Play Sassafras Chicken in D, and Make It Extra Lumpy!

I didn’t really sleep in, but had a slow start this morning. Summer went outside for a bit, and I cleaned up some leftovers to make breakfast. We had one small baked potato that I sliced and fried with some leftover onion, and then i scrambled some eggs in with some dried up flour tortilla crumbs. It actually turned out pretty good.

Jon said Alex would be here at noon, but he was over half an hour late to come look at our ceiling. He seemed to think they could just replace a couple panels of drywall and then scrape the rest of the ceiling. Hopefully we get a quote back soon, and it’d be even better if it came in under five grand.

Summer and I had a couple of “arguments” throughout the morning that just left us both feeling defeated. She went to the gym and I tried to start some laundry, but had to clean up a mess that they had left first. Eaddie left to hang out with friends, and Summer and I decided to go to the movies for a late matinée to see The Naked Gun.

I didn’t really enjoy the movie at all. It just seemed really dumb with a couple cheap giggles, but absolutely no rolling, laugh-outloud moments for me. I was hungry when we got home, so we took Muad’Dib to Chipotle for a late dinner. They had a little outdoor seating area, and it felt great outside.

After dinner, we went for a quick run in the dark to see my parents before winding down for bed.

Weird Al is waiting for us!

One Step Two Step Red Step Blue Step

Kevin checked in to see if I contacted Diamond Ridge, and ended up calling Jon to get things moving for me. I wanted to be respectful of his time and work/life balance, but Kevin gave me Jon’s personal cell to work things out.

Rhonda got a little fussy about the automation I created for shipment documentation, but without invoking more human involvement, there wasn’t much I could do to improve the automation. It seemed simple enough to sort files by date, but after our conversation about phone storage the other day, I don’t guess I was surprised to hear she felt it was impossible to find what she needed.

Muad’Dib and I went to Sonic for lunch again since it was still nice out. We shared a toaster, but he couldn’t have any onion rings. I did risk giving him some of the breading though. Later in the afternoon, I was invited downstairs for some leftover ice cream with the team.

Jon called on my way back home, and said he would have someone visit us tomorrow. I stopped at AT&T to see Kevin, and brought Muad’Dib inside. He was busy with a customer, but Hope came out and found me. We chatted for a while, and Kevin would come over periodically while his customer was, presumably, transferring stuff between devices.

I left there and stopped to see Summer at the wash, and tried to vacuum Muad’Dib’s seat protector. That went fairly poorly, so I’ll just need to remove it and shake it out. It wouldn’t hurt to hose it off either. As soon as I got to the house, Muad’Dib and I rode over to my parents’ house for fish soup.

After that, the girls were home and I sat down to talk with Summer for a while. Then we tried to find something to watch on the bedroom TV, but she fell asleep almost immediately.

A Leash Called “Obedience”

Chili Dog Daze

I spent the morning continuing to clean up data for import. It was done by lunch, and nobody reported anything being broken, so maybe I did it right. It certainly could have been less tedious.

It rained a bit as thunder and lightning struck all around in the distance. That dropped the temperature enough that it felt pretty nice out, so Muad’Dib and I went to Sonic and sat outside for lunch. It was actually a great time. We both just hung out, he was chill, and we shared a footlong coney.

I spent the afternoon just poking around at some different things, then stopped to see Summer at the wash on the way to the house. She had a late team meeting to run, so I stopped by Zaxby’s for dinner. I tried to clean up the kitchen a bit after I ate, and then Summer got home and wound down while I ran Muad’Dib.

The cooler air got him running more than he has been, so it was good to get moving. We stopped to see my parents, and then cleaned up for bed.

You got your hair slicked back and those Wayfarers on, baby.

All Fronts

Today did not go as planned. I had a couple of calls from some of the sales guys for help, which actually went fairly well. Then I had some virtual training planned for the morning through lunch, but immediately after our HubSpot call, Joel emailed me and asked me to update pricing on some products there. That of course had me switch gears entirely, and I had to learn how the old pricing spreadsheet calculations were done, and then figure out how to import them into HubSpot.

Muad’Dib and I went to McDonald’s for fries and Arby’s for a sandwich, just for the sake of pinching pennies, and then I dug into my first real task. I ended up talking to Joel at the end of the day just to confirm what I was doing, and saved the real work for the next day.

We tried to stop and see Summer at Superfast when we got back to town, but she had left early and went to the gym. Eaddie was leaving for Clarksville when I got to the house. Summer got home shortly after that, and I had to figure out dinner. I ended up going to Zaxby’s for a couple salads, and then we ended up venting at each other about each other over the way we prioritize (or don’t) tasks.

I left to run Muad’Dib, and then crashed about an hour later than I wanted.

focus

Wooden Do It

Summer had to work this morning, so I got up and took Muad’Dib for a run while it was still a little cooler outside. Dad and I moved a couple big logs over to their driveway from nextdoor so I could get some firewood before the tree service hauled it all off. Summer had plans to take Eaddie to the Clarksville water park in the afternoon, but it felt really clammy and gross out, and I just didn’t want to go. Eaddie got up and mowed the lawn, so I was in and out some to get her started, and then was trying to organize some of the chaos inside since the ceiling collapse.

Eaddie and I cleaned up some charcuterie stuff in the fridge, and I had an anxiety attack in the pantry. I eventually took a shower and made it back over to my parents’ house where Dad had sawed up a bunch of manageable logs that we could load into the Pathfinder. I brought them a little solar-powered pool skimming robot that we watched mostly fail, and then I ate bún bò Huế with them before getting the wood back to the house just as the girls got there. They helped me unload into the front yard, and then took a bit of a break. Dad came over with a little more wood and a plastic sheet for the hole in the ceiling. Unfortunately the staples ripped right through, and I didn’t want to fight it, so he took that back home.

Summer and I eventually made it over to their house to swim after sundown. My parents were out watering the garden, and Muad’Dib got the zoomies and ran circles around the yard. Summer got cold pretty quickly, so we headed back to the house for the evening.

I had originally planned to go to Little Rock to see Mitch in the evening, but time got away from me and we just had too much stuff going on. We decided to reschedule for later next week.

rattle ’round

Human Adult Things

I wasn’t sure what the girls were doing today, so I decided to take Muad’Dib to work with me, just to make sure he stayed out of the insulation that was covering the living room. I brought him in on a leash, but as soon as we got upstairs, he was off. He did great, ate some food, drank a bunch of water, and eventually got to go socialize a bit. Everyone seemed to like him, but as expected, some were way more excited to see him than others. I think I was most surprised by Joel’s response to get way down on the floor with him.

Nobody really wanted to attempt his name, but Muad’Dib and I hung out upstairs most of the day. Summer actually stayed home today, so I had her try and find someone else to quote us on a repair and cleaning. She found a single guy named Cano that said he would come out.

We eventually went to get lunch, and I just picked up some McNuggets at the drive-through. I picked up a free slush at Casey’s, and then we went back to the office to eat. After that, I spent some time with the Vuzix headset again. The afternoon was dead.

Cano finally came by the house late in the afternoon, but just before I got there. Summer must have been starving, because she wanted a Chinese buffet. We left Muad’Dib in the bedroom alone for the first time, and drove across town to discover that New China was closed for some personal event. We ended up at Mulan’s for a relatively quick meal before coming back to the house.

Muad’Dib seemed to do fine. he had a little block of yak cheese that he had been chewing on at work all day, and I found where he had hidden it under the stuffed cheetah under the bed. We laid with him for a while in exhaustion, and then we skipped his run to go to bed.

displaced

Stretching the Upper Limit

Johnny called just as I got to work this morning, so I talked to him for a while. He actually knew quite a bit about Microsoft 365, so he can probably help me for a change. I had a fair bit of trouble focusing after that.

I went to Wendy’s for a late lunch, and grabbed some McDonald’s fries on the way back to eat in my office. It wasn’t very long after that when Eaddie texted that, “Hey so part of the ceiling may or may not have just fallen.” I don’t know why she would lead like that, but I eventually got some photos from her that showed the drywall leaning up against my irreplaceable 3D OLED TV.

Teisha told me to just go home since Joel was on a call, but I wanted to at least message him about it. He said the same, and I headed to the house. Eaddie and Eli were both there to see when it happened. The entire living room was coated in a thick layer of dust. Our fuzzy couch was completely covered. Everything was covered. My first priority was to get the drywall off of the TV. It was heavy, and I was completely astounded when the TV turned on without a shattered corner. It actually broke the drywall. I got some of that out, and then Dad came over to help the kids and me clean out as much of the insulation as we could.

We moved the most expensive stuff into the sunroom in case of further collapse, and then Dad and I went to his house to find some wood and a floor jack to get the rest of the drywall screwed up to the joists. It went better than I expected, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Summer got home after her doctor appointment for her knee. I was already irritated that I beat her home from my job in Morrilton, and that she couldn’t make our home a priority. Then she had the nerve to ask if I would support her quitting her job before finding new employment because she had a really bad day. I’d been telling her for YEARS to find something else and quit, and she always pushed back. So no. Hard, “NO.”

I was able to move the thermostat sensing to the bedroom so it wouldn’t just keep pumping air into the gaping living room. Then Muad’Dib and I left to run, and I went to my parents’ house to swim. Mom thought this all happened at the old house, but I told her it was at our new house.

We left once I was sufficiently cooled down, and got to the house before dark. Summer was in bed, and Eaddie had gone to Eli’s for dinner.

Shocking. Make lemonade.

Clean Stuff

Summer got up this morning and made fried rice with some leftover onions and an over-easy egg for us for breakfast. Then she took Muad’Dib for a run before having to go to work in the afternoon through closing. Eaddie acted like she was cleaning up, but every time I saw her, she was sitting in the same spot on her bed. I picked at things all around the house, but mostly the kitchen.

The afternoon went quickly, but I knew I needed to give Muad’Dib a good bath. Eaddie had plans to go to a birthday party. Mom called with fish soup in the evening, so Muad’Dib and I rode over there to eat. They didn’t have much rice, so I ran back home to grab the leftover from the morning, and we all ate.

When we got back home, Muad’Dib did great to climb into the tub on his own accord, and got a good scrubbing. Then he came right to our bathroom for a blow-dry, followed by a vacuuming in the living room. Summer got home late and wound down quickly while I tried wrapping up. I got to bed about an hour later than I wanted, but I felt pretty good about what I had accomplished.

Space cadet over here…

Hope Dangles on a String

Summer had a race in Clarksville this morning, but declined the suggestion that we could all get up early to go with her, then continue to the greater Fayetteville area immediately after. She wanted to come home to shower first.

I am right, I swear I’m right. Swear I knew it all along.

We had plenty of time to get around, so I watered my plants before jumping into the shower. Once everyone was ready, we headed out and picked Eli up before hitting the road. We stopped at Dodge’s in Clarksville for some hot wings, and ran into Autumn just as we were leaving.

Scars are souvenirs you never lose. The past is never far.

We made it all the way to Lowell to charge. There was a queue before we could plug in, but there were only a couple of cars ahead of us and it went pretty quickly. I had never experienced that before, but it wasn’t bad at all.

And I’d give up forever to touch you.

I had previously texted Shawna and actually got a response that she wouldn’t be joining us for the concert. I planned to transfer the ticket to her, but I couldn’t do that until closer to the event, and even then she didn’t want it. Brandon was able to join us, so we planned to meet him for dinner.

I’ve got my defenses when it comes to your intentions for me.

Once charging was done, we went to Goodwill to kill a few minutes. We ended up grabbing a telescope stand for Dad, and then headed to Chuy’s to meet Brandon. There was a relatively short wait, and then service was pretty sparse, but the food was good.

My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me.

After dinner, we walked to the amphitheater with plenty of time to find seats on the packed lawn. I skipped the merch until after Dashboard Confessional. They did a great show, followed by a wonderful, much larger show by the Goo Goo Dolls. All I could do was think about how the evening was supposed to go.

I’m not the one who broke you. I’m not the one you should fear.

Brandon took off a little bit early. We left at the very end and got on the interstate without any fuss. We probably didn’t have to stop, but the car routed us to Ozark for a quick charge before making it home. I gave Muad’Dib a quick vacuum and washed his feet, and then they were all off to bed.

I wanna wake up where you are.

“barbecue”

I left around lunch time to get a free slush from Casey’s, and grabbed a pretzel and some free cheese sticks from Sonic on the way back. Then I got another slush on the way home. Julie wanted to go to Fat Daddy’s for her birthday dinner, so Summer and I met the family there. I picked up a third slush after dinner.

Muad’Dib and I went for a walk when we got home, and Eaddie left to spend the night at Maristella’s.

After that, only television noise.