Tag: family

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Good Old-Fashioned Ultraviolence

I woke up a little late this morning and got the sense that the girls were in a bit of a panic to get the cats out of the house. Evidently Summer got a formal eviction warning letter, and she counted only two days left to have them gone. Since nobody actually addressed me about it, and since I had already expressed my own frustration about the situation, I just did my best to help out with breakfast so they could finish what needed to be done.

After we ate the kielbasa and veggies with eggs, they went to Dollar General for some cat food before taking everything up to Noah’s house, and I went home to shower. I got incredibly frustrated with always being made the villain, and Suzanne said I was “cold, cold like the wind” for being so unsympathetic, but I likened it to God sending people to Hell for eternity because they worked on a Sunday. People show up in droves to worship that guy, but I’m the fucking bad guy here for reminding them that they’re not allowed to have pets.

I had a couple drinks and a shower to relax, and then Summer wanted just the two of us to go to the movies to see Bullet Train. I thought I was the only one that was really excited to see it, but I don’t think she really knew what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it reminded me a lot of Kill Bill, without being quite so vulgar, but with some classic ultraviolence. All of the characters were great, and I really liked the cinematography.

After the movie, I tried talking to Summer about my feelings on the way home and I blew up for a bit that she kept saying I wasn’t being comforting or supportive. I knew it was hard to watch her kids hurting, but she enabled them by buying all of the cat supplies instead of shutting the whole thing down early, and I needed her to understand that it was okay to take the loss. She didn’t have to try and lessen the blow, and it was okay to just have a bad day and accept that every single one of us did something wrong.

When we got back to the house, Eaddie was still very upset. I learned that they just took the cats outside Noah’s house, so Sweetums got into a fight with his dog and immediately ran up a tree. I don’t even know how big of a tree it was, or if she’ll be able to get down on her own, but even Eaddie knew that she didn’t have any time to associate Noah or his house with anything good. I’ll be astounded if she doesn’t get picked off by a predator overnight, but I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I wasn’t present to do the thinking for all four of them, so if it’s two dead cats, it’s two dead cats.

I tried to coax Eaddie out of the house for some fish soup with my parents, but she didn’t want to leave. Autumn wanted to go to her father’s for some reason, so the lawn still didn’t get mowed over the last two weeks that we’ve been asking. I just have to assume I’ll be the bad guy again next weekend when it still hasn’t been done.

I went to eat and visited with my parents for a little while before heading home. Bác Vân called while I was on the way and asked me to come over for a bit. I helped with her iPad for a bit, then went home to do some laundry before bed.

L

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Nothin to Taco’bout

I slept super hard last night and woke up last, but not too late. Summer had to go to work for a bit and then went to the gym, so I went home for a while. I cleaned up, but didn’t get around to a whole lot.

Summer decided she wanted to try something new for dinner and needed me to pick up an extra tomato on the way back up to her place. While I was at Walmart, I picked up an ice cream cake for Eaddie since that’s all she wanted for her birthday and nobody ever delivered. The taco casserole was great, and I made mine into a big salad that didn’t feel heavy.

After we ate, Summer wanted to watch a movie and we settled on Red Notice. Eaddie got up and left pretty early into it, but Autumn watched it with us. I was underwhelmed by it, possibly because of how much I usually like Ryan Reynolds and The Rock movies. It just felt really slow in comparison to their others. The twist was good, but not completely unexpected.

Summer went to bed watching TV, so it was a really early night to bed for everyone.

I love lamp, but not as much as they love lamp.

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Gotta Live It Big Time

I had a couple projects I had to work on in my office today, so I didn’t get out at all. I was a little worried about getting devices into Destiny for the middle school, but I worked it out. I felt pretty accomplished with everything I got done. A big group of us went to Taco John’s for Taco Tuesday, and then I wrapped everything up in the afternoon.

When I left work, I ran home to change, got gas, and then picked the girls up to head toward Rogers for the Big Time Rush concert. We stopped at the truck stop in Ozark to have dinner in their little deli, and then we made the rest of the trip as quickly as we could. Traffic wasn’t nearly as bad getting in or out as I expected, especially with how packed the place seemed.

The girls absolutely loved the concert, and I think Summer danced more than either of the other two. I was given camera duty “because I have the zoom,” so I got a bunch of video. Spencer Sutherland opened for the group, and I thought he was pretty good. When Big Time Rush came out on their scaffolding, all I could think about was the knee damage from all the jumping around. The highlight for me was a nearly unused men’s restroom.

We split as soon as the encore was over, and though we missed out on some last minute screaming that may have been solely from the guys removing their shirts, we got to the car and out of the parking garage with relative ease. Then we hopped on the interstate and we were on a mostly-empty road home. I was absolutely astounded that we got out of there that quickly. The girls all crashed as soon as we got in, so I finished up my chores and went to sleep as quickly as I could.

Worldwide? Worldwide.

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Basic Shrimp

I slept in a bit today before Summer got up and went to the gym. I tinkered a bit and discovered that my computer’s subwoofer wasn’t powering up, so I took the amplifier board out of the back to take to Dad. The girls were back in town from their father’s, but Eaddie had gone to a friend’s house. Autumn was at home and looked like she hadn’t showered all weekend. I picked Summer up and grabbed my aquarium water test kit, and then we went to Walmart before going back to my house to test my shrimp tank water.

After confirming my tank as shrimp-ready, we went to get Autumn and then Eaddie to go to my parents’ house for spring rolls. Dad smoked a pork loin all day, and the rolls were great. After we ate, Summer brought up the Big Time Rush concert, which got Eaddie super excited. Summer decided to buy tickets for the four of us, but then Autumn changed her mind and said she didn’t want to go because she had to do her karate test in a couple weeks and she didn’t want to miss class. I had to explain to everyone that the argument wasn’t at all about what we were actually arguing about, and that no amount of reason or logic would change her mind.

We eventually made it back up to their house, and Eaddie was still bouncing around with excitement. The other two wound down for bed pretty quickly, as I struggled to feel tired myself.

Where the deer and the antelope play?

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Had a Bed Day Again

Summer and I hardly left the bedroom today. We laid around all morning until she went to the gym. Even after we got showered for the day, we went back to bed and just napped or watched TV in bed. We eventually decided to just head to my parents’ house to see if they were ready to go, and pulled up just as they were leaving the house.

We met at New China and ate too much. They were really busy, and service was pretty slow. I wanted to go to PetSmart afterward, but we decided to just go straight home instead. There, we watched more TV in bed until I surprisingly felt sleepy enough to call it a night.

You wouldn’t understand.

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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.