Tag: anger management

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Hamburglar

It was no surprise that Jason didn’t have any projects for us. That’s probably not totally fair to say since a lot of that has to do with nobody else asking for help doing anything, but he’s already made himself an easy target. I went on about my own business and spent most of the morning at Oakland with my best blood pressure yet. Then I went to the junior high a bit before lunch so I could get a hamburger from there for lunch. I’m pretty sure that if I had timed it right, I could have had a free hamburger for lunch every single day this week.

I spent most of the afternoon there until it started raining, and I went back to the shop to pick up a badge for someone. Just as I was about to leave, Ben and Dale got back with a truck and trailer load of carts from Thomas, so I had to help unload those. Then we went across the street to give Brenda our best for her retirement. The snacks helped, but I feel so guilty going to those gatherings just for the food, so I always try to make an effort to chat a bit with whoever we’re celebrating. It’s still super awkward if I’ve never spent much time with that person though.

I delivered the badge on the way home, and then it wasn’t long before Summer and Autumn got there so we could all go to dinner at the shop. We got rained out of the park, so Ben got Summer’s crew together to grill ribeyes in the shop. It probably would have been less awkward in the park, but it wasn’t an awful time. I don’t know that anybody stuck around for a super long time after they ate. We left to go get gas and stop by PetSmart.

On the way home, Eaddie texted Summer and said she had forgotten her homework in her locker, so we went by my house to get the keys and then picked Eaddie up from her grandparents’ house. We got into the middle school, and Summer slipped on the wet floor and hurt her knee pretty badly. Then almost inevitably, Eaddie’s homework wasn’t in her locker. We took her back, then came back to my house for bed.

It’s too cold to be out running this early.

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Underpaid Factory Work

It was rainy all day, so I decided to start at the high school. Dale was expecting a bunch of keyboard bezels in today, so we had the afternoon to start that. I spent most of the morning trying to augment his barcode scanning sheet so he wouldn’t have to scan both the library tag and the laptop serial tag, and instead have it auto-populate the serial from a sheet with the complete inventory CSV.

He had to leave a bit early for lunch with the super, so I went to Oakland to work on a couple things. I ended up sitting and chatting with Sharon, Stephen, and Marcia for a while before getting back to the science room to fix the issue. By the time I got back to the front of the building, everyone had pretty much eaten all of the barbecue they brought in. I managed to scrap together a ham sandwich and sat in the lounge watching the rain outside.

Afterward I went back to the office and got around to checking my blood pressure. One of the diabetic kids was in there, and we laughed about how we were dying. He started rambling a bit about his mom, and as Leslie was turned around seemingly ignoring us, I told him he should run away. We both turned to look at her still facing the computer, and giggled that she wasn’t listening. Of course she turned around laughing, and told him not to run away. My numbers were pretty high, so I tried to chill out the rest of the day.

Back at the high school, Dale and I started tearing into the repairs. We had a pretty big stack of bezels come in, and he showed me how to replace them. Something like 27 screws and some calloused fingers later, I had the old part out. Then it was just a matter of doing it again in reverse to put the things back together. My back hurt from leaning over to perform this mindless task, and I found myself really hating it. If I’m going to last there any length of time at all, they’re going to have to let me come inspect them throughout the year so I’m not stuck rushing through it all over the summer.

We left work a bit early since Dale had a haircut, and I worked through most of my lunch. I went home for just a little while before having to get back out in the rain to make it up to Summer’s house. She had taken the day off and made a nice dinner for everyone. I never really got to feeling better about my blood pressure all afternoon, and that carried over into the evening with the kids being of normal volume. I couldn’t be mad because they were all behaving relatively well, but I just couldn’t decompress the way I really needed to.

Eventually everyone made it to bed. At least tomorrow morning I’ll have a break from the already tedious labor I’ve been assigned, but I imagine it will be back to that old grind stone in the afternoon again.

I have learned absolutely nothing today.

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High School; High Score

I went to the high school this morning to see what Dale was doing. They were just starting to pick up senior devices, classroom at a time. This all leads in to the busiest time for them, and I’ve somehow got to wrap my head around all the RMA processes while also learning a massive new campus. To make things even more difficult, I won’t properly be able to do my own part replacements until I get my A+ and Lenovo certifications. I can already tell I’m going to miss a lot of time that I have traditionally used to learn new things. I kind of hate it, but I’m still hopeful it won’t be that bad.

Teacher appreciation week is here, so Dale and I mooched off of their catered lunch from La Huerta. Then I left to go to the junior high for some work. They were serving hamburgers, so I grabbed one for later while Ben, Jason, and Allen were there. Then I went to work. On his way out, Ben said he basically gave his blessing to move the technology office into a closet, which really got me pretty angry. Evidently it was enough to earn myself a new high score of 200/112, so I went straight back to my room and kicked back for an hour. I tried calling my clinic, but the nurse line voicemail said they only check messages at the end of the day, and I wasn’t sure if I should treat it as more of an emergency. I gave it some time and checked my blood pressure again at a more normal high of 184/101.

Chrystal convinced me to call the clinic again, so I left the voicemail and went back to work. Eventually they did call me back, and told me to double my dosage to 10mg. It’s still not a lot, but the 5mg didn’t seem to phase me at all and I feel like I’m flush more often, or at least more consciously aware of every twinge and ache in my arm, chest, and brain helmet area. They want me to come back in a week instead of the two and a half weeks later for my 30-day checkup.

After school, Summer left for the gym while the girls went with me to my parents’ house. Eaddie came and sat next to me on the couch for the first time, and we both played on our phones until Summer got there. Mom made spring rolls with some pork that Dad smoked, and I filled up on leafy greens. I feel like the fish sauce may have nullified some of that, with a bedtime reading of 150/100. It’d be great if I could keep my diastolic out of the triple digits.

Maybe I’m just too intense.

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Taking Things Without Asking

Heather came to the junior high early this morning, and I tried to show her around a bit while we picked up some more computers that were going out for auction. Matt came along and said they were probably going to move technology out of my office and into a closet so James and his people could have the space, which got me really riled up. It was at that point that I decided it was okay to go gut a teacher’s classroom of student devices without asking.

I forgot my medication yesterday, but was back on it today. A big group of us met at Old South for a very slow lunch. I tried the taco salad with their Old South dressing, which seemed like it was all mayonnaise and garlic powder. The waitress even had a little spiel about how she couldn’t tell me all the ingredients because then it would be “everybody’s” dressing, and that it would ward off vampires, boyfriends, etc. It was a little surreal getting all of that considering how busy they were. The taco salad was good though, even with the weird mayo dressing. I felt like it was more taco than salad, but I’d never complain about it because then they would just give less meat.

After lunch, I had to go to Oakland to help with a National Board video conversion. Erica stopped me cold in my tracks and said Ben told them he was moving me to the high school. It was a bad day for everyone.

When school let out, I went back to the shop to chat with Ben until we went to Alene’s retirement shindig. They really do it up big for those at the top of the food chain. Dale gets his party in the library. I imagine mine will be in a bathroom somewhere, assuming I don’t die from it first.

When I got home, I started some laundry and then tried out Breath of the Wild in 3D. The pictures on the TV were way too diverged, and I think it gave me a pretty good, lingering headache. For a bit I thought it might even be the blood pressure, but I went by Oakland to check, and it wasn’t any worse than usual. I stopped by the shop to get the blood pressure cuff from Jason’s office so I could watch it over the weekend, then went to my parents’ to borrow the deep fryers for the car show. There, I found out that Alene was actually the travel agent for my parents’ honeymoon. If I hadn’t been born two years later, I might have been concerned that I owed the woman my life.

On the way home, I stopped by the shop again for some extension cords because I forgot them the first time. Then it was home for the evening to try and relax and sleep before the big day tomorrow.

Space Cadet.

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Roller Coaster! Of Blooooooood. (say what?)

The Catapult Health Clinic was at the middle school today, and I had my visit scheduled first thing in the morning. They seemed to be running a little slow, so it took me a few minutes to get in, but it wasn’t any worse than going to my doctor’s office. The difference is that they had me do all the paperwork right there with them while they sampled my blood. That’s about the time that shit got cray.

My first blood pressure reading was 188/122. I’ve never paid particular attention to those goals, so for me it was business as usual. The second reading was 170/111, which was more than 10 points off of the first reading, so I got a third at 186/127. That’s when a different nurse came over with an alarmed look on his face. He called the first girl back over and asked what they should do, and she replied that the video chat nurse would probably just talk to me about it. After a brief wait to go behind the video chat curtain, a nurse practitioner video chatted with me and brought up a warning/disclaimer to call my doctor immediately.

I went to Oakland to do some work and told the girls about my experience, so Leslie took my blood pressure again at 183/114. Nearly an hour later, I had relaxed it down to 174/114. I was less concerned, but already coerced into calling my doctor. I could have gone in right at lunch time, but I was already hangry at that point, so I scheduled a visit for 2 in the afternoon and went with a big group to lunch at Western Sizzlin where I had an incredibly unhealthy salad. It could have been better.

After lunch, the doctor visit went relatively well. They had renovated most of the building, and pretty well removed my old doctor’s name and replaced pretty much every comfort of familiarity. I hated watching the reel of healthcare advertisements in the lobby. At least everything else looked cleaner and less dingy than before. The first nurse got my blood pressure at 160/90 in both arms and said it wasn’t that bad, and blamed the high numbers on the auto-cuffs we had used all morning. A short wait later, the ARNP came in and basically said the same, but then followed that she was prescribing some low dosage blood pressure medication. I’ve officially made it to the stage in life where I’m kept artificially alive. Also, I have ringworm.

I went straight back to the junior high after my visit was over, and had Chrystal take my blood pressure again. She had a manual cuff like the doctor’s office, and came up with 182/110, which served only to confuse me more. Convinced that Death was following me around, I continued on with the rest of my day. Summer left to go to the gym, and I took the girls to Walgreens to pick up my prescriptions before going to my parents’ house for dinner.

My parents seemed not to be too concerned with me getting medication, and leftovers were good. All I had left to do was research my new drugs.

Until I got home.

Bulk item pickup day apparently didn’t include tires or televisions, so both were left in my front lawn. The CRT TV chassis appeared to be split open, so of course it fell completely apart as soon as I touched it. The glass immediately shattered, half on the grass and half on my driveway. I would have preferred to sweep it off of only the driveway, but that would have left me feeling less defeated. My new, concerned neighbor laughed at my response that I was okay, but contemplating life.

We’ll try again tomorrow.

Blood pressure’s like a roller coaster baby, baby. I’m gonna die.

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I Could Chair Less

I haven’t been able to sleep in much this weekend for some reason. I don’t know if it’s just too bright outside or if it’s because of the head cold, but it’s been tiring and annoying feeling so drained. Summer headed home to get her chores done while I spent all morning preparing potatoes to bake in the afternoon.

The girls came home all gross, cranky, and uncooperative because they were tired and apparently good personal hygiene is out of fashion. The twice baked potatoes ended up taking me quite a bit longer to make than I expected too, but I still had them finished right as the girls walked in the door. We made it to my parent’s house about an hour late, so everyone had already started eating without us. The girls weren’t very hungry anyway since they ate with their dad, but Summer and I filled up.

Julie made keto food and said she made cauliflower rice. It was cauliflower, and I don’t get why these people have to call it by the wrong name. I guess if I eliminated a food group, I’d be a little crazy too. As they were leaving, Mr. Houston said he moved in next door, so that will be new I guess. Nobody stuck around for very long after dinner, and we weren’t an exception. Summer and I had to get back to move some furniture out of my house.

Bulk item pickup comes twice a year, and I refused to miss it this time around. I set calendar reminders for both Summer and myself, and we planned to move at least one couch out of the house. We ended up moving three. I no longer have a huge amount of seating, but it seems like nobody comes around these days anyway. It was nice to get rid of so much stuff all at once. Random scrappers came by and picked up two lawn mowers as quickly as I put them out. The rest I suppose will sit until morning. I’ll probably continue to feel guilty about trashing old shoes and boots for the rest of my life, but it made Summer feel better. I really should have cleaned them up and donated them, but it hadn’t happened in this many years, so I guess it was just as well for them to be thrown away.

Cleaning the cat box has become a total nightmare, and I had to do a load of laundry before bed. I guess change will feel better eventually, but right now it’s hard not to feel a little jarred.

Sofa, so good.

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Custom Cocktail Cures

After doubling up on Benadryl last night, my head seemed a bit more clear when I woke up. I’m hoping I’ve found a combination of medicine that I can take to quickly rid myself of the congestion that normally plagues me for months at a time.

When I got to work, Zach gave me an ice chest full of frozen food he wanted to clear out of his freezer. There was something about a church food bank that always has leftover frozen goods that nobody ever wants to take because it requires more effort to keep. There was a surprising mix of better frozen meals, junk food, and microwavable breakfast sandwiches. I managed to fit it all into my freezer, and it’ll be nice to have something easy to warm up on weekends when the kids are over.

I didn’t get a whole lot done today because I still wasn’t feeling great. I spent a few hours fighting with the intercom system at Oakland, picked up some soup for lunch by myself in my office, and then spent the rest of the afternoon there just picking at things to clean up. The day went by pretty quickly though, and it didn’t seem like too long before it was quitting time.

Summer talked to Matt, and made it official that she’ll be taking the job at the shop. I guess I knew she was leaning that way, but she never really talked to me any more about it. I was hugely disappointed that she didn’t at least try to negotiate a better starting rate. Every time I bring it up, it’s like a deer in headlights and I don’t know what else I can do to help without just pushing her away. This stuff is really important to me, and I feel like it should be important to her too. I completely understand being shy or lacking confidence to have that conversation, but at the end of the day, money not earned is money lost, and that directly impacts the family. At some point, something’s gotta snap into gear where you just get shit done. The weirdest thing is that she’s very much that way in many other aspects of her life, so I don’t understand why this should have been any different. This should have been an easy win.

I volunteered to wait for Autumn and then take the girls to pick up Noah before heading home. The kids all sat around playing their various electronics while I started a load of laundry and confirmed that my kitchen aquarium water was toxic. From that point, I knew I had to jump right into a water change tonight.

We loaded up and headed to Summer’s where the house was filled with the aroma of simmered, shredded chicken breasts. I’d always read about shredded chicken out of a crock pot, but I’ve never actually tried it. The chicken came out way mushier than I expected, but I didn’t know all the variables to correct it for next time. It tasted good though, and made plenty for leftover nachos tomorrow after the barbecue sandwiches today. She scored a key lime pie for dessert, and then I had to head back home to tend to my own chores.

The bettas and snails all seemed to look a little better after a massive water change, but I’ll have to keep doing more relatively soon to make sure the chemistry balances out. I also need to go get some potting soil and sandblasting media to properly plant and cycle another tank or two in order to move things around to where I want them. It’s a shame we’re only given so much time for all the different things we enjoy.

Guaifenesin Diphenhydramine Phenylephrine

 

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Bumday

Our greatest accomplishment today was breakfast. Summer got up and made eggs, sausage, and bacon, and I broiled a loaf of French bread with mayo on it, which I divided into equal sized sandwich portions. The bread turned out great and had a perfect squish to it. Almost surprisingly, there were no complaints as everyone had something they liked.

The girls started out pretty moody in the morning but mellowed out over the course of the day. Summer left a couple times to do some grocery shopping and then to get her nails done. I spent a large portion of the day cleaning up my Google Calendar and Gmail. I did at least take a shower, and I think I successfully removed a couple flow-limiters in Summer’s shower, though it didn’t seem to make a huge difference.

We kind of picked at leftovers for dinner, and ended the night with a little Switch time and then an episode of Parks and Rec.

Oh, I didn’t realize there were things you’d rather be doing!

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Evasive Tax Form

The weather was supposed to be nice again today, but it was still super cold on the bike in the morning. I went back and forth between Oakland and the shop a few times trying to fix some issues before testing season arrives. It was still a mostly mellow morning though. I did run into Michael, who asked about borrowing my home theater speakers for a Dancing Through the Decades dance in a couple weeks. I just didn’t feel comfortable loading them up and bringing them out for use in public though.

I met Zach and Allen at Morellos for lunch, where I vowed to eat too many chips. I had been hungry all morning, and I absolutely loaded myself with fajitas and chips. Allen left us super early as usual, and Zach and I both still got to the shop separately, and well before our lunch hour was over. I really don’t know what his anxiety is about.

I tried to get some tablets reset at the junior high before school let out, but I didn’t get them all done before Jason wanted Brice and me to help Amanda mount a touch panel. At first I thought we were all four going to be there, but evidently he helped Amanda deliver the touch panel, and we were to swap it with a previously mounted television and then bring that back to the shop. I got pretty annoyed at Brice, because Jason emailed us early in the morning with a scheduled time of 3:00, so I left my tablets unfinished to meet at the shop. Brice took an extra 30 minutes to get there, and then we still had to drive to the middle school. On top of that, Gary seemed to be bored at the shop, and Ben was going to be at the middle school to continue his walkthrough. It just felt like everyone was either already there or available to help, and I was annoyed that I couldn’t get my work done. It didn’t help that I was mad at myself for forgetting to complete a work order yesterday, but I really didn’t get any heads-up for that one anyway.

After work, I came home to gather some things before going to Lowe’s to hunt down some light bulbs. I didn’t even see a compatible LED like I’ve been getting from Walmart, but they had one single-pack incandescent for a little more than the LEDs cost. Hopefully it won’t burn out after just a couple days though. I wish I knew what the problem was. I went ahead and picked up a new fluorescent bulb for the 35 gallon bow-front tank as well since it’s been out for years. There were only a couple cashiers, and after waiting in line for quite a while, my guy couldn’t scan a gift card correctly and I ended up getting out of line to check the balance. Once I confirmed what I knew, I got back into the next shortest line and checked out without incident.

I finally made it up to Summer’s for just a spot of dinner and to visit. They had already eaten since I was still a bit full from lunch anyway. Summer and I went to the other room to talk about her offer from the shop, and I tried to help her calculate the value of her time. It really could go either way, depending on her negotiation. The best part is just that she has multiple options for now and in the future, so I tend not to fret too much over her choice. I spent a bit of time trying to buy tickets for Shazam, but had to give up after I met a hidden order limit that required a call to guest services to explain.

Eventually I headed back home for the evening and tried to take care of the aquariums a bit. Once that was done, I spent the rest of the night cleaning with the purpose of finding my W-2. I just couldn’t find it anywhere, and I started to get really aggravated. I felt good about getting so much stuff cleaned up and thrown out, but I was going crazy not remembering where I had put it. Eventually I found it in the living room, but didn’t have enough time to actually file my taxes. I guess there’s still tomorrow.

At least I got my watch shipped off.

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Risk of Rain

We had a meeting this morning with our new testing coordinator about ACT Aspire testing. Heather made us pancakes and sausage for breakfast, which made the dull meeting better. The highlight was the look on her face when we told her the number one reason we get called in to help is for one of the things we are specifically forbidden to do. At least the whole ordeal didn’t take long, and then I filled up on breakfast.

Allen needed help hanging a touch panel in London, so Dale and I joined him on that quest. Shortly after we got there and got set up, they had a fire drill and the two of them insisted on going outside for it. I went ahead and hung the mounting hardware while they were gone. Of course I ended up having to drive back to town because he forgot a part. That got us to lunch, and they suggested staying in London to eat at Fat Daddy’s, but I wasn’t even remotely hungry. We came back to town, and I went and sat with them at Taco Bell for half an hour, but then just went to the junior high to work on my stack of work orders.

I very nearly completed resetting all of my PLTW tablets, but still ended up staying late to finish the second lab. When I finally left, I met the girls at my house and made more pork nachos for them. I probably ate too much of it myself, but at least I cleaned up the leftovers. They headed home shortly after that, and I spent some time on the aquariums before sitting down to some Overwatch with Johnny, and then Jack. When they both finally got on at the same time, we played some of the new Risk of Rain 2, which was relatively fun, mostly annoying, and ran pretty terribly on my ancient computer. I want so badly to build another one, but also recognize that I have such little time to sit down at it. A laptop is appealing, but I don’t exactly have the money to pay that premium anyway. I guess I’ll stick with my old computer for a few more years of indecisiveness.

I forgot all about that damn whale in the gym. I really wanted to see it.