Tag: disappointment

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TwoDay

I got Hardee’s again this morning and had a chicken biscuit on the drive in, then saved the country steak biscuit for an early lunch. I spent all day in my office just familiarizing myself with things and trying to remember where to find it all. I’ve been in the Google ecosystem for so long that Microsoft tools are cluttered and overwhelming, and it doesn’t help that my laptop runs pretty slow. It seems to always be pretty quiet upstairs, though people will pass by occasionally. The office and hallway echo a lot, so I’m more self conscious about the sounds I make than anything else.

I still had to get my car insurance paperwork signed, so I tried going to a local agent who sold Progressive in the afternoon. She was only a little bit snotty about not being able to help me. I grabbed a little double bacon cheeseburger and some Takis fries from Wendy’s, and though the restaurant was super slow, the food was hot and fresh. The fries were actually better than I expected.

The last couple hours of the afternoon went by quietly, and the lady across the hall poked her head in to ask how late I was staying. Without being given actual working hours, I let her know I could walk out at any point. She had a key to lock up, and figured we were the last ones there, so we walked out together through a dark office downstairs.

I drove straight home to find Summer and Eaddie playing Guitar Hero in her room. Eli showed up just a moment later, and then I jumped in to play a song with Eaddie and Eli. Summer wanted to eat after that, but I had to take care of a bunch of Vine stuff. She was stressed by it at first, but ended up really liking the things I got for her.

We eventually made it to Morelos for a surprisingly cheap dinner date. All these restaurants offering discounts to pay with cash, and charging extra to pay by card, are making me consider my options. I still hate how dirty cash is though. I’d rather keep my wallet lighter and keep their checks on the books.

Eaddie had Maristella and about half a dozen of her siblings over, and they were all watching TV and playing in the living room when we got home. I received a response from FutureMotion earlier in the day that my Onewheel was in for repairs. They said the controller module was replaced under warranty, suggested I pay $125 to have them replace the tire because it was “significantly out of round,” they replaced a loose gasket inside the motor “as a courtesy” that was causing a clicking sound that I had never noticed, that the battery module was somehow out of spec and would have to be replaced for $700 because it was only covered for six months rather than the whole year. That seemed like a lot of money for a $2,950 board, but the kicker was that they wanted $80 shipping to send it back to me.

But look at me, all made-of-money and shit.

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Breaker Breaker 1-8

I got out early enough to stop at Hardee’s for a Frisco breakfast sandwich on the drive in to work. After driving all the way to North Little Rock yesterday, today felt like a breeze. Teisha wasn’t there yet, so Joel gave me a quick tour upstairs and showed me to my office. It took a little work to get into my laptop due to two-factor and unfamiliarity with their setup, but we eventually got it. I rearranged very lightly until Teisha came to get me and start my paperwork downstairs.

We worked on that for a bit, and then she gave me a tour of the downstairs. It will take me quite a while to familiarize myself with everyone there. When we got to the customer service office, they had a tiny, fluffy dog hanging out in there. I tried not to get too excited, but it would be neat to be able to bring Muad’Dib on occasion.

I finished the morning reading through training documentation, which mostly didn’t really apply to my role, but had to be done. Then I left around lunch time so I could get back to town for my hematologist follow-up. I stopped at Taco Bell in Morrilton to get something to eat on the drive, and ran into Francis as they drove through the drive-through. He stopped to chat, and then I got my order and hit the road.

I was worried about being late, but when I got to Genesis and started to check in, I noticed the clock said I was an hour early. My guess was that the laptop was in the wrong time zone, so I left an hour earlier than I needed to. Fortunately they were able to squeeze me in, and the doctor tried to get me on a lower regimen of iron and a return visit in six months. I suggested instead that I should just call it good and walk away. He seemed surprised, but then agreed that a follow up with my PCP would be good enough to monitor my status before deciding to proceed with any specialist treatment.

When I had just gotten into town, I passed Suzanne and called to see if she wanted to get together. After my appointment, I met her, Dawn, and her dog Elvis at Point Remove for beer and pizza. We chatted for a long while in a mostly empty taproom, and I avoided fussing about stolen valor with their fake service dog.

I went home after that, and Eaddie was in the shower. I discovered Muad’Dib had chewed up a bunch of stuff he had evidently pulled off of Summer’s dresser. I tried cleaning up a bit, and when Eaddie finally presented herself, I addressed the fact that I had disabled her Discover card after I found she had thrown away a bunch of good stuff, including a metal spoon from our silverware drawer. She walked back to her room, left out the pizza box that she didn’t finish, and then came back out to leave, saying she wished I had brought it up sooner. She was super upset, got choked up, and nearly started to cry, which I didn’t completely understand. My goal was to address it with her in a way that wasn’t demeaning or embarrassing in front of her friends the night before, so I really don’t know how I could have approached it any better.

Summer was home shortly after that, and we talked about it. That went fairly expectedly, and then I walked Muad’Dib around the block while she took a bath. He had been outside all day, so I gave him a bath when we got home. The girls talked at some point, and then we all talked together, and then they talked, and then Eaddie came to talk to me. She just wants us to split up, plain and simple. I don’t feel like I’ve been taken seriously as a disciplinarian, and at this point she’s already on her way to living her own life anyway. I’ve done what I can, and I don’t expect to make any sweeping changes on a weeknight after my first day at a new job. Maybe we’ll figure it out tomorrow.

So you’re just gonna like… trust me?

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Unvaluable

Eaddie accidentally locked Muad’Dib out on the wrong side of the baby gate last night, so at some point I woke up and he met me on the other side of the closed bedroom door. He slept well with me after that, and I was only a little bit disoriented when my alarm went off to get ready for work.

I stopped at McDonald’s in Atkins for a bagel and made it to work a little late, as planned. My desk had already been scavenged for parts, but I still had my docking station and a couple monitors. I got things set up, and then Randy immediately had me start imaging a couple of laptops for him. I had to fix the OS deployment in SCCM after they had changed some things, but I got everything working well enough.

I probably worked more today than I did the rest of the month. Randy also needed the web server fixed to host student photos, which was easy enough to do. My biggest concern was getting what I wanted copied over and brought home.

Kyle really wanted a Chinese buffet for lunch, so Randy drove us all the way up to Jacksonville since there didn’t appear to be a closer one. Maggie and her youngest, who had been hanging out with us in the office all day, met us there. It was called “New China” and looked very similar to the one in Russellville, but I think they had a better variety of foods. I really liked it. The only big disappointments were the thinness of the egg drop soup and the temperature of the fried fish.

I cut the afternoon short because I had to get across the river to have my blood drawn before my follow up appointment tomorrow. When I got to Genesis, they seemed confused that anyone would tell me to just walk in and have blood drawn, but they got it done after a short wait. I continued toward home after that, through a little bit of rain, and decided to stop at Bitec to confirm my start time and whether I needed to bring anything else with me for my first day. Joel appeared to be the only one there, and suggested that I might bring my two forms of ID just in case any paperwork wasn’t completed.

Summer was making cupcakes when I got home, and Eaddie was preparing to have some friends over for an evening of Guitar Hero. They had me order some Domino’s at a near-extortionary price, which I then went to retrieve with Muad’Dib, because he really wanted an adventure.

Eaddie had one or two new faces over, along with a couple other familiars. They stayed in her room to play while Summer finished the cupcakes. Earlier in the day I suggested that she might just make sure to have some free time to spend with me, but it ended up being a really rough night of aggravation and confirmation of misalignment.

I took out some trash and discovered a nearly-full dumpster. Eaddie had thrown away a bunch of stuff when she cleaned out her room, and an unsurprising amount of that stuff was perfectly good to keep, sell, donate, or reuse. Much of it was brand new, and several were types of things we had recently purchased more of because we didn’t know we had any. I pulled out a small box full of stuff before I became frustrated enough with the constant swarm of flies and mosquitos, and came back inside. I cleaned up a couple of messes that were left behind, fixed some things that were done poorly or outright incorrectly, completed some abandoned laundry, and finally sped through my “me time” before going to bed.

Just because they’re intrusive doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

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The Flamboyance

Summer disappeared this morning to run some errands, and Muad’Dib finally got up from between my legs, freeing me from my splayed prison in the night. He crawled up beside me, then pushed himself into me to be the little spoon, so I had no choice but to lie with him a little longer before getting up. It was his birthday, after all.

When Summer got home, she had already picked up most everything she needed to throw Eaddie’s pool party. She had a little bit of prepwork to do, but all I really did was pull out the collection of flamingo gifts and take a shower. Eaddie got up and left for something, so we just got everything ready.

Summer had to leave for some new wrapping paper, and she left all the food on the floor, so Muad’Dib helped himself to a bag of hamburger buns, then hid what remained of it in his little spot by the fireplace. By this point, I couldn’t do anything but roll my eyes. For some reason, she also bought huge Ball Park buns to go with the cheap, shrinking, frozen burger patties, and somehow that was the more upsetting part.

We eventually got everything to my parents’ house, and we started blowing up balloons for a big flamingo arch. Neither of us had ever done that before, so we didn’t really know what we were up against. There were a ton of balloons, and our air pumps were woefully underpowered. Dad pulled out an electric pump for inflatables, but it didn’t push out enough pressure. I ended up blowing up many of them by mouth, but I was so hot and sweaty by that point that I didn’t really ever hyperventilate.

Once the balloons were inflated, she went outside to set up and I assembled the arch. It came with a neat little plastic strip that hooked onto the knots, and I just went down the line filling in the best I could. I had a giant one blow up, and a couple others fall off, but we eventually got it mostly done and carried it outside. That was when the fireworks really started.

I don’t know if it was just the heat, or shifting of the things in the wind or against other objects, but balloons started randomly popping loudly enough that it scared Muad’Dib. He pretty immediately ran away, and nobody seemed concerned enough to chase after him. At one point he actually ran out the fence and started running toward home. Luckily Eaddie and Eli saw him on their way over, and stopped to pick him up.

From that point on, he stayed mostly in the cabana. It was hot anyway, so he didn’t have a great time. We took a dip in the pool, I had to run home for a couple things. I took Muad’Dib with me because he really wanted to go. He just stood at the car door and waited to be let in. We got our stuff and headed back as others showed up.

I had to restart the charcoal at some point, but eventually got things going. I was getting smoked out, but people were also crowding me at the grill, and I couldn’t get out of it. My eyes burned on top of the sweat that was already irritating me. Julie and Kevin took over the grill after that.

Overall the party was a success. The kids seemed to have an okay time, though things did seem less centered around them due to the limit on outside friends that could be invited. We all ate, Eaddie opened presents, we had mushy milk cake, and then people filtered out. Summer, Dad, and I cleaned up, popped all of the balloons we spent so long filling, and eventually got loaded up to go home. Just as we were about to leave, Mom decided she wanted some hamburgers and I had to partially unpack the trunk to get food for her.

We finally made it home where Eaddie and Eli were hanging out. They had plans to leave for the evening, but I had one giant, stuffed flamingo left to gift her that we had forgotten at home. Once they left, I made Summer and myself a couple drinks and thought we’d get to sit down for a moment, but then I realized how late it was. I left her on the couch and went to wrap up my own chores, but apparently I wasn’t vocal enough about it and she got her feelings hurt.

She went to bed, I did my thing, and then it was off to bed.

Flocking fabulous.

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All of This Has Happened Before

Summer left this morning for a local race. She said she was going to take Muad’Dib, but she didn’t. I got out of bed a little later, seemingly stuck in a time loop.

When she got back from winning first in her age division, she woke Eaddie up and they eventually went to get the stuff to bake the birthday cake for the party tomorrow. I cleaned up in the kitchen so Summer would have room to work.

My head has been spinning out, and I just felt incapacitated for much of the day. I kept telling myself you have to break things apart to make them better, but sometimes it feels like we’re building it up to break it back down.

Eaddie was in and out of her room all day on her (now) multi-week project of cleaning out her room. Summer was in the kitchen for quite a while making pigs in a blanket and cake.

I learned that Sharon, the recently-retired music teacher from Oakland, had passed, and it tore me to shreds. I was touched by all of the social media posts about her. I had a few of my own unexpectedly deep and meaningful conversations with her in the music room. She was such an incredibly rare, kind, and loving person to have known even for the short time that I passed through that campus, and it broke my heart to hear of her untimely passing.

I had a long shower and tried to pick up around the house a bit more. I heated up some wings for myself and then for the girls in the air fryer, and that worked a treat. It was a light day for meals. Summer had a bath, and we watched all of the available episodes of Ironheart on Disney+. She went to bed, and every time I looked up, another hour ticked by.

All of this will happen again.

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wasted space

I slept hard with hard dreams. Summer went to work in Conway after cancelling her oncology appointment. Eaddie left to meet with her advisor and make her class schedule. I managed to get out of bed and make a bologna sandwich to eat over the sink.

It was quiet all day, so I finished my new hire paperwork and then did my best to motivate myself to clean. The kids eventually came back, and Eaddie started some laundry while they watched TV. I climbed around and scrubbed some difficult spots in the shower. Summer had a relatively short day, so we planned to meet at Cici’s for an early dinner.

The kids and I met her there after she finished at the gym. While we were eating, I spotted Josh as he came in to meet his wife and kids. We had a laugh about him still not having his house finished. Then Eaddie rode home with Summer, and Eli and I took the fast car home.

I tried to take Muad’Dib out for a run later in the evening, but the Onewheel appeared dead. I couldn’t get any lights out of it. We came back in and I had a pretty heavy anxiety attack while vacuuming his fur. It was a short night after that.

☀️—————————🌎󠀠󠀠————————🌘————————-☄️

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Back to the House

I decided to take this morning super easy because none of the breakout sessions have been revelations. I got everything packed up and checked out just in time to get a car wash and make it to the Junior Academy just in time for a late lunch. I found Ben, who had already eaten, and sat down for some catfish and chicken strips. It was pretty good for HSTI.

I went to the Q&A session with DIS, then waited for door prizes. Randy and Kyle were gone by the time I left the hotel, so when they called Kyle’s name for an Igloo cooler, I volunteered to take it to him. I got out, had another car wash, then stopped at Sam’s Club to get some booze for Summer.

The drive home was a pretty good mix. I stopped to get some spring water, then let FSD take me through Hot Springs Village. Once I hit the twisties, I started passing cars and doubling the speed limit. I got stuck behind a couple of slow people for a short while, but overall I was able to pass easily.

Julie called about weekend funeral plans, and I had to stop at McDonald’s for a restroom break in Dardanelle. I eventually made it to the house, unloaded, greeted Muad’Dib, and then found Summer once she was out of the shower. I barely had enough time to unpack before we had to load up and go to Witherspoon for Eaddie’s band camp concert.

Summer wanted to watch all of the bands, so we sat through two shows before Eaddie got on stage. They did well, and then we went back to the house where Summer went straight to bed. I unboxed all of the Vine stuff that came in while I was away, and then went to bed myself.

But home is where the heart is, so your real home’s in your chest.

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Greatest HSTI Album

I had so much trouble getting to sleep last night. I had to go outside a couple of times to drain the basement because the water was nearly up to the door. I even had to turn the pump on again this morning because it was full again. I got up with my normal work alarm and got out the door without too much trouble. I stopped at Burger King for a croissant, and then hit Highway 7 like a madman.

The roads were completely wet, but I didn’t encounter much rain. It wasn’t enough to make anything particularly dangerous, and it was fun to triple the suggested speed warnings and get white knuckled on the way to Hot Springs again like I used to do in the olden days. I carved off nearly half an hour of the estimated drive, and got to experience a newer highway that I hadn’t been on before once I got closer to town.

There weren’t a ton of people there when I arrived, and that was because the first class didn’t actually start until nine. I worked so hard to get there at 7:30, and I could have really used the extra hour of sleep. Randy, Jim, and Kyle eventually showed up for a little bit of breakfast before we split into our different rooms.

My network security class was mostly stuff I had actually just done this year in North Little Rock, but they didn’t tell us that in the course description. I breezed through the morning, then had cold, boxed burgers with the guys, and then had a short afternoon wrapping things up.

I got to the hotel early, but it took about half an hour for the old, seemingly clueless lady behind the counter to process the three people in front of me. I did get checked in and up to the room to rest for a bit though. Jim was humorously the last one out of class, and then I met Randy, Kyle, and Jay downstairs. Jay drove out just to visit us for some shooting and dinner. We drove forever to get to a shooting range in the mountains. There was one other guy there with some high-powered stuff, and they took turns blowing chunks out of the mountainside.

I borrowed Summer’s gun and shot a few rounds. Then Jay let me shoot his pistol and I blew several holes into a coffee can before it flew off its post. I was pretty proud of those shots. Summer’s gun was super small, so it was much harder to hold onto. The guys had their fill, and then we headed back to town to have dinner at Back Porch Grill.

It was a pretty quiet night there. I split a special with Randy, but our steak was super bland. It was cooked well, and was obviously a pretty decent cut of meat, but it just didn’t have enough seasoning. The lobster and shrimp were okay, but I think the scallops were my favorite. After we ate, Randy, Kyle, and I thought we’d go to A&W, but they were closed. My second suggestion, Kringles and Kones, was closed permanently. That took us to a whiskey tasting at Hotel Hot Springs with ProMAS. I had a bunch of banana “moonshine” that had been mixed with coconut syrup and orange juice, and it was delicious. We sat and the guys talked for a while, and then it was back to the room.

I spent most of my night alone writing Vine reviews to get my ratio up over 90%. I’m still not quite there, so hopefully they’ll get approved quickly as I finish them up tomorrow.

Whatever you do, don’t touch the water.

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Pack Rat

I heard something making a racket in the kitchen this morning, and after sneaking around a bit, I discovered a small rat in the dog food bag. After that many failed attempts to get out, I thought I might be able to grab the bag and move it outside, but of course as soon as I approached, it was able to leap out without a care in the world. It scurried under the kitchen table, so it might as well be gone forever. I set a live trap with all of my remaining hopes and dreams, and a bit of peanut butter, and got ready for work.

I was running a bit late, but Maggie and the two old men were the only ones there. Nobody asked anything of me, so I quietly stared at FortiAuthenticator documentation for the entire day. I had an anxiety attack at some point, but otherwise it was uneventful. We’re officially on four ten-hour days, but that actually worked out to about nine and a half. I left briefly for some McDonald’s since nobody else wanted to do lunch.

While I was at work, I saw Summer shuttling back and forth between the house and Added Space Storage. I guess she figured that was an easy midway point between both houses. I couldn’t tell what she was moving, because none of the large, obvious things were moved out of the house. She didn’t respond to my text, so I made it home for the surprise.

The laundry room had been cleared out, which seemed like an unimportant space to me. I changed clothes and started to take Muad’Dib out for a run, but Summer asked me to sit with her. I sat in the floor and pet the dog while she finished her episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Then we left for our run. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I needed something different, so we rode to Ridgewood Brothers to see what they had cooking.

Wouldn’t you know it was burger day, so I had another hamburger. I’m sure that it was better than my Double Quarter Pounder Delux, but I was buzzing too hard to really tell. They gave me some scrap pulled pork for Muad’Dib too, so he climbed up to sit at the picnic table with me and we had dinner together.

After dinner, we stopped in to see my parents. Dad had come over to help Summer find the dead rat in the house, which was different than the live rat I found in the morning. Summer had candles burning to cover up the smell, but I hadn’t smelled it when I left in the morning anyway. I’m sure it was a nasty discovery though.

We made it home and I took out the recycling and trash before wrapping up for the night.

I’ve got doodles I’d undo.

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On Second Thought

If I had known we would all end up at the high school, I would have gone straight there in the morning. Instead, we sat around the office for about an hour and then all individually drove over to help Jim move all of his Chromebooks from the library to a holding room. We expected rain, so we couldn’t take them to the shop like we originally planned.

After a bit of sorting and looking for damage, we were done and sitting around. Jim started imaging more of his laptops while everyone else left, so I just sat in the library and worked on the FortiAuthenticator stuff until lunch time. While we were waiting to go, Cheri called with an offer from Tesla. Then Teisha called with an offer from Bitec.

We thought we had a group for lunch since we waited for Kyle, but it ended up just being Jim and myself. He drove us to Mr. Cajun’s Kitchen and I tried their blackened catfish over red beans and rice. I thought it was way too expensive, but it tasted good. After that, I just stayed in the library until quitting time.

The drive home was a bit anxious. I stopped in Blackwell and again in Atkins for a slush since the Casey’s in town always seems to turn their slushy machine off when they have a free deal day. Summer was having a bath when I got home, but then she had to go to Morrilton to check on a truck that was leaking oil after service. I rode with her while the kids took Muad’Dib to the art walk downtown.

Summer was able to tighten the drain plug without any trouble, and we made it back home for some light leftovers. She did some work and we eventually wound down kind of late, considering she had a Conquer the Gauntlet race in the morning in Springfield, Missouri. I may have caught something from handling all the Chromebooks, because I felt a sinus infection creeping in all evening.

I thought by now, you would understand sonder!