Browntown and Down

I managed to wake up feeling better this morning, though I didn’t sleep very late. I have no idea what caused my sudden confusion last night. I suppose I had been low on sleep, and I was stuck looking at confusing file paths trying to recover my lost tabs sessions, but I’ve never been so immediately disoriented like that before.

Summer went to the gym while I got around. I took my iron pill again, which may have upset my stomach a bit. Once Summer made it back and we got all showered up, we went to Brown’s to use a couple coupons for lunch. Muad’Dib had to wait in the car since Eaddie left for rehearsal. The restaurant lobby was absolutely packed, but evidently it was just one large party, because they were able to seat us in a fair amount of time once all the others were taken to the back room. We also saw Steven while we were waiting. I guess he just walked over from his food truck to use the restroom. We should really go visit him again.

After we ate, I dropped Summer off at work for a closing shift. Then Muad’Dib and I found Eaddie at home, ready to do some pressure washing. She brought out all the chairs from the back porch while I set up the pressure washer in the driveway. I was full and it was super hot, so I burned out quickly just moving around. She did a great job of cleaning the chairs though, and I even got to wash my car and try some new soap and a new foam cannon. Once everything was cleaned up, I covered them on the back porch so they’ll be clean the next time we want to go out for an impromptu porch sitting.

Summer finished up around six, so Muad’Dib and I went to pick her up. Then I spent way too long trying to clean up the battery in the Murano so we could get it charged. It has always kind of eaten batteries, and both terminals were completely caked in corrosion. I had to clean off the toolbox to get to my sockets, but I couldn’t get the positive terminal off at all because the bolt was stripped or something. I vaguely remembered having trouble in the past, so it could probably just use a new terminal, or at least a new nut and bolt to tighten it.

I came in to take a cool shower for the night, and the girls settled in quickly. I was up later than I really wanted, and didn’t feel great, but it could have been much worse.

Sleep more!

Mortality is Weird

I felt like I hardly slept at all last night. I just laid in bed feeling like I was awake all night, but my watch and phone insisted that I got a good night’s rest. I didn’t feel groggy when I got up, and we made it to work a little early. I brought along a Soylent for breakfast and my leftover Subway sandwich for lunch in an effort to save money and my health. I felt surprisingly good all day, and kept pretty busy.

Things got pretty quiet upstairs with Janice out. I don’t think anybody said anything to me all morning, and the guys left in the afternoon after I had eaten. I did step outside after lunch to give Muad’Dib some air, and decided to install my headliner to block the sun and try to keep my car a bit cooler in the summer.

Joel reminded me that we had our Traverse call in the afternoon, so I made it upstairs just in time for that. Having my phone muted lately has me missing most of my notifications, but I’ve also got notification fatigue from all the noise coming through. I’ll have to work in finding a balance.

Later in the afternoon, Elizabeth called me down for some help, but she was the only other face I saw the rest of the day until we stopped by Superfast to see Summer when we got back to town. She was just finishing up, and then we came home where I ate some leftover spaghetti squash casserole by myself.

I took Muad’Dib for a run to the Neighborhood Market to drop off some recycling, and he did great. It was probably our best run of the year, and I couldn’t say why. It was nice outside, but not as cold it normally has to be for him to get super excited. He even sat outside the store and waited for me while I deposited the recycling. We trimmed a couple blocks off of our usual path to see my parents, and then Eaddie called for advice on washing her floor mats at the carwash. While I was there, Julie called my parents from the beach, so I popped in to say hi before heading home.

When we made it back to the house, Summer and I finished the Kevin Hart roast before she went to bed. I was still feeling pretty good, but when I went to my office to try and recover my lost tab session, I started to really space out. I felt lost and confused, and I felt like I couldn’t remember things. It was like I knew I had a history of anxiety attacks, but I couldn’t remember what they were like. I was really disoriented for a while, and it was pretty scary because I just didn’t understand what was going on.

I took my blood pressure a couple of times, and it was a little bit high at first, but fine the second time. I slowly came out of the fog, but it was super strange. I don’t know if it was some new health concern, or maybe just the anxiety plus a lack of good sleep, but I just felt lost. I could hear Eaddie coming home and I knew where I was, but it was like my memory of everything was cloudy. All total, I think it took about two hours for me to recover from whatever that was, and then I went to sleep.

Let’s try extra hard to wake up this time.

Unseasonably Stressed

I tried to relax coming in to work, but we had a staff meeting first thing in the morning. That went okay, and then I brought my stuff downstairs to work with Tammy for a bit. I didn’t feel bad up to that point, but then I had an anxiety attack while I was kneeling next to her at her desk. I was able to quickly log it in my spreadsheet, but I asked later and she said she didn’t notice anything strange about my breathing or anything.

I was a little foggy for a bit after that. I wasn’t super hungry at lunch time, so I grabbed the Soylent I didn’t drink in the morning and carried it outside for a walk to see if I could stir up an appetite. We did a short lap before I decided to grab some Subway, and brought it back to the office to eat.

I managed to get the price sheet updated in HubSpot, though it took me a couple tries because it didn’t properly check all of my import rows. Things got quiet in the afternoon and we wrapped up helping downstairs for a bit before heading home.

As we got close to town, I decided to stop by AT&T to give Kevin a gift I had for him. I chatted with him, which jogged my memory about having anxiety issues due to anemia. I decided to start taking iron again before my next checkup at the clinic, to see if that would help. After he left, I talked to Candice for a little bit before heading home. We just barely beat Summer to the house, and I told her that talking about red meat had me craving a steak, but she wasn’t very hungry.

We ended up going to Ridgeewood Brothers so Muad’Dib could sit outside with us. It was a nice evening for it, and I wish I had felt better, but I didn’t feel awful. We ate, and of course Muad’Dib got some “scraps.” Then I took him for a short run when we got back home.

It was a rush to get in bed after that. With any luck, it’s the lack of sleep and iron getting me down, but something’s got to change. I don’t feel right.

Outside, in the distance, a wildcat did growl.

ANX

I didn’t feel great for a lot of today. We made it to work and I distributed a bunch of dog treats, but within a couple hours I had an anxiety attack in my office. It took me a little bit to shake that off, but sometime later I felt strange like my blood pressure dropped. My heart rate was right around 60, which was unusually low for doing even as little as I was doing. I took my blood pressure, so moving around got my heartrate up, and my pressure wasn’t terrible.

We got up and met Summer at Ortega’s for lunch, and I meant to scale back a bit but didn’t. She wasn’t feeling well either, so she went home with a headache. I finished up the day and tried to stay aware of how I was feeling.

We had therapy after work, but he was tired too. It wasn’t a great session, but I think we decided we could work together well enough to survive on a deserted island. Dwayne asked if we minded wrapping up early, so we left after just half an hour. I got some washer fluid from the lube and then met Summer at home.

I had to pick up a prescription before they closed, so I ran Muad’Dib to the Neighborhood Market on the Onewheel. When we got there, they said they couldn’t fill it because insurance had just filled it at Walgreens, so we raced home and then I drove by myself to Walgreens before they closed. Luckily I was able to get my prescription there, and they even filled it for 90 days instead of 30 like Walmart.

I made it back home where Summer had curled up in bed. I took Muad’Dib for a quick run to my parents’ house to visit for a bit, and then my Onewheel died just as we were a couple blocks from home. I was able to limp it most of the way after walking up a couple small hills. At least this was actually closer to the low end of the battery instead of over 50% like before.

I wrapped things up relatively quickly, but then I lost power to my computer, which broke my Tabs Outliner plugin again, so I lost the past several weeks of history again. I’ll have to fight it later to see if I can recover anything, but sleep calls.

Damned tab hoarding…

Sad Grad

Summer got up early for Run Like Yell in Dardanelle. I originally said I would go, but she insisted that I didn’t have to, and I didn’t sleep great. Of course I couldn’t really sleep after she left, so I got up and made myself a croissant sandwich. I burned the bread and set off the alarms, and then Eaddie got up and left to play at graduation. After that, I repotted a plant and watered the rest. Summer showered, then I followed suit before we left to meet the girls at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Muad’Dib did reasonably well there, and we stuffed ourselves with junk food again. Autumn fussed about not being able to eat much, and then about her relationship, so the conversation started going in circles a bit. I tried not to be too involved, but it really served as a reminder of the past drama we always had to endure. Eaddie showed up late after rehearsal, ate a bit, and then I think she left with Autumn while Summer and I took Muad’Dib to stay with my parents.

It didn’t take Muad’Dib long to break out of the back yard, and then Summer kept calling at him to go back, which of course drew him to jump on my car. I yelled about it, so she got quite for a while. We made it to graduation nearly an hour early and found seats in the second row. It wasn’t terribly long after everything finally started that I got an alert that Muad’Dib had left his safe zone.

I panicked and got up to call Dad, who didn’t answer. Mom answered, but didn’t have a clue where he was. I couldn’t tell if Dad had taken him out for a walk or if he had left to look for him. I also couldn’t send a screenshot of the GPS location because my phone got hot and started acting jittery. I got most of the way back to the car when the location finally updated to show Muad’Dib back near my parents’ house, but Dad still wasn’t answering. I waited a while and eventually felt good enough to go back inside.

We watched Autumn walk, and Summer kept yelling at other people she recognized. I kept feeling like she needed to go back to education if she wanted to feel happy about that kind of stuff again, but we’ve also gotten used to bigger paychecks.

They finally wrapped things up and we met the girls outside in the sun. I got pretty warm and was annoyed that we kept having to wander around looking for kids that were doing their own family things, and hadn’t asked to meet anywhere in particular. We got some pictures, but Summer wanted specific group shots. I ended up sitting in the car for some of that. When the girls all finally caught up with one another, she called me to drive over to them. Then Autumn started fussing about Adam some more. I said my peace and then wandered off to chase my car, which was driving around on “Smart” Summon in an annoying pattern without crossing parking lines.

I finally got Summer into the car, and the kids allegedly left to go meet up with Noah. I dropped Summer off at home so she could rest before going to a team meeting at work, and then took the Onewheel to retrieve Muad’Dib. We sat inside for a little while, then Mom came out to look at her plants. We helped a very little bit before riding back home. Summer called just as we got there because Autumn wanted to tell me I helped motivate her to break up with Adam. I just told her to keep pushing herself to be better and do the right thing.

Summer eventually made it home and we watched a YouTube video about digging for supercritical geothermal. Then she went to bed and I followed for just a little bit before going off to do my own thing. I was up later than I wanted to be, and had an anxiety attack at one point while playing on my phone. Eaddie eventually made it home near midnight, and then I went to bed as well.

Late night drops!

May the Fifth Be With You

I had an anxiety attack just as I was getting my backpack out of the car this morning, which makes two days in a row. I haven’t been tracking them for very long, but hopefully it helps the next time I go to the doctor. We got upstairs and things were pretty quiet. I spent all day fighting Microsoft documentation and trying to figure out a good way to create a collaborative address book for certain staff members. Outside of that, Charles had trouble with the network in the maintenance shop, so I had to cycle power to those switches in order so they would come back up without trying to mesh with one another.

We met Summer at Ortega’s, and the board didn’t list their usual all-you-can-eat. Instead, they had a double order of fajitas with a free T-shirt for not much more than we would have spent anyway. We shared that and had leftovers to go. Service was pretty good today too, but I also wasn’t depending on refills either.

The afternoon was more frustration with Microsoft until quitting time. Evidently Microsoft just doesn’t have a good method to collaborate on contacts without a bunch of extra effort, depending on which of the six versions of Outlook you’re using. Summer took Muad’Dib home with her at lunch, so it was quiet and lonely for the last part of the day since Janice left early.

Summer was working and watching TV when I got home. I cleaned up and eventually took Muad’Dib for a run. He did really great for part of it, but got slow about halfway through. I ended up eating spring rolls when we got to my parents’ house, and then tried to wind down quickly back at the house.

~mocha chocolata ya ya~

Feeling Fishy

I took a frozen pancake sandwich for breakfast this morning, and that worked out pretty well on a budget, but Muad’Dib didn’t get as much. I cued myself up to buy a Steam Controller at launch, but realized a little later that I had inverted my time zone calculation. I had a quick anxiety attack shortly after that. The controller would actually be launching at noon, when I happened to have a call scheduled.

I made it work though, between the call and a couple other little fires I had to put out. I was pretty busy all day. We did get a break to go to Sonic for lunch though. There was a strong, steady wind the whole time, which would have been great for a kite. I didn’t have a kite, but I did have my Onewheel, so I took Muad’Dib for quick run around the plant when we got back to the office.

The afternoon was just as busy until we left. Summer would get home a little after us, so we had some time to clean up before we decided to meet at Sam’s Southern Eatery for dinner. We hadn’t eaten there in quite some time, and just happened to remember that they had a dog-friendly patio, so we decided to give it a shot.

I decided to take the Onewheel at the last minute so Muad’Dib could get more run time in. We nearly made it downtown when I texted Summer, who said she was ready to leave, so we met her just outside Point Remove and she drove us the rest of the way.

Sam’s was pretty dead, with only a couple other tables of patrons. The patio was empty, but they welcomed us to eat out there. It looked like it hadn’t been swept in quite some time, with trash blown in everywhere on the ground. The tables and chairs were clean though, and the food was great in spite of having slightly smaller portions than when they had just opened.

Afterward, we came home and I let Summer bathe while I took Muad’Dib to my parents’ house and back again. He was full of energy, so I didn’t want to keep him cooped up inside any more than I had to. We had a good run, then came in to calm down, clean up, and get to bed.

No, seriously, DON’T PANIC.

Trimming the Bushes

We slept in a little bit today because Muad’Dib was snuggled up in my arms. The girls got up and hung out for a while without me while I cleaned up a bit. I didn’t feel terrible from the ice cream last night, but I didn’t feel great either. Summer eventually went out to mow while I got showered, and then I made egg and summer sausage croissants for brunch. After we ate, I went out afterward to help trim a bunch of growth around the property. We got rid of most of a tree that had been growing at the corner of the shed, and spent a bunch of time trimming the rose bushes.

While we were out there, I must have gotten overheated in the sun or something, because I felt terrible when we came inside. I just had to sit down for a while to recover while Summer showered. It wasn’t even terribly hot out, but I felt sick.

Summer got some laundry going, and Eaddie went with us to my parents’ house for spring rolls for dinner. Summer had to go to work to let the guys at the wash know that they would have a new manager starting with them this week because she was being assigned solely to the lube. Eaddie and I finished eating, then let Muad’Dib run home next to us. He didn’t really want to come inside, so I took him for a quick run around the block on the Onewheel.

Summer got home, then Eaddie left to shop for some yarn. I cleaned up a little more, and then it was time for bed.

I’m pretty sure I need that to live.

Orange is the Now Back

We grabbed a biscuit from Burger King on the way out of town, and ran a slalom of cops on the way to work. I was hoping to hear some news on our Traverse trouble ticket, but that wasn’t resolved all day long. I even tried scrubbing through our data, but was never quite sure what I was looking for. I took a little break and finally figured out the style color for hyperlinks on my own website, so I was happy to get that back.

I was going to take a late lunch until I realized we had a call in the afternoon. I was the only one on that since Joel was out and Tammy said she was busy, so I sat there for fifteen minutes to watch what could have been an email with a slide deck.

The afternoon was sort of short after that. I had an anxiety attack, and finished the day out trying to get a remote desktop solution working for some computers I’ll have in the plant.

Summer was in Conway for an employee’s graduation, so I met her there for lunch. She picked a place called Kyojin Phở, so wee made our way through half a dozen roundabouts and finally found her. Ben called me on the drive to see if we were coming to Toadsuck, so I talked to him for the last bit of the drive. Kyojin Phở just happened to have a patio, so Muad’Dib got to come sit with us. I got a combination phở, and Summer got a combination dry noodle dish, so he got most of our tripe and tendon. The food tasted good, but my soup was surprisingly cold.

I let the car drive 100% of the way home, and only pressed the accelerator a couple times to push the speed. Otherwise it took me from parked to parked, and it did a pretty great job. Summer actually beat us home though, because it took us around a block of Tech for some reason. I might have stopped it if I had noticed, but I didn’t catch it in time.

Summer went in to get ready for her run in the morning, and I took Muad’Dib for a run. He did pretty great most of the way to my parents’ house, but then slowed down a bit. It was quite a bit cooler though. When we got back, I fixed Summer’s gross earbud that got clogged, then got ready for bed.

It’s like work, but less rewarding!

Hey Mister Deejay

I took my S21 to work today so I could continue updates and eventually load it up with some tunes for Saturday. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a rollup update, and continued doing monthly updates for what felt like forever. I spent the entire day tinkering with that and trying to figure out why an Autopilot laptop wasn’t getting the proper deployment profile.

I had a relatively short anxiety attack right around noon, and then Subway actually had a fair deal for lunch. I picked up some fries from McDonald’s for Muad’Dib first, then grabbed the sandwich and went back to the breakroom to eat with Amanda, Elizabeth, and eventually Janice just as I was finishing up. It was a short break, and then I got back to the music.

I learned that Spotify had some new features that would improve our experience, and I spent a while trying to prompt their AI playlist builder. I think I finally came up with something I liked, and at least now I’ll have enough backup songs saved that I can mix things up if necessary.

We made it home a while before Summer. The kids were watching TV, but then Eli had to leave for a concert. I cleaned up and then took Muad’Dib for a run so we could try and get back when Summer got home. He did pretty well as we encountered several other dogs. We visited my parents, and then it was a slow trot the rest of the way home.

Eaddie left to watch Eli, so I made Summer come out and eat some leftovers with me. Then she went to bed while I cleaned up. Everything wrapped up pretty quickly, so I took the opportunity to get to bed really early.

CATCH PHRASE!