Tag: food

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Submatoes

I made it to work a few minutes early today, and briefly got to meet our newest team member, Jeff. He and Jacob hung out there for a bit in the morning as Jacob did a little bit of introductory training. It was neat to see someone trying to provide a little bit of structure to the team. I ended up going to Dwight for a little bit before lunch, and everyone seemed very excited to see me.

Thomas took the usual four of us to Taco Tuesday, where they were still out of lettuce due to “supply chain issues.” Shredding is hard, I suppose. I guess the lettuce also brings the temperature of the tacos way down too, because for the first time ever, I got scalding hot tacos. After lunch, Gary helped me run a single network line at Support Services. That took a solid couple of hours, and we ran into some trouble with his end of the termination. It was nice to get that out of my queue though.

The rest of the afternoon was relatively quiet after working up that sweat. Summer called after school let out to tell me that Eaddie had lost her phone. We saw it leave the high school, but then it was powered off just at the intersection of 19th Street. I went to the high school when I left work, to get her from robotics. I talked to Ethan for a bit while I was there, and he talked me into volunteering for a tournament next weekend. Then we went outside to chat about my car. He said they had been going through new cars every few months just because they were selling them for more than they were paying to order new ones.

From there, we went to my house so I could change, and then I took Eaddie home to practice her flute. I had a little bit of chicken and dumplings, but there wasn’t really enough to go around. Summer came home after her workout, and she, Eaddie, and I went to La Huerta. I thought I’d eat super light, but left super stuffed somehow. I even traded Eaddie for a much smaller taco.

Eaddie kept playing her flute when we got home. Autumn went to karate, but was home by the time we got back. Everyone was pretty tired, so it was quickly off to bed.

This is the opposite of good customer service.

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Not Playing

I got up this morning and dug out all the leftovers I could find to make breakfast. I started by caramelizing some onions and serrano peppers, and defrosting some ham. Once I got all of that diced up and into the pan, I added all the eggs we had, along with some tomatoes and cheese. Once that was scrambled up together, I loaded up some whole wheat pita bread that we had in the freezer. I thought it turned out really well, and the girls seemed to like it.

The girls wanted to go to the high school play again in the afternoon, so I went home to clean up. I ended up springing a leak and couldn’t stop the bleeding for several hours, so I just stayed home and did a couple loads of laundry. Once I had things under control, I headed back up to Summer’s for dinner.

She made chicken and dumplings for me, but forgot the green onions, so I turned around and ran through Walmart first. They were actually out of green onions, so I picked up some chives and cilantro instead. Those, along with some more fresh onion and serrano peppers made for a really good dinner, though I’m not sure anyone else enjoyed it as much as I did.

I laid on the couch with Summer for a bit while she wound down. Autumn took Eaddie to her friend’s house for the night, and then came back wanting to play Monopoly. Summer just wanted to relax though, so it ended up being a really quiet, early night.

Frustered

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Starting Earlier

I wanted to shift my sleep schedule back starting today, so I didn’t let myself go back to sleep after I woke up around six. I laid in bed and played Into the Breach until Summer stirred a bit. Then I got up and heated some leftover breakfast pizza. Eventually the girls got around, so I went to Walgreens across town to pick up a deal on tooth paste. Then I went to work to drop off some scrap and pick up a TV stand before going home and starting some laundry.

Eaddie was having Gavin over for the afternoon, and they decided they wanted to go ride bicycles, so Summer brought them over while I was working in the garage. They took off, and then Summer and I went to Walmart to walk around and get stuff for dinner. From there, I went back home to finish laundry and wait for the kids while Summer went home to start on dinner.

When we got back, Summer had made some delicious looking meatballs for spaghetti. I put the TV stand together and got it stood up on the old TV stand I tried to give away before it started raining yesterday. To my surprise, the red line was back. It’s not unbearable for the increase in size, but it’s not a smart TV either, so it’s annoying not having a remote for it.

Dinner was awesome, though Autumn didn’t join us since she went out with Nick. She came home ranting about him, though it seemed like they were both really just manipulating each other. The four of us that did eat really enjoyed the home cooked meal. Once we finished, the five of us played a game of UNO FLIP! It was a surprisingly short game, and then the kids all went to their rooms.

Summer and I watched the first episode of Our Flag Means Death and then I flipped through YouTube until Gavin’s parents picked him up. We stayed up a bit longer, Summer finished up a few chores, and I made it to bed early.

Feels like finals week.

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What a Breach

I woke up fairly early this morning and laid in bed until Summer got up to make biscuits for breakfast. I finally finished up the gravy I had saved from a couple weeks ago, which was only a little bit questionable. Afterward, Eaddie came out for help with some math homework. I didn’t remember doing matrices as a kid, but it seemed to make sense to me now. I finally got the achievement in Into the Breach that I’d been working on for a couple weeks, and eventually Summer got ready to take me home and go to the gym.

I spent a little time outside cleaning up inside the Montego, and then poked around in the garage to get Eaddie’s bike out. I don’t know why the tires seem like they don’t hold air for very long, but I got them aired up as well. I eventually wound up in a bath, and Summer brought Eaddie over to bike. I felt much better afterward, and then we loaded up the bike rack and headed to my parents’ house for chow mein.

Eaddie met us there on her bike and ate, and then wanted to ride across the neighborhood to try and find a friend’s house. When she got back, we loaded the bike up and came back to my house to unload. Then they went home while I did a couple loads of laundry.

Summer called a little later and said that Autumn hadn’t invited her to senior night, and in fact wanted to have her grandparents walk her onto the field. It didn’t mean anything to me, because the majority of the students don’t have a senior night in the first place, and because Autumn hasn’t really done anything in particular for us to be proud of her anyway. She’s done everything she can to make our family life hell. I understand why it upset Summer, especially since Autumn wouldn’t even have a senior night herself if Summer hadn’t refused to let her drop out of band. The whole thing is a power-play, and honestly I’d rather avoid homecoming week anyway.

Move along.

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Taco Bout It

I’ve ridden a bike to work all week because the weather has been so nice. It may be jacket weather in the mornings next week though. This morning’s meeting was our first that required an agenda from Zach and Gary. Zach took the lead, which he took awkwardly. It was pretty easy to tell that he was given direction without purpose. After the meeting, everyone else went through the shop and cleaned all the flat surfaces.

I didn’t have a whole lot going on, but I decided to go through and clean out my stale tickets after that was mentioned during the meeting. Then I wrapped up a couple other things I had been working on, and I was basically done with projects for the day.

When lunch time came around, Zach wanted CJ’s. I rode my bike behind them, but got lost in traffic. By the time I got to CJ’s, they had already left for Cracker Barrel because there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. I left the line and went after them, but got another message that Cracker Barrel had a 30 minute wait, so they had gone ahead to Brangus. I opted out at that point and went back to the shop to eat my leftover Slim Chickens. Evidently Brangus didn’t work out for them either though, because the line was out the door. They ended up at La Chiquita, which wasn’t busy because as I’ve said before, it’s not particularly good.

The afternoon was super quiet, and I had trouble killing the rest of the day. Autumn had been at Dwight all day for her educators class, but called to say she could take Eaddie home. I asked her to drop her off at her hair appointment so I could go scrap the metal I had been hanging onto for so long. I ran home at quitting time and made it to Cunningham just in time. I was disappointed that I only got $15 for the lot of it, so I probably won’t be saving cans any longer. It’s just not worth the storage space.

Lelan finished Eaddie’s hair before I even got halfway across town to pick her up. I was surprised that it was still so long, but Eaddie said she really liked it. She sent us home with some tea tree shampoo because she still picked out some nits after all this time. I figure Eaddie has just accepted a symbiotic relationship at this point, because she doesn’t complain about itching, and nobody has really purged the house.

We went home for a bit, but Eaddie immediately started talking about ice cream. Autumn was in her room, but eventually came out to mow. As she finished, Eaddie and I decided to go to Bocadillos for tacos and ice cream. On the way, Eaddie saw Noah at work, so we stopped by PDQ to see him for a bit on the way back. While we were there, I saw the guy I passed the other day on an R1 that looked just like mine.

Summer finally made it home, so we headed on home ourselves. We tried stopping at Tropical Smoothie to get her some food, but they had shut everything down. We ended up at Wendy’s instead, for a reliably good burger. Summer was up surprisingly late watching TV, but we only saw Autumn out of her room once, and Eaddie disappeared as soon as we got home. I was pretty tired myself, so I went to bed relatively early.

ERROR

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Egads!

We got up a little early this morning so I could start smoking some ribs. They thawed out completely overnight, so we just had to get them to my house, prepped, and on the smoker. We stopped at Walmart first, so I could get some charcoal. I decided to try some Jealous Devil lump charcoal instead of the Kingsford briquettes that I’ve used my whole life. The smoker specifically called for lumps, and that was what a quick Google search for the “best lump charcoal” spat back at me.

It hardly took any time at all to get the grill going and up to temperature. Summer helped me get the dry rub on the ribs, and we got them onto the smoker at 225º for three hours. She left for the gym while I stayed behind to watch the smoker and eventually get a shower. She came back when the first step was done, and we wrapped the ribs up in some foil with some barbecue sauce and apple cider vinegar. I had watched so many tutorials while I was waiting, that I forgot I didn’t need the sauce until the third cook phase, but it didn’t really matter much.

I was really hungry at that point, so we went to Taco Bell to share a meal before going to Walmart to pick up what Summer needed for potato salad and broccoli salad. She kept getting interrupted by calls and texts from work, which frustrated me since she was originally the one hurrying me through the store. We finally got everything and headed up to her house to start cooking.

Autumn had gone to her grandparents’ house for some reason, though she didn’t actually help with any housework like she was supposed to. Eaddie wanted to go to her friend’s house to work on a school project, so I dropped her off before going back to Summer’s to make some hummingbird food. When the two-hour cook phase was over, I headed back to my house to unwrap the ribs and throw them directly on the racks again.

They were still super soft, and the bones wanted to rip right out of the meat. I was worried that they were too tender, but after an hour they firmed up a little bit. I did make a bit of a mess, and some grease got down into a crack that I can’t really clean. I’ll have to see if I can take that one part off to clean it out. When the ribs were done, I wrapped them back up in some foil and loaded them into a big styrofoam cooler, and went back up the mountain to get the girls.

Autumn arrived at my parents’ house just as we did, and we sliced up the first rack of ribs. They turned out pretty good, but I know I can do better. I think they were still just a little bit too tender, and I’d really like to try a coarse pepper base. I could really use a better place to trim them up as well. Dad made peach cobbler for dessert, and everyone got plenty to eat. Then we watched The Music Man, which I had never seen before. Eaddie had been wanting to watch it for a while, but evidently it was a regular for them growing up. Autumn had to be forced to stay and finish the movie, but slept through most of it.

Autumn went back to spend the night with her grandparents, and it was quick to bed for the rest of us when we got back to the house. I’ve got a good amount of cleaning to do tomorrow, so I won’t be able to stick around for long.

Camelot Cousin’s BBQ, Est. 2022

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On a Roll

I woke up early and hacked up a bunch of crud, then went back to sleep pretty hard. I heard Summer get around, so I eventually got out of bed and had some leftover biscuits and gravy. Then I went home to work on the garage. It got really hot really early because of the humidity, so I ended up taking really frequent breaks inside, but I felt good about the progress I made. There’s still a lot to do, and a lot of stuff that needs a new home, but today proved just how poorly and inefficiently things were packed into the place.

Summer came over after her workout and helped poke around a bit, but then went home while I finished up. I took one last break and watched an episode of She Hulk, and finally took a shower. Autumn dropped Summer and Eaddie off at the park to play tennis while she went to see her grandparents for a bit. Once I was done, I picked then up to go to my parents’ house for spring rolls for dinner.

Julie was already there to help prep everything, and was sharing stories about her most recent adventure. They set up another table for us in the living room, expecting more than could fit around the dinner table. Autumn didn’t show up until the very end, but the rest of us took turns going to the dining room to make rolls that we carried to the living room to eat.

Autumn showed up to say, “hello,” and then took the others home with her. I helped clean up a little bit and then headed to the house behind them. Summer had been struggling with a headache and half of her face tingling intermittently throughout the weekend, so I finally convinced her to call the doctor in the morning. I doped up myself since my cough was getting a bit worse again, and was going to go to bed early until Eaddie came out and sat down next to me to do some last-minute science homework. I helped her with a few questions, and then it was off to sleep.

You’re welcome.

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Now That’s Chocolate Gravy!

The middle school sent us sausage, biscuits, and gravy this morning. It was a good thing that only like half of us were there though, because there wouldn’t have been enough for everyone to eat as much as some of the guys did. Since there were so few of us, Zach made the comment that he would just eat the leftovers for lunch to save some money.

We had a really long meeting, and nobody was in the mood to get up to a whole lot today. Evidently one of the seniors committed suicide last night, but I only really heard anything about it third-hand. I got around to the Transportation office to check out a phone, but mostly stuck around the office. Everyone ended up coming back to the shop to eat leftovers for lunch, but there weren’t enough biscuits or sausage to go around. I finished up the sausage with some gravy and a couple chocolate donuts. It warmed up surprisingly nicely, since the donuts basically acted like fried biscuits. The chocolate just added a little bit of sweetness to the spicy sausage and gravy. Greg was working on a MacBook while everyone else ate though, and ended up having to pick up something for lunch.

I went to Oakland for a bit of the afternoon, and rerouted some cable for a phone line. Fortunately Paul was around to drill some holes for me, so all I have to do is go back on Monday to re-terminate the cable and plug it back into the phone. Then I finished up the afternoon at the shop, hoping in vein to be released a little early.

I went home for a little bit and messed with the rotisserie set I got for my new grill. It was definitely missing the specific parts that I needed, though it had the roasting spits for both the larger and smaller versions of the grill. I sent a message to Masterbuilt, so we’ll see what they say. Summer said she was bringing me something special for dinner, so I eventually headed up to her house as she got back into town. On the way, there was a pretty big wreck on the north side of the bridge, so there were a ton of cops there to direct traffic. The westbound offramp was backed up onto the interstate, but luckily Summer was able to make it through town to get home.

She brought me some Long John Silver’s that ended up being pretty poor in quality, though it still brought back the oily flavor that made me nostalgic. She got some Popeye’s for herself, but they accidentally made the order twice and let her have both. After we ate, she really wanted to watch Something’s Gotta Give. It seemed like a love story for old people, so I wasn’t super entertained by it. Then she went to bed and I waited up for the kids to get back from a travel football game super late.

Experience America!

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Breadcrumbs

I took the Grom in today to complete the set. It wasn’t quite as chilly first thing this morning, but it was still nice all day long. It’s too bad I don’t feel like I’m getting to enjoy the weather at all. I went to Oakland first so I could complete a couple things. Then I went on in to the shop where I spent most of the day digging through scripts and following the flow of information to find where things were breaking.

It really was super uneventful aside from leaving the office to install some software for some folks at Support Services. When I got back to the shop, Thomas took Zach, Gary, and me to Morelos for lunch. It was really good, and I’m still confused as to why Greg hates that place so much. We used to go all the time.

The afternoon dragged on forever, and was just more of the same. When I left, I went home to change and then stopped by Walmart to pick up some “fresh” parmesan for Summer’s meal. She was home making some bowtie pasta with chicken, cheese, and spinach. It was awesome, and everyone but Autumn really loved it. If only we could have nuggetized it somehow.

Eaddie was really talkative for most of the night, but after dinner everyone was pretty quick to go to their rooms. I tried not to stay up too late since my cough has been wearing me out at night.

Loads better than cooking it in a cheese wheel.

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Home Cooked

It’s getting colder now, and it’s fully dark when I wake up. My CPAP humidifier has been gurgling overnight, and it doesn’t help me sleep any better while I’m sick. I still managed to make it out the door a couple minutes early today, and got a bit of a chill on the way in on the Shadow. My whole day carried on relatively busily between various phone calls and urgent cries for help.

I met Summer at Superfast for lunch, and we ate the bánh mì that Mom made us yesterday. She was dressed up to work in the office there, so we just hung out in the office while we ate. Then I went back to work and had to beckon Josh to come to the office to eat the apple pie that Tammy made for his birthday.

The afternoon was oddly both busy and quiet. There wasn’t much activity in person, but I got several calls from Brody the rest of the day. I figured that Eaddie and I would go to my parents’ house for eggplant soup, but she wouldn’t respond to my text. She finally called when I got home and said she forgot about her private lesson, but by then she was done. Autumn dropped her off at my house and then carried on toward home. Summer didn’t want to go, so it was just the two of us.

Eaddie was thinking she didn’t like the eggplant soup or the tofu so much, but once we got there, she remembered that she actually loved all of it, and she kept going on about how much she liked soups. Dad was fasting, and Mom got home from work a bit late and didn’t eat until after we were done and gone.

On the way to the house, I took Eaddie through Sonic for a churro shake, and it was pretty awesome. It took them about five minutes to fry the churro, and they brought food out to two cars behind us while we waited. Back at the house, Summer was finishing up some work stuff, and then it was a pretty quick night to bed for everyone. I think it just felt a lot later than it really was, but I was exhausted from all the coughing anyway.

Whoop, whoop….