Tag: health

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Exploring the Wastelands

We slept in quite a while today, and then I left for home to clean up and take care of the cat. I moved a couple bettas around because Murderface was looking pretty lame. It never could recover from the face tumors or whatever was going on there. Hopefully being in some circulating water would make a difference, but I had to sacrifice the betta I had there and put her in a stagnant cup, at least temporarily.

Once everything was sorted there, I went back up the hill to pick up Summer so we could venture out into the wild for supplies. What I thought was going to be a relatively small supply run ended up being a really long and expensive shopping trip with little regard for how much stuff I was touching with my bare hands. Of course any time they tell you not to touch your face, it itches like crazy. We filled our cart to the brim, possibly because we were shopping on mostly empty stomachs. Then for the first time in forever, we went to a cashier instead of self checkout. Summer even went to get a second cart to lessen the burden of re-packing the cart with bagged goods. Our cashier was in good spirits, and in true fashion, I was right on the money in guessing how much our total would be.

When we got back to the house, the kids helped unload the car and Autumn started making some pizza dough. Then they set up a badminton net and started playing outside, and it was great to see them outside of the house without any screens in front of their eyes. I had a blast hand-tossing the dough into individual pizzas for everyone to make, and after not too much longer we all got to chow down.

Summer and I went out to join the kids, and I even got in on some badminton myself. I was always pretty good with a shuttlecock. I’m no Olympic bronze medalist, but I held my own against the girlfriend of pure gristle. I was even undefeated against multiple children at once, even when Eaddie tried using a baseball bat.

As the daylight dwindled, the kids came in cranky from having to tear everything back down, and Summer and I snuggled up to Her with the Joker and Black Widow.

Ben and Mike’s Pizza Emporium

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Work Away From Home

I slept in a little bit today, but continued on working from home. The kids were up just minding their own business for the most part, so I had a little sandwich for lunch while I manually trudged through duplicate accounts in Web Help Desk. The day went by pretty quickly, but slowed down quite a bit in the evening. We finally got a bit of an official statement on what’s expected of us during the pandemic, and it looks like I’ll be out again all next week working from home. Summer’s still going to work herself, which only makes me angrier when she goes on about not feeling well. Keeping the kids cooped up seems at least half pointless if she’s going to keep going out in it. Part of me wonders if I should just truly self-quarantine at home.

She went straight to bed when she got home, so I brought out some leftovers for us to pick at. Then we watched Hitch until she was ready to go to sleep. I watched a couple episodes of Patriot Act, then played some Overwatch, and finally went to bed myself.

Maybe I’ll die from it.

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Hunker Down

I slept in just a very little bit today, but got up for a full day of work from home. It was mostly pretty dull with the usual amount of just different kinds of distractions. I have to watch out for eating when I’m just bored, but otherwise I actually feel like I eat healthier just because I’m not restricted to some artificial construct of time. The kids did their work, or at least pretended well enough for someone only barely paying attention. Noah left with some friends again. Summer left work early, and I went home to take care of a few things before coming back for dinner.

I got frustrated that we let my Colton’s birthday coupon expire after talking about going out for two weeks. Autumn made a pretty good chicken Alfredo dinner though, and I loaded up with a pretty good looking salad. The kids ate and then ran off to whatever electronics were distracting them in the moment. Summer went down with a headache, so I laid with her for a while, eventually watching a couple episodes of Master of None to wrap up the first season. Somehow we outlasted the kids, who were all off to bed before the show was over.

Two more weeks of home schooling, and we’ve just had our first tornado drill. This is fine. Everything is fine.

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Playing Work

I got up earlier this morning and trudged out a bunch of laptops to do some work. It was a little difficult to focus on some things, but honestly it probably wasn’t much worse than usual. I definitely noticed network latency in just about everything I did, but I attributed that to being at Summer’s with her ISP-issued equipment. At the end of the day, I got some important things done, and made myself useful and productive.

Noah and Eaddie sat quietly by themselves most of the day. I had to prod Eaddie to start on her homework, but Noah at least got his laptop out on his own. I don’t have a clue whether he actually did any work, but I still struggle with how to motivate any of them.

Summer got home later than she wanted, and I started cooking tilapia for fish tacos. She made some avocado sauce, and I pan fried the fish on the fly for the freshest tacos ever. Autumn was dropped off after having eaten, so the kids all went back to the television, and Summer and I watched an episode of Master of None before bed.

Get comfortable. We’ll be here a while.

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Homemaker

Summer left for work again this morning, leaving me with a house full of kids. Autumn was the only one up before me, and she was in her room doing schoolwork. I started sauteing a roast to put into the crock pot for dinner, and around the time I really had my hands full, Eaddie got up and tried to ask for help on some of her work. I got frustrated with her when she didn’t want to put any work into learning how to do it, and I basically had to dictate an email to her teacher because she wouldn’t type it herself.

Noah eventually left with a friend, which finally killed the highly-inappropriate Hell’s Kitchen episodes that had been playing all morning. By the time I was ready to leave, Autumn had called Summer to see if she could stay with her grandparents for the evening. I guessed correctly that she just wasn’t happy with what we planned for dinner. I left to take Summer some coffee, then went home to clean up a bit. On the way back up, I stopped by the high school to get my work laptop as well as a couple test units since Ben approved me for some work from home.

Autumn didn’t even get close to finishing her chores before she left, so that’ll be trouble with Mom tomorrow. Noah got into a little trouble himself after leaving town and coming back super late. At least Eaddie and Summer really enjoyed the roast. I could tell I went a bit too heavy on the potatoes. The juice was great with some fresh sliced bread, and it may warm up well with the potatoes for later.

Eaddie joined Summer and me in bed for an episode of Glee before Summer had to crash for work. Then I tinkered on the computer until the kids went to bed.

I can’t tell if it’s coronavirus, or if it’s snot.

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Coronavirus

We got up this morning and Autumn tried scrambling some eggs because she suddenly has an interest in a culinary class at votech. She basically protested the entire time Summer was telling her to cook breakfast, and she hates every food, but I’m trying to be positive and supportive. I took Noah to work and then went home for a while. Evidently I was exhausted, because I laid down and napped for a few hours before waking up pretty disoriented. I got progressively more phlegmy as the day went on, but hoped it was my usual allergy/CPAP combo.

I played a little Overwatch to wake up, cleaned up after the cat, and took a shower before heading back up to Summer’s. She made some chicken spaghetti since Walmart was completely out of ground beef, and it turned out really great. I helped by making some garlic bread, and all the kids seemed to really like the meal. After we ate, Autumn wanted to play some Monopoly, so we went a few rounds until Summer had to go to bed.

I stayed up and played a little Overwatch to earn some loot boxes while Noah and Eaddie stayed up watching scary movies. By the time I was ready for bed, I had quite a bit of junk in the top of my chest making me constantly clear my throat. Hopefully this isn’t the end of us all.

It’s funny how the “essential” employees that have to work all week during the pandemic closure are paid the least.

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Well Isn’t That Novel (Coronavirus 2019)

It was cooler and rainy today. Without any projects, I spent all day installing VPN plugins in case the high school staff needed to work from home due to the impending pandemic. I don’t know if this disease is any worse than usual, but I certainly don’t remember anything like this happening in the past. It could just seem worse because we’re so connected with the rest of the world these days.

Zach really wanted Brangus for lunch, so he, Gary, Greg, and I met Josh there to eat. I didn’t think it was anything special today, but it was nice eating a bit more food again.  Afterward, I ran around the high school some more, waiting to hear if they would shut down next week. So many other things have. The entire district has been printing packets of schoolwork in case the kids have to do some learning from home. We normally print around 50,000 pages a day in the district, but today we were up over 250,000 by the time I left.

I got home and waited for Summer to get off work so I could meet her at Planet Fitness. I thought maybe going to the gym together would make up for some of the time we lose in the evenings now that she works so late. She put me on a bike next to an arc machine for her, and we did about 30 minutes of that. I was really hoping to be able to talk more, but she was so focused on her workout that I felt like a distraction. Nobody in the place really spoke at all, so I just felt awkward for that on top of already feeling awkward just existing there. The bike was doable with some pain in my right knee, but when she took me to the weights I absolutely hated everything about it. She skipped that after a couple reps and took me back to look at the stretch station, but we ended up doing just a few minutes on a couple treadmills instead. She ended up having to cut it short, and I just decided to split.

On the way out, an immense feeling of sadness washed over me for some reason. I didn’t really understand why, but I suspected it was some combination of the weather, the emotionally trying week, and being exhausted from the roughly eight hours of sleep I’d had since Monday. I went home and laid down for a while before having a long bath and then heading to bed late again.

Maybe I’m only introverted here.

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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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Nice to See Yule

It was pretty cold this morning, but the afternoon turned out pretty nice. I made it in to work and picked at a few things in the morning until I had to leave for my contact refitting. I’m not sure what brand they had me try first, but they were always dry and scratchy, and just generally fit really poorly. The ACUVUE OASYS they gave me today were immediately way better, though still felt a bit scratchier than the CooperVision Proclear lenses from my existing prescription. They also give me some sort of aberration that I mostly noticed in my upper left peripheral vision, but that may become less noticeable with time.

When I finished with that appointment, I went by Taco John’s and picked up some lunch to surprise Summer. We ate quickly, and then I went to the shop to check in since I didn’t do that yesterday after our week break. I mingled and chatted there for quite a while before heading back to the high school to finish the day. I wrapped up by tinkering with my tiny Christmas tree to get it all properly lit, then headed to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made some fish soup out of the turkey broth Dad made. Then I picked through another bag of old nostalgic crap that Dad was trying to throw away before going to get the girls from karate.

We headed to their house for the evening, and I played on Stadia for a bit. Farming Simulator 19 seemed about as complicated as I expected. Then I switched to Tomb Raider, another December freebie. It played pretty well, but there was one particular moment where I definitely blamed my repeated deaths on input lag.

Can’t forget Hog Wild Wednesday for 10¢ off at Shell tomorrow!

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Blurry Work Day

It was really tough getting to work today. I mostly sat quietly in my office all day, not even leaving for lunch. I was wearing my trial contacts, and as the day progressed I just hated them more and more. One or the other of my eyes was pretty much always blurry, and probably dry. I finally called the clinic and scheduled an appointment to try another pair tomorrow.

I got one stubborn deployment made for Heather, and had two thirds of a Soylent for lunch, and then went to my parents’ house for dinner. I was able to clean up a bunch of leftovers from Thanksgiving, and then Dad and I went through some more old stuff from my old bedroom. Eventually I had to head home to clean up, and then did some more deal hunting before bed.

We’re entering the package delivery zone. Brace for impact!