Tag: family

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Food Zombies

We got up early this morning to take Summer to work at the Conway location. Autumn wanted to tag along for some shopping as well. I had to run home to clean up, then pick up my trial contacts, and finally picked up the girls for a drive to Conway. We dropped Summer off, then went to Target for a slow walk around the store.

We picked up a couple very small things, but nothing of much consequence. Autumn got pretty hungry, so we left there and went to Golden Corral for lunch. The buffet was pretty disappointing, with several duplicated dishes and only hamburgers made with rolls instead of buns from the grill. I still filled up, but I left super unsatisfied.

From there, we went back to Kohl’s to try and find some clearance. Autumn actually did a good job thumbing through the racks and picked up a pair of pants. Still, I didn’t find a whole lot that interested me, so we eventually moved on to Best Buy. We were both feeling super exhausted after a big lunch, and just wanted to nap. Best Buy was really just a time killer for an hour before we could fetch Summer from work.

On the way, I grabbed an iced coffee from McDonald’s that really helped to pep me up. When we got to Summer, she was in the pit training their manager. She wanted to do another oil change with her down there, so she had me pull around and get mine done a bit prematurely. I couldn’t complain, and the oil was still black anyway.

When they finished up, the three of us ran to Sam’s to pick up a few things. I tried to do a bit more deal scouting, but came up dry. We headed home as the sun came down, stopping once in Morrilton for some a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. Autumn wanted to make tacos for dinner, so we let her run into Walmart for a couple missing ingredients once we got back into town.

The tacos were simple but tasty enough. Everyone turned in super early after we finished eating. I was exhausted, but had a bunch of email to catch up on before going to bed myself.

This is starting to feel like work.

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Solstice Outing

Summer went back to work today, so I offered Autumn to take her and Eaddie out so they could do some Christmas shopping while I cleaned up at home. I dropped them off at PetSmart, then went home to shower. They finished up about the same time I did, probably because Eaddie was tired of shopping the minute they made it into the first store. I picked them up and we got some Zaxby’s for lunch.

Summer left work early, so we met her at the city park and ate outside. It was a little bit windy and cool, but otherwise a super nice day out. Librado texted and was trying to hunt me down, so they caught up with us there. He made me a surprise record cutout of my sunset cow logo, which was awesome. Traci came over and yapped with the girls a while too.

When we finally left, Summer went to the gym and I took the girls back to my house so Eaddie could ride her bike and I could check out my Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones. They sounded pretty clean, but it’s too early to tell if they were worth the price. I’ll have to compare them next to the super cheap headphones I picked up for Dad a while back.

Autumn napped until Eaddie got back, and then we headed back to their house for the evening. We just barely beat Summer back, and then we watched some TV while Autumn wrapped presents. When we finished that, we started a game of Phase 10 before Summer and Autumn headed to bed. Then Eaddie and I watched a couple more episodes of Jessica Jones before going to sleep.

No, not “all of the planets” aligned. No, it is not the Bethlehem star. It’s just the cosmos, being itself.
Also, Earth only seems flat because of your perspective and how close you are to it.
Also, what the hell are they teaching you in school???

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Oh, Danny Blanket

We got up this morning and finished up some old leftover breakfast pizza, then Summer left for the gym and to start baking a mountain of cookies for the family to decorate later in the evening. I laid back for most of the morning, then took a shower before heading out.

I stopped by Harbor Freight first, just to pick up a couple quick things with a 30% off coupon. The kids were all huddled around the living room TV watching YouTube compilation garbage when I got there, and Summer was trying to finish up the icing for the cookies.

Noah was in a hurry to get out of there, and then the girls wanted to open one present each. Autumn was happy with a wax warmer she picked out, and Eaddie got a blanket that I’m pretty sure sends you straight to Hell. We sat for a little while in the living room just listening to the “winter” playlist I found, and watching the photo slideshow on the TV, featuring up-to-the-minute photos even from decorating cookies tonight.

Eventually Summer went to bed and settled in. I watched a couple episodes of Jessica Jones with Eaddie, mostly just trying to wrap up the final season after all this time.

Why is that kid so weird?

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Sorta Sitting

Summer got up this morning for a hair appointment that kept her out all day, so I was left alone in a house full of teenage girls. They make that sound way more exciting in the short films I watch, but in reality it was me playing video games in bed all day, waiting for Summer to get back. On the bright side, Stadia has been pretty great, even handling buffering issues pretty well when all the girls started streaming other things across the network. Latency isn’t much of an issue in a turn-based game like Into the Breach, but it was still pretty impressive.

That pretty well burned the whole day, so when Summer returned and then left to take the girls home, I went home to shower. Then she came over and we went to Mulan’s for dinner to show off her fancy new hairdo. When we got back home, it was pretty much straight to bed again.

My only regret was that I didn’t have more of that lychee/longan/rambutan flavored jello.

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Dirty Gifting

I got up a bit earlier this morning so I could get to work for a Fat Daddy’s lunch and a game of Dirty Santa. Melinda somehow coerced the entire crew to participate, so of course we had a fair amount of disparity in the quality of gifts. I started out strong, was the victim of an untimely theft, scored what was probably the best gift in the lot, was victimized again, and ultimately left with a stuffed puppy in a Santa hat with a chocolate snowman.

School let out an hour early, so I didn’t really get any work done. I ended up going by Casey’s for a free pack of cookies, and then was asked to deliver Autumn to therapy just before making it home. Eaddie had to stay and clean house so their friends could come over to stay the night, so I dropped Autumn off with Summer and went on home for a few hours.

When the girls all eventually made it home, I came up and had some pizza with them. Then it was going to be a relatively early night, but Julie called with a deal that had me up racking my brain. At the end of it all, I just had to bite the bullet. I’ll figure out the details later.

No amount of over-preparation ever seems to help anyway.

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Merry Crampsmas

I felt a bit worse this morning and into the day, but I made it in for the afternoon. I didn’t stick around the shop for as long, and spent most of my time at the junior high. Eaddie found me after school and said she hadn’t eaten anything because she couldn’t get her Invisalign out. After some convincing, she took half of my apple and mostly sucked on it for half an hour, because her teeth were hurting so much. On the way home, I got her some Wendy’s chili to eat since it would be less solid.

When we got to their house, the girls got ready for karate while I started prepping another ham bone soup. This time it would be split pea. I dropped them off and got back to the house just as Noah pulled in. I got the Instant Pot going, and dinner was finished just as Summer got home from work with the girls. The soup was pretty good, though the green thickness of it didn’t look too great. A sprinkle of mozzarella and a thick slice of French bread helped a lot.

Summer had to do some stuff for work, and Julie finished printing a shirt for me, so I left to pick it up from her house. She had a lot to say, so I was there for quite a while. Just before I left, we got to laughing so hard that my entire torso cramped from every angle, so she loaded me up with electrolytes. I eventually made it back home for the evening, and wrapped a Dirty Santa gift for work tomorrow.

I really hope someone put away the soup.

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Threeniversary

This morning started pretty rough, comparatively. I’ve got to get back into the groove of actually doing anything every day, and since nobody managed to secure any millions of dollars while I was badly ill, going to work is one of those things. I’m not sure if the grilled onions, bacon, egg, and cheese on a leftover Popeye’s biscuit was the culprit, but it was delicious nonetheless.

I made it to work well before the recyclers, and unloaded some old scrap electronics. Then I headed to the junior high by myself to work on more laptops. I actually didn’t really fix any laptops, but I did manage to build an updated image for them that includes some software that was missing before.

Eaddie met up with me after school, but her father picked her up just before my quitting time, so they could go out to eat. Since he had the girls, I left work to catch Summer, and we went to Sumo for dinner. It was relatively quiet, but the food was better than I’ve had there in a long time, and came out super quickly. Then we each went home so I could check on the house before I caught up with everyone at her house.

Noah had just started Spenser Confidential, so I sat down and watched that with them. Eaddie was in trouble for most of the night for losing her brand new Invisalign, but then Noah found them sitting – transparently – on the bathroom counter. It’s no wonder no one made it rich within the last month. After the movie, it was off to bed to do it all over again.

Like a clown fish and an anemone!

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The Slow Crawl Back to Humanity

It’s been just over a month since I came down with The COVID, and it’s been difficult to motivate myself to do much of anything after being sick for so long. I lost almost 25 pounds, which I’m pretty sure was mostly muscle, so it’s been a real treat forcing myself to be vertical again.

So much has happened in that time. In the first couple days of COVID, I tried and failed to become a ramen chef. We hired a new guy that started taking care of my work orders at the high school. My family packed and delivered an entire Thanksgiving dinner feast. The school board approved a really hefty Christmas bonus for everyone, so Allen actually retired, like for real. The McRib came back. Noah finally got his driver’s license, then basically had to move in with Summer when his stepmother got COVID. The kids set up the Christmas tree and baked gingerbread to make a gingerbread house. We had our department Christmas party on karaoke night, where Ben belted out a hot take of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, and Melinda introduced Summer to her friend, Jose Cuervo. The superintendent tried to leave for Conway, but didn’t get the job. Then he caught The COVID and took a 30 day leave of absence just as I tried to return to work with half days. Neither of the assistant superintendents got to fill in for him though. That privilege was given to another random assistant principal of a school.

Of course the girls got the virus too, but luckily their symptoms weren’t nearly as bad. Summer lost taste and smell, and still hasn’t fully regained either. The kids hardly felt a thing. I never lost taste aside from one questionable bowl of macaroni and cheese. I spent my blurry two and a half weeks basically bedridden, with nightly fever spikes over 104°F, and a high score of 105.6°F. I had chills and hot flashes that I legitimately thought would end me. The triage nurse nearly sent me in for a transfusion because I was so low on blood. Worst of all, I had a complete decimation of willpower that kept me from doing anything at all for over two weeks. Then I got bilateral pneumonia that carried my fever on well past the expected 10 day COVID timeline. I would probably still be laying in the floor of the shower with cold water raining down on me if Summer hadn’t eventually brought me home and taken the best care of me.

It’s been a wild ride that I don’t at all recommend, but there is some comfort in finally having “the dadgum antibodies for that crap, man.” Looking at the recovery times for pneumonia, I’m guessing I’ll have this cough for a few more months, but it’s a good time of year at work to be able to get some rest.

I’m getting better! I don’t want to go on the cart. I feel fine!

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On Queue

I woke up half an hour early today just to go to Starbucks for a plastic red cup. When I got there, the drive-through was coned off and traffic was wrapped around the parking lot, so I waited for just a minute before leaving after I saw absolutely no movement.

That threw me a little off of my morning routine, and I ended up late by a few minutes, but nobody was talking about anything at work. In fact, there were only five of us there, with Melinda and Josh out with COVID, and Allen taking a vacation day to avoid a cable pull. Ben said he’d buy us all lunch since we all made it to Friday.

I didn’t have any group work in the morning, so I went to the high school until lunch. Then I beat everyone else back to the shop. We decided to check out the Ridgewood Brothers’ first Friday lunch first, and would move on to Peg Leg if the line was too long. Our third option was Fat Daddy’s in London if Peg Leg wasn’t open for dine-in. Fortunately there was hardly a line, but unfortunately they were out of everything but loin back ribs and pulled pork. It still made for an incredible lunch though, and it was a beautiful day to eat outside.

After lunch, I had to help Kyle take some carts to Sequoyah. It was predictably awkward, and then he wanted me to put the truck away afterward since he had some other work to finish up there. I went back to the shop for a little while, then ended the day at the high school.

When I got home, I traded for the Murano to get some gas, then came home and waited for Summer and Autumn to get there. Autumn and I set up a dome tent I found in a repossessed vehicle back when I worked at AAF, and surprisingly it looked brand new aside from a couple missing pieces. As long as it doesn’t rain this weekend, she should be fine to camp in it.

Meanwhile, Summer got a fire going in the pit out back, and then we cooked some brats over it for dinner. We ran out of fire just as we finished as many marshmallows as we wanted, and then we came inside to watch Ralph Breaks the Internet. It didn’t have quite the amount of easter eggs as Ready Player One, but it was really good. I wish we had watched it in 3D though.

Queue? Cue? Que? Q?

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On the Subject of Customer Service

I had a few new things come in this morning, so I spent all day working on those. The kids were back, which meant I had to work around the bell schedule again. I also kept getting phone calls instead of work orders, but fortunately it wasn’t anything too serious.

Summer got a lunch break, so I picked her up and we went to Brangus. A big group of the guys were there with Dale, and it hurt my feelers that not one of them said a word to me about it. I knew it was Gary’s birthday, so I guess it was my fault for not finding my way back to the shop before lunch, but a text doesn’t seem like too much trouble if they wanted me there. On the plus side, our waitress was my favorite, and remembered my order.

I spent all afternoon fighting my way around a switch configuration, which really ended up being due to port security and forgetting that there was another network device in line that kept breaking things as I fixed them. I won in the end, except for some lag in how often PaperCut updates printer IPs.

After work, Julie brought me some leftover donuts from work. Then Summer came over and took a bath while I finished up some leftovers. Autumn called for a ride because Nick’s car quit on them on the drive over, so we picked them up.

While the girls were inside watching TV, I called Belkin WeMo support for help with my new light switch that won’t update firmware. The support was surprisingly really great in spite of having to call back when the line went dead the first time. The guy I got the second time could tell I knew my stuff, so we sped through the troubleshooting stuff really quickly and he escalated the issue with an expected callback in a day or two. Best of all, they’re open 24/7, so I really can take care of it when it’s convenient for me.

Once off the phone, I had to play catch-up on a conversation with emotion that the girls were having. We de-escalated pretty easily, and set some expectations. With that, the leash will get just a little bit shorter, and the behavior will have to show marked improvement.

Finally, just before bed, I ordered a new Shorai battery for the Shadow. I had to email the manufacturer this afternoon for the correct part number, and they responded in like an hour. Of course I went back to MotoMummy for the battery, since they’ve always been spectacular on top of having the best price by a long shot. This time we’ll see if they can draw my namesake on the shipping box.

“Like hugging a giant rotisserie chicken.”
Sometimes you just have to take the compliments as they come.