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.
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.
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.
It was cold this morning, but it would warm up pretty quickly, so I took the bike to work. I spent all day at the junior high touching all of the Samsung tablets in three different classrooms, and still couldn’t get it done before lunch. I met Zach, Allen, and Jason at Morelos where I tried something new – the lunch burrito supreme. I was a little disappointed in its size, and the mixed beef and chicken was really kind of split down the middle the short way, but with the rice, beans, and chips, I had plenty to eat. On the way out, some little squishy unicorns caught my eye in a quarter machine, and somehow I talked both Allen and Jason into donating a quarter each. I was shocked, but it made me happy.
Gary had to help get League of Legends to work again this morning. I guess they moved some DNS entries around on their update server, which broke SSL encryption for us again. I’m mostly just parroting words, though. He made the blinky thing workie again. Then he took me to the other basement.
I couldn’t sleep in this morning and got out of bed right around 8. Summer and Autumn were already gone for a quiz bowl tournament. I had some leftover barbecue for breakfast while Eaddie slept in. Eventually I got her up and we got ready to go to my parents’ house where Uncle Giao and Aunt Teresa had come to visit. Bác Vân was there too, and Mom made phở and egg rolls for lunch. We ate, then hung out for a little while before heading back to my house.