Tag: food

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Genius Stew

It was pretty cold out today, but at least it had stopped raining. I started off in the fieldhouse, then went on in to tackle whatever I could find. Allen called for Taco Villa, so I picked him up and we managed to squeak in right before the rush hit. We stopped for a free beef jerky stick at Casey’s on the way back to the shop, and then I eventually made my way back to the high school.

I spent a little time stirring the pot in the library, fussing over inconsistencies in hiring practices. At least I also closed out several work orders, so I felt accomplished, and everywhere I went, it seemed people were exceedingly pleased with me. I was upset to get a laptop back from the service center without any repairs done at all. I guess I can’t decline the paid battery replacement without also declining the rest of the repair. I really was expecting to see the rest of it repaired so I could get it back out into circulation.

After work, I ran by Starbucks to get a BOGO drink for Summer. Then I ran home to change before meeting her at Chili’s. The girls went out with their father after karate, so we got to have our early date night. The place was packed, given that there was one section completely closed down. Surprisingly our service was actually really good, and the food seemed to come in surprising portions.

When we got back home, we watched an episode of Glee until the girls got home, and then I played a round of Overwatch until bed.

What would you do if you were going to die, and how did you convince yourself that you weren’t?

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Lunch With Newbies

I got up a little early this morning to pick up a breakfast pizza for work. The two new guys started today, so they were off with some of the others doing new hire stuff all day. My morning was blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. I barely made it back to the shop by lunch time, though that ended up not mattering much because Zach was at London with Josh and didn’t make it back until about half an hour later.

Greg, Ben, and I met them at Brangus where Ben ended up buying all of our food since we were the only ones that showed up for the traditional new-guy lunch. Hearing them in conversation helped me feel a little better, but I’m still bitter about their starting salaries. I guess there’s just no getting around it now, so I’ll just have to move up by moving out when I have the opportunity.

My afternoon went by pretty quickly too, as the high school had their parent-teacher conferences. I got a few things done, and then Melinda sent word that central office was sending us home an hour early. I went home for a little while until Summer got back home with Eaddie. She stir-fried some leftovers, and then we watched a couple episodes of Glee before bed.

To work, or not to work…

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No Phasing Them

We got up this morning and picked at some leftover breakfast from last week. I eventually made it home to clean up after the cat and hang out for a while. I played a bit of Overwatch and took a shower with my nice new bath towels. They’re almost too plush, but I assume that will wash down a bit. One of the hand towels frayed on one side, but I couldn’t find any way to contact the manufacturer. I guess I could contact J. C. Penney and pursue a refund that way, but that sounds horrible. I might as well just keep the stupid thing.

Summer made fajitas for dinner and had Nick’s son Zach over to hang out with the girls. I stopped by Casey’s on the way over to convert some old box tops into virtual credits, and the lady had to do it three times before she figured out what was going wrong. Eventually she seemed satisfied with her process and sent me on my way. Dinner was great, and we played some Phase 10 and Mario Kart until Zach went home and everyone went to bed.

Hey Google, play some music, here, in this house, where we are currently located.

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Plant Proteins

Today was warm enough to take the bike in to work, but it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. I never heard from anyone all day, so I just stuck to myself and worked on things in my office. My morning was fueled by Soylent, but I wasn’t going to miss out on a free Beyond Burger from Hardee’s, so I left for a super late lunch at the end of the school day.

I hate to be at all disparaging toward the employees at our only remaining Hardee’s, because they’ve never been anything but kind. I just can’t shake the feeling that they all arrived for their shifts on the same bus from their community care center. They do manage to get the food out, and my burger was actually put together quite nicely today. The fries were cold though, and every interaction I observed felt really…unpolished? I’m absolutely for the employment of people with special needs; work just wouldn’t be the same without Allen. I’m just suggesting that maybe one of the staff on duty at any given time should be a better trained and better compensated employee. I really think that would raise the bar and maybe help fill some seats. I’d hate to lose the restaurant due to poor ownership.

The afternoon went by super quickly after having such a late lunch. I tried stopping at Walgreens for my blood pressure medication on the way back, but the line was both long and immotile and I had to get back to work. When I left work, I went by my parents’ house to visit while I waited for the girls to be ready to go home. They ate with their grandparents while Summer was away for a work meeting in Little Rock, so I picked at some of what my parents had out. Once the girls were ready, I fetched them, made another stop at Walgreens, then went by my house to change before taking them home.

The evening flew by as the girls begrudgingly took care of their chores. Summer eventually made it home, and it was off to bed with everyone.

If you close your eyes, it’s like you’re eating a real, overcooked hamburger.

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Meeting the New Doctor

I had to go in for my 6-month checkup today, and my old nurse Stephanie had left some time ago. They actually scheduled me with Doctor Carter, whom I’d never once met. I got to sleep in a little, then went straight to the clinic where they got me back behind the door in record time. I still had to wait a while for the doctor to see me, and once he got there he basically went on a 20-minute rant about how I can’t eat starchy, fried foods. Both times in my life that I’ve had to meet a new primary care physician, that’s all I get. This time was probably the worst with assumptions about the kind of diet I have. Just tell me to exercise and move on with it.

When I finished up with that mandatory meeting, I went to Superfast for an oil change and to convince Summer to go to lunch with me before I had to go to work. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had left my car idling in line for a while, but after the oil change I had to get a jump start to get moving again. We stowed my car in the back bay for a charge, then took hers to Denny’s for a couple free Beyond Burgers.

Steven and his coworker were there for lunch as well, and they seemed to be having a better time. Summer seemed genuinely surprised that our service was horrible, but I’ve only very rarely had a good experience there. The food is always fine, but it’s always incredibly slow. It took us half an hour to get our drinks, and mine wasn’t even what I ordered. Our waitress actually brought them out with our food, so we just scarfed everything down at once. The burger was decent, but they were definitely disguising it with a fancy bun. The bun was great, but it was about three times the size of the burger patty. The patty itself tasted okay, but was a bit too tender.

With lunch out of the way, we headed back to the shop so I could go to work. Alex evidently tightened my battery terminal, so I didn’t have any trouble the rest of the day. I went by a nearly empty shop for a little while, then went to the high school and spent a good hour walking back and forth, getting in my steps, to work on the sign. I still couldn’t get the radio to talk, so I gave up again. The rest of the afternoon went by super fast as I did mostly things for which I did not have a proper work order.

After work, I went home to change and then ran by Superfast again for a tire rotation. Then I went to AutoZone to have them check my battery. I thought Alex had just adjusted the charger earlier in the day, but Summer said he actually moved the connector down the terminal, so the tester at AutoZone read my battery as low, but healthy.

By the time I finished there, Summer was on her way home with the girls. I stopped by Dollar General to kill a little time and ended up buying a rake. I joked with the cashier that this is why I’m normally not allowed out of the house. Then we had huge salads for dinner and watched The Matrix Revolutions.

Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

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Eat Your Damn Eggs

I got up this morning and cut up some fresh tomatoes and serrano peppers to scramble into some chopped bacon and eggs. Mom used to make something like that, but I’ve always just cheated and used a can of Rotel. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but after cooking off all the liquid, I thought it was perfect. We barely had enough rice for everyone, but Autumn initially refused to touch it anyway. She came into the kitchen and got really quiet when she saw me cooking, which was a good indication that it was about to get dramatic. Summer turned on her Mom Voice™ and made her sit at the table until she ate the bowl I fixed her. A bunch of yelling later, and Autumn called out to me that she actually liked it as we all let out a collective eye roll.

We spent the rest of the day watching TV. The girls each spent a bit of time cleaning up house, and I pulled all the literal trash out of the junk drawers. We sobbed through a bunch more Glee, and had leftovers for dinner. I wanted to be more productive, but I guess it was my own fault for not just getting up and going home.

Who started this tagline tradition anyway?

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Just a Formality

I couldn’t sleep in much today because of how bright it was in my room, so I spent most of the day pretty tired after my long night. Summer took Eaddie home, so I got straight to cleaning up for the day. After my shower, I finally tested out my new faucet and found that it leaked pretty badly at the drain. After mopping up all the water under the sink, I spent a little while tightening up all the connections until it didn’t really seem to leak any more. I’ll have to test it some more later, but I think it will probably be good enough when used normally and not pumping water into the bowl as fast as I can.

I had to go to my parents’ house to get some red envelopes for the kids, but Bác Vân came over and asked to borrow a bunch of money on my way out. I typically don’t have instant access to that much cash on a weekend without any notice, so I wished her good luck and many learned lessons. When I got to my parents’ house, Dad was recovering from feinting a bit after his surgery. I didn’t have time to stick around for very long because Summer had lunch ready, so I grabbed some envelopes and headed up to their house.

Summer’s mom was there finishing up Autumn’s dress, so I had lunch and just sat around with the kids. When she left and after we had all eaten, Summer and I went to Walmart for some stuff for dinner. Once she had that going, we watched some TV until Autumn’s date for the formal arrived. We missed the really good lighting, so I just did the best I could with what we had. Then we settled in and watched Glee until the dance was over.

Suzanne was in town and stopped by for just a little while to watch one episode with us. Then we chatted for just a little bit more before she left. Autumn eventually made it home, and the girls all crashed. I played some Overwatch with Clint, Josh, and one of his friends, then went to bed myself.

Well, you’ve missed the golden hour, so you get the tasteful yellow glow of a porch light.

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Black Holiday

I took a personal day to hang out with Eaddie since school was out for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Summer had to work. It was quiet when I got up, so I had a pancake and started watching Luke Cage. Ronda messaged me on Marco Polo to say that Long John Silver’s had a for-lease sign up, which made me pretty sad. When Eaddie eventually came out of her room, she watched a bit of TV with me. She didn’t want to leave the house at all, so I left her to her chores while I went home to shower.

I hadn’t been there in a while, so the inside temperature had actually dropped super low. I had to give it some time to warm up before I could do much of anything. Eventually I had my bath and then had to head back out for dinner. I decided to make shredded beef street tacos with chipotles in adobo sauce so we could eat the aging cilantro and sour cream in the fridge.

I got everything loaded into the Instant Pot and sat down to a couple more episodes of Luke Cage while we waited for Summer to get home. Autumn was dropped off with McDonald’s for her and Eaddie, which aggravated me beyond having the already super late dinner. I thought the tacos were pretty good, but I forgot to get the veggie mix out of the fridge again for some reason.

I hate that this whole weekend was just another bust. It was a long one, too.

This is worse than a lack of motivation.

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Dear Journal,

Summer took Autumn to pick up the breakfast pizza I ordered, then took both girls to their all-region band event. She was still feeling sick and came back to nap in the floor while I watched some more renovation YouTube videos. Eventually she had to go take the girls home for lunch and to clean up before their concert.

I cleaned up and took a bath for a while, and eventually left to get stuff for dinner. I stopped by Harbor Freight first to return my broken fireman’s axe that didn’t even make it through one log. Then I went to Walmart for beans and veggies to throw in the InstantPot. Summer wanted a coffee, but Starbucks had a line coiled around the building like a constrictor, so I went back towards McDonald’s instead. She liked the hot mocha just as well, and it probably cost less than half as much.

I started chopping up onions, celery, and carrots to throw in with our old ham bone, then threw it all in the pressure cooker. Clint stopped by while I was prepping, just briefly enough to pick up some network cable and then hit the road again. A couple hours later, we had a pretty decent soup made. I thought it was a bit bland and lacked inspiration, but I was in a little bit of a rush anyway.

Summer, Eaddie, and I binged on several episodes of Glee until we couldn’t take it any more. It was well after all of our bedtimes anyway, and even I felt weepy tired.

Once again, I’ve won!

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Blunt the Knives and Bend the Forks!

I got up this morning and picked up another breakfast pizza from Casey’s for the kids. It was a big hit as expected. The girls had fallen asleep in the middle of The Hobbit last night, so I played the first half of the 1977 cartoon to catch them up. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise how well they matched up, since they’re both adaptations of the same story. It became obvious which parts of the new movie were embellished and extended. The cartoon sort of just gets straight to the point, and for that reason it worked well to get everyone on the same page.

Noah had to work, so Summer took the kids and left me to spend the day at the house. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and just felt bored and listless for most of it. I didn’t want to do anything, either for fun or to be productive. It stuck with me all weekend, just like the last. The only thing I accomplished was stacking a tower of Soylent that arrived over the past couple days.

Summer made dinner in the evening, so I joined them for some delicious pork chops, zucchini, and potatoes. Then we watched a couple episodes of Glee before bed.

So, carefully, carefully with the plates!