Tag: disappointment

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The Breakdown

I got up this morning to an empty house and checked on Muad’Dib. I didn’t have any messages about Stilgar, so I got showered and took the Pathfinder to visit Animal Control to see if they picked him up. In hindsight I guess I could have called again, but I was desperately hoping I’d get to bring him home. As soon as I got into the car, I saw how filthy it was from all of Eaddie’s junk in the passenger seat, center console, back seat, and trunk. There was crap everywhere, and the gas tank was empty to boot. I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to the shelter, so I turned around and went to Casey’s for some gas first. I redeemed a birthday donut and ate that in the parking lot, then made my way to the shelter.

The two ladies that were working said they hadn’t picked up anything like Stilgar, but immediately knew of him when I mentioned that Nancy had called 911 the day before. They said they had a couple people call about them killing cats, and that one of them, presumably the man, threatened to shoot them if they came around again. I think I knew it all along when Muad’Dib showed up by himself, but it really sank in when I got home and found the “final warning” door tag they had just left on our front door before I drove over.

I brought the leashes in from the car and had an absolute screaming fit before going outside to hold Muad’Dib. He hadn’t been eating, but he would take a few kibbles out of my hand if I offered them. We went out riding around to look for Stilgar, but didn’t hear a thing in the neighborhood. It was almost eerily quiet. We went all the way up Inglewood and visited the bank so I could pay Dad back for writing my sales tax check to the DMV. I realized I didn’t have my wallet once I got to the window, so we had to ride back home to get that, then made it back to the bank.

We waited longer the second time, but eventually got the cash and rode back to my parents’ house to give the money to Dad. That was when I realized they shorted me by 95 cents. We got back home and I got Muad’Dib situated in the backyard. Then I changed clothes and decided to take some returns to The UPS Store and then wash my car before going back to the bank for a third time.

The UPS Store visit was short and sweet since I took care of all the re-taping at home. The car wash was mostly out of soap, so it was a short wash. As I sprayed the side of my car, I noticed a fleck of white appear on the driver side rocker panel. Paint had actually flaked right off under relatively light pressure. I suspect they’ll try to deny it under warranty, but I feel like it’s worth pressing. Finally, I made it all the way back across town to get my missing 95 cents, and took Aaron for a ride in the new Model 3. I took him to our house since he had driven down Inglewood anyway. After I dropped him off, I went by the Neighborhood Market to get some hamburger meat to make tacos and clean up the veggies we still had at home.

I was unboxing Vine deliveries when Summer came home, and I was nearly shaking from the confrontation I knew we were about to have. Then she hit me with, “Why have you been ignoring me?” “I’ve been exhausted and in a tremendous amount of pain from riding 25 miles looking for my dog.” “You’ve been ignoring me all week.” I trembled as I yelled at her to leave me alone, and had another screaming fit in the laundry room after she slammed the back door going out to see our one remaining dog.

I eventually gathered myself enough to try and talk to her, but then after nearly eight years, she finally felt something strongly enough to yell at me. She was mad that “everything was her fault.” Ironically, that was precisely why I was mad as well. Of course she was wrong, but of course I wasn’t going to give her a list of all the stupid things she’s done on a daily basis to make my life more difficult at best, no matter how many times she asked me to name something. It was mutually assured destruction.

I had to clean myself up and went back outside to hold Muad’Dib, but knocked on the door to tell Summer she could come out too. She had calmed down and wanted to go to the gym, but I told her I had stuff to make burritos and that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. Then I asked her the question that’s been buzzing in my head for weeks: Did she book a hotel in Indianapolis with car charging?

“I don’t know.”

Eaddie got home just as Summer left for the gym, and we talked for a while as I cooked. We both ate, and then I had to go back to the store to get some Theraflu for my parents. Everyone was pretty much off to bed by the time I got home for the night, and I was up late stewing in my head for the next few hours.

Broke the Bank

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Stilgone

I didn’t get to bed until nearly four o’clock last night, and I awoke around 9:30 to a text from Dad that his neighbor Nancy had called 911 to alert animal control about the dogs again. Seconds later, Summer walked in and said she had been driving around looking for the past half hour looking for them before coming back to wake me. I immediately took off on the Onewheel while Summer went back out in the Tesla.

I had ridden about 14 miles when Mom called to say they were there, so I sped back to their house to find Summer and Dad with Muad’Dib. Stilgar was nowhere to be found, and Muad’Dib had blood on his front-left leg, and walked with a bit of a limp. I took him home slowly, calling for Stilgar along the way, but we never found him.

I had to take a break after that to charge the Onewheel, so I cooked a couple eggs to eat with the mushy rice that Summer made a couple weeks ago. Then I had to rush through a shower so we could make it to Tech for Eaddie’s send-off concert. It was just their two Indianapolis groups having a practice concert, and then we went straight back home so I could ride around some more while Summer went to the gym.

Muad’Dib and I went all over the neighborhood, and I let him go off-leash with the hopes that he would lead me somewhere. He behaved super well, but was slow, and I felt like he knew he was in trouble. Between that outing and then going out again after dark, we totaled nearly 24 miles but still could never find any sign of Stilgar.

The girls spent all night doing laundry after that. Summer got into her feelings at the gym, but I didn’t have the time or patience to deal with her. I did what I could to try and find Stilgar, and we’ll just have to hope I find him at Animal Control tomorrow, but I just couldn’t imagine only one of them getting picked up because they go everywhere together.

That’s a dome light.

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Networking Chops

I made up quite a bit of time on the way to work this morning, but there wasn’t anything going on. I helped Kyle set up some server tools before he left, then ended up working on sleuthing a DNS issue for most of the day. Our representative that was supposed to set up our new Alerton HVAC system on the server I spun up several months ago was still having trouble getting it to work, and I figured it was because she didn’t realize she was still talking to the old server. Even Randy seemed to get caught up in a separate SSL issue, but I think I had it pegged from the get-go.

I ended up going down the road for lunch on my own and decided to finally try the fried chicken, along with the catfish, at Louisiana Fried Chicken. The food is always pretty decent, but every time I walk in there, I swear it’s a front for the drug cartel. I was the only one eating there, and I think maybe two cars came through the drive-through. A couple people walked in but left without ordering, and another group of four or so people picked up some food. The staff is always nice, but you’re not going to win any awards for old fried chicken kept under an open-air heat lamp.

The afternoon felt the most successful after Randy took me to central office to help with a couple issues. I got to present myself a little more loosely after having a little more face time with some of the staff there, and I finally conveyed our DNS issue to Randy in a way that he understood. We got back to the office and casually finished out the day.

I stopped to charge on the way home and decided to redeem my free Grand Slam at the Denny’s there. It was quiet, and service was quick. I got in and out in just enough time to get about a 50% charge, then made it home to run the dogs.

Dad called earlier in the morning and said they had gotten out and over to his house again. He walked them home and then took them out for another walk in the afternoon, but I was frustrated with them when we got home and we took a pretty stern walk. We stopped to see him, then encountered Mom as we were riding home. She caught up to me and asked about going out to eat, but neither of the girls were home.

Summer got home from work and the gym as I was finishing up my Vine shipments, and then Eaddie got home a little later and said we forgot her robotics banquet to which Summer had RSVPed. I live and die by my calendar for exactly that reason, and it upsets me when they fail after I push them to do the same. They caught up for a bit before bed, and then I wrapped up my own things as quickly as I could.

This is obviously a front.

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Brain Rot Kids

I had a rough start this morning, and it just never got any better. I was late leaving for work, which was compounded by slow traffic the entire way. I nearly got absolutely creamed by a semi when traffic came to a stop due to a wreck that closed the left lane. It was just barely around a curve, and traffic slowed so fast that a semi way behind me couldn’t slow down fast enough even after I turned on my blinkers as an early warning. I watched as he got bigger in my rearview, but thankfully he veered off the road to the left just as I started to the right. Traffic kind of split across both shoulders, but I don’t think any extra damage was done to anyone.

After that, I guess the slowdown that normally happens at the top of the hill when the sun peaks had worked its way back toward Conway. It was slow the entire way in to work, but nobody seemed bothered. I was actually pretty busy with stuff today, and I guess people were bothering Randy as well.

I met Kyle and Maggie at Cactus Jack’s for lunch at his request, and the food was pretty decent, typical Mexican. Jay called for help after I had sent him to central office to work some of Randy’s work orders, so I had to meet him there after lunch. What I thought was going to be a ten minute fix ended up taking the rest of the afternoon trying to fix a high-energy zoomer, and we still didn’t really complete it all.

I left straight from there and headed straight home, again through some stupid traffic, but thankfully at a much faster pace. The dogs were super anxious when I checked on them in the morning after being tied up all night, but Dad took them on a long walk during the day, so they weren’t too bad when I got home. They did knock over and chew up their water dispenser, which infuriated me to the point of dumping it and beating them with it. They cowered under the porch, but I can’t afford to buy them a new water bowl every week.

They came back out and we went for a pretty good walk. They’re definitely not as responsive to me without their prong collars, and the shock collars are too slow to give good feedback when we’re running. I did shock them both a couple of times when they eyed some cats, but otherwise they were fairly well behaved. We stopped to see Dad and then made it home for dinner. After they ate, I let them sit off-leash for a while before they made it out to the fenceline to dig some more. They still had their shock collars, so I zapped them both and tied them up.

The kids came home before Eaddie’s concert while I was assembling Vine stuff. Then I had to meet them and Summer at Witherspoon for a super long concert. I hated that we were there for the first band, and both played way too long, but I also just wasn’t in the mood. I was exhausted and sleep deprived after a night full of light sleep and weird dreams with caricatures. Summer was slow to leave, so I ended up leaving her behind and made it home to wrap up.

TikTok Cancer

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Electrotherapy

The dogs were asleep on the porch when I got up, but as soon as I got to work, Summer texted that they were gone. I texted Dad, and they both went out looking. Dad was able to recover them and Summer used a sledgehammer to bury some wooden stakes along the fenceline, but it was too late. Dad texted that his neighbor found a dead cat, and later said she reported them to animal control. I was pretty uptight about it at work all day, but there was nothing I could do from there. I worked on what I could, and dreaded what work had to be done when I got home.

Charles called our Dell vendor to complain about having to deal with customer service when repairing laptops, and got us free lunch out of the deal. Whole Hog tasted like free lunch, too. I had the brisket sandwich, potato salad, and beans, and it was a pretty miserable looking plate. The sandwich was about 60% bun, 20% brisket, and 20% slaw. It didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t good, and it was cold to boot. The serving size was a small ice cream scoop of potatoes, and the most shallow single-layer of baked beans on a divided plate that you could imagine.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly, and Randy and Jim would be out for the rest of the week to go to the Howard conference in Alabama. I headed toward home, Supercharged, and walked in to Summer ruining what leftovers we had from Noah’s dinner. She ruined a huge pot of rice trying to fry it with the squash and zucchini. What resulted was basically a gummy rice dough with completely indiscernible vegetables, and thankfully no steak. I would have walked out if she ruined those T-bones on top of everything else.

We had an argument, and I feel pretty confident she learned nothing again. I went out to make sure the dogs would be secure after her shoddy patchwork and found a different place where they had started to dig. We ate, and then had to run to the high school for a pretty crappy band concert that ran about an hour behind.

The mentally deficient couple behind us in the second row talked loudly during the concert band’s portion, and I turned around to glare at them. They were mostly quiet for Eaddie’s symphonic band, until the point where the guy tapped a link on his phone, or otherwise somehow unmuted whatever video he was watching. After the day I’d had, it took every fiber of my shaking body not to turn around and knock him out in front of the whole auditorium.

We made it home and it was another mad dash to get to bed. The dogs may get chained up in the morning if they dig any more overnight. The only other real progress I made was when I learned how to properly attach their shock collars around the front or side of their necks instead of the back. I tested them out and got Stilgar pretty good when he started barking at one point. It’ll be good to take them on a run sometime how that the shock can actually be felt. I also made a double-ended slip collar to leave with Dad so we won’t keep having to run back and forth for tools.

More like Won’t Listen-Al-Gaib and Not Stillthere.

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The Captain is a N***

I felt sick to my stomach this morning, and my best guess was that it was from taking my iron pill later than usual, at a point where my stomach was emptier and more hungry than usual. Summer went to the gym and Eaddie had a robotics meeting that ended up lasting until the afternoon. When Summer got home, we got cleaned up and went to Taco John’s for a quick lunch before heading to Little Rock for our movie.

It rained heavily the whole way, and autopilot didn’t want to cooperate. We were about an hour early for the movie and didn’t have any other plans, so I decided to stop in Conway to charge early so I wouldn’t have to on the way home. That was a slow process, so I ended up going in to Five Guys to use the restroom and came out with a bag of fries and some peanuts.

We eventually made it to the IMAX and waited nearly another hour for the movie. They played previews for about half an hour, which I’m sure was way longer than usual. I was surprised at how far back they referenced in the Marvel timeline for this movie. Harrison Ford as Thaddeus Ross was already a bit strange, but he was also a much softer, weepy character. The whole start of the movie was pretty slow in spite of starting with an action scene. The story was slow and simple, and lacked the spy thriller moments that we enjoyed about the other Captain America movies. The last third of the movie was better, but still not great.

Summer didn’t want to do anything after the movie, so we headed straight home until I decided to pull over in Conway for some Whataburger. Summer wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to have only eaten a single burrito all day, and I was actually really pleased with my burger.

We eventually made it home to an empty house. Summer went to bed and Eaddie got back home shortly after. I spent a while wrapping things up, and tomorrow will be a busy day.

What’d he say???

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Don’t Break Anything

I got out a little earlier today and had a slower drive in to work to save some battery power. I could have made it home on the charge, but I still ended up supercharging on the way home anyway.

Randy was out at a conference, so it was just Maggie and me all day. She was in better spirits after her friend passed yesterday. Randy emailed us some things to do, but it seemed like those weren’t entirely our job to do. It’s confusing what we’re actually responsible for because the district is so overstaffed. We personally handled much more at both of my previous districts. On top of that, people kept knocking at the door all day, pulling me away from whatever I was avoiding.

I actually didn’t even take a lunch, but Maggie made me eat her leftovers. I can never tell if she’s just worried about me being hungry or if she’s just genuinely not hungry enough to finish her food. It’s a pretty regular occurrence for her to have leftovers, so I try not to feel guilty about eating stuff she gives me. I thought I’d leave a little early because I never left, but I only got out about ten minutes early.

I stopped in Conway to charge a bit just so I wouldn’t have to shuffle cars late at night. Then I got home and ran the dogs to the Ridgewood Brothers to see if I could catch Robert. I actually saw Grant, and he seemed to be doing a little bit better. I think their whole situation has probably just gotten to the point where you throw up and then start to feel a little bit better.

We got rained on a bit as we made our way back across town. Just as it started to sprinkle, we encountered Hannah driving the opposite direction. She stopped to chat and we caught up for a little bit before we continued on to my parents’ house. By then it had started to rain pretty hard, so my leg was soaked by the time we got home. The dogs were good though, so they got hot dogs before dinner.

Someone had brought a bunch of Vine packages in for me, so I sorted all of that before Summer got home. The morning went by fast, the afternoon went by slowly, and then the evening flew by. Summer had a bad day at work, and I think we’re both feeling pretty unsatisfied in general. We chatted for a bit before she went to bed. Eaddie got home late and went straight to her room, and then I crashed as quickly as I could.

You broke it.

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Bummers

Traffic was pretty bad on the way in this morning, but I got there. Randy was early again, and we all sat and chatted for a while in the morning. Maggie was stressing out due to something happening with a friend or family, so she ended up taking the afternoon off. I tried to help Jim with some stuff over the phone and was mostly successful, and Randy was in his executive team meeting all morning.

Lunch came a little late, and I met Kyle, Jim, Randy, and Jay at Brewski’s for their version of Taco Tuesday. I remembered thinking their burger was okay last time, but it was still bar food. I was even less impressed with their tacos, so I’ll never order those again. Everything was incredibly dry. Even the limes fell apart into pulp when we squeezed them. I actually ended up stopping at McDonald’s on the way back to get some fries, which were actually pretty good since I went to the one on McCain this time.

Sometime in the afternoon, Greg stopped by our office and for some reason wanted a tour of our shop area. I had a feeling someone put him up to it, but eventually Randy came back inside and said I couldn’t charge my car in there any more. That’s a pretty big bummer, especially in the winter, and it may be the straw that prompted the camel to update his resumé. It’s all about minimizing my time away from home, and if a few pennies worth of electricity is going to keep me away any longer, then it’s just not going to be sustainable for me.

I got home without any trouble and took the dogs out for a run. They weren’t great, so they didn’t get any treats when we got home, and I cut down their dinner a little as well. Muad’Dib hadn’t been eating some of his meals anyway.

I took care of some large Vine stuff before Summer got home, and she didn’t have a great day at work either. Then I had to fire off a message to the clinic because I was completely out of amlodipine for the next morning. Luckily they phoned it in to Walgreens and I was able to pick it up just a few minutes before they closed.

After I got back home, Dad said Uncle Tuan wasn’t doing great, so it looks like we’ll be going to visit. I don’t really know what happened to him for the past several years, but I know I’ll have a very different memory of him than what we’ll find, and he likely won’t remember me at all.

No Win Tuesday

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Long Day for What

I remember waking up frequently after a whole lot of dreams, but I couldn’t remember anything about them. I finally got out of bed around eight, long before anyone else. I tinkered with the Vine Helper notifications a bit, and then had a bit of anxiety as the item drops started flowing. I got meds sorted for the week and the girls got up and around. Summer went to the gym for a while, and Eaddie hid in her room all day.

I took a shower and then took the dogs out for a really early run, which was good because it started to rain after that. Summer said she wanted a steak and baked potato for dinner, but then didn’t press it when it started to rain. I ended up going out to pick up some Panda Express instead, since I had a BOGO coupon, and then we watched The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with some popcorn. I actually thought it was a pretty fun movie, and it was great to see Nick Cage back – not that he went anywhere.

Nothing.

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Those Christmas Lights

Summer got me up around nine this morning so I could get the turkey going. To my surprise, we were approved for the zero percent loan for my new car with a low down payment, so I took care of that and made the final payment before I got started. Then I kept Summer nearby because I wasn’t sure what I was going to need at any given moment. I used my new grinder to grind the spices down for the injection. It worked better, but still ended up clogging. I think it had more to do with the fact that the butter was solidifying in the syringe since the turkey was still cold inside. We eventually got it on the smoker though, and then it was a race to get everything else going. I oiled and salted the potatoes and threw them on the grill as well.

Summer did a bunch of other cleaning and worked on her deviled eggs. I took a shower and then pulled the potatoes off the grill so I could gut them, mash that up, and re-smoke them. We were getting down to the wire, but had a reasonably good morning until I got a text that Mom wasn’t coming. I had my hands full of potatoes, so I had Summer call Dad on speakerphone. I instantly blew my top at her because she wanted to blame my blood pressure, but changing plans at the last minute was what really got me hot.

I got the potatoes back on the smoker and cranked up the heat a bit, which turned out to be a big mistake. I guess there was still some grease at the bottom that caught fire, and my temperature shot up from my set 350ºF to over 500. We pulled the potatoes off and Summer finished them in the oven. I was going to drive over to talk to Mom, but just then Kevin showed up, followed by Julie with various things to unload from the car. Dad wasn’t far behind with even more stuff.

We got everything settled and then I took Dad’s car to go talk to Mom, since he and Julie were parked behind us. I talked to her briefly and apologized for blowing up, but reminded her that a big reason that I agreed to buy our house was so we would have room to entertain the family for the holidays, in a house with as little travel from theirs as possible. It didn’t take much more for her to come back with me, but she insisted that she didn’t want to stay long.

Noah was running behind in the most characteristically unpredictable way, so the seven of us ate. I thought all the food turned out pretty good. After that, we took a break to open presents. Eaddie had the biggest haul and wanted to know what she did to deserve to be so spoiled, but I think everyone felt pretty satisfied. After that, it was a bit of a struggle to decide what to do. I wanted to either watch Red One or start on some dessert, but Summer was busy cleaning up in the kitchen and became unresponsive to anything I asked. Julie ended up putting on Elf and they watched that while a few of us got some dessert.

Dad took Mom home, and Eaddie had Eli come over for some presents. Then they put on the Michael Jordan documentary series or whatever on the TV again. Noah finally showed up at some point and ate food and opened presents. I wasn’t terribly upset that he didn’t end up staying the night. Once everyone else left, the girls and I watched Red One together before bed. We all really enjoyed it for being so creative and unexpected.

I wrapped up the night by making some more turkey soup from the new bones we had. I was up pretty late waiting for it to cool down enough to refrigerate, but I was happy to be done with it right away instead of letting the bones sit for weeks.

Light up the street.