Tag: anger management

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Dirty Laundry

I tried not to sleep in too late today, and got up to finish the leftover corned beef from weeks ago. It had definitely gone a bit sour, but otherwise didn’t seem to have any adverse side effects. As soon as Eaddie got around, we took her to the high school to get her flute for an assignment she needed to finish. Afterward, Summer was going to take her to New China for lunch, so I had them drop me off at home.

The first thing I did was clean up the smoker after yesterday’s meal. It took me a while, but I think I’ll get better at it over time. Then I did a couple loads of laundry while intermittently cleaning around inside the house. Every time I stepped outside, I got really sweaty, so I stayed inside for most of it. I got my old computer running and started a whole bunch of updates on it. Finally, I took a shower when I got to a stopping point.

Eaddie was going to come ride her bike after lunch, but Summer wasn’t feeling well. They both decided to go back home for the day, and Summer tried to sleep it off. Autumn eventually made it home, and she and Eaddie mowed part of the lawn. I decided to go by Freddy’s for a couple concretes to take up to them, and I just ran into one frustration after another.

I placed my order online and headed to the store. Some lady flew in from the other direction and got in front of me in the drive-through, and then took a while to order. I just knew it was going to take forever for her to get everything she ordered. When I got to the speaker, the girl told me I had to pick up my order inside, but by then I had traffic behind me, and evidently there was no way out of the drive-through, so I just had to sit and wait for the lady in front of me to get everything. When I finally got inside, the pickup process was not clear at all. There were three different places to get my order, and it was in none of them. That was actually a blessing in disguise, because they simply hadn’t even made my order yet. I placed it before I left the house, which meant they didn’t even start making it for at least 10 minutes. With custard in hand, I headed out, but was cut off by some other lady that flew out of the parking lot without looking.

When I got to their house, Summer was still agonizing in bed while Autumn was trying to help Eaddie bake cookies. Eaddie wasn’t trying very hard, which was aggravating Autumn. I couldn’t believe they didn’t start fighting, but Autumn just made herself a huge glass of chocolate milk and went to her room. I took over a bit and started combining ingredients for Eaddie, and then she formed cookies on the baking sheets. I used a fork to embellish them a bit, which Eaddie enjoyed.

I ended the evening next to Summer, trying to complete an achievement on Into the Breach. My cough got worse again as the night carried on, so I loaded up on water and meds and went to bed.

It’s not a video tape.

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Mow, Mow, Mow to Boat

I didn’t sleep very well or for very long last night. The girls were supposed to get up early to mow so they could go to their father’s for the weekend, but we beat them out of bed. It took some prying, and neither one was super motivated. Eaddie finally went out to start mowing, but complained that she wanted to go out on the boat with her friends. Summer was kind of in and out and up in her feelings about it, but tried to get Autumn motivated to do some cleaning up herself.

Eventually I got it through to the kids that they didn’t meet our expectations, and that they had to get it done and work together if they wanted to do anything else for the weekend. Autumn eventually started mowing while Eaddie took a break to go out with her friends. Summer went to the gym and I dropped Eaddie off. On the way back, I got some more gas for the mower, then stopped by to see Grant and Robert. They didn’t have any pork pops that I wanted to try, so I got some brisket and headed back to the house.

Autumn had taken a pretty lengthy break while I was gone, but started up again shortly after I got back. Summer got back from her workout, and by that time I figured we didn’t have long before we could go to my house and do some cleaning up there. I didn’t realize she had a bunch more stuff she wanted to get done, so I ended up burning all afternoon and evening doing nothing more than playing Into the Breach.

Eventually Autumn left to get Eaddie and head to Clarksville. Summer wasted the rest of the evening in front of the TV. I ate some leftovers myself after refusing to get some takeout for her. I cleaned a whole bunch of stuff out of the refrigerator, and I’ll clean out some more for breakfast in the morning before going home.

Better just go it alone.

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Good Old-Fashioned Ultraviolence

I woke up a little late this morning and got the sense that the girls were in a bit of a panic to get the cats out of the house. Evidently Summer got a formal eviction warning letter, and she counted only two days left to have them gone. Since nobody actually addressed me about it, and since I had already expressed my own frustration about the situation, I just did my best to help out with breakfast so they could finish what needed to be done.

After we ate the kielbasa and veggies with eggs, they went to Dollar General for some cat food before taking everything up to Noah’s house, and I went home to shower. I got incredibly frustrated with always being made the villain, and Suzanne said I was “cold, cold like the wind” for being so unsympathetic, but I likened it to God sending people to Hell for eternity because they worked on a Sunday. People show up in droves to worship that guy, but I’m the fucking bad guy here for reminding them that they’re not allowed to have pets.

I had a couple drinks and a shower to relax, and then Summer wanted just the two of us to go to the movies to see Bullet Train. I thought I was the only one that was really excited to see it, but I don’t think she really knew what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it reminded me a lot of Kill Bill, without being quite so vulgar, but with some classic ultraviolence. All of the characters were great, and I really liked the cinematography.

After the movie, I tried talking to Summer about my feelings on the way home and I blew up for a bit that she kept saying I wasn’t being comforting or supportive. I knew it was hard to watch her kids hurting, but she enabled them by buying all of the cat supplies instead of shutting the whole thing down early, and I needed her to understand that it was okay to take the loss. She didn’t have to try and lessen the blow, and it was okay to just have a bad day and accept that every single one of us did something wrong.

When we got back to the house, Eaddie was still very upset. I learned that they just took the cats outside Noah’s house, so Sweetums got into a fight with his dog and immediately ran up a tree. I don’t even know how big of a tree it was, or if she’ll be able to get down on her own, but even Eaddie knew that she didn’t have any time to associate Noah or his house with anything good. I’ll be astounded if she doesn’t get picked off by a predator overnight, but I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I wasn’t present to do the thinking for all four of them, so if it’s two dead cats, it’s two dead cats.

I tried to coax Eaddie out of the house for some fish soup with my parents, but she didn’t want to leave. Autumn wanted to go to her father’s for some reason, so the lawn still didn’t get mowed over the last two weeks that we’ve been asking. I just have to assume I’ll be the bad guy again next weekend when it still hasn’t been done.

I went to eat and visited with my parents for a little while before heading home. Bác Vân called while I was on the way and asked me to come over for a bit. I helped with her iPad for a bit, then went home to do some laundry before bed.

L

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I Don’t Wanna!

We had a little meeting today, but it didn’t seem like there was a whole lot of stress to do anything. I certainly didn’t overexert myself in my office. Gary asked me to go upstairs to take care of a couple work orders, which would have burned him up a bit, but I was able to breeze right through. I thought I might make it back over to Oakland at some point, but I just never did.

The morning went by surprisingly quickly, and Gary came back to fetch me for lunch. I took him, Josh, and Thomas to Zaxby’s where we mostly sat in silence and ate. Then it was back to the office. After a little while, Greg came in to investigate the phones, as they had all disconnected. Evidently Gary was making some network changes, and some automation actually caused what he was actively trying to prevent from happening. Once they got it working again, I went with Gary to Central Office, then Transportation, and finally Support Services.

By then, it was nearly quitting time. I think my greatest accomplishment was melting the crystals out of my honey bear with my Ember mug. I still ended up sticking around late though, because Eaddie didn’t have karate. I had a little peace to myself, and then went home for some more before heading up to Summer’s.

I stopped by Taco Bell for a couple burritos, which was fortunate since Summer wanted something to eat. Autumn was watching YouTube on the TV, and had talked to Summer about getting some things out of storage. I was still upset that we hadn’t addressed the manipulation that occurred while Autumn was “helping” around her grandparents’ house, so I made Summer call them on speakerphone. She didn’t answer, but at least it got the conversation started with Autumn. She got angry at first, but cooled off surprisingly quickly. I’m not going to keep letting her think she can get things over on me though.

We ended the evening shaking out Eaddie’s blanket because she left chocolate in her bed, which attracted ants. They’ve been in every single room of the house, and nobody’s figured out why yet. I baited them, and was off to bed.

Nike.

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She’s a Little Runaway

I hardly slept last night, but got up and back to my cooler house after its first night of air conditioning in a while. We were a little scattered for projects during our meeting, and I could have hidden away in my office all morning, but instead I rode around with Zach to work on a few doors. We chatted, and it really helped keep my spirits up.

Summer had to go to Little Rock for a meeting, but then came back to work from home for the rest of the day. She wanted to get lunch, so after Zach and I finished running around trying to fix and lock all of the doors we were working on, I met her at Sumo’s. I still wasn’t feeling great about the situation at home, but we finally talked a bit and tried to come up with a plan. I suggested that she try and take Autumn to a recruiter and see what options might be available to her.

I went back to work, and after a followup text, Summer said she was having trouble with Autumn, and then called in tears to say that Autumn had blown up again and “ran away” down the road again. I reminded her that she could file a FINS petition, so she made a phone call and then had me meet her at the juvenile office next to the courthouse. The lady there did a whole lot of talking to sell the program to us even though we were already all-in. Eaddie sat in the corner quietly while we chatted, and then they went home to fill out paperwork while I went back to work. I figured Autumn had most likely called her grandparents to pick her up, and of course Summer confirmed my suspicion.

I worked out the rest of the day, and even a little bit late to update our Jamf server prior to our migration to their cloud service. Everyone else left me in the dark, but I was just happy to accomplish something of my own before I left. Then I went home until Eaddie finished with tennis practice and then met Summer at her house. They cleaned up a bit, since Summer had also worked up a sweat at the gym. Then we went to Stoby’s for dinner before fetching Autumn.

Eaddie went inside to visit, and perhaps to survey the situation. Her grandmother came outside to talk to Summer, but Autumn hid away inside until we talked her into going back inside to get her. I had to threaten calling the police, and then ultimately made the call when Autumn came outside but refused to come with us. A few minutes later, she realized how dumb and wasteful she was being and agreed to comply, but by then the trucks had already rolled and we had to stand at the end of the driveway talking to four officers for the next hour.

Autumn had cooled down, and was very talkative with Eaddie in the back seat. She kept wanting to talk to us, but of course we were sick of even hearing her voice. We had them shower as soon as we got home, and then they went to bed while Summer worked on the FINS petition with occasional help from me.

Having a written record of your life is pretty handy…and incriminating!

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A Splitting Image

Zach and Gary sent Kyle and Greg to image laptops at the junior high this morning while I worked on an Adobe licensing issue. I just happened to resolve it with trial and error, but I failed to understand how their licensing model was actually supposed to work. When I finished, I met the other two for imaging until lunch time.

Greg and I came back to the shop, and the four of us went to Quiznos for lunch. I love their lemonade, but man are those sandwiches overpriced. The bread was good today, but the sandwich didn’t seem quite as filled as it should have.

After lunch, I ran to the high school to dig up some better flash drives, and then took Greg with me back to the junior high to catch up with Kyle. We spent the rest of the afternoon staring at a clock that was stuck at 4:48 until we could finally leave at five.

I ran home to change, and then went to Walmart to pick up a few things for the dinner that the girls were making. Summer stayed home with nerve pain, so I thought the kids were cooking. I ran into Zach a few times while I was shopping, and then made my way up to the house to find Summer doing all of the work.

The al pastor tacos she made were pretty great, and I ate too many of them. Evidently she had bought a couple different seasoning packages that were identical in every way except for the preparation instructions on the back. Even the UPC was the same, but one method used a skillet, and the other boiled the meat in a pot, and I had sent her a picture of the slower instructions. It worked out in the end though, and everyone was happy.

The girls had been getting along well and playing their band instruments, and after we ate, Autumn wanted to finish our game of Phase 10. We finally finished and got everything put away, and then Autumn started bargaining to stay home instead of going to work with Summer in the morning. She got angry at the very first sign that she wasn’t going to get her way, and then escalated her argument all the way to bed. Nothing has changed.

I’m on to you, sucka.

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Thaw in my Side

I thought it was going to rain today, but the forecast went down enough that I felt pretty comfortable taking the Shadow in for our second half-day. We had a brief meeting about moving over our old tickets from Web Help Desk to IncidentIQ, and then I was sent to fix imaging. I still wasn’t sure what broke it in the first place, but it needed to be fixed as quickly as possible.

Everyone else pretty much wandered off, except for Kyle, who stuck around the shop for a while. I was deep in my testing when he came into my office to share some news he had just read online while he was sitting around, and I wasn’t super receptive since I was actually deep in thought. Gary was in and out, but didn’t really have a whole lot for me.

After testing several boot images and even trying to build one from scratch, I finally took a snapshot of the VM and updated the ADK, which ended up fixing our issues. I was stoked, but by that time everyone else had been long gone. Even Thomas left me in the dark downstairs. I went home and just waited for Summer to get off work about an hour late.

I made my way up to the girls, who were all just sitting around the house. Eaddie was still in a bit of a mood, and Autumn was a normal level of cranky. She griped about how there was “nothing” to eat in the house, so in response I asked her why there was zero room in the chest freezer. Summer was in a bath by then, so I just bit my tongue and cooked a quick frozen skillet meal while we waited for Summer to finish cleaning up.

Eaddie went to bed, but the rest of us ate. Then I had Autumn take every single thing out of the freezer and take inventory while I defrosted and cleaned out the inside of it. It took a while, but there was gross chicken blood and juice all over the place that just needed to be melted out. We ended up throwing out eight pounds of chicken thighs that they’d had in the freezer since before I came around.

Everyone went to bed shortly after we finished loading everything back into the freezer. I stayed up to try and update my laptop, but there wasn’t much else I could do.

Hours and hours of cumulative updates…

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The Parent Trap

Today was our first day of our three week “summer hours” nonsense, and it turned out worse than it had any right to be. I actually went to bed super early, so I didn’t have much trouble getting out of bed. It was cool outside for the drive in, but I knew it was going to heat up to an uncomfortable high on the bike. I kind of assumed I would be left alone again, but instead I was sent with a group to the high school. We had to possibly relocate some network lines to move the student computers in the library, and then remove the old journalism computers from the lab. Beyond that, we had to start inventory at that building, and there’s no mistaking how I felt about that.

Kyle and I rode with Brody, and I convinced them to work on inventory while I did all the network and computer pulling by myself. We ran into Al on his last day there, and I chatted with him for a minute before we started. From that point, the morning actually went really well by myself. Lunch time was an about-face.

Brody and Kyle were slow coming up to the office, and Kyle didn’t want La Chiquita, so I took the opportunity to skip as well while Brody caught up with the others. Instead, I ate an apple and chatted with Tammy at the shop until people started showing back up. Gary was the only one to ever come back, and it took me a while to find anyone else. I had to go back to the high school anyway, so I could unload the old computers from the cart I borrowed.

I finally found Brody, Jacob, and Kyle trying to pull a bunch of network lines to the old journalism room, and I caught them just as they discovered that three of their eight boxes of cable were not long enough for the run. The excuse was that they checked the length of available cable in the boxes, but not the actual length of the physical run. Frustration mounted as we finished that run, and then tried to wrangle up more boxes of cable to make another run. In the end, we decided to wait for a new delivery of cable, and I sent everyone to work on inventory for the rest of the day.

I went back to the shop and just announced very loudly outside the offices of the holy trinity that I needed a safe space where the republicans couldn’t get to me. Thomas jokingly called out to me, and I took his leave to cry exasperatedly at him about my experience with the crew. Zach came around the corner and joined in on the conversation, and we set forth a plan to grow from the experience. I spent the rest of the day hooking up a new-to-me desktop in place of my frustrating laptop.

Summer said Autumn was cooking dinner, so I went home to change before heading up. I was already emotional from the day, on top of being ignored as a parental figure yesterday, so I fell apart once I got there. I took Summer aside to talk to her, and found no comfort. I finally came out to the dinner table and started the uncomfortable conversation about whether I improved any of their lives. I knew what Autumn’s answer would be, but as usual she fell silent when confronted. Eaddie wasn’t any comfort either, but at least backed me up when I called them out for bad vibes. It took a couple of hours of talking, but we finally dug deep enough to find the root of some of the issues, and hopefully the growing and learning will continue with some action.

Obvious Protip: Don’t vent to the children.

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Dentology

I knew I had to take the girls to the orthodontist this afternoon, but I nearly spaced and took the bike to work this morning. I caught myself on the way out and took the Murano instead, but it wouldn’t have been a bad day for a ride. We had a short meeting, and then I was mostly left alone to do my own thing. Gary had me update SCCM, which was a relatively easy, but long process that took me all morning to complete.

The guys went to Taco John’s and invited me along, but I was on the fence anyway, and then traffic didn’t allow me into the right lane to make the turn, so I headed on up to Summer’s instead. The girls were up but sedentary. I warmed up some leftover Mexican chicken casserole for lunch, and then we left for Dr. K’s.

When we got there, the doors were locked for lunch time, so we waited under the shade of a nearby bushy tree. It seemed a little silly to see so many people waiting outside the door in the heat, but I guess they’ve gotta eat too. Autumn filled out some paperwork while Eaddie went back. Then she wanted me to go back with her for the consult. Autumn really wants braces, but Invisalign is about 400 bucks cheaper. Evidently they don’t have insurance to cover anything, so I don’t know why Summer’s trying so hard to spend money on the kid that’s giving us so much trouble.

After the girls finished, we went to my house so I could change out of my work jeans into some shorts, then headed back up to their house until Eaddie’s flute lesson. They watched Stranger Things for a little while, and I baked the Surfer Boy branded pizza we got for them. Then Autumn took a nap while Eaddie painted. When it was time to leave again, Autumn pitched an absolute fit about being woken up, and was super bitchy for about two hours.

We dropped Eaddie off for her lesson and then went to my parents’ house for half an hour. Eaddie finished up after about 45 minutes, and I took them straight to karate. They had both started to get moody, so I decided to go in to watch them for the hour. They begrudgingly worked out together, and flailed their limbs around loosely the entire time. On the way home, Autumn wanted to get some sour cream for barbecue nachos, but then went straight to the Takis and Dr. Pepper. I didn’t have the energy to fight her there, so I got the corn chips we really needed, and we continued home.

It was a little late, but I wanted to eat a little bit for dinner. Then I had to threaten to take her snacks before Autumn made herself the tiniest plate of smoked pork and shredded cheese I had ever seen. She didn’t even open the sour cream she begged for. After she ate, I made her clean the kitchen while Eaddie cleaned her room. Then I killed time until Summer got home super late. She went straight to bed, and I played Puzzle Quest on my phone all night.

…but I’m a creep…

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Just for Kicks

I got up and made some fancy bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits from leftovers this morning. Then I went home to clean up and pack a bunch of camp chairs for Summer’s company picnic in Little Rock. We left early so we could spend a little extra time there. I got us last-minute tickets to see Jurassic World: Dominion at the IMAX, but the kids weren’t super excited for it. They argued that they hadn’t seen any of the others, but we actually saw the last one at an IMAX in Illinois.

We stopped in Conway first for some lunch because they were hungry. We tried going to Raising Cain’s, but that place was absolutely packed without an open seat in the house. From there, we drove across the street to Chipotle. Eaddie seemed most confused by their ordering process for some reason, but we made it through. Summer and I just split a burrito.

The last stretch of the drive was uneventful, and we made it to the theater and through the concessions line just in time to catch the trailers. They were super busy, and I didn’t realize it was opening weekend. I was pretty annoyed by all the chatter and noise around us, but the speakers were cranked up so high that you couldn’t hear much else. I was a bit disappointed in the movie myself, but I think all of them after the first one were kind of campy. The girls enjoyed it though, and it clearly wasn’t an issue that they hadn’t seen all of the prior films.

After the movie, we had just enough time to make it across to North Little Rock for the Splash company picnic at the Lakewood Properties park. It was nice and windy there, and the tree cover made the heat and humidity bearable. We found a box turtle, and Autumn immediately pulled it out of its hiding spot and carried it around the park while Summer and Eaddie played cornhole. I brought a biplane kite and put it together, but nobody else was really interested in that.

The girls got food, but I was still stuffed from lunch. I didn’t even eat any popcorn during the movie. Afterward, Eaddie said she wanted to fly the kite, but then didn’t follow me out into the opening. She and Summer took off in the opposite direction, leaving me standing there alone on the hill. My aggravations grew when I found them alone at some swings, way away from everyone else. I was happy to make an appearance with Summer, but it was hot and they kept leaving me alone. I felt like we were only there because she had to make an appearance as a part of the management team, but then she wasn’t even mingling.

Fortunately, they started a big kickball game going, which drew everyone together. I was surprised that Eaddie didn’t play, but Autumn did. I was proud of her for jumping in though. I sat at the top of the bleachers because I was sweating enough just sitting there. After a while, Eaddie came up and wanted to get a snowcone, so we walked back up the hill for that. I was sat weird on the bleachers, and also super dehydrated from the heat, so my legs cramped up immediately.

I didn’t even make it back down the hill by the time the game was over, so the girls came back up and played a little basketball before we headed home. On the way out, we took pans of smoked pork, potato salad, and coleslaw for later. The drive home was quiet and felt a little tense, as Summer had been quiet all day. We made it home, I played Tetris to get everything into the refrigerator, and the usual suspects made it to bed. I got there eventually.

It’s always work if you’re a leader.