Tag: anger management

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It’s Complicated Salad

We slept in a little bit today before the girls left. I had big plans that ended up being big dawdling around the house. Eventually I made it up to Summer’s for dinner, where she planned chicken tacos with lettuce leaves instead of tortillas. The execution was more annoying than anything else for me, since I could have just made a salad with the same taco-inspired toppings and eaten it with a fork instead of having to get up and completely wash my hands in the middle of the meal. I hate messy food, but I eat tacos because they’re delicious.

It’s back to normal tomorrow, and I just hope it’s not awful.

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Standard Fair

Summer had to work today but didn’t go in until late morning. I had some cereal for breakfast that I only regretted a little. The girls were to do chores all day to get the house back into shape, and Autumn did pretty well on her own. Eaddie wasn’t having any of it, and required more persuasion.

In the afternoon, Julie had us over for traditional New Year’s fixings. On the way out, I said something to try and correct some misinformation, but ended up just striking a nerve again. More on that later. A little while after we got back to the house, Autumn left with her father to go shopping and get some food. Eaddie didn’t feel like going, so I helped her clean under her bed. Eventually Summer got home from work and took Autumn to the gym with her. I went home to clean up before they followed me over.

Julie offered me the leftover ham bone, so I went to pick it up and she yelled at me some more about how life isn’t fair. It really got me aggravated with the whole family feud to the point that I’m going to have to settle it once and for all with some quick number crunching. It’s easy to cry foul when you’re using imagined statistics.

Back home, the girls arrived with some Tropical Smoothie, and I made some popcorn for the Dark Knight finale. Autumn spent a lot of the movie confused. Summer spent most of it behind her hands. Eaddie and I really loved it. I hated not getting to follow the Robin story line, but at least it was wrapped up in a nice little trilogy.

It’s not your year yet.

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On Time Management

Summer worked again today, which left me on kid duty. We had a fair amount of stuff to get done, but I only knew about a tenth of it before I went home to shower. Sara and Zach invited us over for cards in the evening, so we had to get dinner made so Summer could eat as soon as she got home.

I got a call from someone about my extended leave from work due to COVID while I was in the shower. Summer wanted me to pick up lunch for her, so I couldn’t call back until later. I also had to call the eye clinic to order my contacts so they could put them on this year’s insurance. That was a quick call, and then I grabbed some Burger King for Summer.

As soon as I left there, I had to get Autumn and take her to therapy. On the way out, I got stuck for about 15 minutes by a train before I could get home to make my other call. As soon as that was done, I ran to Walmart to get everything for tonight’s dinner and Christmas.

Of course Walmart was a freaking zoo, and I was stressing pretty hard physically just to get out of there. I kept coughing all over the place, which got me lots of looks from the increasing number of maskless people wandering the aisles. As soon as I could get out, I picked up Autumn and we headed home to cook as quickly as we could.

Autumn wanted to make ratatouille out of some squash and zucchini they got from their friends’ mother. Instead of looking up a recipe that would also use the fresh tomatoes they got, she had me buy a can of tomato paste. She also completely missed the fact that she was supposed to do something with the chicken breasts we thawed out several days ago, so suddenly that was my problem.

Things escalated when she wanted to cut all of the vegetables with a steak knife instead of one of the half dozen chef knives she’s brought home this year. It took her forever to slice anything, and I made an entire chicken casserole and had it in the oven, AND pan fried some leftover chicken that wouldn’t fit in the casserole, all before she even finished slicing her vegetables. I kept giving her instructions that she continued to ignore until I blew up at her and she stormed off to her room.

Once I had all the food at least cooking, we made our apologies. I got some gas while we waited for the food to cook, and then we actually had a really delicious, modified ratatouille with mozzarella instead of mascarpone for dinner. Unfortunately the casserole was too big to have cooked all the way through before we had to go, but it will make a great dinner tomorrow when all the kids are here to open presents.

We got up to Zach and Sara’s place quite a bit later than we wanted, and played a couple games of Unstable Unicorns with them and Gary. Their girls just wandered around harassing the cats most of the night. I know Summer was tired, but Autumn and I at least had a great time, and Eaddie got to eat a bunch of little hot dogs.

As soon as we made it back home, the usual suspects shuffled off to bed. I stayed up until the casserole was cool enough to put in the fridge, and Eaddie came out to watch an episode of Jessica Jones with me. As soon as it was over, it was finally bedtime.

Presentation only matters when time allows, and it turns out you can eat the eggplant skin.

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On the Subject of Customer Service

I had a few new things come in this morning, so I spent all day working on those. The kids were back, which meant I had to work around the bell schedule again. I also kept getting phone calls instead of work orders, but fortunately it wasn’t anything too serious.

Summer got a lunch break, so I picked her up and we went to Brangus. A big group of the guys were there with Dale, and it hurt my feelers that not one of them said a word to me about it. I knew it was Gary’s birthday, so I guess it was my fault for not finding my way back to the shop before lunch, but a text doesn’t seem like too much trouble if they wanted me there. On the plus side, our waitress was my favorite, and remembered my order.

I spent all afternoon fighting my way around a switch configuration, which really ended up being due to port security and forgetting that there was another network device in line that kept breaking things as I fixed them. I won in the end, except for some lag in how often PaperCut updates printer IPs.

After work, Julie brought me some leftover donuts from work. Then Summer came over and took a bath while I finished up some leftovers. Autumn called for a ride because Nick’s car quit on them on the drive over, so we picked them up.

While the girls were inside watching TV, I called Belkin WeMo support for help with my new light switch that won’t update firmware. The support was surprisingly really great in spite of having to call back when the line went dead the first time. The guy I got the second time could tell I knew my stuff, so we sped through the troubleshooting stuff really quickly and he escalated the issue with an expected callback in a day or two. Best of all, they’re open 24/7, so I really can take care of it when it’s convenient for me.

Once off the phone, I had to play catch-up on a conversation with emotion that the girls were having. We de-escalated pretty easily, and set some expectations. With that, the leash will get just a little bit shorter, and the behavior will have to show marked improvement.

Finally, just before bed, I ordered a new Shorai battery for the Shadow. I had to email the manufacturer this afternoon for the correct part number, and they responded in like an hour. Of course I went back to MotoMummy for the battery, since they’ve always been spectacular on top of having the best price by a long shot. This time we’ll see if they can draw my namesake on the shipping box.

“Like hugging a giant rotisserie chicken.”
Sometimes you just have to take the compliments as they come.

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On the Subject of Furnishing

The whole district scheduled virtual learning days today and tomorrow, so it was super quiet all day. I kept myself slowly busy, but didn’t ever feel very accomplished. I took a late lunch and picked up another free Big Mac, then went by the shop to find a spare desktop I could use to replace one in the front office.

After work, I changed and went to get Autumn to an Explorers meeting. Then I mostly played some Rocket League on the Switch until Summer got home. Eaddie came out so we could watch an episode of Glee, and then I picked Autumn up after her meeting.

When we got back to the house, we stopped by the neighbor’s trash pile to scavenge a couple lamps. I half joked with Autumn, telling her that’s how we would furnish her college dorm room. That’s when she threw a tantrum about not going to college and hating school and not having to tell us what she likes or doesn’t like.

Summer had a talk with her once inside, and eventually they included me, but by that time I felt like my part had been mostly diminished. I think it’s going to take a firmer hand to produce better results from her than Summer is willing to give.

Eaddie came around and I showed her how to set up filters in Gmail, and then everyone wandered off to bed.

‘Cause you’re his cheeseburger; his yummy cheeseburger!

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#UnexpectedCrucifix

I went by the shop this morning to pick up a couple TVs for Athletics, and dropped them off at their office. After that, I stayed quietly busy in my office for most of the day. Allen invited me out to lunch, so we decided to try The Gunslingin’ Burger.

The staff was friendly, and the menu was quaint. They had a TV up with a special Murder Burger that looked pretty good, so I just got that without even bothering to look at anything else. Loaded Beer Cheese Fries on the side brought my total to just under $15, which set the bar pretty high.

After we ordered, we noticed the rest of the decor, which consisted of a giant, life-sized, floor-standing cross, and a jail cell. We took a photo op with the more interesting of the two, and then were relatively quickly served our meals. I was more than a little put off by the overall presentation, but it was cool that Allen could get a side of chili with his. My fries were pretty good, and the burger was tasty, but the price was all I could think about. The burgers were disappointingly flat, at about half the thickness of the photo. More vegetables would have given it the thickness I craved, but the sliced celery was an interesting addition that I enjoyed.

The cook came out a couple times, once to check on another couple of guys that were there, and again to check on us. The approach was a little bit awkward, but I could appreciate his desire to connect with his patrons. I hadn’t fully made up my mind by the time he came to us, so we just responded that everything tasted good, which wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t worth $15.

I actually left hungry, so I ran home and cut up another peach for my afternoon at work. I did a bit of running around, had a sit down political conversation in the library, and then left work to meet up at Summer’s for dinner. She grilled a bunch of meats to eat for the whole week, so tonight was rice, chicken, broccoli, and cheese. I threw all of mine into a bowl and just sort of mixed it up, and it was great. She didn’t take the girls to karate, and Autumn decided she didn’t need to go to the high school for whatever band fitting they were having, so I ended up leaving them there for the night so I could come back home.

I wanted to clean up a bit more, but most of my evening was spent getting distracted by different problems everywhere, and I was never satisfied with any fixes. My new WEMO switch still isn’t working, my WiFi is a mess because of it, and I’m overall just super frustrated with the whole process.

And for some reason, I’m still freakin’ hungry.

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In Charge

Summer and I got up this morning and went on a mission to replace the battery in the Murano. I didn’t even bother trying to start the car, and instead just pulled the battery out. We stopped at Wendy’s to pick up some breakfast just for the two of us, then ate it in the AutoZone parking lot before going inside. When we went inside, the store manager wasn’t there and we got a pretty young kid to just take the battery back and exchange it no questions asked. He didn’t even press me to let him test it. He just wandered straight back and got me a new one.

When we got back to the house, we got the battery in and then Summer took all the kids home to start their chores. I stayed pretty busy for the rest of the day. I opened up the car and pulled out the spare tire to find a big puddle of the spilled spring water from yesterday. Then I walked around outside with Bác Vân for a while. We moved one of the water hoses to the other side of the house, and chatted for a bit about the landscaping she’s done.

I spent the afternoon going in and out of the house, randomly cleaning and reorganizing things. I can actually walk up to one end of my workbench now, which was an accomplishment in itself. The only time I sat down for any length of time was after I installed another Belkin WEMO light switch and couldn’t get it to connect to my wireless.

Summer eventually made it back over for the evening after dropping Noah off at work and taking the girls to their father’s house. She settled in while I continued tinkering with my WEMO. Hopefully leaving it on overnight will help, and I won’t have to spend any more hours tomorrow getting the stupid thing to work.

I can’t even imagine not having to spend six hours connecting a smart device any more.

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I Have a Certain Set of Skills

Today was another beautiful day that made it hard to go inside to work. I spent all morning running back and forth across campus to close out some simple work orders. It went by a lot quicker than I expected, and I ended up taking a late lunch.

I just ran home and made a burrito to eat, then stopped by to see Summer on the way to the shop. I chatted with Gary for a bit, and then I ended up sitting with Ben for quite a while to figure out a way to bend Impero to our will, and it seemed to work at the time, but we won’t really know until tomorrow.

I didn’t get back to the high school until pretty late, so I wrapped up what I could and headed home. The girls were going to dinner with their father, so I thought I was going to just stay home and have dinner by myself, but Summer inadvertently talked me into coming up to have a late dinner with her.

Since I had what felt like hours to kill, I went to Walmart to track down some deals that Dad had spotted. They had the cheaper Nest thermostats marked down to $99, but I had hoped they were the higher end ones.

After covering the entire store, I finally made my way up the hill and scarfed some cold pizza with Summer. Then we all sat in the living room and watched some random clips on YouTube before bed.

I spent your money AND made you do the work! Hah!

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Ring That Bell

Today was a bit wet, but I never actually encountered any rain myself. I stopped by the shop first thing to return the furniture dollies. Ben said our talent pool wasn’t looking all that great, and asked if I had any friends that wanted to work with us, so I tried to get Josh to apply. He apparently just got a new job, which opened up when Justin left to work at Dover.

I spent all morning running around, trying to take care of the 10 or so work orders that I had gotten since I left on Thursday. Since stopping my morning Amlodipine, I’ve had to monitor my blood pressure again. It was actually a little bit low all day.

I took a quick break to run to McDonald’s for some discount lunch, and caught the mail lady just as I got back home with my food. Of course she didn’t ring my bell again, and instead just threw my letter in the back of her car. I wanted to really get on to her for not even trying to do her job, but she was such a miniscule little woman. She wasn’t friendly at all, but for some reason I still felt bad being upset at her.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as people kept wandering into my office. I got stuck trying to fix one problem late in the afternoon, and didn’t ever get to many of my other work orders. I guess there’s always tomorrow.

Summer had already dropped the girls off at my house by the time I got home, so I just picked Autumn up and took her to an Explorer’s meeting. Then I went to my parents’ house for some dinner. They were at Kroger for hours, so I helped them bring in groceries before we ate. Julie called, and we had a conversation with emotions over speaker phone as she tried to organize our Disney trip.

By the time I got back home, it was pretty late and I was exhausted. Summer had taken Eaddie to pick up Autumn, and they all arrived home shortly after I did. I wrapped up my evening routine, and it was off to a relatively early bedtime.

Why don’t you just get to the point already?

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Daylight’s Burning

We slept in a bit today, and Summer took Autumn out to take care of something at the shop and get some milk for breakfast. Eaddie and I played the Switch while we waited for them to get back, and then we all had some cereal.

I wanted to get home to take care of some things, so I left and waited for the girls to come over. Uncle Giao and the rest of the family came by, so I went outside and talked to them for a while before eventually coming back in to shower.

The girls didn’t show up until the sun was going down, and I had to start the fire pit to cook brats for dinner, so I got absolutely nothing done that I wanted. Summer left before the fire was ready, and took Autumn to the haunted house again. Then we ate when she got back.

By the time we were finishing up, Autumn called for an early ride back home, so Summer picked her up and we all came in to watch Glee. Autumn went to bed really early, and it was a good thing because she missed a really bad Christmas episode. I don’t know what the writers were thinking.

It’s my money, and I want it now!