

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Garage 5K

Today at work absolutely flew by. I don’t even know how I got to lunch time so quickly. It felt like I got there, logged in, looked at the clock, and it was 11. I went to Mom and Dad’s for some mango soup for lunch, then ran home for a couple packages. I had to run by Oakland after lunch, but as soon as I finished there, a third package arrived.

After getting it inside, I headed back to the shop for the rest of the day. I took quite a few phone calls to help others, and showed Kyle how fax machines work. Fortunately I didn’t really have much of my own to do, because I wouldn’t have gotten to it.

When I left work, I stopped to get my daily taco, then stopped by Arvest for a new debit card. That took a bit longer than I expected, but once done, I headed home to eat. It was really nice outside, so I spent some time sawing some metal to try and hang a windchime out back. I was never really satisfied with how I got it into the soffit, and the sun went down, so I gave up for the night.

At that point, I decided to dedicate some time to the treadmill. The first 3/4 of a mile is the worst, but then I hit a stride and trucked on for a while. Unfortunately I accidentally reset my counter, but I did another 2.436 miles to make sure I got in more than a full 5K, just to challenge myself. My feet felt pretty raw the rest of the night, but I don’t think I blistered at all. Not to be forgotten, I decided to make myself a paper medal for my achievement. It wasn’t quite the 5 miles down to Hemmed-in-Hollow Falls, but hopefully I can work up to that.

Sponsored by Sears / Craftsman!

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Gossip Grill

I woke up at one point this morning and thought I would be up for good, but then slipped back into a deep sleep for a couple more hours. I felt pretty good after that, but woke up to Eaddie in the doorway, talking at hyperspeed after pulling an all-nighter with friends. It didn’t take very long for her to slow down to a crawl after Summer left for the gym though.

I grilled some leftover cheddar jalapeño sausages for us for lunch, which took quite a bit longer than I expected over a single burner on the grill turned up to high. It probably would have heated up a lot more with extra burners on, but I just figured one should be enough.

The rest of the day was pretty well burned up as Eaddie eventually passed out. I let her sleep for a while, but eventually had to get her home. We stopped at Walmart for a pork loin, as well as some shrimp, a salmon fillet, and asparagus on a whim. Summer made some butternut squash and fried potatoes at home, and I grilled the rest for a big dinner.

The girls finished up some chores, and then it was really early to bed. I was just happy to be tired after sleeping in so late.

What a gas!

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Helton John

We got up and around this morning, I took a shower, and we went to Sam’s for lunch. I knew immediately that I had eaten too much, even though the fish and chicken were both much smaller cuts than usual. Summer and Eaddie went on to their houses while I went back home to get ready for our trip to Little Rock.

I worked up a headache bad enough to take some medicine. Summer said she encountered some attitude with Autumn that ended in her being told to leave the house, and Summer and Eaddie coming back to my house. Eaddie just hung out there while Summer and I went to pick up Suzanne and Trent.

We made it to Conway and stopped for a carwash. Then we went straight to The Butchershop for dinner. I was still pretty full from lunch, and also could not get comfortable in the booth where we were seated, so I was just super uncomfortable the entire time.

After we ate and packed our leftovers, we headed to the arena and parked right up front in one of the main lots. Then we had to walk around the building to find the end of the line until the doors opened. We spotted Wesley and Cindy, as well as Ben from Oakland as the line folded on itself. Some girl cut in front of us in the line, which was pretty pointless on account of how fast the line eventually started moving. It really burned Summer up, but she wasn’t willing to do anything about it either. Next time we just need to bring some pigs blood or something to throw at people like that.

We were sat dead center at the opposite end of the arena to the stage, which made for a great view of the lighting and projections. I knew exactly which songs I thought I would know, and a good time was had by all. Evidently Elton John does not walk across the stage. He rides his piano wherever he wants to go. I thought it would have made a really cool trick, but it seemed like he literally only used it for transportation.

It took us forever to get moving once we got back to the car. We ended up hopping a curb and getting right out after a while. Then it was a quick drive home and quickly to bed.

My favorite was the song about “Who’s the boss?” Hold me closer, Tony Danza!

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Heavyweight Champion

This morning started out pretty rough after I weighed myself at my heaviest ever. Apparently everything is sticking to my bones now. I thought momentarily that the weight I lost with COVID would stay off, but I gained it all back and then some in record time.

We had a pretty quiet meeting at work, since Thomas was still hoarse and Zach was still out with COVID. Greg was out for his birthday, so Gary sent the others to do a trash pickup at their offices while he and I decommissioned the old domain controller. We ended up having to walk over to the server room to restart the thing, because a drive failure kept it from spinning back up on its own. Fortunately that was the most trouble we had out of it, and everything else went smoothly after we bypassed the warning message.

I had to leave a little before lunch to meet my parents for a call with an accountant. He did share some additional insight, but I wasn’t sure the whole conversation was really what we were looking for. Hopefully it at least motivates them to look into some insurance to protect their assets.

I ran through McDonald’s and Taco Bell for a cheap lunch, that actually totalled $1. Then I went back to the shop to eat and get back to work. I ran to Oakland for a little while before school let out, and eventually headed home to change for Dale’s father’s visitation.

I’ve never experienced anything like this, which was a tiny room with two doors. It was practically a drive-through. Gary eventually showed up so the two of us felt slightly less awkward not knowing anyone else. We watched the slideshow for a while, and eventually filtered out since Dale was constantly gabbing with friends and family coming in.

The girls go to the house a little while after I had changed back into some casual clothes, and we went to my parents’ house for mango soup. Mom also made some sweet potato and shrimp fried fritter things, and some fried rice. The girls really loved the fritters. We chatted for a little while after we ate, and then headed back home to watch a movie.

Eaddie didn’t want to join us, so I made popcorn for Summer and we watched Idiocracy. It wasn’t quite as profound, and was quite a bit more stupid than I was hoping. At least I can finally check it off of my watch list, since it’s been bouncing around for years. Then we watched an episode of Modern Family before Summer went to bed. I tinkered on YouTube a bit longer, and then headed to bed myself.

That’s a long tour. Somebody must’ve run out of money!

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Killing Me, Smalls

I came in to work this morning and had everything of my own wrapped up pretty quickly, so Gary gave me three of his work orders. I went nextdoor to the transportation office first, and picked up a couple old computers to swap out and clean up. Then I went upstairs to get a couple broken laptops. One of them was a broken screen, and the other was a super gross looking one from a remote student.

Thomas came in and appeared to be in good spirits, but he still sounded awful. It seemed a little like he was afraid to show too much weakness from it. The morning went by quickly, and Brody came to the office and took Gary and me to Linhs for lunch. As we were finishing up, Kelsea came in with her family. Evidently she took a half day, so we didn’t see her again.

After lunch was pretty quiet as I finished up the work Gary had given me. I picked Eaddie up from Oakland on the way home, and we watched an episode of Hawkeye until Summer got there. She really wanted to go out for Chinese, and I talked myself into feeling hungry enough to go.

The hostess sat us in the tiniest booth in the place, so it was super awkward for me. Eaddie and I werre both basically sandwiched on either side, between the table and our chair. I overate and felt awful, so I came home and put about a mile and a half on the treadmill. It felt awful for about a mile, but then got better just in time for my shins to start cramping. The only real solution is to stop eating food. Maybe I can just take a Soylent with me so I can still socialize during lunch.

Being value-driven is really going to end me.

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Step 2: Do Step 1

I was a little late to work this morning, but it has been especially quiet this week anyway. I’ve rather enjoyed it. Gary gave me something else to do so our new domain controller would sync passwords with Google. Then I actually got a couple new work orders for the first time in a while. I did what I could and kept busy the rest of the morning.

Brody, Josh, and I met Greg at CiCi’s for lunch against my better judgement. I didn’t stuff myself silly, but I’m not sure that wasn’t just because my stomach is permanently too large now. I blame Brody for always wanting CiCi’s.

After lunch, Greg went to Oakland with me to check out an intercom speaker. It wasn’t malfunctioning at the time, so he just rewired something and we left. I ended the day back at Oakland to hide some wires to keep the underdeveloped from yanking them out and hanging themselves. Eaddie was there waiting for me to take her home, so we went on to my house where she started some homework while I dropped off a UPS package and picked up some dinner for her.

I spent a little time on the treadmill to make up for my last cinnamon roll, and when Eaddie finished eating and doing some homework, we watched a couple episodes of Hawkeye. I think it’s getting better, but I really just want to consume the story as quickly as possible. By the time we finished the second episode, she was ready to go home.

Autumn was at a church thing, presumably trying to pray the non-binary away. Summer had a late meeting in Conway, so we didn’t see her either until very late. I played some Last Horizon, which has been a fun twist on the old lunar lander game. Then it was off to bed.

Step 3: Do Step 2