Tag: food

Uncategorised

Unvaluable

Eaddie accidentally locked Muad’Dib out on the wrong side of the baby gate last night, so at some point I woke up and he met me on the other side of the closed bedroom door. He slept well with me after that, and I was only a little bit disoriented when my alarm went off to get ready for work.

I stopped at McDonald’s in Atkins for a bagel and made it to work a little late, as planned. My desk had already been scavenged for parts, but I still had my docking station and a couple monitors. I got things set up, and then Randy immediately had me start imaging a couple of laptops for him. I had to fix the OS deployment in SCCM after they had changed some things, but I got everything working well enough.

I probably worked more today than I did the rest of the month. Randy also needed the web server fixed to host student photos, which was easy enough to do. My biggest concern was getting what I wanted copied over and brought home.

Kyle really wanted a Chinese buffet for lunch, so Randy drove us all the way up to Jacksonville since there didn’t appear to be a closer one. Maggie and her youngest, who had been hanging out with us in the office all day, met us there. It was called “New China” and looked very similar to the one in Russellville, but I think they had a better variety of foods. I really liked it. The only big disappointments were the thinness of the egg drop soup and the temperature of the fried fish.

I cut the afternoon short because I had to get across the river to have my blood drawn before my follow up appointment tomorrow. When I got to Genesis, they seemed confused that anyone would tell me to just walk in and have blood drawn, but they got it done after a short wait. I continued toward home after that, through a little bit of rain, and decided to stop at Bitec to confirm my start time and whether I needed to bring anything else with me for my first day. Joel appeared to be the only one there, and suggested that I might bring my two forms of ID just in case any paperwork wasn’t completed.

Summer was making cupcakes when I got home, and Eaddie was preparing to have some friends over for an evening of Guitar Hero. They had me order some Domino’s at a near-extortionary price, which I then went to retrieve with Muad’Dib, because he really wanted an adventure.

Eaddie had one or two new faces over, along with a couple other familiars. They stayed in her room to play while Summer finished the cupcakes. Earlier in the day I suggested that she might just make sure to have some free time to spend with me, but it ended up being a really rough night of aggravation and confirmation of misalignment.

I took out some trash and discovered a nearly-full dumpster. Eaddie had thrown away a bunch of stuff when she cleaned out her room, and an unsurprising amount of that stuff was perfectly good to keep, sell, donate, or reuse. Much of it was brand new, and several were types of things we had recently purchased more of because we didn’t know we had any. I pulled out a small box full of stuff before I became frustrated enough with the constant swarm of flies and mosquitos, and came back inside. I cleaned up a couple of messes that were left behind, fixed some things that were done poorly or outright incorrectly, completed some abandoned laundry, and finally sped through my “me time” before going to bed.

Just because they’re intrusive doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

Uncategorised

The Flamboyance

Summer disappeared this morning to run some errands, and Muad’Dib finally got up from between my legs, freeing me from my splayed prison in the night. He crawled up beside me, then pushed himself into me to be the little spoon, so I had no choice but to lie with him a little longer before getting up. It was his birthday, after all.

When Summer got home, she had already picked up most everything she needed to throw Eaddie’s pool party. She had a little bit of prepwork to do, but all I really did was pull out the collection of flamingo gifts and take a shower. Eaddie got up and left for something, so we just got everything ready.

Summer had to leave for some new wrapping paper, and she left all the food on the floor, so Muad’Dib helped himself to a bag of hamburger buns, then hid what remained of it in his little spot by the fireplace. By this point, I couldn’t do anything but roll my eyes. For some reason, she also bought huge Ball Park buns to go with the cheap, shrinking, frozen burger patties, and somehow that was the more upsetting part.

We eventually got everything to my parents’ house, and we started blowing up balloons for a big flamingo arch. Neither of us had ever done that before, so we didn’t really know what we were up against. There were a ton of balloons, and our air pumps were woefully underpowered. Dad pulled out an electric pump for inflatables, but it didn’t push out enough pressure. I ended up blowing up many of them by mouth, but I was so hot and sweaty by that point that I didn’t really ever hyperventilate.

Once the balloons were inflated, she went outside to set up and I assembled the arch. It came with a neat little plastic strip that hooked onto the knots, and I just went down the line filling in the best I could. I had a giant one blow up, and a couple others fall off, but we eventually got it mostly done and carried it outside. That was when the fireworks really started.

I don’t know if it was just the heat, or shifting of the things in the wind or against other objects, but balloons started randomly popping loudly enough that it scared Muad’Dib. He pretty immediately ran away, and nobody seemed concerned enough to chase after him. At one point he actually ran out the fence and started running toward home. Luckily Eaddie and Eli saw him on their way over, and stopped to pick him up.

From that point on, he stayed mostly in the cabana. It was hot anyway, so he didn’t have a great time. We took a dip in the pool, I had to run home for a couple things. I took Muad’Dib with me because he really wanted to go. He just stood at the car door and waited to be let in. We got our stuff and headed back as others showed up.

I had to restart the charcoal at some point, but eventually got things going. I was getting smoked out, but people were also crowding me at the grill, and I couldn’t get out of it. My eyes burned on top of the sweat that was already irritating me. Julie and Kevin took over the grill after that.

Overall the party was a success. The kids seemed to have an okay time, though things did seem less centered around them due to the limit on outside friends that could be invited. We all ate, Eaddie opened presents, we had mushy milk cake, and then people filtered out. Summer, Dad, and I cleaned up, popped all of the balloons we spent so long filling, and eventually got loaded up to go home. Just as we were about to leave, Mom decided she wanted some hamburgers and I had to partially unpack the trunk to get food for her.

We finally made it home where Eaddie and Eli were hanging out. They had plans to leave for the evening, but I had one giant, stuffed flamingo left to gift her that we had forgotten at home. Once they left, I made Summer and myself a couple drinks and thought we’d get to sit down for a moment, but then I realized how late it was. I left her on the couch and went to wrap up my own chores, but apparently I wasn’t vocal enough about it and she got her feelings hurt.

She went to bed, I did my thing, and then it was off to bed.

Flocking fabulous.

Uncategorised

All of This Has Happened Before

Summer left this morning for a local race. She said she was going to take Muad’Dib, but she didn’t. I got out of bed a little later, seemingly stuck in a time loop.

When she got back from winning first in her age division, she woke Eaddie up and they eventually went to get the stuff to bake the birthday cake for the party tomorrow. I cleaned up in the kitchen so Summer would have room to work.

My head has been spinning out, and I just felt incapacitated for much of the day. I kept telling myself you have to break things apart to make them better, but sometimes it feels like we’re building it up to break it back down.

Eaddie was in and out of her room all day on her (now) multi-week project of cleaning out her room. Summer was in the kitchen for quite a while making pigs in a blanket and cake.

I learned that Sharon, the recently-retired music teacher from Oakland, had passed, and it tore me to shreds. I was touched by all of the social media posts about her. I had a few of my own unexpectedly deep and meaningful conversations with her in the music room. She was such an incredibly rare, kind, and loving person to have known even for the short time that I passed through that campus, and it broke my heart to hear of her untimely passing.

I had a long shower and tried to pick up around the house a bit more. I heated up some wings for myself and then for the girls in the air fryer, and that worked a treat. It was a light day for meals. Summer had a bath, and we watched all of the available episodes of Ironheart on Disney+. She went to bed, and every time I looked up, another hour ticked by.

All of this will happen again.

Uncategorised

Forty Nights

I got up to clean some more today. I finished up the assortment of bologna sandwich fixings for an early lunch, then took a shower so I could go to town. I had to take my Onewheel to UPS, but I needed to print the shipping label first, so Muad’Dib and I went to Superfast to have Summer do that. They were working on their rebranding stuff, so she was out back cleaning up a bunch of stuff when we found her.

With the shipping label in hand, we headed across town to The UPS Store and dropped off my Onewheel. Then we went to the Neighborhood Market to figure out what to do for dinner. I went straight to the protein to see what deals I could find, and picked up a couple packages of chicken wings, a rump roast, and some ahi tuna. Then I went back and got some smoked sausages and veggies for an assortment of things to cook on the smoker and flattop.

We made it home and I quickly prepped the Gravity grill to smoke the wings, beef, and sausages. I split the wings into lemon pepper and left some with just salt and pepper so Eaddie and I could toss them in Buffalo sauce. I peppered the heck out of the roast to try and give it a nice bark, and threw the sausages in for an easy addon. I steamed some rice and prepped the zucchini, squash, onions, mushrooms, snap peas, and jalapeños. I don’t think I’d ever actually made fried rice on the flattop before, and I figured it was a good day to try.

Summer eventually made it home and brought some broccoli and cauliflower for me to grill as well. I took the beef off the smoker and cubed it to sear with the veggies. It looked incredible for being smoked for such a short amount of time. I pulled the wings off to make some room, then went through three rounds of cooking on the flattop before it was all done. I cooked the tuna last, just as a fun extra.

The girls seemed to love the food. I thought it turned out pretty good, but I was too scattered to take notes on how to improve next time. I juggled a lot, and was glad Summer didn’t mind prepping the veggies she brought home after her long day at work.

After dinner, we cleaned up and I laid down with Summer for a while and watched part of Airplane! on the live Roku channel. Eaddie went to the gym, then brought Eli over to eat some of our leftovers. It was pretty quiet after that, but the night flew by and it was later than it seemed. I think it was a pretty good day.

If I were a fish and you caught me, you’d say, “Look at that fish!” Shimmering in the sun; such a rare one. Can’t believe that you caught one!

Uncategorised

hole in one

I made myself another bologna sandwich for brunch, then started picking through things to find their permanent homes. That left things pretty scattered. I got a notification that Summer had low pressure in one of her tires, and by the time I got her on the phone, it had dropped 20 more pounds. She stopped in Maumelle and eventually worked out a tow because she didn’t have the emergency jack in her car.

I started putting together the nicer shoe storage rack I got from Vine, and it was way more involved than I expected. Eaddie was slow to get around, but came out to eat some leftover pizza just after Summer and I decided to get a bucket of chicken.

Summer picked up the food on the way home and we ate in tense air. Eaddie kept complaining about how she didn’t like KFC. They gave us all dark meat for some reason, so we didn’t get any breasts or wings. Summer cleaned up and went to bed while Eaddie went to the gym and I finished up the shoe rack. I continued to organize, but left the shoe rack empty so Eaddie could organize her own shoes how she wanted them.

I think that even Sisyphus would hate his uphill climb.

Uncategorised

wasted space

I slept hard with hard dreams. Summer went to work in Conway after cancelling her oncology appointment. Eaddie left to meet with her advisor and make her class schedule. I managed to get out of bed and make a bologna sandwich to eat over the sink.

It was quiet all day, so I finished my new hire paperwork and then did my best to motivate myself to clean. The kids eventually came back, and Eaddie started some laundry while they watched TV. I climbed around and scrubbed some difficult spots in the shower. Summer had a relatively short day, so we planned to meet at Cici’s for an early dinner.

The kids and I met her there after she finished at the gym. While we were eating, I spotted Josh as he came in to meet his wife and kids. We had a laugh about him still not having his house finished. Then Eaddie rode home with Summer, and Eli and I took the fast car home.

I tried to take Muad’Dib out for a run later in the evening, but the Onewheel appeared dead. I couldn’t get any lights out of it. We came back in and I had a pretty heavy anxiety attack while vacuuming his fur. It was a short night after that.

☀️—————————🌎󠀠󠀠————————🌘————————-☄️

Uncategorised

On Hopes and Incense

Summer went to the gym and Eaddie went to church. I had a slice of pizza left over from I know not when, and then showered in time to get to Lelan’s to help grill pork chops before everyone else showed up. It was the second Ngày Giỗ since Bác Vân’s passing, and she had me grill pork chops and an assortment of sausages to add to the smorgasbord of other traditional and favorite dishes they would offer to those in the Great Beyond. The girls showed up after Summer finished mowing the lawn. Julie and Kevin arrived pretty close to the agreed-upon time. Our parents were, as expected, last.

Those who chose to, prayed. Dad made it a point not to, out of respect for his own faith. There didn’t seem to be any difference to me whether you prayed to a deity with or without incense, but I carried that learned respect with me when it came time to bless the food. I felt the emotion and the want, but I knew that to me, there was only the present, and I was there to enjoy the company of my family.

We visited as we waited for the incense to self-extinguish. There was something very traditional about sharing cold dishes after they had been offered to those passed. Lelan evidently didn’t get the message about my customary flattened, boiled eggs, and with fewer and fewer people upholding these traditions, I wondered who would slice The Sausage that I Like™ to eat with steamed rice on the anniversary of my own passing.

I didn’t love that Randall wasn’t there, but he is also a man of many cultures. At least having fewer people made eating around the table easier. After we ate, Dad had a slideshow of a trip to Europe they took before I was born. I was neither nostalgic nor sentimental about any of it, but we did eventually find a photo of me in a bunny costume.

When we all parted ways, Lelan, Stephen, Mom, and Dad all headed to the cemetery. I ran home first to get Muad’Dib, since I figured it was important that somebody new should be a part of the tradition. Once Mom and Dad showed up, they burned some more incense and offered fruit as, I suppose, dessert. We stood in the shade and visited until the incense burned out, and then we all went home.

I stopped at Casey’s to redeem a free drink and ran into Rusty, riding home from a day’s work at Atwood’s, on a small Shadow. We chatted for a little while before I eventually made it home. Eaddie had left again, so I talked Summer into going swimming at my parents’ house. We took Muad’Dib along, and Mom was watering plants when we got there. The pool was just about perfect, but we couldn’t convince Muad’Dib to dip his toes in the water.

We headed home after dark, and Summer went straight to bed. Eaddie came home really late and talked to me for a long while. She shared about her own day out, and then tried to help by telling me to be selfish and buy a sailboat. We talked about dreams, expectations, and the paralysis of choice. It doesn’t seem to me that there is a real choice, so for now, we’ll all float on.

Good news is on the way.

Uncategorised

Destinare

I slept pretty hard last night and didn’t set an alarm, so it was lucky that I woke up just in time to get cleaned up and hit the road to make it to Stephen’s visitation. We decided to take Muad’Dib with us since Eaddie had plans to go boating with some friends. Summer and I just drove ourselves and planned to meet my parents and Julie in Bismark.

We made it to Ola where we stopped for some Chester’s Chicken and a dried up chimichanga to tide us over. The drive down Highway 7 was mostly fun, but before we got to Jessieville, a Camaro and I got stuck behind a long line of people driving 15 miles under the speed limit. The internal monologue was not kind. The external monologue wasn’t much better.

Once we got into Hot Springs, I decided to stop at the Franklin’s Charging Station to get a little bit of juice just in case we were stuck out in the middle of nowhere for a while. I figured we would be leaving Muad’Dib in the car for a while as well, and I wasn’t sure how much power that would take. It wasn’t as nice of a place as their Little Rock location, but it was fine to be in a place just outside of town.

We made it to the Bismarck First Methodist Church just after the rest of my family, and we let Muad’Dib out to stretch his legs. He made a quick loop through the church before we put him back in the car. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the service because it felt very impersonal to me. We didn’t really even stay long enough to visit with the family for very long. Once they had the flag unfolded and folded back up again, we left.

Julie was pretty hangry, so I suggested Fisherman’s Wharf for their dog-friendly deck over the water. When we got there, I was surprised that there wasn’t a wait for outside seating, since there appeared to be a line of people waiting to sit inside. We made it through the restaurant to our table, and Muad’Dib had lots of fun looking around, and staring at geese in the water. It took awhile for our food to come out. Letting our waitress, named Destiny, choose my entire meal seemed only fitting.

My food was good, but Julie complained about her fillet. I ate what she didn’t, and I agreed that it was overcooked and under-seasoned. The gator tail appetizer was also an incredibly small portion of incredibly small pieces. At least they tasted pretty good.

We parted ways after our early dinner. Julie took Mom and Dad back through Little Rock again, and Summer and I went into Hot Springs to wander around. I first took us through the car wash a couple of times since I wouldn’t be back again, presumably ever. Then we made it downtown where the Tesla chargers were all occupied. Luckily, the power pole right behind the available spot had a piece of plywood with multiple varied outlets available. I got my mobile connector out, and wouldn’t you know, the very first plug I tried was energized and we were up and going.

Muad’Dib had a great time walking the strip off-leash with us. He behaved super well, except for one moment when he wouldn’t stop sniffing a poodle walking the other direction. I held onto his e-collar remote after that, and he immediately returned to my side any time I beeped him. We walked down a ways, crossed the street, and walked down to find some ice cream. Summer asked for a pup cup, and though that wasn’t something they normally did, the girl gave her a cup of whipped cream anyway. We sat outside, fed him, and shared a banana split. Then it was back to the car.

Take my hand!

Take my hand!

I filled up some water bottles, and then we loaded up to head home. I let the car drive the entire way home up Highway 7, and it did fabulously. Muad’Dib appreciated not sliding back and forth in the seat from hitting the curves at three times the recommended speed, and Summer didn’t have to stop to throw up. I just accepted that the drive would be less exciting, and more relaxing instead.

I stopped at Casey’s for a freebie, and then we made it home. Eaddie was back and didn’t bother coming out of her room to greet us. I took Muad’Dib out in the dark for a short, cool, evening run. We went straight to my parents’ house, then a modified route back home. He did great, and was ready for bed once we got home.

My Vine reviewed appeared to be up to date enough that my review period was over. The girls both went to bed, I vacuumed Muad’Dib and gave him a spritz of cologne, and eventually went to sleep.

Choose your own adventure. Or not. Whatever.

Uncategorised

Baths All Around

I couldn’t leave Muad’Dib outside, so I brought him in for a vacuum to get some of the smelly dirt off of him, then washed his paws in the tub. By the end of it, I was satisfied enough to let him sleep with us. We slept in pretty late, too. When I finally got up, I warmed my leftover SuperSONIC Breakfast Burrito in a skillet, then continued to tinker with more Vine stuff. I started to feel a little sick and decided to take a bubble bath to relax for a while, and as soon as I got settled in, Summer asked if I wanted to get lunch with her.

We ended up going out for an early dinner, not long after Eaddie woke up and made herself some ramen. I drove to Mulan’s to meet her like she said, but had to wait 25 minutes for her to show up because she thought “I need to get dressed” meant it would take me so long that I would have to tell her when I was on the way.

Dinner was pretty good, but I’ve been stuffed all week. As we left, there was a big wreck on Main and Knoxville that had traffic diverted, so I spun around and went back up to Parkway. We got home and Summer had a bath. I tried to keep up with Vine reviews as multiple deliveries arrived today, and I eventually took Muad’Dib out for a run.

We made pretty decent time for how hot it was. We got chased down by a dog that slipped away from its owner, so we turned around to return it. I was proud of Muad’Dib for minding so well. We got around to my parents’ house and visited very briefly before making it home.

It was time to give Muad’Dib another proper bath with some new shampoo I got from Vine. He was immediately warry, and hid from me outside when we got home. Eaddie got him back inside and I vacuumed him, bathed him, blow dried him outside, then vacuumed him some more before bed.1

I was up quite a while later, finishing up some more reviews and getting lost in thoughts. A somber weekend approaches.

Thinkin’ how you left me for dead.

Uncategorised

HSTIBBQ

I didn’t think we were getting lunch today because there wasn’t a break in the schedule, so I skipped the keynote and went to Sonic for a breakfast burrito before going to the conference. Being able to eat while the car drives me is really the killer app. I walked into a session and saw Jason, so we caught up briefly before things got started.

After the first session, I saw that they had barbecue for lunch, so I circled the vendor area, found Ben, and then we sat down to eat instead of going to another session. Craig was there as well, so I had him sign my badge as a local celebrity. After lunch, Randy, Dustin, and I sat in on Ben’s presentation about APSRC data projects, and then I had one more session on cyber forensics before the end of the day.

The other Craig and Dustin had to get to The Blitzed Pig early enough that Craig could get set up for karaoke in the evening, so we planned to have lunch super early at Fisherman’s Wharf. I got another car wash before going to the room to clean up. Then I met Randy and Kyle at the restaurant. When Dustin, Craig, Ben, and then David showed up, we realized that we really needed a bigger table and moved to the back corner. David ended up covering us, which was unexpected. We had a great time though, and I got way more full than I expected on my filet Oscar.

I went back to the hotel to clean some of the humidity off of myself, and then called Summer to spend some time catching up. I eventually made my way to The Blitzed Pig for karaoke and drinks on IK’s dime. It was not at all my type of shindig, and it was still super humid outside, but we stuck around through the good, the bad, and the ugly. By the end of it, We had a ton of drink tickets left, so I gave the wheel of them to a waitress when she finally came back around, and asked for as much Fireball as she would bring us.

A little while later, a guy came out with a tray of individual shots, so I poured as many of them into a big plastic cup as I could before he picked up the tray and walked off. He didn’t seem keen on me drinking it all, but my goal was to walk out anyway. They eventually did door prizes, and Randy and I both won. He traded me his Tosy glowing disc for my SSD enclosure, and then we left. I made it back to the room to dump my cup into an old bottle, and I’ll have Fireball for another day.

But you’re still alive.