Tag: parenting

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Facebook Medical Supplies

I slept in a little bit today since I took the morning off for my wellness exam. The girls stayed home since Summer was working in town. I went in for my visit, forgetting that I had filled out my medical form with my preferred first name of Captain Michael of HMSV Manatee. Keely came in wanting to know the story behind it, and we shared a few laughs. We decided to schedule a pulmonary test to make sure my lungs are back up to snuff after COVID, and then I got stuck in both arms looking for enough fluids to get my required bloodwork.

I was pretty hungry when I left, so I went by Superfast to see if Summer wanted to get lunch. She needed to run some errands anyway, so she took me to Harbor Freight, Walmart, and then Western Sizzlin to eat. When I made it to the shop, Gary was the only one there, and he was on his way out. They were shorthanded, so I was the only one in the shop all afternoon.

After a little bit of tinkering, Gary asked me to run over to the new maintenance building with a hotspot, since those guys already started moving computers before we even had internet run to the building. When I got there, they still didn’t even have all of the power run either. I ended up having to bring Chris’s computer back to the shop. I got it going, and then Gary showed up after letting everyone else leave a bit early. We worked out the day, and then I headed home.

Summer said we had an interview with someone from the state police right after work, so I ran home to change and then headed up. There was a wreck holding up traffic along the way, so I was a bit late, but I didn’t really miss anything. The girls were hanging out in the living room, and it was clear with the way Summer was talking that she was just closing things up. We shared some more stories, and then she left, saying the case should be completely closed within a couple days.

Summer left for the gym, and the girls wanted to hang out for a girl’s night, but I never left. They were watching Stranger Things and had Summer come back with some pizza, along with my blood pressure medication. Summer and Autumn went to bed first. Eaddie stayed up doing her paint-by-number, and I tried not to stay up too late.

Teenage girl drama

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Lipstick, Plastic, and Paint

I slept in a little later than I wanted this morning, but I needed the rest for what the day would bring. I ate some leftover carrots, cabbage, and potatoes from the corned beef we made weeks ago, along with a fried chicken breast from last night. Then we started going through Autumn’s room to clean everything out. We loaded the Murano as full as we could get it, and took it to storage.

Eric said they would be on their land later in the day if we wanted to bring Apollo by to release him into the pond. I grabbed the old turtle just as we were heading out the door, but we ended up having to hold onto him until the evening anyway, because they didn’t get out to the land as early as he originally anticipated.

Summer rented a storage unit, and we started loading it up with Autumn’s things. We got the smallest one they had, and then just stacked boxes as high as we could. It was actually a surprisingly small amount of stuff we had to move, but it would ultimately take us two trips. Summer went to the gym while I cleaned up at home, and then we went out for some CiCi’s for dinner.

After we ate, we went back to my house to grab the turtle bucket, and headed to Pottsville to find their land. I thought they were already living out there, but apparently they were only just starting the build. It was a beautiful plot, but a bit close to the interstate for me. The pond looked like it was going to be a great home for little Apollo to live out his days, stocked with all kinds of fish. Carley’s dad was out there fishing, and constantly reeled little bass in the entire time we were standing out there talking.

From there, we headed on back to Summer’s to finish packing Autumn’s room. She did a great job of cleaning everything out, and we ended up with an empty closet and room, aside for the bed and some band and JROTC stuff. Just as we loaded the last trip into the car, Summer got a text from Eaddie that they were coming home tonight. We rushed to put everything into storage, and made it home just in time to greet the girls as they got home.

Autumn hopped out of the car and bypassed us both to walk straight up to the house, but I had locked the door on our way out. Eaddie wasn’t very talkative either, and had apparently spent the entire trip quietly to herself in the trunk of the car. Nick said he knew things were going to blow up as soon as we got inside because we knew they had snuck a laptop along the trip, so he was quick to leave after pointing out that Eaddie had a hand in sneaking the laptop out as well.

Things inside probably went about as well as they could have. Autumn got it into her head that she was just going to leave and not talk to us at all. We cornered her in her empty room for a bit, and she mouthed us for a while, but then she ran out the back door and took off down the road. Summer called 911 and had the cops chase her down at the top of the bridge over the interstate, which was a lot farther than I thought she would make it. We had to fetch her, but they couldn’t keep her overnight or anything since running away isn’t a crime. Fortunately one of the half-dozen or so officers that showed up was one that came to the house the day that I had slapped her. As soon as Autumn said something about us beating her, he made a comment about how she had slapped herself to get out of mowing, and then got kicked out of the Explorer’s program. I wasn’t going to correct him on the side of the highway, but it was clear that nobody was going to believe her, and they convinced her to take the ride home.

Once we got into the house and let her chill out, she actually came out to the dining room and talked to us a bit. Things were basically back to normal, and she was smiling and laughing at things again. She eventually pulled her shirt off to show her gnarly sunburn, and Summer took care of that the best she could. We called Eaddie back out of her room, and I swatted her for bullying Autumn too, but it was clear to everyone that they were both guilty. We tucked Autumn into bed, and Eaddie took a late shower before following suit. For some reason, it still took me forever to get to bed myself.

I never wanted to be the villain, but all the hero suits itch.

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uBreakiFix

After last night’s back and forth, I still wasn’t really ready for what today would bring. Eaddie was supposed to go out on her bicycle, but evidently went out with Autumn and their grandparents for most of the day instead. I took the Shadow to work since it was a lot cooler out. Fortunately I never saw any rain, though the forecast was pretty wishy-washy about it anyway.

When I first got settled in, I didn’t think I had much to do, but that changed quickly. The morning flew by as I prepared for the lease return for the big project of the day. Lunch time even snuck up on me, and I went to La Huerta with the holy trinity.

After lunch, we had to go back through all of our lease returns and check for damage and power, and then scan them one last time onto a return list to take to The UPS Store. We sent Brody and Kyle to deliver our first truckload, and they failed to bring the boxes back to us as I explicitly instructed. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because Brody also took an unscanned box of laptops along with the rest, so we ended up having to go back to The UPS Store to hunt those down.

At the end of the day, I noticed Autumn had looked up information on fixing a phone, so I had a suspicion that a friend had given her an old one to use. I rode home and then called Summer to discuss options. She went home to await her parents, who were bringing the girls back home. Autumn wanted to stay with them while Summer took Eaddie to the gym.

Summer was supposed to come by my house first to return Autumn’s sneakily-kept school laptop, but forgot after picking up Zane, so she dropped the two of them off to work out and then came over. There, I was able to get in to see a live conversation between Autumn and one of the boys she’s been talking to. That got her heated, and she was ready to throw down. I sent her to the gym so I could snoop some more, and eventually I headed up to their house to await their return home.

They were super late getting home, but Summer dropped Zane off, got Autumn from the grandparents’ house, and finally made it in. She immediately confronted Autumn about the phone, which was actually Eaddie’s old iPhone with a broken screen. That turned into a standoff, with Autumn basically taunting us because I guess she didn’t think we could break her.

Summer’s never really had to be hard on the girls. Eaddie’s always been relatively good, but Autumn has been going down a really bad path for a while now, and this required hard action that she just wasn’t fully prepared to take. We got through it though, between wall squats and kneeling with her arms out. Autumn continued to backtalk for a stupidly long time, to the point that even Eaddie was able to perfectly articulate something really inspiring. I was super proud of her for coming into the conversation in a truly meaningful way.

At the end of it all, I think we found a few honest ones among the crocodile tears. Autumn actually ran a hot bubble bath for Eaddie, and then went to bed. Then she came out in tears and said she needed a hug, and fell right into my arms, crying into my shoulder. She apologized in a way that I hadn’t heard from her before, and asked again that I continue with strict structure. Summer got her hug and apologies too, but there’s no telling how long it will last. She went to bed feeling terrible, but I was proud of her for sticking up to the bully in the house.

The Captain’s Log is the log that I use to beat you if you talk back to me again.

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Cold Shock

It was quite a bit cooler out today, and probably would have been a good day to work outside. Nothing at all went according to any kind of plan or toward any real goals. Summer took Eaddie home to get ready for her day at Urban Air. I thought she would come back after Eaddie left, but that wasn’t the case. She didn’t feel up to doing anything, so I just kind of milled around the house all day long.

As the evening approached, I decided to stay in for the night. Later on, Eaddie called and wanted me to pick her up when she got back into town so she could stay the night with me. Then Summer texted and said she was having trouble with Autumn when she was dropped back off at home from her grandparents’. When I picked Eaddie up, we had to take Zane home first, and then she threw a fit when I told her we needed to go stay the night with her mother.

Summer went back and forth along with Autumn’s mood swings, wanting me there, or saying it was fine to stay home. Plans changed a couple more times as I went back out to get some Burger King for Eaddie, but we finally landed on me staying home with Eaddie.

I stayed up a little late trying to get my home theater PC working again, as it had been powered on but unresponsive for several days. I thought the hard drive was completely toast, but it finally booted up successfully just as I was getting ready to give up for the night.

I guess I’ll have to call that a win.

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Cartagain Weather III: Certified Pre-Owned

I had completely forgotten that we were delivering carts to Oakland today. I made it in to work, and Gary had Greg, Josh, and Jacob ready to roll. He went to the middle school to scan Chromebooks while the rest of us loaded up the trailer for two trips to Oakland. I got pretty sweaty already, just from the humidity. There was a small chance of rain, but we never saw any.

By the time we finished, everyone was ready for lunch with still an hour to go. We met up with Gary, who had discovered a bunch of the Chromebooks we need to return this summer. I sat down to verify how he was checking his devices, and discovered that I had somehow made a mistake on our original sheet, and we hadn’t been correctly identifying devices the whole time. That meant re-scanning every device in the graveyard.

We loaded some scrap into the trailer, then headed back to the shop for lunch. We picked up Thomas and went to Fat Daddy’s in London. For some reason we always end up there on Thursdays, which is an awful day for specials. I had a pulled pork sandwich, which was edible enough, and fortunately a bit larger than I expected.

When we got back to the shop, I built a new scanning sheet from scratch, then joined Josh and Greg in the graveyard to re-scan devices. We made a pretty good dent in them before we ran out of boxes. It was also about time to head to the Center for our end-of-the-year pat-on-the-back.

With new leadership, this was the shortest event I had ever seen. The whole thing took like 15 minutes, which was insane. We only recognized retirees and the teachers of the year, which was kind of lame, but I guess at least we had an excuse to leave early. Ben called me in the middle of it, and said he was passing through town. Everyone else took off, but I waited there for him, and we ended up chatting for a while until they closed the place down. Tina came around with some plastic bags for the leftover cookies, and let us take a bunch home.

I started on laundry when I got home. Eaddie had been out on her bike all day, and ended up never coming back home. She called a few times to check in, which was good. After going back and forth about it, she decided she wanted to stay the night with a friend, so eventually I had to run some clothes to her.

On the way, I stopped for a couple 50 cent corndogs from Sonic, and a large order of onion rings. After I left, I realized my bag only had three onion rings in it, so I wound up going back after I delivered Eaddie’s stuff. One of the girls ran out with a new order of onion rings for me, and said they knew what they had done, and were just waiting for me to come back. I wish they had been able to just call me to let me know.

I ended the late night just barely missing my goal of washing all of my shirts. I’ve got a performance review at work tomorrow, so I didn’t want to be up too late finishing up, so I left the last load for the weekend.

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Little Time

Summer dropped Eaddie off at my house this morning so she could ride her bike during the day. Work was a bit different today, and it was nice moving around instead of sitting in my office all day. We started off finishing the quote for Thomas, and then I spent a little time with Jacob. He was trying to figure out how to transfer YouTube videos to another user, so when Terra retires, her math videos won’t be lost forever.

Evidently Jacob hasn’t had much to do this week, so he spent a lot of time in the shop cleaning up. Then I took him to Oakland in case I needed a hand carrying out some “technology.” It ended up being a single plastic case with a few old headphones in it, so that was easy. We still had some time before lunch, so I took him to the back of the building to try and fix or replace a video cable in the autism room. I didn’t have what they needed though, so I would have to come back later.

We picked Eaddie up before heading back to the shop, because she wanted to go out to eat lunch with me. I picked up Thomas and Gary, and we met Greg at Arby’s for a quick and easy lunch. Then I dropped everyone off at the shop before taking Eaddie back home and going back to Oakland to finish up by myself with the correct part.

The afternoon was pretty quiet. Josh and Greg came back to the shop, and then Gary joined us for a bit of a chat. At the end of the day, I went with Greg to the press box at the high school football field. He wanted to test a new fiber run, and we were able to see a light, but it didn’t want to transfer any data. That took us a little past quitting time, so we headed straight home.

Eaddie had ridden her bike to her private flute lesson, and I offered to pick her up in the heat. She originally wanted to ride home, but changed her mind and called me while I was on the phone with Summer, who was on her own way back home from work.

I picked Eaddie up at Maristella’s house, and then we went to Rose Drug to pick up Summer’s medication, followed by my parents’ house so I could pick up a couple 15-inch speakers he picked up from an old magic buddy that passed away. Summer had an awards dinner with Autumn, so Eaddie and I had a date night at Stoby’s. I didn’t know what I wanted to eat, so I had the waitress pick. I don’t think I ever, in my entire life, would have ordered the barbecue chicken quesadilla, but it was super good.

After dinner, we went back to my house for a bit, and Eaddie decided she wanted to stay the night with me. We went to Dairy Queen for a couple Blizzards, and then up to their house so she could bathe and get some clothes. Then we came back to my house for the night and I finished up with a load of laundry before bed.

Favorite Time

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Cartagain Weather II: The Heat is On

It was hot and humid today. Everything made me sweat. I mostly missed out on our morning meeting, since I was having to investigate untruths from Autumn as she realized she was permanently locked out of her Facebook and personal email accounts, and trying to use school as an excuse to get back into them. We arranged to have her laptop returned, and for a moment thought she had skipped school and taken off in the middle of the day. We were able to track her down to a different room though, and all was fine.

eSCO came by pretty early and picked up a little over 20 old laptop carts, and we helped to haul them out the hard way, because they didn’t feel comfortable backing up to the dock. Then I had to scan a bunch of laptops that were brought back to the shop by another group. All the while, Dad was babysitting my house until someone from Rood finally showed up to look at my air conditioner.

I left for lunch early so I could relieve my dad, and my air unit was fixed with a replacement contactor, which is evidently the name of a legitimate part. Richard, the tech, said I would need a new thermostat though, because my Nest was showing an error every time we hooked it back up, in spite of no detectable wiring issue. On the way back to the shop, I just picked up a surprisingly good Big Dill pickle burger and a Red Bull slush from Sonic.

The afternoon was relatively quiet, but I went back and forth helping here and there with different things. I never got sucked into any real projects, which was a nice break from everything else I had been juggling mentally. At the end of the day, Tammy appeared to be having a hard time up front, so I just awkwardly left to run home and change.

Nick was coming to talk to Autumn and take Eaddie with him for the weekend, so I wanted to be there. I beat them all to the house, and had just enough time to finish up some nacho cheese cups that were leftover in the fridge from various visits to Taco John’s. When the girls got home, Eaddie wanted help with an English project because she had to turn in her library book before she finished the project. Then we coaxed Autumn into mowing. Nick showed up with some leftover barbecue for Summer and me, and then sat down with Autumn so we could all talk.

The conversation went about how it always does, but Nick ended it by actually shaking my hand and doing the half back-pat bro-hug thing. It felt really good to feel like I had some validation from him after all this time. With Eaddie gone, Autumn mowed while Summer and I ate. By the time she came back in, we were all exhausted enough to pass out super early.

Fun isn’t something one considers when blocking the internet, but this does put a smile on my face.

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Red Hands

I finally got a bike out this morning, and rode the Shadow to work. It was an incredibly slow day, and I had to creatively fill my time. Tammy and Kelsea went to the high school to help with laptop pickup, which was an odd choice. I had to make fun of Tammy, because the boss really did send her to the library, which has been one of her greatest fears.

I convinced Zach to take Gary and me to Sam’s for lunch, and I spent and ate way too much. I was disappointed that they weren’t as generous as usual with the servings, especially since I didn’t get out the door under $30. Zach and Gary both mentioned that it was expensive, but I guess I had just forgotten how expensive it really was.

The afternoon was more of the same. I did have to run across town to pick up Summer’s new Invisalign trays from the orthodontist, since she wouldn’t make it back to town in time. At the end of the day, I had to run home to get the Murano so I could take Eaddie home before her band awards. That was about the time that things really went downhill.

We’ve been watching Autumn’s computer usage since our encounter with DHS, and she continued to make really bad choices all afternoon, the day after we had another heart-to-heart with her. Eaddie and I thought we’d try to catch her at Denny’s with some friends while she was supposed to be practicing for color guard after school. We never encountered her, but while we were there, I triggered an email alert that let her know that something wasn’t quite right. Summer met us when she got into town from work and ate a couple pancake puppies until it was time to get Eaddie to the band awards, and then met me at my house to see how badly I had compromised our operation.

Autumn had locked her account down, but I was able to recover it. We made the decision to take ownership of her accounts and lock her out of them, and then also disabled the internet on her school laptop outside of school hours. With the cat irreversibly out of the bag, we went to the Center to watch the tail end of the awards ceremony, and collected the girls to go home. Autumn continued to try and play it off, but we had already made up our minds.

When we got to the house, Eaddie and I went to the other room so Summer could properly search Autumn for her vape. Then we had another long conversation that basically just summed up how disappointed we were in her choices. She didn’t have a whole lot to say as usual, and exhibited the same kind of behavior we see every time, except now we have no way to monitor her response to her friends. The next step will have to be reaching out to them with her, so she can correct her course. This whole thing is eye-rollingly dull at this point, and we just want it to be over. I’m thinking boot camp in a few weeks.

We’re expecting a bit of a headwind for most of our flight, so sit back, try to relax, and we’ll get you to your final destination as quickly as we can.

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Mindcraft

I really wanted to ride again today, but I didn’t since I would be picking Eaddie up after school. It was hot and humid again, for the time of year, and I’m not thrilled about August happening. At this rate, though, I’m not entirely convinced that it will!

I wrapped up my Minecraft deployment this morning, and it looked like it was going to work pretty well. Then I cleaned up some old, stale tickets I had that likely weren’t going to get any response from the clients. I didn’t really get deep into anything else for the rest of the day. Gary, Thomas, and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, and I had an excellent chicken pot pie.

After lunch, I just happened to stumble upon the Google I/O stream, and spent a good portion of the afternoon catching up on it. After this past year with my Samsung, I think I’m extremely likely to ditch it for a Pixel 7 this fall, along with the new watch and buds. I’m not even really happy with the look of the Pixel Watch, but I figure the best bet is to match my devices.

Near the end of the day, I fought some unscannable barcodes with Gary. Then I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s house and took her straight to her flute lesson. I tried to convince her to get her phone she forgot at the junior high, but she kept refusing. I dropped her off, then went to my parents’ house to see them for the half hour while I waited.

When I got back to pick Eaddie up, Summer and Autumn were there and were clearly having words with feelings in the car. I reminded her that I was taking Eaddie home to get some stuff for her engineering project, so they went home to let Autumn start mowing the lawn.

Eaddie and I went back to my house briefly, but were held up when I realized my air conditioning was out. My Nest thermostat reported high current on one of the wires, and the compressor wasn’t clicking on outside. In my troubleshooting, I flipped a breaker that killed my internet, so then I had to go inside and swap my UPS battery. Hopefully it’ll be good for a while the next time the power goes out. We ended up leaving to get Eaddie home, so I’ll have to call for service tomorrow.

On the way up to her house, Eaddie started asking if we could get her phone. I wasn’t keen on driving across town after I had tried to get it earlier, so we continued to the house where she proceeded to whine about needing it for schoolwork. I finally relented and took her to the junior high to find it. As we approached the building, she made a comment that she hoped it was there and not in her backpack, which made me want to make her walk home.

She found her phone, and I picked up some McNuggets on the way back to the house. She got her schoolwork done, and I was right about her math homework all along. Autumn finished up mowing, and eventually we all had a sit-down conversation to level-set expectations again. This is the tightening of the leash, and it is all she will know for the foreseeable future. Any leniency will be only for our own convenience, since Summer is clearly still worn out over the whole situation. I’ve dealt with a manipulating sociopath before, so I feel particularly immune, though still annoyed. It really is the worst game of chicken.

This is why I always stay to watch discredits.

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Another Beautiful Day Burned

I woke up around 7:30 this morning after only four and a half hours of sleep. I should have just gone back to bed, but I foolishly thought Eaddie would get out of bed to go for a hike with my dad. Summer took Autumn to the gym and then dropped her off at the Quiz Bowl car wash before going to work. I eventually did get Eaddie up, but she was super cranky and just wanted to work on some homework.

I spent the entire day dragging along, knowing how nice it felt outside. I could have gone to sleep at any point and would have felt better for it, but instead I forced myself to stay awake and just barely dozed off in front of the TV for about an hour.

When Eaddie finally got the house cleaned up, showered, and was ready to go, we headed to my house for the evening. By then, Summer was nearly off work, but Eaddie was hangry and needed a snack, so we stopped by McDonald’s for some McNuggets. When we got to my house, we watched the second episode of What If…? before Summer got there with some corn dogs, cheese sticks, and ice cream.

Once I got Summer in and out of the shower, we crashed a bit early. Tomorrow will be busy enough.

Absolutely delusional…