Tag: disappointment

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Rollin’ in the Deep

Muad’Dib slept well with us last night, and I think Eaddie even let him into her room for a bit. More than once, I lied quietly awake while he and Summer snored. When morning came, she got up and made what amounted to a pot of bacon-fried rice and eggs. I wished she had just done what I told her and used Ro-tel, so it would have been a little lighter than what she made by toasting sesame seeds and onions in sesame oil in addition to the existing bacon grease.

Eaddie left pretty early to spend the day in Maumelle with Eli’s family. Summer went to work and then to the gym for a while. I cleaned up a bit at home before Summer got back and finished her cake. Then we gave Muad’Dib another bath, hoping I could take him to my parents’ house with less protest.

He took his bath reasonably well, but it’s proven nearly impossible to stop him from shaking water everywhere once he gets out of the tub. I took him outside to blow-brush dry, and then I brought him inside to vacuum out some more hair.

As the evening approached, Summer thought we could walk him between the raindrops. I wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t rain harder, so I let her walk him to my parents’ house, and I drove the cake over. Just after I got there, she said she needed a poop bag, so I dropped off the cake and went back to scoop the poop, It wasn’t until I got back to my parents’ house that I realized the cake leaked fruit goop all over her passenger seat. There was a pool of it all along the rear seam of the seat, and all I could do was hope that it didn’t seep further into the cushion.

Mom refused to let Muad’Dib in the house, so we let him sit out back while we ate rolls. Afterward, we had Summer’s incredibly dense cake, and her decision not to use powdered sugar in the buttercream icing made it crunchy in a bad way.

We drove home for the evening and I finally got Muad’Dib to eat some of his own food that he’d been turning his nose up all weekend. The kids got home late and hung out for a while, and I tried to go to bed early.

Stability in Misery

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Double Dog Dare

Summer texted when I got to work that Muad’Dib walked over the fallen fence to play with Nova nextdoor. The neighbor called someone to come quote a repair, but he was cool with the dogs playing together, and Summer said they were having a great time, so I didn’t sweat it. Then Johnny called and said Bitec had an “urgent” listing for the job I had previously interviewed for, so I replied back to an old email and then did a quick refresh on my résumé before applying through Indeed.

The rest of the morning was spent going through DNS again in preparation for turning on scavenging in the afternoon. Otherwise it was pretty quiet. Howard bought us pizza for a vendor call, and we sat through a presentation by Decept10 before the U.S. Pizza Co. arrived. I had another anxiety attack at some point, and then the rest of the afternoon was relatively lazy and short.

Randy said we could leave just a hair early for our three-day weekend, so I headed out and grabbed a bottle of rum in Morrilton. I opened a bunch of packages from Vine when I got home before Summer. She didn’t feel well when she got there, so she took a bath while I ran Muad’Dib. We took an extended run to Ridgewood where we met a new girl named Cindy who talked to me for a bit about riding her Onewheel on trails. Then we continued to Casey’s to try for a slush, but the machine was out. On the way out, a kid that had asked to pet Muad’Dib asked if he could try the board, so I helped him out. Then we rode back across town.

Dad met us in the road, and then I went in to eat some roast beef while he played with Muad’Dib. Then we got home just after dark. The kids had left for something, and Summer was laying on the couch half dead. I put her to bed, and quickly wound down.

I hate this so much.

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Nothing’s Permanent

I had a pretty lucid morning. I dug into DNS records and made note of anything that looked important that wasn’t set statically. It sounded like some of the others were helping Jim at the high school, but nobody said anything to me about it, so I just sat in the office with Jimmy all day, except for a trip to Taco Bell for a quick and cheap lunch.

The afternoon twitches showed up right on time, I had an anxiety attack, and I just got more and more tense as I made it home through slow traffic. I felt like every muscle in my body was just slowly bound.

Noah and Eli were over and Summer was making dinner. Chicken bits pan fried in some random bottle of sauce she bought, Brussels sprouts that were overspiced enough that Eli nearly choked out, and mashed sweet potato. Exactly what I envisioned.

After dinner, I took Muad’Dib out for a run and we did our best to dodge other dog walkers. The couple of dogs we couldn’t avoid weren’t too much trouble, so it was a good run. We visited Dad for some brushing, then got home and wound down.

That goes doubly for DNS records.

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Orbital Anomalies

I thought I’d go for a change and stop at McDonald’s in Atkins this morning, and I had a much better experience than I expected. It was a bright, anxious ride in to work just to learn that Randy was leaving at lunch. I got LAPS working on my test devices, but then struggled to choose a battle for the rest of the day.

Since I was on my own again, I just went to McDonald’s for a late lunch date with a Big Mac. It felt fittingly depressive, and then I sipped on my punch all afternoon. When I got back to the office, everyone was standing outside due to an evacuation alarm. The fire department showed up and gave the all-clear, but we never did figure out what triggered it in the first place.

I ended up working just a little bit late since I would be meeting Mitch for dinner. He said he had some extra crew in town that was going to grill at the hotel, so I figured I could grab some steaks on the way over. I stopped to charge for a few minutes outside the Baptist Health building, but it ran even slower than a regular outlet. I finally went to Walmart and picked up a couple T-bones, some chips and dips, and a couple ears of corn, and went to Mitch’s hotel to wait for him.

They ended up having outlets on the outside of the building, so I charged faster there than I did at the Baptist Health chargers. Mitch showed up, went to change, then came back down and sat in my car. Evidently he changed his mind and wanted to go out, but I misread the message and bought food. We changed plans back to grill, but then he wasn’t sure when the other guys were cooking.

We ran to a gas station so he could get some beer, then went up to his room for a bit. We talked for quite a while, and I never realized he dated Rachel seriously way back in the day. He said they broke up and she turned right around and married Jacob, who later divorced and married Sarah. It felt like the layers of the Matrix were being pulled back before my eyes. It’s all a construct.

We had finally given up on cooking and I was just going to let him keep the food and go out instead, but as soon as we pulled into the Cactus Jack’s parking lot, he got a text that they were ready to grill and we headed back again. One of the other guys had the grill going, so we let him take care of the steaks. They actually turned out perfect in spite of the trouble he had with the wind blowing out the propane. It was a decent time, though Mitch had Alyssa over and it ended up being the three of us eating alone.

I got home quickly after that, stopping in Conway to charge for just a couple minutes. I couldn’t handle much more of this tiny universe. These bodies orbit much too closely.

I have Trusty Shoes

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Block Game

I was spinning pretty hard after last night, but I got out of the house and made it to work. I thought I might grab some McDonald’s for breakfast, but ended up munching on a bag of regular Cheerios instead. It was a quiet day, but I managed to fix audio drivers for Jim between getting pulled back and forth to a few other tasks. I went to McDonald’s and had lunch by myself, then fought some anxiety the rest of the afternoon. I had an attack as well, sometime in the afternoon I think.

It barely sprinkled on the way home, but it was clear enough that I could wait until later in the evening to run Muad’Dib. It was nice and cool out, so he ran pretty well. I missed a good photo opportunity when he chased some geese into the flooded pond. We visited Dad for a brush, then got home just after Summer. It was a short night after that.

An ominous landscape of never-ending calamity.

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The C-Words

Randy texted on my way in that he would be a couple hours late after last night’s board meeting. Jimmy and I were basically the only two around all day, except for a brief appearance by Jay. Several others were out, but things were still bound to get exciting.

Anita knocked on the door a couple times after Maggie’s and Randy’s phones rang. Sonya in HR was trying to reach us, and was upset that we weren’t at her whim. Anita asked me to call her, and I wished I had recorded the conversation, because she immediately became snotty with me. I killed her with kindness, but just like last time, she hung up on me and basically said somebody was on their way to resolve the issue in person.

Not long after that, Randy did show up with Jacob, and I relayed the story in an emailed record of conversation. I got the feeling that Jacob was over her shenanigans as well. After that, things got super quiet again for the rest of the day. Summer called in the early afternoon to say that her biopsy results came back positive for ductal carcinoma, which sounded like the best case scenario for the threat of cancer. I reassured her the best I could, but she was obviously bothered.

I took a late lunch and ran through Rally’s for a pretty good Super Loaded Buford. The fries were hot and fresh enough to melt away my worries for the amount of time it took me to scarf them down. Randy was somewhere else for most of the afternoon, but came back in time to see that we didn’t leave at three.

When we did leave, I headed across town to check if the Target in West Little Rock had a Samsung The Frame TV on clearance. They did actually have one in stock, but it was still priced more than twice what I was willing to pay, so I had to walk away. While I was there, I guess I got hot on top of being a bit amped up, because my heart rate skyrocketed and I started to get a bit dizzy again. I chewed a fragment of a clonidine I had in my pocket, and it either helped or I just managed to calm myself down enough that it didn’t become an issue.

I headed back across town to Franklin’s Charging to get some juice before Mitch finished with work. As I pulled in, a guy asked me to slide over into another spot to try a different charger. He ended up being the owner, by the name of Jeff. He talked to me for the entirety of my visit, and seemed a proper EV nerd. As we were chatting, another guy pulled up next to me to charge his F150 Lightning. He was John, from AEV Solar, and the two of them continued the conversation as I mostly leaned back and listened. It was neat to hear a bit of Jeff’s journey in growing his business.

I eventually made it to Mitch’s hotel and waited for him to finish uploading some photos from the workday. Then by chance we were able to meet Blake and his friend Alyssa at Southern Tail, where we initially took drinks out to a picnic table at the edge of the property, but later found a table at the patio. We had a good time catching up, but it was definitely more rowdy than last time. We left as it just started to get dark, and I made my way home to the girls.

It rained a bit on the drive, but it was otherwise uneventful. The girls were chatting in the bedroom, so I laid with them for a bit before Eaddie went back to her room, and then it was a quick wind down to bed.

I’d like to say that it’s been real, but it’s been fake as hell.

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Eat Glass

I hardly slept a wink last night from tossing and turning. Any time I did manage to fall asleep for a few minutes, I’d wake up again from strange dreams. I somehow managed to get to Little Rock early enough that I decided to stop at McDonald’s for a McMuffin, and it was downhill from there. The guys socialized on the other side of the wall while I tried to catch up on emails, but when Jim finally got going at the high school, he reported that imaging was still broken, or possibly broken again after whatever Randy did last week.

I fought that all day, only taking a break to pick up some Buffalo Wild Wings to split with Maggie. That was a bit of a drive out, but it was one of the better deals and cheaper ways to eat for sure. I learned that you could have your fries tossed in whatever dry rub you like, but somewhere along the way I picked up a shard of glass that turned to grit when I bit into it. I was able to fish out a larger piece and spit out the rest, and after a phone call, I emailed a picture to the manager.

The end of the day arrived, again without resolution. I started to get a bit twitchy, but made it home to sit on the porch with Summer for a bit. Then I took Muad’Dib out for a run and came home to finish up the leftover pork chop from the other day, since the kids ate the two steaks we had from yesterday. Summer cleaned up, and then we sat on the couch and watched another stand-up special before bed.

Shudder to Think

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Run Like Yell

We got up early for Summer’s run in Dardanelle this morning. We wanted to take Muad’Dib, but Summer wasn’t very proactive when we were trying to load things up to go, so I ended up forgetting my OneWheel. We got downtown and I started to just hang out with her, but I decided I’d try to run home and get it quickly so I could be back in time to watch the race. Unfortunately I got back over the bridge just in time to be stuck in traffic as they closed the road. I had no idea they would be running the race in that direction.

Once I got back downtown, I took Muad’Dib from Brian and a bunch of kids who had been babysitting him. Evidently Summer told them his name was Paul, because when I called him back to me, Brian said something along the lines of, “ah, now ‘Paul’ makes sense.” We raced after the runners and I felt really bad for being so late. We did encounter Summer after she was already on her way back from the turnaround, but we kept going. Most everyone seemed excited to see us, but I think I did get some glares, and one lady made the comment that I shouldn’t be doing that during a race.

On the way back, the same lady made another comment, and then immediately after that, Muad’Dib went rogue and brushed up against the back of another lady’s legs, who freaked out while she was running at full speed. I ended up moving to the next block to get back downtown, since I didn’t want any more grief or to cause any more trouble. I guess next time we’ll just bum around in other areas.

Summer finished the race before we made it back, and then I took Muad’Dib down to the river to try and clean up from the mud puddle he used to cool down. Summer made third in her age division, so she got another little pin, and then we headed home.

We had plans to go out for breakfast, but Summer didn’t feel well and had to soak in the tub for a while. Once she made it out, we ended up going to New China for lunch instead. Then we came home and started to doze off on the couch for a while. I woke up gasping for air multiple times, but didn’t make myself get up until much later, which hurt a bit.

Summer wanted to go to the Tech graduation for some of her employees, so I ran Muad’Dib over to my parents’ house to see if Mom wanted me to grill steaks for Mother’s Day. Then Summer and I went to graduation while Eaddie and Eli went out for cap and gown pictures with Dad. Summer got lots of pictures, and then we found the graduates outside once they were done.

The drive home was a little tense because for some reason Summer didn’t expect that I’d still be having a pretty hard time in general. She pouted, but I pushed through a trip to the Neighborhood Market anyway, to get everything we needed for grilling. The kids were watching TV when we got home, so we went to the bedroom and watched Neal Brennan: Crazy Good, a stand-up special until she crashed from her long day.

Normally I prefer my cookies to be a little less ambiguous.

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Irreason

My days are creeping back and I’m arriving at work just a little bit earlier every day. I did fairly well in the morning, and finally started tinkering with TFTP block and window sizes to troubleshoot my slow boot image issue at the office. Wouldn’t you know, I fixed it on my first try. I was able to test multiple iterations of my task sequence the rest of the day.

Maggie and I rode with Randy to Gadwall’s for lunch, and I had some fairly disappointing nachos. I did like the cheese dip though. I think Maggie said it was Mexico Chiquito, but then she also said that was another restaurant, but I thought it tasted a bit like Stoby’s.

I slowly lost myself in the afternoon. I got home and ran Muad’Dib to Walgreens to pick up my escitalopram while Summer finished making a pork chop dinner. He did great on the run, and after dropping my meds off at home, we ran an abridged version of our normal route to see Dad. Eaddie was home and we ate when we got back to the house. Then we all had to go to the high school arena for the band awards.

The awards took a while, because they read off every single activity in which each senior participated. Eli had a super long list. Eaddie’s was long, but not long enough to beat his. She did get one of the three big awards at the end though, which was exciting for her. Eaddie stayed out, so Summer and I went to wash my car and then headed home to go to bed.

happy birthday

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Are You Sidereus?!

I slept in a little bit today after a fairly long, rough day yesterday. Time had lost most of its meaning anyway. Summer was having coffee in the living room, and I think Eaddie went to school at least for a little while. Shawna actually responded back to my checking in on her lack of checking in. I said my peace, which went predictably about the same that it did fourteen years ago. At least it provided a bit of closure so I could keep my eyes forward.

Summer went to work for a while, and I took a shower and then put on some music while I assembled a metal locker I got from Vine for our dog accessories. Later in the afternoon, Summer met me at the Genesis Blood and Cancer Institute when she finished her workout. I had to pay a bunch more money (big surprise!) for reasons that could not be explained (when are we expecting America be great again?), and then we sat in the waiting room for nearly an hour before going back for vitals and then a chat with an eerily chipper Dr. Chen.

He entered the room with a cheery, “Hey buddy!” that had me dreading the worst news. It must be incredibly deflating to deal with a terminal as a profession, but he had good news. I now had too much iron. He dropped my supplements, and then suggested an SSRI for my anxiety attacks. I was leery of too much tinkering, but I’m no science-denier. We’ll try it his way.

We headed home, but it was too rainy to run Muad’Dib. Summer took a bath, and then we went out to Check H for dinner. We watched a Ricky Gervais Netflix special when we got home, then started for bed. Eaddie called late because she had lost the keys to the Murano and was stuck at the high school. I actually had a bit of dialog with Shawna to wrap up the night, and wrap up whatever the fuck happened there.

Hopefully we all learned a little about each other, and a lot about ourselves.

🚩 Took me 20 minutes lol 🚩