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Clean Up, Settle Up

Autumn had to work today, and Eaddie was still with her father for the weekend, so Summer and I got up to a day to ourselves. We ate some leftovers for breakfast, and before too long I headed home to clean up. I spent the entire day in and out of the garage trying to clean things out so I can park in there again. There were plenty of big things I could move around, and there’s still plenty more to go.

Summer showed up after her workout and kept me company, but by that time I was feeling really tired and clammy as it got warmer outside. I started slowing down quite a bit and really just wanted a shower, so she went home while I cleaned up.

Just as I was getting ready for a shower, I remembered that Little Caesar’s had a promotional $5 ExtraMostBestest deal, so I ran across town to pick one of those up instead. The guy at the window was super nice and polite, and the pizza was one of the prettier I’ve had from there. The crust was overly thick in some places though, and it looked more like a regular sparsely-topped pepperoni than an ExtraMostBestest. It was good though, and fit my craving.

After my shower, I was feeling really sleepy, and it felt like it should have been about eight or nine o’clock. I kept picking up and started making some ice cream before my milk and cream could go bad. Unfortunately I warmed the milk up too much when mixing the dry ingredients, so it never quite got down to freezing as it spun. I just had to pour it into some cups to stick in the freezer instead.

To wrap up the night, I had to comb through my Discover Card transactions to pull out Autumn’s purchases again. You’d think there would be a way to easily separate authorized users from everyday transactions, but there’s just not without looking at the details of each transaction. Luckily I know that I almost never go to Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Tropical Smoothie, Dollar General, or Dollar Tree.

I always play banker.

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Pessimist in Denial

I mistakenly told Summer not to let me sleep in too late today, so she got me out of bed way earlier than I was ready. I ached from the lack of sleep all day long. I had some leftovers for breakfast and eventually made it home to clean up. The grill cover I had to buy from a scalper off of eBay showed up, so I got the new grill moved outside. Eventually I got a shower and Summer showed up so we could go help Dad cover the pool.

When we got there, he said Uncle Rick tested positive for COVID, so he was trying to be careful while we were there. We covered the pool and then took off for Lowe’s.

We only needed to pick up the air filters I ordered for her, but Summer and I walked around the store for a while first. They had some nice bathroom vanity displays up, so we spent a while back there before making it through some more of the store. Then we picked up the filters on the way out.

We were both a little hungry by then, and she wanted seafood, so I took her down the road to Sam’s. We ordered the big fish, shrimp, and crab cakes platter I usually get, along with a smaller one with some chicken and shrimp to share. I wish I had just gotten the gumbo instead, because it made me feel like crap the rest of the night.

As we left, Summer expressed how she often visualizes worst-case scenarios in her mind. It finally dawned on me that she has really just been a pessimist all along and didn’t realize it. Every example I could come up with lead to her thinking of the most negative outcome. With that insight, I figure I’m an optimist in denial.

I wanted to clean up the house when we got back, but I barely picked at anything. It got hot outside with the sun shining directly into the garage, and I was already feeling sleepy. Summer went home and I tried to pick at a couple more things before following after her.

Autumn came home as we were watching Modern Family, and it was quickly off to bed for her. We didn’t stay up very late either. Hopefully I can make some use of tomorrow.

Spit Fire

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Can Michael Go Home Now?

It was another cold ride in to work this morning. We had a brief team meeting, where Thomas updated us on some procedures including timesheets. We all hate them, nobody looks at them, and as far as I know, we don’t even send them anywhere. I’ll almost prefer to have a timeclock system over a superficial policy over a technicality.

From then on, we didn’t have much else going on. The morning went by super fast, and then almost all of us ended up at Western Sizzlin for lunch. Kyle got a baked potato for like three bucks, which was genius, because he got the full potato bar with it for hardly any money. I’ll have to remember that trick.

When we got back to the shop, Kelsea was outside trying to change her tire because it was “10 PSI” low and kept slowly leaking. We tried to convince her to just drive it to a gas station to get some air, but she insisted on changing it instead so she could drive to Conway to have it fixed under warranty. I ran home to get my impact wrench and a floor jack, but by the time I got back the guys had already changed it using the emergency tool kit. Not only that, but there was a tow truck there to pick up her car, so I doubly didn’t understand why she insisted on changing the tire there. It all seemed very dramatic, and evidently I wasn’t the only one that thought she had gone a bit nuts.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet until everyone filtered out a bit early. I stayed a bit late as I finished up some things, then went home to change before meeting Summer at Walmart for some guacamole ingredients. I chopped everything up, she mashed it all together, and then we were off to John and Melissa’s.

We were the first to arrive, then Veronica actually showed up, and finally Travis arrived with the pizza. We ate and chatted around the table. No games made it out, as we just reminisced about the old days, and caught up with Veronica’s adventures. Johnny periodically came out to ask if we were all leaving yet, and for the longest time we weren’t. Until we did.

It was really good to see Travis in good spirits, and it really reminded me more of our time working together when he was a much higher functioning human being, contributing to society instead of hiding out at home with his mother. I had a great time catching up.

How do you make a dead baby float?

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My Yellow Walkie-Talkie

It was quite cool out this morning, to the point that the sweat on my forehead got icy cold on the ride in to work. I scooted in a bit late, but nobody seemed to notice I was there at all. It was a quiet day, and I just did my thing and stuck to myself. I made it to Oakland three times in total to finish up various things. I never took a lunch and just ate a handful of peanuts instead.

When I made it home for the day, I tried to keep busy. It’s been hard finding any accomplishment around here for a while, and it takes no time at all for anything I do to be undone. When I finally settled in for the night, I was spooked by something that sounded like just a second of radio chatter or something. I legitimately thought my old clock radio had gone off somehow, but I couldn’t imagine how or why.

Must be that ghost season is nearly upon us.

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Bussin’

I was surprised this morning by being thrown into a conference call with one of the transportation guys for a sales pitch. He ended up being a little bit late, so I chatted motorcycles with the two sales guys until he showed up. The meeting lasted nearly to lunch, and then a group of us went to La Chiquita.

After lunch, I stopped by to see Summer for just a brief moment since she was in the pit, and then spent some time at Oakland just closing out tickets. I had to get back to the shop in time to help with a touch panel install at Sequoyah.

The install was a bit of a cluster because Kyle, Brody, and I kept tripping over each other. When we weren’t doing that, we were forgetting half of the things we needed in order to make the setup work. On top of that, the library was just sweltering for some reason, and I just dripped sweat the entire time. That just wore me out, in spite of it being such a mild day.

When I left, I stopped by the shop again to see Summer, then went home to mostly veg out. My neighbor did come over to ask for some of the wood in my backyard, which I was happy to offer as long as he didn’t take from the stacks that Summer or I made. Most of what was left were big logs though, and he seemed disappointed that he’d have to put some work into getting it chopped up and usable.

After that, I aired up just about every tire I have because the cooler temperatures has mealt lower air pressure. Then I came inside and sat around all evening, just feeling a bit aimless without much energy. My next big project is going to be organizing a bunch of returns of clothes I’ve been trying out over the past couple weeks.

Who needs anemones?

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Gossip Girl

I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm this morning, to the sound of my security cameras going off from the lightning outside. I never heard it storm overnight, but it was mostly clear the rest of the day. I squeaked into work and spent about an hour answering questions before getting into much else.

I ended up going to Oakland before lunch, and then took lunch to go home and finish up some leftover grilled hotdogs from a couple weeks ago. It was actually kind of nice to have a quiet lunch to myself.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet as well, until my phone started going off with all the gossip chatter of our Facebook group chat. I never cared for the gossip, and said as much. I didn’t expect that to be particularly well received, but I wasn’t planning to hold it back either. That got Travis on the defensive the rest of the evening, but at least he quit going on and on.

I finished the day at Oakland, working a bit late to try and figure out a SMART board. I figure the controller went bad or something, so I gave up for the day and went to my parents’ house for some leftover phở. Once Eaddie was done with karate, I picked her up and we went to my house so I could change before taking her home.

Summer was winding down. Autumn came in late from after school events. I watched the schoolboard meeting just out of curiosity, but didn’t learn much other than that the general public seemed overwhelmingly in favor of spreading COVID. I had Eaddie read our group chat just to see if I was the asshole, and she finally concluded that I was, but just as I had said, that didn’t make me any less right. She just seemed to think that what I said didn’t change anything, but it did at least serve to change the direction of the conversation, which was my entire goal in the first place.

We finished the night with an episode of House before everyone made it off to sleep.

Don’t be silly. If anything, I’d be solar-lighting you.

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Hyper Extensionism

I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep last night, but this morning wasn’t too bad once I got home and ready for work. I actually made it in a few minutes early and got to settle in, then spent a good portion of the day helping others as they came through. It was a Carly Rae Jepsen kind of morning, and I was surprised to find a new album waiting for me.

Zach, Gary, and I met Greg at McAlister’s for lunch, and I struggled to get cellular data and their app to cooperate. Eventually I was able to redeem my 30-day tea pass from the free cup day Autumn and I attended, but the subscription never showed up on my account. The girl at the counter took care of me, but I’ll have to see if it shows up on my account tomorrow, or at least next month when I return for the BOGO-next-month deal. It was really the only way the $10 baked potato would be even remotely equitable.

After lunch, I tried digging into a couple of deployments that took up the rest of the day. My phone continued to ding as Travis relayed stories of things he had learned of his wicked ancestors after his mother passed recently. That continued through work and into the evening.

I stopped by the shop to see Summer briefly on the way home, then continued with my final two loads of laundry to complete t-shirts and empty out the new hamper for restructuring. I’ll be glad to get this old floral loveseat out of here. I just wish I had a better place to store my shirts.

Eggscellent.

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Half Day

I slept pretty hard last night, and Summer let me sleep until about 11. We got up and had some leftovers for lunch. Then she got busy cleaning up around the house while I sat around like a spoiled brat. Autumn had gone to work, but she got Eaddie up around noon to help clean up a bit. When she eventually left for the gym, Eaddie and I watched some House.

Autumn got home from work first, and then Summer came home from the gym. We sat around a bit longer until Mom called us over for some phở. Autumn wanted to stay behind and finish up her chores, so the three of us went across town to eat.

Julie showed up after the rest of us had sat down to eat, so we finished up and moved out of the way one by one. We didn’t stick around for very long since Eaddie still had a bit of project work to do as well.

Summer and Autumn both went to bed pretty quickly. Eaddie took a shower late, and then watched an episode of House with me before we both went to bed, less than 12 hours after waking up.

Welcome to the wide world of grate lifters.

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Around the House

Summer kept begging for some Ridgewood Brothers BBQ this morning, so I took a shower and we went downtown to pick up a bunch to bring back home to Eaddie. Autumn was at a Quiz Bowl event, so the three of us ate and then I went home to start some laundry while Summer went to the gym.

After a while, Summer dropped Eaddie off at the fair to hang out with some of her friends, and came to my house. She wasn’t there very long before Autumn called and wanted her to take them out to eat at Chili’s. There was some guise of wanting to talk, but I never heard anything more and assumed it was a con.

When they finished eating, I met Summer at Walmart for a walkabout. I didn’t find anything interesting, but Summer picked up a few things and we headed out. She went to get Eaddie while I took everything up to her house and waited for them to get back.

Autumn went to bed as soon as I got there. I made some leftover tacos, and then graded the newly written apology letters that Autumn left for me. She still had some errors, so I marked them up and left them on the table. When Summer got home with Eaddie, she brought out the ice cream cake we bought and sliced it up for us. No sooner had she put the rest of the cake back in the freezer than she screamed at me for taking her slice. Only I didn’t. She left it on the counter and blamed me for absolutely no reason at all. Now she owes an apology letter too.

We finished the night with a couple episodes of House, which put Summer in a funk about therapy, and made Eaddie sleepy enough to go on to bed. I was bored and restless, but couldn’t do much else. Eventually I made it to bed.

I need help. I want to get better.

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Going for Broke

Thomas and Gary were both out today, and Zach texted me before work to say he was getting donuts and would be late, which meant the shop was extra quiet when I got there. We all gathered for a really relaxed meeting and mostly talked off-topic for a while until a couple groups left to work on some stuff together. I was left in the shop all alone for a while, since Tammy and Kelsea both had a meeting to attend early in the day.

Everyone came back around for lunch, and we went for something completely different – Cracker Barrel. I actually thought I’d eat a pretty light meal just because I never remember getting filled with their portions, but then our waitress brought out cornbread and biscuits and gravy for us all to share. I ended up getting the Friday Fish Fry, which was a pretty good sized plate, too.

After lunch, I had to call Arvest to try and figure out why my mileage check was returned and I was charged an $8 chargeback on my account. The kid I talked to left me on hold for a really long time and then came back completely unable to help. Then I had a quick conference call with Nanoleaf to review something new before running to Oakland to finish up a couple more work orders.

On the way back to the shop, I decided to stop at the physical bank so I could talk to someone face-to-face. He found, as I sort of suspected, that the mobile check deposit had truncated a part of the check numbers, so the system couldn’t complete the transfer. Upon calling someone, they advised him not to negotiate the check because I would need a new one from the school. I argued that, since the first one was only a picture that technically had different numbers on it, then the original check I had given to him was technically a different check and should still be valid. He basically winked and slid the check back to me, and I went on to fight that another day.

When I made it back to the shop after school, I chatted with Tammy a bit until it was time to fill out time sheets and go home. I tried on some more clothes I got in and put together a new hamper, building up an intense headache along the way. That continued to radiate through my entire skull and neck all evening even as I made my way up to Summer’s. I laid in bed with her for a bit, and then got cleaned up for bed so I could crash.

Pain, pain, go away!