Tag: frustration

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Freeze In

School was out again in case of freezing rain, but I think the temperature rose enough to continue melting what ice had accumulated. I got up and tried to make French omelets, but had some trouble remembering when to stop messing with the egg. Eaddie didn’t want an omelet anyway, so I scrambled hers first, then did the same for Summer. By the time I got mine made, I could at least roll it into an ugly egg tube. I’ll remember better for next time.

Summer worked all day, and Eaddie spent most of the day in her bedroom. I cleaned up a bit and then had a bath in the afternoon. The Tesla service center didn’t seem interested in talking much about the lemon law after having my car for so long, so I wrote an email to the attorney general’s office to see if I would even have a case. Noah came back over after work, and Eaddie took him to Brick Oven. I did more dishes, and wound down pretty early so I could make it back to work in the rain the next morning.

Bubble, bubble, grumble tumble

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Stationary Turkey

I cleaned up the kitchen this morning, and had a burrito to finish up all of that stuff. I had put a turkey breast in the refrigerator last night, but it was still frozen this morning. I pulled it out and eventually got it thawed enough to stick it on the rotisserie I got a while back. Summer went to the gym, and then came back to take Eaddie dress shopping for her upcoming dance. The rotisserie didn’t work quite right, and appeared to be used, which was why I got it at a discount on Amazon. Unfortunately the motor sounded like it was skipping gears, at least in part because of my poor balancing. I ended up stopping it and letting the bird cook breast-side up.

Once the turkey was cooking, I ran to the old house to feed the fish and pick up a few more things, including some more fire wood. When I got back, the turkey was about done and Summer was finishing up some mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. The turkey was a bit tough and dry, but tasted good and had a nice, crispy skin. Too much went wrong, so I have lots of ideas on how to make it juicier next time.

I cleaned up the kitchen, and then Noah showed up late and ate a ton of food. An incoming ice storm had us out of school the next day, so I started a fire and we watched two episodes of The Brothers Sun. Then Summer went to bed and the kids put on trash YouTube while they stared at their phones on the couch.

I don’t think they understand how much it infuriates me when they do that on my nice TV. They literally don’t make 3D TVs at all any more, and this is the best one they ever made. I’d really like to preserve it for high quality shows, instead of just letting it burn in slowly while they’re not even watching it.

We had the bedroom ready for Noah, but he slept on the couch again after blowing through like four cans of soda. I don’t think that kid drinks water at all, and I wish he’d quit just helping himself to our stuff whenever he comes over. It frustrated me the last time he came over, when he said I was micromanaging, because he doesn’t understand that we simply want him to respect our home and our things. It’s hard enough teaching the girls how to care about having and maintaining nice things, and then he comes over like some kind of entitled vagrant.

Tomorrow won’t be much fun, but at least there’s no school.

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Future Proofing

We couldn’t make it a full week off for snow and ice, so it was back to work this morning. There were a couple spots with some ice near the house, but then roads were clear until Ola, where you could see some residual black ice. It looked like Dardanelle was still out, because that place was a relative ghost town.

Kim was somewhere doing non-work things, but came to the office after a while before leaving to do more non-work things. Evidently they had a frozen, blocked, or crushed pipe somewhere in the new house, and Roto-Rooter was coming out to find their septic tank. I had a pretty quiet day to myself, except for Jalen coming in a few times for help setting up his new Hudl basketball camera. Then I spent the afternoon plotting my budget to hopefully have something reasonable to present to the superintendent when I ask for more money to sign another contract. Of course, it could all go out the window if he just decides he’d rather hire somebody else. It’s a good time to look for work.

I got a notification on the way home that service on my car was finished, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I should have messaged them to try and negotiate something earlier. I figured that waiting longer would give me a better chance to get something out of it, but I hadn’t accounted for sudden and sneaky repairs. I had a suspicion that they started yesterday, but then I got a low tire notification today that really made me think they were working on it.

It was another quick trip to the old house for another carload of boxes to take home. Eaddie was on the way out the door, so I was left to unload myself. Summer was home shortly after that, and looked unfrazzled enough for a dinner out. I called Mom to see if they wanted to go, but they were already eating, so Summer and I went to Mulan’s.

When we got back, we watched a standup special from some guy named Dusty Slay on Netflix. It was fine. Eaddie had a late curfew, and came to talk to me for a little while when she made it home. Then it was off to bed.

It’s been a long week.

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One Day Shy

I must have been pretty cozy this morning, because I slept super late. I got up at like 10:30 and made a burger. Eaddie didn’t come out of her room until much later, so I played some more Oxygen Not Included for a while. It looked like they finally got my car into service, which was almost a bummer after psyching myself up to have it bought back. I guess there’s still a chance, but the lack of a new Model 3 Performance means I wouldn’t be able to turn right around and get a replacement anyway.

Eventually Eaddie came out and went straight to the shower. With the weather this cold and the water pressure this high, we really can’t get more than one shower out of a tank of hot water, so I waited for a while after that before taking one myself.

By that time, it was too late to get across town to try and swap out my CO2 tank, so I organized the pantry a bit to see what other foods we might be able to have for dinner. Most of the old and forgotten stuff has been rotated out, so maybe we can maintain good foods now. The position of the fridge against the left wall still makes it extremely difficult to use its freezer, but we’re stuck with it for the foreseeable future.

Summer made it home, but continued to work except for the bit of time I made her get up for dinner. Then I paid bills and tried to figure out whether Eaddie’s credit card charges were legitimate.

FFS, pay attention, folks.

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Microbe Machine

I slept pretty hard, pretty late today after aching so badly last night. I was still tender when I got out of bed, but got better throughout the day. I ate the rest of the fried rice I made yesterday, and then got to working on the washing machine again. I could never get the pulsator out, even after getting a ratchet strap under the thing. The girls particularly needed to do some laundry, so I had to give up and put the thing back together.

Summer went to the gym before it started snowing, and I filled the entire wash tub up with hot water and bleach to try and clean out the grime that was higher in the tub. I got a lot of crap out, but still continued to get more and more all day long. I also ran a whole jug of white vinegar through a similar wash, but after countless self-cleaning cycles, I was still getting dirt. It was better, but still gross enough that I didn’t really want to run my clothes or towels through the thing.

Eaddie spent most of the day in her room, and Summer watched TV in the sun room all afternoon after the gym. They eventually came out and ate some leftover pasta, but I made some Instant Pot bean soup from a couple old ham hocks, and ate by myself. Schools are closed tomorrow, so we’ll all get a snow day tomorrow. Maybe we’ll play some games or something.

Cause the washer still won’t be clean.

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Expiration Month

I was a little slow getting out of the house today, but I made it to work on time after passing a bunch of slow trucks. I also had some trouble getting started on any projects, and just kind of jumped from one unimportant thing to the next for a while. They were serving mac and cheese as an entree for lunch, so I brought a leftover T-bone to chew on as well. I forgot a knife, but I figured it out.

Later in the afternoon, I discovered that the SSL certificate for my VMware expired over the break, so Tomorrow Michael will have to figure that out. I left a little late and picked up my last dresser from the old house to take home. Eaddie and Eli were at the house tooting their horns in the bathroom like a couple of weirdos, so I took a ride to my parents’ house on the Onewheel.

I didn’t stay long, and on the way home I tried some different foot placement to mitigate the foot pain and find a good balance point. I was feeling comfortable enough that I kind of sped over some drainage ditches on the way home, and got a pretty bad wobble that I was able to ride through. Only momentary terror.

The girls ate while Eli and I watched them. Then Eaddie avoided doing homework for the rest of the evening. I played a couple cycles in Oxygen Not Included, and then it was off to bed.

Gotta renew that CompTIA cert too. Ugh.

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DecrepiTech

I had a super bizarro dream last night, in which I was somewhere with some people and also Elon Musk. I was talking to him, and though I was supposed to go do things with the other people, Elon invited me to go to somewhere in Arizona to see or do something. Whatever it was, it was urgent, and he said we had to pack and leave immediately by car. After going back and forth and deciding that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I loaded up for the 19 hour drive, and he handed me a burner flip phone to contact him, since he obviously didn’t give out his real phone number to anyone. Then I questioned whether he had a jet that could get us there faster.

That was the end of the weird, anxiety-ridden dream, and then I got up for work. It wasn’t quite as cold or rainy, but it was really windy for most of the day. I spent a good chunk of it trying to get a couple old, but barely-used laptops ready to give to a teacher that doesn’t have a clue how to use them with her students. As soon as she said she wanted an old, decrepit laptop with admin accounts on Windows, Linux, or MacOS, I had to roll my eyes.

I eventually had to meet with Blake and discussed more of the same, with regard to her needs to fulfill the requirements for a grant. I wish she would just stick with learning how to do the very fundamentals of her job instead of continually biting off more than she can chew.

Kim spent the entire day fretting about whether she would have to pay a deposit on utilities for the new house. I got pretty frustrated that she wouldn’t just shut up and get it done, and every time she called to talk to some poor representative over the phone, I had flashbacks of some of the worst customer interactions I had at the call center.

I left work a little bit late just because I had a hunch on unlocking an iPad that was brought to me quite a while back. I made it back to town quickly to feed the fish and load a trunk load from the old house. Then I went by Taco John’s for a bunch of tacos because Summer was home from work, and Eaddie was bringing someone over to study.

Summer and I finished eating before the girls got there, and then I’m not sure how much school work they completed between all the giggles. I Onewheeled over to my parents’ house in the dark to get some Liquid Wrench, but I wasn’t quite sure how well that would work either. I think the actual point where the parts are fused together may not be connected to the hole where the bolt goes.

After that, Eaddie took her friend home and things wound down pretty quickly. I played a couple days on Oxygen Not Included, and then dawdled until bedtime.

Hang ten?

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Crying Over Spilled Beer

It was cold and rainy all day, and I had to go back to work.

It was awful.

Casey’s has free coffee on Mondays right now, so that helped, but then a hard acceleration out of Dardanelle had me spill a little in the car.

At least it was a loaner.

I got to work pretty early, and things were fairly quiet. I spent a lot more time submitting purchase requests than I expected, and way more time trying to fix some broken PowerShell scripts than should have been necessary. One of them will run manually, but not from the Task Scheduler, and I still don’t know why.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to address a needy and incredibly unprepared teacher that is so far out of her depth, she’s only able to survive by clinging to thermal vents on the sea floor. I cannot believe she is paid more than the minimum teacher salary now.

The place was a ghost town by the time I left at four, and I drove home quickly in the rain. I fed the fish, grabbed my air shim, and headed home to try and pull the pulsator out of the washing machine. Summer made it home early after having dinner with both of the girls, and told me stories about all the ways Autumn is using the people around her, and how Gerald continues to enable her.

What a shit show.

I ate her Sumo leftovers mixed with some of our own from home, and then we watched some Young Sheldon until I spilled a little bit of beer on the carpet. I got the shampooer going and pulled some black water out of the carpet, showing just how important it is to regularly vacuum and mop the home.

Eaddie went to bed so early that I hardly realized she had gone. Then Summer went to bed and had to remind me that I have to do this all over again tomorrow.

1981 McGregor 25 ft sailboat – $5,000

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Out with the Wash

I woke up to some wet snow this morning. It covered the deck, but it still just sounded like soggy rain everywhere else. I rearranged the fridge a bit and had some V8 and then a hot chocolate. Eaddie beat me to the shower, and I didn’t want to risk being out of hot water, so I piddled around for a while.

Summer made it home early with some leftover pizza from work, so Eaddie and I ate some of that. Summer was gross from power washing the wash, so then she took a hot bath which pushed me back even further. I eventually got my hot shower and then played just a few minutes of Oxygen Not Included before my computer locked up. It didn’t seem to be running poorly, so I don’t know if it was thermals or something else, but I could never get it to run again after that one time.

Summer had done some laundry and got the washing machine full of dirt and sand, so I spent a while trying to take the pulsator disc out for cleaning. It was really stuck, and I was afraid of tearing it up any further, so I figured I’d go to bed and give it another try in the morning.

DC68-03172B-03

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Tanked

I slept pretty late again today, and the kids still had me beat. I had a shower before I ever made it to the kitchen for some cold ham on a roll, rather than making a big breakfast for the kids. Eaddie got up and wanted to get some work done, so we moved Summer’s old dining table out to the outhouse, and I spent a little time fixing the south gate after someone had screwed it together when we bought the house.

Noah was content to spend the entire day on the couch, so it was tough to get him motivated to do anything. Summer came home from work early, but had to continue working from home, so the kids and I took a couple vehicles to the old house to load up some more stuff.

We got the 55-gallon tank and stand, a bunch of pillows, and another desk out of the spare room and to the new house safely. The tank really does fit nicely in the entryway, and we’re lucky that it’s actually a main thoroughfare that will be seen daily. I hate to put a bunch of effort into a tank that won’t be seen.

Summer was watching The Guardians of the Galaxy while she worked, but as soon as that was over, everyone wanted to go to La Huerta for dinner. I took them, a little begrudgingly because I was a bit burned out after just making five pounds of taco meat at home. Then Eaddie suggested we could walk around Walmart, so that was exciting. We picked up a few more Christmas clearance things and headed home.

Noah left shortly after that, and I finished up some laundry. Eaddie stayed up fairly late and seemed like she might like to do something, but then gave up and went to bed herself. I stayed up a little later than I wanted, but tried not to waste too many waking hours.

At what point do household expectations become micromanagement for guests?