Tag: family

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Frustration = Family

Mitch messaged me just as I climbed into bed last night, so I stayed up until about two in the morning catching up with him. I awoke several hours later and tried to climb out of bed, but had a long-lasting charley horse in my left thigh. I got around for a bit and then watched a couple more episodes of Ms. Marvel, leaving the finale for another day.

I showered and picked Summer up at her house as soon as she got back from Conway, and then we went to Clarksville to meet with Autumn’s therapist. He was a few minutes late arriving back to work, and then left us in the lobby for several more minutes, so we didn’t get back to him until about 15 minutes into our session.

I don’t think either of us had the right expectation for the meeting, and it seemed much more like a touching base than anything else. We certainly didn’t feel like we learned anything, but hopefully our sharing gave him some insight. He showed us a printout on Choice Theory with the Seven Deadly/Caring Habits, and at the bottom was a pixelated clipart picture of a balance scale. I told him that Summer basically nailed all of the caring habits, which meant I had to balance the scales by enforcing all of the deadly habits. I think he saw the irony, but he laughed and told Summer to get me outta there.

I hadn’t eaten all day and made the assumption that we might eat out of town, but instead we had to get home to cook dinner. It was still a little early, so I fought my hangry urges and talked her into running through Walmart with me to look for any deals, and also pick up the peppers we needed for dinner. Unfortunately they didn’t have anything good, but I did finally remember to get Eaddie’s lava lamp bulb.

When we got home, we both started prepping the peppers, potatoes, onions, and kielbasa sausage for a pan-fried dinner. It turned out really great, though the potatoes mushed up in the time it took to prep everything else. Eaddie ate with us since Autumn was at karate, and then Autumn showed up later with some Tropical Smoothie.

While we were in Clarksville, the girls had some house inspectors come by to investigate for animals. Evidently another property had been hiding a dog that caused quite a bit of damage, so this left the girls in a panic to find homes for the cats. This frustrated me deeply, because I was the one to originally let the stray cats run through the house as a joke. After that, no amount of screaming or threats could get them to stop letting the cats in, and they just continued to acquire more and more pet supplies. They refused to listen to any reasoning that they could be evicted, and now the cats would pay the price. I’ve tried to re-home fully-grown cats before, and it rarely works. It’s anybody’s guess what will actually happen now.

Do it for the Graham!

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Marvelous

It felt great being back in the Murano today, but now I have muscle memory for the Montego. We chatted a little bit in the morning, and then all loaded up to go to the middle school and shuffle some TVs around. Josh struggled a bit with directing everyone, but I rode around with Greg to get other things we needed, and we got the job done before lunch.

Summer wanted to meet up for lunch, but I didn’t feel super. I ended up going to Taco John’s with the rest of the crew, but just felt even sicker as soon as we got back. I spent all afternoon at Oakland to finish up the building, but over half of the rooms were still not done.

I came home after work to change, and then went to my parents’ house to wish them a happy anniversary and invite them out for dinner. Mom was too tired to get out though, so I just hung out there for a while and had a little bit of eggplant soup with the hopes that it might make me feel a little better.

When I got back home, I tinkered a bit and then settled down to watch Ms. Marvel. I made it halfway through the, which was a tiny six episodes, and I’ve liked it so far. The style of the show is neat with all of the animations.

I think I may have inadvertently killed a cricket when I was digging around in the bedroom to try and find it. I heard it when I got home first thing in the morning, and then again in another corner of the room while I was watching TV. Hopefully it’s not too gross.

Cosmic!

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Scramble

I had to fight the urge to sleep in today. Summer slept hard, so I just laid in bed for an hour or so until she woke up. I finished up some leftover pasta from days ago, and then made her a big bowl of rice and egg. When Eaddie got up, we went into her room and hung out with her in there for a while and shared some music. She’s discovered alternative, punk, and emo from our generation, which is kind of a trip.

Summer eventually wanted to go to the gym, and since we were still without a second car until Autumn came home, I had her drop me off at my house so I could clean up a bit. I started some laundry and then sweat out trying to re-run a network cable so I could share my wireless with Bác Vân. I had an iPad ready for her, but wasn’t able to get signal much beyond my outside walls.

I planned to clean up and meet back up with the girls, but Autumn was headed to me, blind without a phone. It took her about twice as long to get here as I expected, so I held off on doing what I needed to do. As soon as she walked into the house, she looked around in shock and made a comment about how she hadn’t seen the place since I gave them my refrigerator. She started looking all around the house, and it made me super uncomfortable. Then since I never had a chance to clean up, Summer had to pick her up and leave the Montego with me. I ended up not feeling great and decided not to meet them for dinner so I wouldn’t have to deal with Autumn’s groans and glares for having to wait for me. Then I pretty quickly decided to stay home for the night because I think the bigger truth was that I needed a break from the hate, and I just wanted to be left alone for a while.

I took a long bath and ended up killing my phone in Into the Breach. Then I finally took the iPad next door and showed Bác Vân how to make FaceTime calls. The address book didn’t seem super intuitive, but hopefully she gives it a try and enjoys it. We talked to Lelan for a couple minutes, and then my parents. Nobody else would answer, but nobody else was expecting a call either. She gave up after that, and I went back to my den of recluse.

Like me, they are solitary creatures and deeply misunderstood.

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Unbirthday

Summer started some breakfast this morning, but I wasn’t hungry right out of bed and made my own egg sandwich later. She got called into work and took Autumn along with her, which was alright on account of the nonstop scowling I’d been getting since last night. I just had to get Eaddie to a friend’s house for a party in the afternoon.

I went home and started some laundry and took a shower. My sticky traps finally got some spiders, and they weren’t small. Horrifyingly, the busiest traps were in the bedrooms. The ones in the kitchen where I actually see the spiders didn’t really have any action.

I got Eaddie delivered and then headed back home to some more laundry while I set up an iPad for Bác Vân. My parents wanted to take her and Julie out for a birthday dinner, but Julie didn’t seem too pressed about it, and Bác Vân backed out because she didn’t want to eat late. However, Julie came back hungry as the afternoon progressed, so I met them at Pasta Grill as soon as they opened.

Summer called just after we ordered food and needed a ride, since she let Autumn drive to her father’s to help clean up the house for some visitors. I thought she would be working much later, and was frustrated that we had communicated times poorly. She got a ride to the gym while we ate, and then I picked her up after we finished.

We headed back up to her house for the evening, and eventually Eaddie called for me to pick her up. She scolded me for coming out of the car and into the house, but then beamed about how much fun she had for the rest of the night. Summer asked me to bring her some food, so we stopped by Taco Bell before heading home.

Eaddie talked about her day while Summer was already in bed. I beat a game of Into the Breach on my phone, and then it was off to bed for me as well.

What a joke.

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Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

I had a pretty wicked stomach ache last night that woke me up for about an hour. While I was up, the smoke detector in the girls’ hallway started going off every 30 seconds to a minute, so I scrambled around looking for a 9-volt battery for a while before giving up and burying my head under a couple of pillows. I just barely managed to get any more sleep before I had to get up for work.

We were still a bit short today, so it was still pretty quiet. I had a couple donuts and a homemade bagel that Tammy brought. Then Gary asked me to go to the Transportation office with him to install some software, but that hardly took any time and was mostly unnecessary for two people to be present. I only got one response from our Jamf rep today, so I didn’t make any progress with that either.

I ran to Oakland a couple of times. Before lunch, I finally figured out that it was the USB barcode scanner causing the computer not to boot quickly. It was only when I plugged it into the monitor first though, so plugging it directly into the computer fixed the issue.

Six of us went to Slim Chickens for lunch, and I loaded up on receipt barcodes for points. I even got a free brownie, which I thought was decent. For the price, it was great! When we got back to the shop, I killed some time in the shop before going back to Oakland to tinker with the cafeteria manager’s computer. It had a similar issue, which seemed to be caused by a USB drive plugged into the computer.

I made it back to the shop for a few minutes, and then went home to change before heading up to Summer’s. She started grilling some barbecue chicken and corn, and mashed some potatoes for dinner. The girls all sat down to eat, and Autumn was just scowling the entire evening. Summer tried to pressure everyone into playing a game, but I just quietly loathed the though. Luckily everyone split off to their rooms, and I just played Into the Breach on my phone. It plays well on the touch screen, but I think I prefer a controller or the Switch.

Too much noise.

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Armed Brother

Thomas and Zach were out today, so Gary was calling the shots. I was initially directed to the Support Services building to investigate a bunch of equipment moves, but was quickly pulled off of that to start a help ticket with Jamf. I thought they might actually be quick to respond, but I never heard anything back all day.

I went to Oakland for a little while to troubleshoot my weird lunch room computer issues, but didn’t get very far. I consistently had issues with both computers there. I made it back to the shop for lunch, but Gary and Tammy were the only ones there, and he had to stick around for Ritter to show up. He did end up picking up some food, but then had to meet the guy that showed up while he was out. I wound up just skipping lunch entirely, and picked at various things I found around the office.

I didn’t really get a whole lot accomplished the rest of the afternoon. I sat with Tammy for a little while as she got emotional. Gary eventually showed back up after she went to pick up some food for herself, but it was still quiet downstairs all afternoon.

Summer took Autumn to therapy, and then brought back some food from Big Poppa’s after dropping her off at karate. I went to Kroger to pick up some freezer bags, and then met the other two at home to eat. Summer wanted to go to the gym, so I dropped Eaddie off at tennis for an hour while I set spider traps all around the house. I look forward to being horrified by how many bugs I catch.

Summer got Autumn and I got Eaddie after their activities, and we headed back up to the house for the evening. Tonight was my turn to get a long call from sister, and we chatted about Randall’s upcoming wedding next year, then therapy, then vacations, then frustrations. I hope an unbiased third party will help now that I’ve had some experience communicating thoughts and feelings.

Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor.

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Cleared for Nothing

Eaddie had a couple days worth of fun planned with friends, so Summer dropped her off for church and a day on a boat, followed by a night with her friend. Then she went on to the gym while I slept in. Eventually she made it home, and she, Autumn, and I decided to go hang out at Walmart for a little while. Jaylinn had told Summer that a bunch of stuff was on clearance, so we thought we might find a deal.

Nothing really caught our eye, but Summer did finally get her kitchen zester. About halfway through our shopping trip, Autumn developed a scowl that nobody really understood. Eventually she came out and said she didn’t like me showing public displays of affection to Summer, but really all I had done was hold her hand or walk with my arm around her. Autumn was just acting lonely and petty, and wanted to lash out. She even tried getting me in trouble for some new scratches on the side of Summer’s car, even though it was pretty obviously done by someone else pushing up against it from the outside.

Autumn wanted us to take her back home instead of to my parents’ house to swim, but I thought we might do her one better and take her to her grandparents’ house for a while. We first drove around the block a few times to look at some houses for sale, and then dropped her off to help with some housework. Then Summer and I went to my parents’ house for some swimming and spring rolls.

Julie eventually showed up as well, and helped with a bit of the prep work before we ate. I tried slicing some meat, but had trouble getting it very thin since the very outside of the block of meat had thawed out to be very soft while the inside was still frozen. The rolls were good though, and Julie appreciated an accidental, early, birthday dinner of one of her favorite foods.

Summer and I eventually headed home, stopping at Walgreens to pick up an order along the way. Then it was back up to her house for the evening, where we tried to finish up our written document for Autumn’s FINS petition. She baked a boxed cake mix we got from Walgreens, then did some stuff for work. We fought a couple separate ant infestations, Autumn was dropped off super late, and then it was off to bed.

Ungrateful swine.

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Swim&Ms

Summer scrambled some ham, cheese, and eggs together for breakfast this morning. Eaddie didn’t want to come out of her room much, but she at least ate with everyone else. Autumn actually wanted to come swim with Summer and me, which was a bit of a surprise. It didn’t take long for her to start acting a bit cranky though. We eventually made it to my parents’ house, and Dad came out to join us while Mom slept in.

After we finished swimming in the midday sun, they dropped me off at my house so I could clean up before our double date with Melinda and Matt. I tinkered a bit, but didn’t get up to a whole lot. I watched a little bit of Ms. Marvel just to see if I thought Eaddie might be interested in watching it with me. I’m not sure she’ll care much about the characters, but some of the effects are pretty neat.

Summer eventually made it back down to pick me up, and we headed to Cagle’s Mill for dinner with my old workmate and her husband. I really didn’t have much to say, and Summer spent quite a while just talking about work, so I think it was a little more awkward for Matt and me than anything. The girls enjoyed their drinks though, and all of their food looked pretty good. My ribeye looked awful, but tasted alright. After Summer’s work talk, Melinda kept the small talk going until we decided it was time to head home.

The girls were watching the last episode of Stranger Things, so Summer and I went to the bedroom for some quiet. Then everyone made it to sleep relatively early.

Puff!

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Doubles

Gary had me spin up a VM for our upcoming Jamf Cloud migration, which took most of the day worth of tinkering. I felt good about setting up the VM, and followed along well enough as we made firewall changes. Unfortunately the application didn’t have very good documentation, and the installation got stuck near what I think was the end of the process.

Zach took a bunch of us to CJ’s for lunch, and I spent the ride coloring in the back seat. The burger was pretty messy today, and had me gurgling a bit in the afternoon. I continued to tinker with our Jamf project until Thomas let everyone go about an hour early.

Summer took the day off with the girls, but didn’t get up to a whole lot, I don’t think. She wanted to take a nap about the time I got home, so I just stayed there and tinkered around until later in the evening. When I finally made it up to their house, Eaddie wanted to go out to play tennis. Autumn decided to surprise us with her participation as well, so I figured I should complete the set.

I ate some leftover stir fry really quickly, and then we had Eaddie drive us to the city park to see how busy they were. She really wanted to go to Old Post though, so we went to my house for my racket and some more balls, and then made our way to the lock and dam. I was surprised the courts there weren’t packed with how nice it felt outside.

We switched around from playing singles to doubles, and everyone had quite a bit of fun. Autumn eventually tapped out, and then a little while later our lights went out and we couldn’t get them back on, so we decided to wrap it up. Summer took us up to Caudle Overlook so Autumn could see the dam, and then we headed home to wind down and head to bed.

Feels like 40, love.

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Clever Boy

I thought it was going to be another quiet, uneventful day at the office, but shortly after I dug into some work, Gary called and asked for help with a couple guys from Raptor that were there to test and troubleshoot our alerting system. Evidently among all of the brightest minds there, not one of them thought to “think different” and bring along an Android device.

I headed to the high school and had to sit while they discussed some things before we actually got started. Then we wandered to a couple places, both inside and out, in order to test different scenarios, logging in and out of the app repeatedly until we had enough data points. I don’t think we unearthed anything groundbreaking, but hopefully they were able to take back some good feedback.

We worked into lunch, but then the guys offered to buy lunch. Terry gave them the option of CJ’s or Old South, and we went for the southern comfort food. I should have gotten the chicken fried steak breakfast platter that Albert ordered, because it looked awesome. My fried catfish wasn’t bad, but I was definitely jealous.

When we got back to the high school, Gary sent me off to meet up with Greg in Chrissy’s office. He was having trouble with the Macs over there, but unfortunately I wasn’t much help. We also checked on Daniel’s, which he ended up taking back to the shop. I spent the rest of the afternoon, quietly in my office. I did managed to get a couple things done, and then headed up to get Eaddie for tennis practice after work.

While I waited for Eaddie to finish, I set up an Echo Show, which didn’t really impress me much. I haven’t really liked the Blink Mini camera that came with it either. I don’t think I’ll return them, but I just don’t care for the quality.

Autumn and Summer made dinner back home, which made everyone quite happy. Then I suggested a game of Phase 10 before everyone was ready for bed. I did my best not to stay up too early on account of how behind I’ve been on sleep. Weekends happen too fast and too far apart. I don’t know why I can’t just live on a boat forever.

Or in a robot car…