Noisy

We didn’t get up to much today. We lounged around the house for most of the morning until Summer made Autumn go to the gym with her. Eaddie came out and sorted all of her music she had shuffled in her room. I thought I might make it home, but never did.

The girls decided they wanted burgers for dinner, so Summer and Autumn brought back everything we needed. I cleaned up one of the kitchen cabinets a bit, but otherwise spent a lot of time spinning in circles. Eventually we had to start prepping dinner while Autumn took Eaddie to pick up a few things at the last minute.

Noah came over when he was done with work, and I shuffled burgers through a frying pan as quickly as I could. It wasn’t super satisfying, and none of the spatulas were rated for a hot pan, but we got it done. Then Eaddie put together half of a gingerbread house while Autumn and Noah started The Lord of the Rings. Of course Autumn fell asleep pretty early, and Noah finished it with Eaddie.

Summer went to bed and I finally just took a shower there. Then it was off to bed in spite of how loud all of the TVs were playing.

Too bad there’s no noise cancellation for what’s going on inside my head.

Mountain Mutt

I thought I was taking Eaddie to school this morning, but Summer snuck out with her instead and left me to sleep. I still didn’t sleep in too late, and got home to take a shower before Dad came over to take me up Petit Jean. Uncle Rick and Ginny were up there in the RV, and Dad wanted to visit and tinker with a radio. Uncle Rick warmed up some hot dogs over a fire and we took a break to eat, and then I wandered around the area with their little dog.

We had to get back down the mountain before too late, because the girls had been chomping at the bit to go to CiCi’s for Pi Day. As soon as I got back in to town, Summer had me pick up Eaddie from her band buddies meet at the middle school. Then we stopped by Superfast until Summer was ready to go, and the three of us met Autumn for pizza.

After we ate, I went home to clean up a little bit before making my way up to the girls. I got a couple pictures of the Montego so we could possibly sell it. Autumn finished mowing the lawn, and Summer was painting by number on the couch while watching Galaxy Quest. I watched an episode of After Life when that was done, and then everyone was off to bed.

It’s a little nice for a beater.

Blurritos and Tacos

Summer took both of the girls to two different events today. Eaddie had state robotics, and Autumn had solo and ensemble. I got up when she got back, but didn’t get into much of a rush for anything. Eventually she went to the gym and I ate a bean burrito, then headed home to clean up.

I ended up tinkering around the house a bit, but more in the fashion of getting continually sidetracked until it was time to leave. Summer picked up Autumn in the afternoon and got stuff for dinner. I made it back up to their house and started cooking. The prep work took the longest, and the Instant Pot did a great job of melding all of that together into some shredded chicken tacos.

The girls put on Moana and then The Incredibles, which I watched intermittently. We ate, but Eaddie missed out because she was at the tournament until pretty late. I eventually picked her up, and she was pretty excited about her day in spite of the fact that her team was the only one that didn’t qualify for worlds.

The girls shuffled off to bed pretty soon after we made it home. Eaddie wasn’t even hungry enough to eat anything, but that was okay. There’s plenty for tomorrow.

I’d feel a lot less guilty if I knew I were rich and could just do whatever I want.

Apply Yourself

I dropped the girls off at school again this morning, and then went straight home to work in the yard again. I was by myself this time, which was fine. It was a little cooler, since I started earlier in the morning. Unfortunately I still had trouble getting a good fire going, but I burned up a bunch more leaves and trampled some of the crispier plant stalks that were left standing. I may be able to mow some of it down tomorrow.

Once the fires burned out, I came inside to take a shower. Then I went by Taco John’s and took a late lunch to Summer at the wash. Autumn had been texting us both to try and come up with an alternative to getting back into a car with me, but when the time came, she got over it. I dropped her off at the wash, and then went to Walgreens to drop off the floormats that I needed to return.

Eaddie had a band buddies meet after school, so she got a ride there and then to Dairy Queen, where the FBLA kids were hosting a fund raiser. Desha spotted me, and then Dustin came around and got to hear my exciting story. Otherwise, the Diary Queen experience was pretty awful. The poor teen that was running the place was stressing over a downed computer system. Then the food was all cold and overcooked.

When we finally finished there, I went home to swap cars. Mom and Dad popped in for a moment since they were next door, but then I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. I finished filling out an application for what would essentially be my dad’s old job. Brody texted to basically tell me he was keeping a seat warm for me at Clarksville. If I have to go through the pains of learning a new job, I at least want a raise out of it.

I probably don’t have 43 more years in me though.

Blues and Browns

Summer was at the high school for Quiz Bowl all day long, so I spent the entire day by myself. I cleaned up some taco stuff in the fridge, and eventually Eaddie came home long enough to shower, but then she wanted me to take her to the high school to meet up with some robotics kids. She ended up running around with them the entire day, so I just went to my house and wallowed around.

Mom wanted to go out to eat tonight for my birthday, but Summer didn’t finish until after six. I met her at the gas station to fill up, and then we met my parents at Brown’s. I didn’t eat as much as I might’ve in the past, but by the time we got back home, I still felt miserable.

Summer went to bed, and Eaddie eventually showed up and talked about her day. Then we finished an episode of Breaking Bad before we went to bed as well.

Sure, just wine about it.

OptiMum

I woke the girls up late today, so I was pretty sure neither of them bathed. Eaddie might have the night before, but Autumn definitely looked like she’d slept on a park bench. I dropped them off in the rain, and then went home to hang out in the cold. It had stormed all night, and I sort of let that set my mood for the day. My biggest claim to fame was calling Optimum to lower Summer’s internet bill by more than half. The call itself was probably the most pleasant call I’ve ever had with a cable provider.

Eventually I had to get the girls from school, so I took the three boxes of textbooks with me and had Eaddie ask Ethan to let me in. I dropped off the books, we swapped cars, and then headed home. Eaddie and I started watching Breaking Bad, and Summer made it home in the middle of that.

Autumn left for her father’s, and I ended up leaving to go to my parents’ house for dinner. Uncle Rick was in town for the Hamfest, so we visited for a bit and ate curry. Afterward I took him for a ride in the Model 3, and eventually convinced him to drive it a few blocks home.

Julie ordered an Xbox for me with a Verizon half-off code, and it had arrived already. I took it home, and then went back up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie ended up going to Maristella’s to spend the night, and Summer was already in bed. She had Quiz Bowl in the morning, so I was content to call it an early night.

The whole point of those pages is to show off my personality, which should be considered an asset.

Out Came the Sun

I got to work this morning, and the maintenance crew had stuff laid out to tear up the ground around the basement. I thought I’d leave and work from the high school again, but since they weren’t actually doing anything in our office and most everything was dry, I ended up sticking around. I kept reasonably busy, and the time just flew by.

I took Gary, Zach, and Thomas to Wendy’s and tried some new chicken sandwich with a fried mozzarella patty and marinara, and wasn’t super impressed. I kind of just wished I had gotten a burger. Then it was back to the shop where I spent most of the afternoon putting together three pages worth of meeting minutes from Monday.

I ended the day at Crawford to try and clean up a few work orders, but only actually closed one before quitting time. I went to see Summer at Superfast, but then she sent me to Walmart to pick up pork chops, broccoli, and cauliflower. I went home briefly, and then met her at her house where we remembered that the girls actually had a quiz bowl night at Zaxby’s.

Dinner was good, but Summer kept getting irritated at anything I said. Easily the most frustrating part about our relationship is that she often seems incapable of accepting any form of constructive feedback. Eaddie eventually showed up, but disappeared into the bathroom after saying that Autumn would be later. She had to take Adam home, after evidently being gross in the Zaxby’s parking lot. Between that and the mysteriously leaky bottle of Fireball, we just want her gone.

Eaddie and I ended the night with two more episodes of Breaking Bad. The drama has gotten so heavy, but there’s still so far to go. I remember there being a lull at some point, but I don’t think it ever got bad.

F is for Frustration!

THE SYSTEM IS DOWN

Thomas messaged us about an hour before work this morning to let us know that there were district-wide reports of an internet outage. I walked in just a couple minutes after Ryan got there and said it was back up, but I could tell something wasn’t acting right. It became clear pretty quickly that things were very broken. I mostly just stayed out of the way, but I wanted to follow along with the troubleshooting process for my own learning. I ended up just doing my own thing in my office, but I was proud of myself for coming to the conclusion that it was likely a firewall issue. Evidently a patch from the manufacturer broke everything, and the guys spent nearly all day coming up with workarounds until we could get an answer from them.

I kept surprisingly busy for as broken as things were. Lunch time came around and Zach said that Thomas had ordered pizza, but he wasn’t sure if we were invited. I let the working crew eat first, and then came along and picked some up afterward since there was plenty to go around.

Near the end of the school day, I made it over to Crawford and saw Shavon for the first time in quite a while. Everyone I spoke to seemed overly positive, and it was too early for me to tell if it was just in the water, or if there really was something to it.

It had started to rain quite a bit, and that continued on after work. When I finally left, I stopped by Superfast to see Summer before getting Eaddie from robotics. Then the two of us went to my parents’ for some mango soup. After we ate, I took Eaddie back to my house while I ran next door to help Bác Vân with her phone. Bác Trân had texted me earlier in the day to say it was making noise at him, but we never did find anything wrong with it.

We made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and I tried to get to bed fairly early. Autumn came in late from a basketball game, but that was it for the night.

YSOBLUE

Today was Ryan’s first day back, so Zach and Gary were buzzing with that for most of the day. I spent the first part of the morning stressing over what I might rile up in our CPPC meeting, but when we finally met, I didn’t even have to do any talking on account of everyone else being so outspoken. The only one point of contention that I will simply never understand was that nobody seemed to think you should get a day of leave refunded if the school closes while you were out. That just made no sense to me at all. School was closed. How do they possibly justify that your leave still has to be docked.

That nearly got us to lunch, and a big group of us went to La Chiquita. That was a no-frills table full of fajitas, and a surprising amount of leftover cheese dip. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon fighting a software update deployment. I think I finally sorted it out, but I felt bad because I had completely missed it from a work order from several days ago.

At the end of the day, Zach went out to the front of the building with me to help replace a panel on the road sign. I had to call support and finagle some firewall settings, but we got it done without too much fuss. Then I headed home to change before going by Superfast to check on Summer. She was just about to head out, so I continued on to my parents’ house for dinner.

Mom made mango soup, so Dad got that warmed up for us. I didn’t stay for too long though, because the arts center was hosting a percussion ensemble concert that Summer wanted to see. I met all of them there, and a bunch of Eaddie’s friends came to sit with us while Autumn and Adam were off in the back somewhere. The concert was surprisingly long, with a surprising age range of students, but they did a good job.

I went home and discovered that my car charger had gotten loose enough that my car stopped charging last night. I fixed that and headed up to Summer’s for the evening, where everyone was pretty much heading straight to bed. Summer and I crunched some numbers and felt confident enough to cover a car payment, so she ordered a Model Y in the app, which I thought was a worse experience than doing it on the website. She didn’t even get a little hedgehog meme. Oh well.

Gotta act rich to be rich. First thing’s first: Make a bunch of money.

Charge Test

I got up and made breakfast this morning by frying up a bunch of leftover bits and pieces of things with some eggs. It turned out pretty good, and even Autumn seemed not to hate it. She surprised us with improved grades so as not to lose her car or privileges to see her boyfriend, so we were pretty pleased with that. Summer had plans to meet some girls from work in Conway, and Eaddie wanted to go shopping with me while Summer did that.

I headed home to clean up, but then Summer said her plans had to be postponed. Eaddie still wanted to shop, so I picked them up and let Summer drive the Model 3 to Conway to get a feel on the interstate. I brought along my mobile charger to see if I could charge from her front porch, and then I looked for a NEMA 14-50 plug at the Splash in Conway once we got there. Unfortunately there wasn’t one available, but we could at least slow charge on a regular outlet available outside.

From there, we went down the road to The Mighty Crab and got some crab, shrimp, and crawfish boiled. The food was good, but I left pretty hungry. The crab was problematic and frustrating to eat, but the food all tasted good. It made me want to host a seafood boil myself.

After we ate, we went shopping across town. We started at Kohl’s, where they were having a pretty good sale on clearance items. Then we walked down to Shoe Carnival and TJ Maxx before going across the street to Old Navy. We closed them down, and then made our way back across town to Las Delicias. I had a “bubble wrap,” which was basically an inverted waffle with ice cream. I ultimately wished I had gotten a regular cone, just because it was so bready. The waffle flavor just overpowered the ice cream, so I couldn’t really enjoy the flavors I picked.

I drove us home, I changed, and then Summer drove us home in the Montego. Going back to such a rickety vehicle after driving the Murano and then the Tesla, I think Summer finally agreed that it was time to put the Montego behind us.

Burnin’ Bills