Tag: family

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Closing Time

The Murano was nearly out of gas, so I decided to take the Grom to work today. I started it last night just to make sure it would, but of course this morning it was totally dead. Being so light, it was super easy to push-start though, and I made my way to work.

Today was a day for closing tickets. Twenty four, in total. I was unstoppable. Of course I didn’t get to do anything even a little bit challenging, but I did at least identify one teacher that seems to know his way around the technology. I really appreciated that conversation.

I worked through lunch again, and just sipped on a leftover Soylent instead. I felt pretty good, overall, and it was good to get some of those older tickets closed out. Now I’ll have the opposite problem though, and be left with nothing but a bunch of tickets I can’t give to Greg to finish for me.

After work, I came home just long enough to change before going to my parents’ house for dinner. They bought a bunch of peaches and gala apples on sale, so after dinner they went back to the store and bought some more to bring over for me. Summer had her hands full with the girls, so all I could really do was check in.

The night sure went by quickly for so little accomplished. I guess it made up for the morning of overachievement.

Does everyone parachute in the Army?

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Lawn Furniture

Tomorrow is the start of bulk item pickup week, so we had to get my old furniture out to the curb today. We couldn’t start on an empty stomach though, so I made us some wraps out of leftover barbecue chicken. Then I milled around the house and got things shuffled around so we could get the chairs out the front door while Summer went to the gym.

The living room feels so empty without large furniture, but I can’t let that massive change make me feel like I’ve made any real progress. It’s all the little things that will kill me. I got the coat closet cleaned out and organized too, so that was a big help. We may eventually get this place presentable after all.

After we moved the furniture outside, we met Julie at my parents’ house to cover up the pool. I really thought we were going to finally get a mesh cover this year, but it just didn’t happen. I think I’ll have to make it happen myself if I really want it. It would make the entire process significantly easier both in the spring and fall.

Summer and I came back home and cleaned up the fire pit, even prepping it with some kindling for the next time. I need to come up with a way to store some wood for a proper burn, because last night was great. I just wish the fire wasn’t so smokey, and I’d bet some better wood would help.

Summer eventually headed back home to get some housework done and receive the kids. Then I went to my parents’ house for some eggplant soup for dinner. I ended the evening with some more rummaging through closets. This time it was the linen closet in the hallway. I’ve never used that closet for linens, but I’ll pretty much have to with such high occupancy. It’s going to be tight, but it’ll be better after I find all of these empty boxes I’ve stored everywhere over the years.

There’s no time to take out trash, living in a hoarder’s paradise.

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Go With the Flow

We met at the shop this morning for some quick training over Impero and how we process the student data that all originates from a stick figure lady in the front office. Then Allen, predictably, asked how to do something that I learned in my first year, and proceeded to be taught how to do things by two of the newer guys.

After the meeting, I took Gary to the high school to pick up some boxes for his move across town. Evidently he was renting from Mark, who sold the house to our old classmate Hank, and was moving to a house just a couple doors down from Grant. The whole thing made our town feel very small.

By then it was lunch time, so we met Allen and Greg at Linh. It appeared to be all new staff, and they weren’t very good at it. The restaurant looked nice with the renovation though. Our old family friends Karen and Kristen came in, but didn’t recognize me, so I just passed on by to go back to work.

I burned quite a bit of the afternoon trying to clear out the aerator in the girls’ bathroom downstairs. The thing was completely full of large grains of sand, and the smallest pieces had cemented in the tiniest holes, keeping the water at a horrible trickle. It took a while, but Melinda found a needle that we used to poke the holes out, and now they have actual running water again.

I eventually made it to the high school to work on a long overdue work order in the music office. I sort of thought it was working, but it happened to come across my radar just a day or two ago. An email from Dewayne got me on the ball though, and I discovered that Wight didn’t configure the printer the same way they always do. It sure would be nice if we were notified about stuff like that so we could make it work on the front end.

After work, I came home and got some eggrolls from Bác Vân. Mom and Dad were there, and shortly thereafter, Uncle Giao, Aunt Teresa, Erica, and her kids showed up. We stood outside catching up for what felt like hours until Summer showed up. Everyone eventually split, and we went inside for the evening.

We watched a couple episodes of Cobra Kai before settling in to bed. Monday happens to be bulk item pickup day, which really helps to bring this whole second era of my life to a close. I’ve been using the hand me down furniture I got from my parents, which they bought shortly after we moved into their house when I was a small child. To say that it was well past its useful life would be an understatement. I don’t even care if I replace it any time soon. It’s just got to go.

Out with the old. It’s time for something new.

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Split My Life into Pieces

I woke up pretty rested, having held Split Lip in my hands most of the night. He didn’t leave the way he normally would after I fell asleep, at least until hours into the night when he wanted to go outside. When I finally got up to go to work, I scooped him up and carried him off to the vet. I actually felt a little bit hopeful that he seemed to eat a bit of canned food before bed last night.

When we got to the vet, I parked next to Robyn, who was there dropping off a cat as well. They were super busy running in and out with animals, so we chatted while we waited. Just after she left, I heard the spew of diarrhea in the carrier, so I pulled it out of the car and threw some napkins in to try and cover it up the best I could. It didn’t keep Split’s tail from getting in it though. It was actually kind of normal colored and had some solid in it, which made me even more hopeful. I thought maybe he had just powered through some mouth pain so he could eat last night.

I carried on to work feeling a little better about the ordeal, so I stopped and grabbed a slice of breakfast pizza on the way. From there, things slowly started going downhill.

Sandy emailed me to say Dover couldn’t meet my salary request, so they went with another candidate. I would have liked a raise, even if it was only an opportunity to say no to a couple thousand dollars for a lateral step to their pay scale. I wasn’t heartbroken about it though, and in fact had at least a little bit of relief in sticking with what I know.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why imaging the student laptops was suddenly destroying my task sequence flash media. Ben called a couple times and we chatted about Impero some more. Overall, not much was really accomplished.

Dr. Pearson called about split sometime in the middle of the day, and let me know that she couldn’t find anything in his mouth that would cause the grinding sound we were hearing. Without any real answers as to why he wouldn’t eat, her best guess was that he was wasting away from some kind of cancer, and that it was best to let him go. He was already sedated for the examination, so it was a pretty easy decision with the expected fallout throughout the rest of the evening.

I stopped by to get my pet carrier, then picked up a shirt that Ben got me for toughing it out while everyone else was quarantined. The girls didn’t have karate, so I stopped to see Summer briefly before making it home. When I got there, I realized they had not cleaned the cat carrier at the vet, so I hosed it down a bit and left it out to dry.

Autumn made dinner, so I eventually made my way across town. Summer spent nearly the whole evening on a video call with the automotive guys at the ATCC. Autumn’s hamburger meat with rice reminded me of eating leftover taco meat over steamed rice as a child. Then we played a round of Mario Kart before Summer went to sleep and I headed back home.

It really feels like the end of an era. I’ve never truly been here, home, alone. I had my childhood at home. Then I moved out with Angie and we got Kitty, turned Big Kitty, turned Momma. Little Kitty quickly outgrew Big Kitty, but size didn’t matter when he became Daddy. They had five distinct little kittens while we were away in Hawaii just over 15 years ago – Split Lip, Grey, Chewie, Momma’s Clone, and a fifth that we managed to give away before having to come up with a way to describe it against the others.

Daddy and Clone disappeared after I put a bunch of them outside to keep the males from breeding and spraying everywhere. Chewie stuck around the neighborhood, but quickly came down with a dickborn disease, and I had to put him down suddenly when the vet said he had developed jaundice. For a long time, it was just Momma, Grey, and Split. Then Momma blew up like a balloon and I put her down suddenly after a completely worthless trip to the vet at Town and Country. Years later, Grey got the same thing, and Dr. Tanner easily identified and fixed the issue, giving us a little over two more years.

I had been over the whole idea of having cats, and largely pets in general, for a long time. That whole second era of my life had dragged on enough, and I felt like I was never really able to pick up the pieces and move on. Maybe I used the cats as an excuse for being an awful human, but I wanted the chance to find out for sure. I had been ready to move on for a long time, and I guess he was finally ready too.

I’m gonna miss you, buddy. We’ve sure been through some shit together.

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Self Service

I woke up feeling pretty well rested this morning, but it still didn’t give me a whole lot of motivation for the day. I tried working outside at a picnic table for a little while, but it got a little bit too warm and humid for that. I ended up spending most of the day trying to figure out why the student laptops were only imaging intermittently with the flash media. None of it made any sense, so of course I didn’t get anywhere with it.

I picked up Summer for a late lunch at Cici’s. They had single-use tongs available for the pizza so you could serve yourself. The salad wasn’t arranged the same, but to be honest, it seemed to work better to just have them serve you anyway. I felt like the tongs, though washable, ended up being more wasteful than anything else. The pizza on the bar was all super dry and gross looking, too. My custom spinach alfredo with all the extra toppings was pretty good though.

After work, Autumn wanted me to pick up a friend of hers from the Explorers program, then take him, her, and Eaddie to La Huerta for a fundraiser meeting. Summer was sent home with back pain, so I went back to spend a little time with her while I waited for the kids. Then I dropped them all back off at their homes.

Before going home myself, I stopped by Casey’s for a freebie, then gave the car a good wash. I hadn’t done that in quite a while, and after our weekend in Little Rock, it sorely needed it. When I got home, I got the cat to eat a little bit of a new can of cat food. I’ve got an appointment to get him back in to the vet tomorrow to see if it’s a dental issue. If it’s not an easy fix, then it’s time to say, “goodbye.”

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The Help

I woke up so tired again this morning, so it was nice that Greg showed up at my office this morning to help out. I sent him on a couple errands while I worked on some more software deployments. I really lost track of time, because lunch time came and went, and I barely noticed.

After work, I stopped by the shop for Autumn’s gift bag for helping over the summer, then went to get her for an Explorers meeting. Once I dropped her off, I stopped to see Summer for a bit on the way home. The girls would end up coming over for the evening, but it would be late, so I stopped for a cheap Bacon Big Mac deal.

When they got there, they made salads out of the rotisserie chicken we bought yesterday, and we watched an episode of Glee. It felt like every bone in my body hurt, so it was off to bed as soon as I could get there.

Don’t panic.

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Good Vibrations

I got up this morning and made bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. It all slowed down quite a bit from there after my tummy got the rumblies. We wanted to get some more cleaning up done around the house, but we ended up just mentally rearranging furniture instead. I do think it helped to visualize an end result though, since we’ll have so much furniture to manage.

Julie called in the afternoon and wanted to chat about our vacation. I think our usual flow of conversation escalation made Summer a little wide-eyed, but it was nothing new for us.

Eventually we went to the Neighborhood Market for something healthy to whip up for dinner. On the way out of the parking lot, Mom and Dad were pulling in and invited us over for curry. We continued on to get the girls from their grandparents’ house, then went on to my parents’ since I wasn’t in the mood to argue with the universe’s obvious plans for us.

We didn’t have to wait very long for my parents to get back, but we dug out Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur and started a game anyway. When they did get home, dinner was actually ready to dish out, so we didn’t waste any time eating. Afterward, we finished our game where the reluctant-to-play Eaddie ended up winning the game.

I dropped the girls off at home at the end of the evening, then headed back home to go to sleep with the cat. He curled right up next to me, so I didn’t have the heart to put him outside again.

Might as well get the carpet cleaner ready…

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Plan It

I picked up a free breakfast burrito from Taco John’s on the way to work this morning, and they loaded me up with Potato Olés. I didn’t even finish either of them, so I’ll have breakfast ready for me tomorrow.

I spent almost all day working on an engineering deployment package because I couldn’t get the detection method to work. Summer wanted to go out to Stoby’s for lunch, so when Noah got out of class, we met her there. Later in the afternoon, I finally figured out why my deployment wasn’t working, and got it pushed out.

Summer took Split some different dry food to see if he would take to it, and we thought he was. When I got home, I realized he had just pushed the bowl around and spilled a bunch of it all over the ground. It really seemed like he was eating for a bit though.

I started cleaning the carpet again when Summer came over for the evening. Then Julie called and wanted to talk about our Disney trip, which aggravated me because I prefer to communicate in writing. The kids eventually showed up with some leftover fajitas, but they had spilled them all over Eaddie’s clothes, so I had to start a load of laundry for them.

My body feels relatively ragged, and I’m a different kind of exhausted than I’ve ever felt before. I need a break before I break.

We’ll be in touch.

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My Cat is on Antidepressants

I got up this morning to some more lovely work to do on the carpet. I put the cat out and continued to get ready for work. I went to the shop to sign some paperwork before going to the high school. I stopped for an expiring free slice of pizza, then stuck my nose in some deployment packages, only coming up for air for a late lunch.

Summer met me at Foodie’s, and we had a couple giros. I didn’t find my lamb to be very filling at all, but the waitress warned us about “chewy” steak. Summer really liked hers, but didn’t finish. When I got back from lunch, I continued doing more of the same.

At the end of the day, I called the vet to see what else I could do for Split. Finally, she said it may just be his time to go, as though it was her idea in the first place. I was aggravated, but decided to give some appetite stimulants a try. She prescribed him some Mirtazapine, which evidently is an antidepressant, and said it should take effect within about half an hour to hopefully make him eat something.

I had trouble giving him both medications today, but we made it work. It did seem to bring him around the food more, but he still didn’t seem very interested. He licked a little bit of gravy, and ate one treat. He kept digging in the dry food silo as well, as though he wanted something fresh from up top. I guess I should try a small bag of some other dry food to see if he takes to it.

When the girls got out of karate, I met them and Noah at my parents’ house for dinner. Nova was there again, and it was just a night of leftovers after the Great Labor Day Cook-off of 2020. I made it home a bit later than I wanted, and spent the rest of the night cleaning carpet. Split did seem a little more lively late at night, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

Fear is the mind-killer.

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Bake and Fry and Grill, Oh My!

We got up this morning and had the last of the eggs. I’ve really enjoyed frying eggs. They’re so simple, and so delicious. Summer left for the gym while I got baked potatoes ready for dinner with my parents. For as little as I actually did, I was still just completely beat.

The cat refused to eat anything again, which has been wearing on me more than anything else. He tried to throw up his medicine today, but Summer said it just came out foamy. I don’t know what else to do.

I had to run to Walmart for some stuff for the twice-baked potatoes, then came home to load everything up and head to my parents’ house. The girls were back home, so they beat me there and were playing in the pool. I got there and started frying bacon for the potatoes. Everything came together reasonably well, but there were just so many people there with the girls, Julie, and Nova.

Afterward, I came straight home and tried to bring the cat in. He immediately went and had diarrhea in the tub, which really was the best possible scenario. He also dumped water all over the kitchen floor though, so I just kept running around after him, trying to clean up. He has me absolutely ragged. Every day, I wish they had just put him out of both of our misery.

The vet never asks about your quality of life.