Tag: food

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What Hindu

I woke up early this morning to get home for a shower before our day in Little Rock. On my way to the shower, I heard rainwater dripping into the bedroom where the roof still hadn’t been repaired, so I had to stick a bucket under it to prevent any further damage. It didn’t really seem to be storming, but while in the middle of my shower, I heard three or four loud pops outside as transformers blew one-by-one. My lights flickered for the first couple, then went out for a couple seconds for another, and finally went out for good after the last bang.

I finished my shower without power, and then struggled to find a way out of my home. I haven’t been able to find a door key in ages, so I ended up manually opening the garage to leave, hoping things would be back on quickly enough to lock things up again.

My parents picked us up at Summer’s, and we headed to meet Julie and Kevin at Costco. I worked on my Google Slides presentation for the whole drive, and felt like I had some pretty good topics to cover with the teachers for tomorrow.

I was pretty hungry, so Julie got us all hot dogs or pizza at the deli, which was super cheap and pretty tasty. I was surprised at how much of the store we covered, and we picked out a couple things to bring home. After that, we went straight to the IMAX for Oppenheimer.

I think most of us liked the movie alright, but Eaddie and I probably enjoyed it the most. Mom and Dad ended up going toward the back of the theater because Mom couldn’t see the screen well enough from the seats I picked. I think Kevin thought it would be more about the Manhattan Project than just Oppenheimer’s life, but I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and felt good about what we watched. It definitely felt more like a biopic than anything else, and didn’t drown the audience in the science.

After the movie, the girls had to thaw out a bit. We walked partway down the Promenade before turning around to find something to eat. Nobody seemed really excited for food except for me, because I knew that was the plan and was going to eat regardless of how I felt. It almost devolved into a full-blown argument choosing where to go, because nobody wanted to just call the shot. I finally picked Star of India after we discovered that Julie’s pick of Three Fold Noodles + Dumpling Co. was closed.

We tried to order full-sized orders of everything in the Chef’s Special, thinking that it would be way more food than what we actually got. In the end, I think it was pretty close in portion size, so I was left wondering if we had inadvertently ripped ourselves off. I just couldn’t quite remember how much we got the last couple of times I got the special. In any case, the food was good and everyone got to try something new that the girls and I have really enjoyed.

I poked around my slideshow a bit more on the drive home, and then had my parents drop us off at my house so I could take my car to Summer’s for the evening. My water bucket hadn’t overflowed, and it was a quick and quiet evening until bedtime.

Impromptu Best Presentation Ever

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Too Much Milling About

I got up with the girls this morning, but then napped for a little bit longer before going home to shower. I planned to take some Ridgewood Brothers BBQ to the mill as a gesture of goodwill since I still hadn’t actually accepted their job offer yet. Gary didn’t answer my call, but then responded to my text to say that they ended up filling the position earlier this week. I was pretty upset, but it wasn’t much of a surprise after all the time I had wasted since the original offer. Part of me thinks I should have just left the school without any qualms, since I had no evidence that the superintendent was actually putting forth any effort to increase my pay. Maybe he has, but he’s certainly not any good at communicating his intent.

Around that time, Eaddie finished at band practice. I told her I was free for lunch, so she came to pick me up and we went to Ridgewood ourselves. She made me get the two meat plate because she wanted a bite of some ribs, so I wasn’t quite as satisfied with my meal as I usually am. Then we went back to my house to get my car, but ended up leaving it there to stay on the charger.

As we left, I noticed she had things strewn all around the car, and my lip balm had been tipped up on its side, leaking out all over the place. Fortunately there was a removable rubber tray and it wasn’t terribly difficult to clean up. I was mostly upset that my lip balm was wasted all because the girls couldn’t pay attention to what the hell they were doing in my car.

When we got back to the house, I sat and played 20 Minutes Till Dawn on my phone. I brought my little 8BitDo controller, which made the game a lot more playable. Summer eventually made it home, but didn’t want to get back out. Eaddie and I went back to Ridgewood to try their pork belly pops and some brickle bars. We were in and out, but then got stopped by a train for several minutes as it went back and forth in front of us.

We loved the porksicles, and the desserts were great too. Then I laid in Summer’s lap while she watched TV, and played more of my new game until bedtime.

I like to think I would have been less happy there anyway.

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Housing by the Foot

Summer made sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits for breakfast this morning. I talked to Alisha sporadically throughout the day about the Sherwood house. Summer wanted to take Eaddie out on a hike, but I had to do some laundry, so they went to Haw Creek Falls while I went home. Summer’s car was still low on charge from our trip to Rogers, so I took it to my house to top it off.

Eaddie felt pretty cruddy when they got back, so we gave her a bunch of sinus medicine and she took a short nap. It didn’t take long for her to feel better, and we went to my parents’ house for spring rolls. Julie and Kevin were already there and watching TV. I tried to help out a little bit, but there wasn’t a lot left to do.

We had to split up into two tables, but dinner was good. Afterward, I showed Eaddie the World Book Encyclopedia I had growing up. Then Dad brought out a few slides to share. We hung out for a little while before heading back to the house.

Autumn tried calling late in the evening because she found out Rick died, but after the conversation with Beth last night and the subsequent unfriending she did on Facebook, nobody had much sympathy. She ended up hanging up on me, and then Eaddie came out to chat with me for about an hour before I went to bed.

Those tears are reptilian.

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Oo-De-lally, Oo-De-lally

Even after getting to bed near three in the morning, I was wide awake before nine. I’m dead all week, and then fine all weekend. I got up and sent a text to Alisha to try and schedule a time to look at the house on Sherwood. They added some pictures of the kitchen, and we were interested enough to have a closer look.

I had a burger for brunch and then went home to clean up before. Then I went back for the girls before meeting my dad and Alisha at the house. Dad went to the house next door at first, which happened to be Kevin’s and his parents’ old house. Alisha’s kids were there running all around the place, but they weren’t too bad. We really liked the quirky layout of the house. The garage was a little small, and the whole lot itself was pretty tiny, but that just meant there was less to mow.

Everything was pretty soggy after the heavy rains, but even before that, the shop out back had a pretty extensive water leak. The ceiling and the floor were both really bad, and particularly squishy in a few places. They had it set up like a little apartment though, and if it were a little larger with a powered garage door, it would have been exactly what I wanted for the motorcycles. Dad also spotted some rotting wood on the fascia and soffit, but it may have been from before the roof was replaced.

We went by my parents’ house for a few minutes after we finished at the house, and then we continued back to Summer’s to start cooking some ribs. I started my smoker tube and got the ribs seasoned to slow smoke, and then Summer left for the gym. Eaddie hung out with me in the dining room after Vicky dropped off some snacks for her. I baked potatoes for dinner, and then we ate a little while after Summer got home.

Sometime after Summer went to bed, Aunt Beth started texting about Autumn, saying they were trying to get her into college, and scolding her for dropping her health insurance because they would have to pay for it. Summer got incredibly frustrated but wouldn’t respond, so I ended up doing it for her. Not one person in that family knows a damn thing about being a parent, and it shows in every single one of the kids they collected. The entire thing is a hot, dysfunctional mess, and we don’t want anything to do with it.

Golly, what a day!

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Sayonara

I had to give myself until seven this morning, but then I got out of bed to meet up with the family before people started leaving. Eaddie said she really wanted to go again, and convinced Noah to go as well, so Summer woke them up on her way out to work, and then the three of us headed straight to my parents’ house. I forgot to swap vehicles for the Model 3 so I could give Uncle Mai a ride, so as soon as we got there, we had to head back to my house to get it.

We didn’t head back right away, and instead stopped by the airport where Kevin had taken Dan for a flight, and Dad was watching Julie practice some patterns. When I mentioned Kevin’s name to Noah, he asked if it was red-headed, big-bearded Kevin. Evidently Noah’s father had known Kevin for several years. When we found them by the hangar, Dan was already back on the ground. Kevin brought out his Onewheel and let Noah and Dan try riding it around. We didn’t stick around long enough to see Julie take her first solo flight because Mom also sent us to pick up bread and bananas for everyone back home.

We stopped by Kroger and then headed back to the house. I gave Uncle Mai a ride up and around the mountain without even a moment of silence, and then set him up to try his magic trick on the kids. We socialized for a while longer while Mom continued prepping things in the kitchen. Dan eventually showed back up for a little while, but they ended up having to leave in a hurry as their flight time kept changing around.

After a while, I took Eaddie and Noah back home to shower and rest, since they had barely gotten any sleep. As I headed home, Lelan texted to ask if I wanted any flowers from the funeral. I headed straight to Humphrey to meet her, but then Randall called to see if I knew of a key to let them in to deliver some food to Doug. I just told them to meet us at the funeral home so I could take it to him.

I was the first to arrive, followed by Randall and Danielle. Lelan showed up as we were moving cars around to the back of the building, and then they divvied up all of the plants. I had one in every seat of the car, so I dropped them off at my parents’ house before going home to shower. I figured the kids fell asleep after that, because I didn’t hear from them for a while.

I ended up going back to my parents’ house where Lelan, Randall, and Danielle had all eventually met up. It looked like they were taking turns rolling egg rolls. After a little while, I took Randall and Danielle on a ride in the Model 3. Dad called while we were out and had us stop at Kroger to pick up some more lettuce. Then I let Randall drive us back to the house.

I was there for the rest of the evening to chat. Steven showed up after work, but Lelan had gotten on the phone with Bobby. I decided to take him for a ride as well, but since Summer had just showed up for some dinner, we took the Model Y for a little extra leg room. Of course once we got back, we had to do the comparison ride with the Model 3. Lelan wanted a ride as soon as we got back, and I think she decided she wanted one.

Lelan and Steven loaded up to leave, and shortly thereafter I loaded up the rest of the flowers to take up to Summer’s. I got there and unloaded, but then had to run the Model 3 home for the night. When I got back, she was in bed and the kids were gone, having been bowling, and then out to the Dover Lights for Eaddie’s 16th birthday. I was pretty tired from all the heat and sweat, so I tried to get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

What a miserable place to live.

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Arrangements

I only slept in a little bit today, relative to when I went to sleep. When I got up, Dad said everyone was meeting at Humphrey Funeral Service, so I got around and went straight over there to meet them. When I arrived, I didn’t recognize any cars, so I waited in mine until my parents snuck around the side and told me to come in. Lelan, Steven, Randall, Danielle, Doug, Uncle Giao, and my parents were all there. Julie and Kevin showed up a little while later after getting back on the ground. The conversations didn’t really seem to necessitate most of us there, but I guess it was good practice.

We had a few small laughs, and Lelan and her closest picked out a casket. Julie made some coffee for a few of us, and they provided information for the obituary. It was basically just business. When we left, Steve took us all to Ridgewood Brothers for lunch. Grant and Robert were both there, and then Kyler brought us a tray of chicken they had smoked for a catering job. We ate and socialized for a bit, and then split up into a couple groups to visit a flower shop and take care of a few other things. I went home to get a shower, and then we all eventually ended up at Bác Vân’s house where we spent the rest of the day.

The family dug through photo albums for pictures to show at the service while the rest of us just kind of socialized a bit. Julie and Kevin ended up leaving to pick up some food from the oriental food store in Little Rock. Later on, I let Randall drive the Model 3, which got his blood pumping. As the evening progressed, a few others stopped in, including Tom and Steven, and Chris and his wife. Julie brought a duck home, which we had for dinner. It was a pretty long and mostly dull day for me, but it was really nice to catch up with Randall.

Eventually everyone headed home and left Doug to unwind in the house by himself. I felt less angry and more empathy for him rattling around in an empty house full of mostly somebody else’s things. I headed straight up to Summer’s, but both girls were long asleep. I was exhausted, but didn’t get to sleep right away. I just felt restless.

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

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End of the Line

We slept in today, and then got out for lunch at a place down the road called Taqueria Habanero. The tacos seemed pretty expensive, but I sort of miscalculated the price when I suggested we share a platter of 15 assorted tacos. They didn’t go to waste, though. It was annoying that they basically brought us a salsa bowl full of chips, but more would cost extra. The green and red sauces they brought out were amazing though. We had steak, shrimp, and al pastor tacos, which were all incredible as well. We ended up saving one of each for Eaddie, though she wouldn’t have time to eat them until much later.

After we ate, we went to the university and struggled to find any valid parking. After driving around the campus a couple times, we finally settled on a lot that was actually right next to another bus stop, which worked out great for us. We actually got on the bus before it got to the stop where the girls were waiting.

We hopped onto the Metro and rode down to Chinatown so we could tour Ford’s Theater. That took quite a while just because of how much information they packed into such a small space with so many visitors. It was neat to see the theater itself, but evidently it was all a reconstruction anyway.

After that, we walked back to the National Portrait Gallery. I don’t think it was first on anybody’s list, but the girls wanted to go. It wasn’t my thing, so Summer and I mostly sped through a bit of it and then sat down until everyone else was ready to go.

When we got back to the Metro, it was right in the middle of rush hour and the first train we saw was absolutely packed. We walked to the end of the platform and waited for the next one, which was virtually empty. As we drew close to our stop, I wanted to see if I could ride around whatever loop they had at the end. The girls all decided they would go with me, but then instead of waiting on the train, everyone got off at the last stop, insisting that someone would make us get off. There wasn’t an employee anywhere to be found, so I was really frustrated that the whole point of the experiment was ruined. Then they were annoyed at me for something they volunteered to do.

We took the bus back to the car, and then Summer and I went to the most convenient Chinese buffet I could find, literally called China Buffet. It was a small, unassuming building with fair reviews. It seemed old when we walked in, and then they had us pay when we entered. I had to ask a kid that didn’t seem to speak any English whether drinks were included, and learned that we had to serve ourselves. This would have been absolutely fine if there hadn’t been a hand-written sign on the wall on the way out that asked us to “please tip the waitresses.” We literally spoke to no one. No one brought us anything. Someone periodically bussed empty plates, but not with any sense of urgency. Utensils and napkins were all on the food bar. I think I left four bucks. The food was alright.

When we got back to the hotel, we were lucky enough to be able to charge. Then we made it to the room, where the engineers had brought us an extension cord and surge protector for the things on our TV wall. Summer was excited to be able to watch television. I bounced around a bit between distractions and trying to plan our trip home. I scheduled a third interview at the mill for next week, which made me wonder if there was any competition at all, or if I had it in the bag. I’d kind of hate to leave Two Rivers, but I don’t know how I could turn down nearly twice the pay, especially if the school doesn’t transfer the vacation days like I expected.

That’s what “homesick” means, kid.

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Drive All Day, Sleep No Way

I got to bed really late last night, slept super hard, and then crawled out of bed really early this morning to finish loading up for our trip. I was surprised that we ended up waiting about an hour and a half for Genesis to meet us at Superfast, where we left the Murano in an unused shop bay. She was supposed to be at Summer’s house at seven, but we didn’t leave town until about 8:30.

We hit the road, but then stopped early in Conway so we could wash Summer’s car. I used all of their fancy, foaming chemicals since she had a key to bypass the payment system. The Model Y had never looked so clean, even when it rolled off of the assembly line. We made our way out of the state, skipping the charger in Brinkley, and making it all the way to Memphis to stop and eat.

We had quite a bit of range anxiety since the arrival percentage just kept rapidly dropping, but we made it. The Supercharger was on the outskirts of a parking lot, and then we walked to a place called Kami Ramen Bar for lunch. The food was awesome, and the service was fast, straightforward, and friendly.

Our next stop was Nashville, where we walked through Target while we waited. When we left, I had Summer stop at Sonic so I could get a drink. What I got ended up being mostly ice cream though, so I stayed thirsty the rest of the day.

Our next stop was in Knoxville for dinner. We charged to 100% while we ate at Blaze Pizza. I wasn’t at all impressed with what Summer ordered, so I ordered another custom pizza online and ate that instead.
We powered on through the night, stopping one last time in Atkins at a Supercharger that happened to be in the parking lot of a Comfort Inn. Then Summer finished the last leg of the trip to get us into Roanoke for the night.

When we pulled up to the Best Western, two of the EV spots were ICEd out, with one of those vehicles being an SUV with handicapped tags parked over the line, nearly blocking the last available spot. I contemplated parking behind those two cars and running the charger out to ours, but I didn’t want to risk retaliation. Instead, we risked parking too close to a handicapped beater vehicle with the wheel cocked right into our car. I took pictures of the license plate and handicapped tag just in case we found their paint on our car the next morning.

As we got into the hotel, we were assaulted by a variety of smells that I attributed to body odor and weed. Luckily the room didn’t smell awful, and I was able to drop the temperature way down before we made it to bed. Genesis was the first into the shower, followed by Eaddie. I wrapped up my chores, and then it was off to bed for me.

I would get a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot, so why wouldn’t they get a ticket for parking in an EV spot?

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Gators Out of Water

I squeezed into work today, but things were unusually quiet. It wasn’t long before I learned that they sent everyone home because a water main had gone out somewhere up the road, so the school had no water. I tried to stick around for a bit, but eventually went home since I knew it would take me half an hour to get back home to my own bathroom.

Just after I got home, the mail lady came by with my new sun shades for our cars. I tried them out and settled on using the umbrella type for the Model 3, since I didn’t really have anywhere to store the folding one. Then I decided to surprise the guys at Taco John’s for lunch. I tried to see if Allen was going, but from what I could hear over the phone, he was out doing something else.

I stopped to wash my car first so I wouldn’t be too early, but even when I arrived, I had time to eat all of my food before Zach, Greg, and his wife and kid showed up. They didn’t have a whole lot to say, but I did learn that Old South had burned down. Shortly after they got their food, a bunch of the maintenance crew came in, so I moved over to sit with them once Zach and Greg left.

After lunch, I headed up to see if Eaddie wanted to go driving. She was cleaning and doing laundry, so I helped pick through some crap Autumn had left in the floor when she left. Noah left with the promise of coming back to help us move a grill up from my house. I had texted Autumn to see if she wanted to come get some more stuff, but when she came by after DEP for her school records, she said she still hadn’t unpacked anything. She seemed humbled though, and even offered to come back and mow the front lawn so Eaddie wouldn’t have to do it herself.

After a while, I convinced Eaddie to go grocery shopping with me, and we got everything to grill some burgers and took it back to my house to wait for Noah. We ended up waiting for nearly two hours, but he eventually showed up and we successfully moved the grill. Eaddie got to work right away baking a cake, while I started up the grill. The three of them went back out to get some fries while I mixed up the hamburger meat, and then I grilled everything as quickly as I could.

Dinner was awesome. They were some of the best burgers I’d made in quite a while, and it made the girls realize why I scoffed at the $80 it cost for us to eat at Big Orange the other day. Noah had put on The Guardians of the Galaxy while they were waiting to eat, so we finished watching it after we ate, and then everyone was off to bed.

They drained the swamp.

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Fifty Grand and the Hunt for Chromebooks

Kim called me while I was on the way to work this morning, and said she would be coming in a little bit later. I don’t think she’s actually scheduled to work any more over the summer, but she says she swaps comp days, and I don’t know enough yet to argue. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I decided to poke around the 3CX phone system a little more.

Blake came into my office a little later and said I had about $50,000 to spend before the end of the year. I’m guessing that’s normally a good problem to have, but in this case I’m still not even sure what we have in order to make a judgement on what we need. I’ve got dozens of fires going at once, and I’m just not able to prioritize any one of them.

The lunch room was obviously closed, so I didn’t even bother trying to find anything to eat. Kim found us some leftover cake though, so that served well enough. We spent the afternoon going room-to-room looking for Chromebooks, and I made a spreadsheet to compare those that we scanned with those from Google Admin. That seemed like a good start, at least. We found about 200 by the end of the day.

Apparently we’re already starting four ten hour days, so I left a little after five and raced home as quickly as traffic would allow. Summer had swapped to charge, so I had to shuffle cars around after I changed clothes and stoked the fires in the back yard a little more. Then I picked up some Taco John’s on the way up to her house for the evening.

I brought home some leftover hot sauce from our Taco Villa lunch on Friday, and it made my tacos about a thousand times better. I only stopped eating them because I ran out. Summer sat in front of the TV the rest of the night until she went to bed. I finally got Summer’s Fitbit Aria scale paired again, after an infuriating conversation with tech support, and finally bringing out an old iPad to complete the process.

Eaddie had spent several hours helping her grandmother in the garden, and best I could tell, Autumn was out at the movies with Adam. Eaddie came home and showed me some new shirts she got, and I made it to bed before Autumn got home.

Tek Tuk Tuk!