Aweem Away

Summer never got her work stuff out of my trunk, so she asked me to drop it off for her on my way to work. I did that as quickly as I could, then picked up some spicy chicken biscuits from Hardee’s on the way out of town. It was a bit wet out, but I couldn’t tell that we really got any more rain the rest of the day.

I finally got into Brandon’s old Vimeo account to cancel the subscription he forgot to cancel. Then Charles and Matt were saved by my superior/existent network documentation. I had a fairly heavy anxiety attack at some point.

Dad said they should be able to finish the house tomorrow, so I got the okay to leave work early and then work remotely the next day. Summer was supposed to be off early too, but got stuck again. The guys were packing up just as I got home.

Mom said they still had spring rolls, and Julie and Kevin were coming over, so I took Muad’Dib over too. Dad suggested I take a dip in the super cold pool to try and wash off some of the dog before coming inside to eat, but I couldn’t stay in for long. Mom got everyone going and then disappeared to the back of the house, but we had a good visit otherwise.

After dinner, I took Muad’Dib on a surprisingly short and slow walk. I thought he’d run harder with the cooler weather, but he just wanted to lollygag. Summer was in bed, so she wouldn’t get up to inspect the ceiling work with me. I had some wine and crashed a couple hours early.

Seek differing opinions. The fact that they’re haters doesn’t make them wrong.

2 roll or not 2 roll

The clock ticked slowly today, but for no benefit. Summer had to go to work to troubleshoot an equipment outage, which took way longer than she expected. She was going to make breakfast, so I took over and made eggs with RO-TEL. She got home just in time to eat it hot, and Eaddie actually came out to join us after not enjoying her overnight oats.

We were all in limbo for much of the day. We thought we might visit with Diana, but that fell through because she didn’t feel well. Mom mentioned spring rolls yesterday, but we never heard from her. Eaddie had, for the third day, said she had Ceci’s birthday to attend. Eli came over for a while and they eventually left. Summer went to the gym for a while, and I ended up taking a bath because I didn’t feel great myself.

I reached out to my parents to figure out the plan, and discovered that Mom had broken out really badly, so she wanted to avoid us and the dog to see if that was the problem. After some back and forth with poor communication, Summer and I went over and ate on the porch outside with Dad.

There was a threat of some heavier rain, but we just saw sprinkles for a bit. Muad’Dib and I finished our run after dinner, and then settled in early. I did a bit of cleaning, so the girls beat me to bed.

Object Impermanence

Paper Thin

I didn’t sleep very late for how late I got to bed. Summer hit the gym and I started some laundry before getting showered for lunch with the family. Eaddie went to church and came back with Eli, and Muad’Dib and I rode the Onewheel over to my parents’ house while the other three followed behind.

We wanted to try the meat slicer I got for Mom, but Dad took the meat out to thaw, which made it more difficult. We juggled between different cuts of meat as some refroze and others came out of the freezer, but it eventually all got sliced. It seemed like the slicer worked really well for completely frozen meat.

The phở was really good, but Mom thought it was too salty. We all finished eating and I finished slicing all of the extra meat for more phở or spring rolls later. Summer took the kids home and I took Muad’Dib for a pretty short run since it was so warm out. We passed a house with two really surprisingly young kids trying to sell lemonade, but I didn’t have any cash.

I considered going back, but the sun was out and it was hot. I had to finish laundry anyway. Summer did her nails and worked for quite a while, so I just stuck to myself. The girls got hungry again after a while, and I had $10 of Papa Dough to burn, so I ordered a pizza and some cheese sticks, then went to pick it up with Muad’Dib.

He enjoyed the car ride, and then was a good boy and stood outside to wait for me while I got our pizza. Another customer came up and gave him some pets, so it was a worthwhile outing. We got home with the food, ate, and then Eaddie left. I tried spending some time with Summer, but she just put on another cooking competition show.

Understimulated

Big Yikes

Summer made us bacon, eggs, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits for breakfast before she went to the gym. We weren’t really sure when my parents would be ready to leave for Hot Springs, but it was earlier than either of us expected. We got cleaned up and ready to go just about the time they were ready to pick us up, and we were off.

We parked near the Malco and walked down the strip and back, stopping for a few pictures and a walkthrough of the Fordyce Bathhouse museum, and a couple other shops. We only made it about halfway down before turning back and landing at The Porterhouse for dinner.

We all ordered their off-menu specials, but the three of them had the fillet and shrimp, and I had the ribeye with mushroom, onion, and pepper gravy. It was good as always.

There was still time to kill before the show, so we made another loop before coming back to the theater. We arrived a little early, but eventually found our seats and watched a slightly different show than what we had seen previously.

Something seemed off with the pace of his speaking and it was really difficult to understand him, but it was also his last weekend before retirement. I went up on stage with Dad afterward to see him, but we didn’t get the same response of recognition that we had last time. There were a bunch of people hanging around afterward, so we headed on home.

Mom and Dad didn’t want to drive in the dark, so they had me drive slowly back up Highway 7. It was late, so Eaddie was actually asleep, and Summer went straight to bed.

Headstrong to take on anyone.

No One Artificially Increases Local Demand for, and Subsequently the Median Price of Eggs Like Gaston

I spoke up on our HubSpot call this morning, but for nothing other than to show I’ve been paying attention. I got another product line imported, or re-imported so that it would be better searchable.

Lunch time could have been anything without the dog, and I considered trying the local Chinese place, but ended up at Arby’s for a French Dip instead. Later, I had an anxiety attack in my office.

Dad had to spend his birthday babysitting our house because Summer couldn’t stay home as we had planned. They were done for the day by the time I got there though, so he was gone. It started to sprinkle a bit, so I took Muad’Dib for a run in case it would get any wetter.

Fortunately there wasn’t enough water on the ground to kick up onto my leg, so we had a good run while it felt really nice out. Then it was minimal cleanup while the girls caught up, and finally sleep.

Unbirthdays

We caught another, much larger rat overnight. Then, in a change of pace, Summer and I swapped roles this morning. She went to the gym while I did some work from home. I wanted to tinker with the server some more, and finally got everything wiped and the proper version of Windows Server installed. I also wanted to get Hyper-V running by the end of the day. Eaddie had a recital and some other stuff to do for school, so she was gone for the early afternoon.

Dad wanted to get pizza to celebrate his birthday early since just a few of us would be going to Hot Springs next weekend for Maxwell Blade’s final shows. We ran a little bit late, but I eventually rode Muad’Dib over on the Onewheel while the girls followed behind in the car. Julie and Kevin stayed home because they weren’t hungry and Kevin took a nap.

We ate, and then planned to go see Julie and Kevin. The girls had other things to do, so they went back to the house. I sent them off prematurely with my Onewheel though, because Julie wanted some time to take a shower first. I had Eaddie come back for me on her way out for the evening, and I took the time to dispose of the rat.

I took it back by my parents’ house first just to show off. Then I took it up to Washburn Park where I relelased the other one last night. This one was larger and seemed less afraid of me, because it would look around through the trap at me as my hands moved all around. It scurried off into the woods, and I continued across town to Julie’s house.

I just barely beat my parents there, and we sat and visited for a while. Kevin was mostly immobile, but seemed to be doing really well. Julie was doing well, but was exhausted from having to entertain others that wanted to check in on the both of them. I could relate, because for all the nice deeds, seldom does she have time to actually do the very basic household chores that need to be done. Sometimes some peace and quiet is gift enough.

We eventually left, and I made it to the house just before Eaddie got back. I cleaned up a bit, then tinkered with my server some more before having an anxiety attack and finally getting to bed.

Remoteception

No Fix

I got out of bed not knowing when the crew would show up to start repairs on our ceiling. I waited and waited, and eventually got an email from Adam that said he meant to respond yesterday that they would be a day behind because his father went to the emergency room. I considered going in to work, but just carried on at home instead.

When Summer got back to town, Eaddie, Muad’Dib, and I went to meet her at Cicis, though he had to wait in the car while we ate. Afterward we went back so I could continue working from home. Later in the afternoon and evening I cleaned up around the dining room and tried to move more smaller stuff out of the living room. We’re running out of room elsewhere because things have been moved and packed inefficiently.

Summer got back from work late and basically went straight to bed. Eaddie had left for a while butu came back while I was cleaning up.

No fix at all.

You’re All Inhale and No Exhale

We shared some Burger King hash browns on the way to work, but then I had to leave Muad’Dib in my office while I went to meet with a vendor and the operations guys about the sensors they want to install. I thought he’d never forgive me after how long it took us to walk to the two PLC cabinets. I started to get a little bit pushy because it seemed like Matt was talking in circles a bit, but hopefully we’ll have something in place by Friday.

We picked up a Subway sandwich for lunch and ate in the office because I thought it was supposed to be super hot outside, but it actually didn’t feel too bad for the couple minutes we were outside. The afternoon dragged on a bit, and then we ran to the house to start moving smaller things out of the living room, hoping that R&R Unlimited would actually show up to start repairs on the ceiling.

Summer got to the house shortly after we did, but wasn’t expecting the work. She took a long bath, then came out and helped to move and vacuum things as I pulled them out of the living room. It was hot and dirty, and no kind of fun. It got dark, but I took Muad’Dib out for a run, hoping that it had cooled down a bit. It actually felt worse without any wind.

We visited my parents, then made it back to put the dog to bed whiel I spiraled down myself.

False Hope 🌎☄️

Soda Pressed

I accidentally slept in much later than I wanted today, while Summer went to a 5k in Danville. I woke up just as she was almost home, and had to race to get ready for lunch at Ben’s. She got home and went to get stuff for guacamole, and made that while I gave Muad’Dib a bath. We finally got out of the house and headed to Conway, completely forgetting to bring any boxes, or even empty my trunk for what I would be bringing home.

We got there and it looked like the kids were mostly done eating. They had grilled chicken and zucchini with some chips, and we brought the guacamole and more chips, and some drinks. Lunch was pretty light and quick because we were panicked after Muad’Dib tried to mark his territory in the house after playing with their tiny dog, Maple.

After we ate, we headed upstairs to try and disassemble the soda gun, along with everything in the supply closet. It ended up being quite a bit more than I expected, between a water filter, a mini fridge with a hole cut in the side for cooling the lines, and just a bunch of syrup that basically went everywhere. We only had to cut a couple of lines by the end of it all, and syrup only got a little bit of everywhere. We borrowed a plastic tub to hold all of that stuff, and somehow managed to fit most all of it in the trunk. The mini fridge had to ride in the back seat with Muad’Dib.

We unloaded all of that stuff in the storage unit since we have almost no room at the house right now. Then I ended up ordering some Little Casesar’s after a while for dinner. The kids went to the Cyclone Extravaganza to hang out with some younger friends, and Summer went to bed. I piddled around for quite a while and eventually got there myself after having a brief anxiety attack.

What a sticky situation.

Burn It Up

I picked up a couple biscuits from Hardee’s on the way in, which held me over to a pretty late lunch. Muad’Dib and I went to Casey’s for a slush, and then Sonic just for a snack. We shared some pickle tots, and I burned my entire mouth on some Ched ‘R’ Peppers. The afternoon went by incredibly slowly in spite of how late I took my lunch break.

Eaddie had her first ATU band event at the train depot in the evening, so I picked up another slush on the way home, met Summer at the lube just briefly, and continued to the house to wait for her. The kids were there for a moment before leaving to get ready.

Summer got there and we stopped by Casey’s for a couple more slushes before going to the depot. The block was absolutely packed with people, and the band was huge, so there really wasn’t a good place to see everything. Summer sat with Eli’s parents briefly, but I had to walk around with Muad’Dib because he got too hot, and the band was too loud to be that close.

We wandered around for a while until they started, and then stood in the heat for most of the music. Muad’Dib and I left a little early to get the car going, and then we all went back to the house for the evening. Summer and I cleaned up the ribs because the kids finished the whole hog I had left. The night seemed to drag on, so I managed to get to bed a little earlier than I had expected.

incongruous