Tag: Onewheel

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wasted space

I slept hard with hard dreams. Summer went to work in Conway after cancelling her oncology appointment. Eaddie left to meet with her advisor and make her class schedule. I managed to get out of bed and make a bologna sandwich to eat over the sink.

It was quiet all day, so I finished my new hire paperwork and then did my best to motivate myself to clean. The kids eventually came back, and Eaddie started some laundry while they watched TV. I climbed around and scrubbed some difficult spots in the shower. Summer had a relatively short day, so we planned to meet at Cici’s for an early dinner.

The kids and I met her there after she finished at the gym. While we were eating, I spotted Josh as he came in to meet his wife and kids. We had a laugh about him still not having his house finished. Then Eaddie rode home with Summer, and Eli and I took the fast car home.

I tried to take Muad’Dib out for a run later in the evening, but the Onewheel appeared dead. I couldn’t get any lights out of it. We came back in and I had a pretty heavy anxiety attack while vacuuming his fur. It was a short night after that.

☀️—————————🌎󠀠󠀠————————🌘————————-☄️

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Destinare

I slept pretty hard last night and didn’t set an alarm, so it was lucky that I woke up just in time to get cleaned up and hit the road to make it to Stephen’s visitation. We decided to take Muad’Dib with us since Eaddie had plans to go boating with some friends. Summer and I just drove ourselves and planned to meet my parents and Julie in Bismark.

We made it to Ola where we stopped for some Chester’s Chicken and a dried up chimichanga to tide us over. The drive down Highway 7 was mostly fun, but before we got to Jessieville, a Camaro and I got stuck behind a long line of people driving 15 miles under the speed limit. The internal monologue was not kind. The external monologue wasn’t much better.

Once we got into Hot Springs, I decided to stop at the Franklin’s Charging Station to get a little bit of juice just in case we were stuck out in the middle of nowhere for a while. I figured we would be leaving Muad’Dib in the car for a while as well, and I wasn’t sure how much power that would take. It wasn’t as nice of a place as their Little Rock location, but it was fine to be in a place just outside of town.

We made it to the Bismarck First Methodist Church just after the rest of my family, and we let Muad’Dib out to stretch his legs. He made a quick loop through the church before we put him back in the car. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the service because it felt very impersonal to me. We didn’t really even stay long enough to visit with the family for very long. Once they had the flag unfolded and folded back up again, we left.

Julie was pretty hangry, so I suggested Fisherman’s Wharf for their dog-friendly deck over the water. When we got there, I was surprised that there wasn’t a wait for outside seating, since there appeared to be a line of people waiting to sit inside. We made it through the restaurant to our table, and Muad’Dib had lots of fun looking around, and staring at geese in the water. It took awhile for our food to come out. Letting our waitress, named Destiny, choose my entire meal seemed only fitting.

My food was good, but Julie complained about her fillet. I ate what she didn’t, and I agreed that it was overcooked and under-seasoned. The gator tail appetizer was also an incredibly small portion of incredibly small pieces. At least they tasted pretty good.

We parted ways after our early dinner. Julie took Mom and Dad back through Little Rock again, and Summer and I went into Hot Springs to wander around. I first took us through the car wash a couple of times since I wouldn’t be back again, presumably ever. Then we made it downtown where the Tesla chargers were all occupied. Luckily, the power pole right behind the available spot had a piece of plywood with multiple varied outlets available. I got my mobile connector out, and wouldn’t you know, the very first plug I tried was energized and we were up and going.

Muad’Dib had a great time walking the strip off-leash with us. He behaved super well, except for one moment when he wouldn’t stop sniffing a poodle walking the other direction. I held onto his e-collar remote after that, and he immediately returned to my side any time I beeped him. We walked down a ways, crossed the street, and walked down to find some ice cream. Summer asked for a pup cup, and though that wasn’t something they normally did, the girl gave her a cup of whipped cream anyway. We sat outside, fed him, and shared a banana split. Then it was back to the car.

Take my hand!

Take my hand!

I filled up some water bottles, and then we loaded up to head home. I let the car drive the entire way home up Highway 7, and it did fabulously. Muad’Dib appreciated not sliding back and forth in the seat from hitting the curves at three times the recommended speed, and Summer didn’t have to stop to throw up. I just accepted that the drive would be less exciting, and more relaxing instead.

I stopped at Casey’s for a freebie, and then we made it home. Eaddie was back and didn’t bother coming out of her room to greet us. I took Muad’Dib out in the dark for a short, cool, evening run. We went straight to my parents’ house, then a modified route back home. He did great, and was ready for bed once we got home.

My Vine reviewed appeared to be up to date enough that my review period was over. The girls both went to bed, I vacuumed Muad’Dib and gave him a spritz of cologne, and eventually went to sleep.

Choose your own adventure. Or not. Whatever.

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Baths All Around

I couldn’t leave Muad’Dib outside, so I brought him in for a vacuum to get some of the smelly dirt off of him, then washed his paws in the tub. By the end of it, I was satisfied enough to let him sleep with us. We slept in pretty late, too. When I finally got up, I warmed my leftover SuperSONIC Breakfast Burrito in a skillet, then continued to tinker with more Vine stuff. I started to feel a little sick and decided to take a bubble bath to relax for a while, and as soon as I got settled in, Summer asked if I wanted to get lunch with her.

We ended up going out for an early dinner, not long after Eaddie woke up and made herself some ramen. I drove to Mulan’s to meet her like she said, but had to wait 25 minutes for her to show up because she thought “I need to get dressed” meant it would take me so long that I would have to tell her when I was on the way.

Dinner was pretty good, but I’ve been stuffed all week. As we left, there was a big wreck on Main and Knoxville that had traffic diverted, so I spun around and went back up to Parkway. We got home and Summer had a bath. I tried to keep up with Vine reviews as multiple deliveries arrived today, and I eventually took Muad’Dib out for a run.

We made pretty decent time for how hot it was. We got chased down by a dog that slipped away from its owner, so we turned around to return it. I was proud of Muad’Dib for minding so well. We got around to my parents’ house and visited very briefly before making it home.

It was time to give Muad’Dib another proper bath with some new shampoo I got from Vine. He was immediately warry, and hid from me outside when we got home. Eaddie got him back inside and I vacuumed him, bathed him, blow dried him outside, then vacuumed him some more before bed.1

I was up quite a while later, finishing up some more reviews and getting lost in thoughts. A somber weekend approaches.

Thinkin’ how you left me for dead.

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Welcome to My Level

Summer had to check Eaddie in to band camp this morning, and then went to the gym. I worked on more Vine reviews and then took a shower. I talked to Dad about what he might want to do for Father’s Day, and he ultimately landed on pizza. Julie and Kevin were out of town, so it would just be Summer and me to come over.

We thought we might walk, but it started to rain and we decided to take him in the car anyway. It was a pretty short visit. We ate and then went back home so I could continue cleaning up and working on reviews before my conference week. I tried to wait until it got a little cooler and then took Muad’Dib out for a run. I thought we’d go by the Neighborhood Market to drop off some recycling that had been sitting in the laundry room. We generate so many plastic bags, but I don’t even remember the last time I went to Walmart to be able to recycle them.

On the ride down, I had a pretty wild anxiety attack. I was riding down the hill and then became super disoriented. I remember seeing the street sign and then just used muscle memory to guide me on down the road. I shook it off and we made it to the store without any more trouble. It didn’t take long to drop off the bags, though I wish they would put their bin back by the front door so I wouldn’t have to keep walking it in to the service desk.

We rode back to our normal path, but avoided the flooded basin. We visited my parents again, and I dipped my feet in the pool while I tried washing some of the dirt off of Muad’Dib’s paws. We got home and I took him to the bathtub just to scrub his feet, and he didn’t protest too much. It seemed like Summer started to feel the stress I’d been feeling for the past several months, so we talked very briefly and then just sat together for a bit before I continued cleaning.

I got a load of laundry done and packed way too late, so I got to bed about two hours later than I wanted. I’ll let the adrenaline of Highway 7 wake me up in the morning.

But you turned into a pretty big waste of my time.

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How I Met Your Dragon

Summer got called into work super early because someone didn’t work out her two-week notice, so Muad’Dib and I slept in. I eventually got up and had a pretty good bologna sandwich and wrote a bunch of reviews. I asked Summer if she needed anything, and she asked for some soda water. I decided I’d take Muad’Dib along for the ride since I moved the seat cover over to my car.

When we left there, we stopped by the airport to see if we could find Kevin and retrieve one of my smaller rat traps. We haven’t had any luck trapping the one that’s still in the house somewhere. That was another failed mission, so we drove on home past lots of silt and debris that had flooded onto the roads. Muad’Dib wanted to stay outside when we got home, so I let him hang out a while.

Summer came home around noon, after Eaddie and Eli left for Clarksville. We were looking at more rain, so we decided to blow out the gutters quickly to alleviate some of the flooding around the house. Summer went up on the roof with the leaf blower and took care of that easily, then we got her down just as the rain came in. She took a bath and shower, and then I took a shower myself because she wanted to go to UEC to see How to Train Your Dragon.

I had somewhat surprisingly never seen the originals, and for some reason this remake wasn’t high on my list of priorities either, but it was a decent movie. We saw the only showing in 3D, and though the auditorium was mostly empty, the people that were there were mostly inconsiderate assholes. Children screaming, people whose cell phones went off repeatedly without being silenced, and people who were incapable of coughing without engaging their vocal cords.

After the movie, we came home to find Eaddie outside, and Eli sitting on the couch inside. He said he forgot she was outside, and evidently just settled in. Weird kids.

I took Muad’Dib for a run, and he did really well. The basin was incredibly flooded, so we went around, encountered a huge litter of puppies, visited my parents, then made it home before more rain. Summer was prepared to give him a bath, so I helped scrub him down. He seems to enjoy the blow drying now, and of course loves being vacuumed. We watched some YouTube and stayed up too late. Tomorrow will be full of catching up on weekend chores.

You just gestured to all of me.

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Just Quit Already

Last night was the first night I slept in my own bed since we bought the house. I just needed some time and space to ground myself. I made it to work and looked at my new-hire stuff for Bitec, then talked to Randy about it. He was immediately supportive, and we chatted for a bit before I went back to my desk to draft let Gemini draft a resignation letter.

It was pretty quiet after that. I spent more time working on my paperwork than anything for actual work. By lunch time, it had started to rain pretty heavily. Randy drove Jay and me to BJ’s where we met Kyle and Jim for some white people food. It stopped raining by the time we left, but we were already pretty soaked.

After lunch, I told Maggie about my job offer, and after some quick math, we determined that today was essentially my last real day at work. I have a conference in Hot Springs all next week, followed by a couple sick days for Summer’s oncology appointment, and finally two vacation days. I’ll only have one day left after that, so I might as well take a sick day. I spent the rest of the day packing up my things so I could take them home.

The afternoon actually went by pretty slowly, as the rain started again. Summer said she was making dinner, and Maristella was there with Eaddie. Traffic was super bad through Conway, but I eventually made it home. She made pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes that were all pretty good.

After dinner, I took Muad’Dib for a run to try and avoid any more rain. We went around the basin trail because I was afraid it might have flooded, and on the way out of that area we saw my parents drive by. We tried to follow them, assuming they were going to the Neighborhood Market, but they weren’t. We sat at a bench there, realized they were already back home, and headed back across town to find them.

After a quick dip in the creek, we visited my parents. Then we made it home where Summer and I had a chat outside on the porch. Neither of us have a clue how to make any of this right, and both of us are miserable. It was actually a bit of a relief that she admitted it herself. I don’t know whether any of it can be made better, but all I really hope is to find some common ground where we can stop resenting each other all of the time.

Of course the evening after that wouldn’t have been complete without its own unique set of frustrations. I’ve been at the point, for a while, where I truly don’t know what the preferred outcome would be. Timing is everything, and that fucking sucks.

I wrapped it all up by giving Muad’Dib a bath, since he had taken a dip in the creek on our run. I had an anxiety attack in the middle of it, but that’s just life now. He hated the bath, but then he loved being vacuumed, and the bow on top was wrestling with me and Eaddie before bed.

kys

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Pack Rat

I heard something making a racket in the kitchen this morning, and after sneaking around a bit, I discovered a small rat in the dog food bag. After that many failed attempts to get out, I thought I might be able to grab the bag and move it outside, but of course as soon as I approached, it was able to leap out without a care in the world. It scurried under the kitchen table, so it might as well be gone forever. I set a live trap with all of my remaining hopes and dreams, and a bit of peanut butter, and got ready for work.

I was running a bit late, but Maggie and the two old men were the only ones there. Nobody asked anything of me, so I quietly stared at FortiAuthenticator documentation for the entire day. I had an anxiety attack at some point, but otherwise it was uneventful. We’re officially on four ten-hour days, but that actually worked out to about nine and a half. I left briefly for some McDonald’s since nobody else wanted to do lunch.

While I was at work, I saw Summer shuttling back and forth between the house and Added Space Storage. I guess she figured that was an easy midway point between both houses. I couldn’t tell what she was moving, because none of the large, obvious things were moved out of the house. She didn’t respond to my text, so I made it home for the surprise.

The laundry room had been cleared out, which seemed like an unimportant space to me. I changed clothes and started to take Muad’Dib out for a run, but Summer asked me to sit with her. I sat in the floor and pet the dog while she finished her episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Then we left for our run. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I needed something different, so we rode to Ridgewood Brothers to see what they had cooking.

Wouldn’t you know it was burger day, so I had another hamburger. I’m sure that it was better than my Double Quarter Pounder Delux, but I was buzzing too hard to really tell. They gave me some scrap pulled pork for Muad’Dib too, so he climbed up to sit at the picnic table with me and we had dinner together.

After dinner, we stopped in to see my parents. Dad had come over to help Summer find the dead rat in the house, which was different than the live rat I found in the morning. Summer had candles burning to cover up the smell, but I hadn’t smelled it when I left in the morning anyway. I’m sure it was a nasty discovery though.

We made it home and I took out the recycling and trash before wrapping up for the night.

I’ve got doodles I’d undo.

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Whoa Black Cherry

I was a bit in and out this morning, enjoying an upside-down dog in the bed between us, when Johnny called to check in. I got up and talked to him for a bit, and then made sausage and eggs for Summer and myself when she got around. Eaddie was slow to get up, but didn’t want any breakfast.

Summer had a couple of meetings to attend online and did some work from the couch, and I tried to clean up around the house a little bit. I don’t remember exactly what it was that had me feeling amiss, but I eventually found myself in my office writing Vine reviews to get my ratio up before the end of the month. I’ve got to get it up 20% in ten days to keep my account in good standing.

We had a few more flies, and were all pretty sure something died somewhere, but didn’t have any luck finding it. Muad’Dib seemed unaffected. Later in the evening, Summer ate our Mexican leftovers, so I grilled a single burger patty to place between two frozen grilled cheese sandwiches. It wasn’t edible. Eaddie had left to do things with friends, so it was dinner for one over the sink.

It was still a little warm when I finally decided to take Muad’Dib out for a run, but he had been cooped up inside all day and was excited to get out. We did a leisurely walk under five miles an hour, hung out at my parents’ house for a bit, and then took a short path back home for the night.

What a sweet dog.

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Keeping Abreast

I woke up at my usual time this morning since we had to make it to Little Rock by 6:45 to check Summer into the Carti Surgery Center. It was immediately clear where the money was going, because it nearly felt like walking into a space station. The chaplain found and greeted us just after we found a seat, and we spoke briefly just to say that we really hoped we wouldn’t need him yet. It wasn’t long before we were called back to register, and a little longer before they called us back to get her prepped.

Dr. Fant said the whole procedure would only take about half an hour, and I was eventually taken back to the lobby as they wheeled Summer off to the back. From start to finish, I barely had time for two cups of coffee. I was taken back for a consult when she was done, and Dr. Fant said everything went really well, and reiterated that it seemed to be erring on the side of caution, but we should know definitively by the end of the week.

From there, I waited a bit longer for Summer to wake up, and then I was taken back to get her ready to go. We loaded up and started toward home, but stopped at Los 3 Potrillos in Conway for lunch. She had her camarones a la crema, and I tried their “Tex-Mex fajitas” which featured the cheapest tasting slices of hot dogs I could imagine. I ate it, but I wasn’t happy about it.

We made it home and I got a text from Dad that cousin Stephen had passed suddenly overnight. We didn’t know anything more than that. Summer was still in a lot of pain, so she went to bed. I combatted a swarm of flies that found their way into the kitchen, and then Eaddie wanted to start Daredevil: Born Again. The first episode seemed very inferior to the original Netflix series in every way. Eaddie actually fell asleep before the first episode was over. Then I took Muad’Dib to Walgreens to pick up Summer’s medicine. On the way home, we rolled by a family running a lemonade stand at the end of their driveway, so we stopped for a premium-priced glass after a 300% tip.

I checked in, and then we continued our run to my parents’ house. Rick passed me on the way home, so I stopped at the end of his driveway to say, “hello.” Tasha and her family were actually on their front porch, so we waved at them too. Then we made it to my parents’ house where Dad had aired up the boat trailer tires to see if we could make it to the lake. Ernie messaged me with the same news, but didn’t have any more to share than what little we already knew.

I stayed for dinner and had some bún bò Huế with Mom while Dad ate something else. Then we made it home where Eli had come over and found Eaddie with bed-head on the couch. They left and I laid down with Summer for a bit after getting her some more medicine. It was a quiet night from that point on. Eaddie left with Eli for a bit, and I fought a bunch more flies. Tomorrow we’ll do some more digging under the house to see if we can find where something might have perished.

NOT AN EXIT

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Long Weigh Down

Summer would have to work all afternoon and close the wash, so I thought I’d get up and lay with her on the couch for a bit before she left. Then she said something about the flies in the house, and I mentioned them leaving the food out on the counter the other night, and that spawned a whole ordeal. She got up in a huff and cleaned the kitchen, then went outside to mow the lawn, and then left to go to the gym before work. I managed to stop her for a moment on her way out, but it just wasn’t a good conversation.

Eaddie left for church and I went through a few things to clean up a little bit. Dad was grilling pork chops for noodles though, so I had to get showered and left early for that so I could visit with Julie and Kevin while they were there.

Muad’Dib ran with me while I rode the Onewheel around the block, and we hung out while Dad grilled ribs, shrimp, and pork chops. Then Julie and Kevin showed up and we eventually all sat down to eat. I quietly had a short anxiety attack at one point, but it passed pretty quickly. As the evening went on, I quietly let Muad’Dib inside to get him acclimated, and Mom slowly expressed less anger each time until he was finally able to sit inside when Summer eventually made it over to eat after work.

It was getting dark, so we all headed home. Eaddie had left to hang out by a fire with Maristella, so Summer, Muad’Dib, and I quietly wound down before Summer’s surgery in the morning.

Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you, and everything you do.