Back to Packed

I was a bit out of sorts this morning, but I managed to swing by the new Starbucks for a free coffee and still made it to work just a couple minutes late. Randy said last week was super rough without me, which I guess made me feel good about myself, but I feel like a placebo. Surely I’m not contributing that much most of the time. I kept fairly busy trying to image a couple of laptops all day. Jim was having trouble with it, and I’m still having trouble setting a naming standard for everyone across the district because of our weird mix of devices.

We went to Skinny J’s for lunch because they had a $9 sandwich deal, and then $3 pickles on top of that. Dad called while we were there and said the dogs were at his house. Luckily Summer was home and could go pick them up, and she reattached the pallet they tore off of the fence. It started sprinkling a little bit after lunch, but it didn’t really rain hard until the evening. I supercharged for a while on the way home, and just as I was changing clothes to take the dogs out, it started to pour.

It let up a little bit and I took a bunch of Amazon returns to UPS. Summer was home from the gym when I got back, but she didn’t want dinner. Eaddie showed up and said she would be down for a $4.99 Cici’s buffet, so the two of us went out. They were packed and kept a good rotation of pies up, so it was pretty good.

When we got back, Summer had to get on a Zoom call for the band trip. I played with the dogs for a bit since they didn’t get to go out on a run with me, and Muad’Dib wouldn’t eat any dinner. I hoped that he had just found some other food somewhere else, and wasn’t just sick and not eating. Stilgar hadn’t lost his appetite.

As I was getting ready for bed, my head felt completely clogged, and I hoped I hadn’t caught whatever Eaddie brought home. I just finished two rounds of antibiotics that didn’t really seem to help my cough at all, so we may just be going into month three with this crud.

Don’t blink!

Chilly Mac

I felt sick to the stomach for much of the day, but it could have been yesterday’s milkshake catching up to me. Eaddie left for church for a bit, and Summer went to the gym. I felt like I kept getting stuck in a loop. I felt like I kept getting stuck in a loop. I did manage to take a shower, and I got dressed to take the dogs out on a run in the early afternoon because it was getting super cold again. They didn’t come running when I opened the door, so I knew something was up.

Eaddie and I walked out to the fenceline, and they had torn down the top halves of three pickets, and climbed out. She and Summer worked on fixing that while I rode the neighborhood looking for them. It was a bit of a wild goose chase, because a lady that walked past our house said she saw them on Honeysuckle where they started following some other walkers. I went down that way and over toward the basin, then encountered two different walkers that had seen them around Ridgewood. As I rode up Ridgewood, a car passed me and stopped to flag me down. He said they were just up on Eastwood, and that one of them was WET. I made my way up and over the hills to find them on Ridgewood, so we collected ourselves and finished the walk to my parents’ house to visit Dad.

We got back home and Summer was working on a tres leches cake, and eventually some baked crab macaroni and cheese for dinner. I felt like I kept getting stuck in a loop. I didn’t really feel good about anything for a while, but dinner was pretty good. Eaddie got sick up in Jonesboro, but appeared to mostly be dealing with a head cold. I just hope I don’t get sick again myself.

Freezing temps, but free coffee!

DogGos

Summer had a 5k this morning, and I awoke to a knock on the front door. Then I got a text a little while later from the neighbor a couple doors down saying our dogs were over in their yard. She was cool with them playing with her dog, so it wasn’t a big deal, but of course they got out of her yard by the time Summer got home and we made it over to retrieve them. We talked to a couple of the other neighbors while we were out there, and then I hopped on the Onewheel to try and find them.

I texted Dad to have him check his yard while I went toward the basin trail, and just as I was getting close to it, he said he had them both. It was cute that they went to his house, but Stilgar had gotten into the pool cover again, and I’m just worried he’ll end up drowning if he’s not careful. Dad tried to walk them to our house, but they took off again, so I told them to stay put.

Once I gathered them up, they were visibly tired and slow. We made it to the house, and I unboxed most of the Vine stuff that was delivered while I was gone. I had eaten most of a leftover bánh mì, gave the rest to Summer, and then had to take the other one to Julie at the airport. Summer wanted to go to Walmart after that to pick up stuff to make her baked kielbasa and vegetables with some leftover sweet potatoes.

After we got home, Summer realized she had forgotten Brussels sprouts, so I rode to the Neighborhood Market with the dogs. I saw Derick out in the yard of a house just behind Walmart and we waved at each other. It looked like he traded in his IT hat for real estate. The dogs did great tied to a bench in front of the store, I grabbed a bag of Brussels and dropped off some recycling, and then we headed on home.

I made some rice to go along with what Summer made, and we ate together. Eaddie wouldn’t be back from making first band/first chair in All-State until after midnight. Summer went to bed not long after that, and I wasn’t too far behind.

Tagline!

Professional Emailer

Work was a bit of a blur today because I was rushing to clean things up for the rest of the week. I still didn’t really tie up any loose ends because Jim was having trouble with imaging and I got sucked into SCCM. I did send out a couple of my trademarked customer service emails, where I resolved one issue and started helping someone on another.

Randy said he wanted a pizza buffet for lunch, and I reminded him that Cici’s was still doing their early week $4.99 deal. He, Charles, and I ended up going there, and it was pretty good. I missed out on my barbecue and spinach Alfredo, but I loved my salad.

When we got back to the office, Greg and Scott were in the building, which startled Randy. He disappeared for a bit, and then had a meeting with them afterward. I ended up staying a little bit late just trying to clean things up, but I couldn’t stay very late because I had to meet Summer in Conway for our dinner date.

I stopped to charge first, then met her at Old Navy to return the pants Eaddie didn’t like. Then we went to Outback and had what I thought was a super overpriced, poorly-cooked meal. The Bloomin’ Onion was good, but my baked potato was burned. The steak was pretty chewy, but it was a deal for a sirloin that came with a salad and cheesecake for dessert. Paying $70 for all of that plus a tip was wild.

From there, I headed home quickly so I could take the dogs out. Of course it was super dark out by the time we made it, but they did fairly well. They did try to chase a cat, and I had to yank them back and discipline for fear they’d yank me off the board again. We made it to my parents’ house, where Julie called in to verify some travel plans. Then I got the dogs home for their dinner.

Summer was settling in quickly, Eaddie came home and went straight to her room without a word, and I spent all night trying to pack and get things cleaned up for the girls to minimize their stress while I’m gone.

All my bags are packed. I’m ready to go.

Crampache

Summer and I both got up fairly early today. Eaddie’s friend snuck out early while we were on the couch. I got a major thigh cramp that may have caused some muscle pain in my leg for the rest of the day, because I didn’t recall hurting that badly from yesterday’s fall when I first woke up.

Summer went to the gym and Eaddie left for church, and then was gone for the entire day. Summer said she wanted to clean up the back yard when she got home, but it was still soggy. I need to dig some trenches for the water to flow away from the house, and we probably need to clean out the gutters again before the spring rains show up.

I loaded up on some vitamins after cramping so much, and ate some leftovers for lunch. Then I took care of the plants, took a shower, and Summer and I took a bunch of bags to Walmart for recycling. We walked the store to try and stretch my legs out a bit, and picked up some dog food. Then we went by Lowe’s where she saw a couple of people from work. Our last stop was PetSmart to browse, where I encountered my old buddy Keith.

Summer needed to get home after we left there, so we made it to the house and I took the dogs out for a run. They did better than yesterday, and I was much better about staying behind them after the tumble I took. Both of the dogs wanted to splash in the creek a bit, but Stilgar wanted to dam up the stream. We met Dad in the street again, then made it home for dinner.

I finished up some leftovers with Summer, then spent the rest of the evening trying to clean up the kitchen area before I leave the girls for a week. They’ll have to bring in all of my Vine stuff while I’m gone, so I didn’t want that to stress them out much more than it already does.

Drop it!

Blunderive

I woke up several times last night with terrible shin and calf cramps. Then as the night progressed, I started waking up to Stilgar barking at something outside. I eventually got up when Summer got out of bed, and she made us some bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then she went to the gym and Eaddie got up to go do something in the early afternoon. I had plans to meet with Mark to help with some computer questions, so I eventually got cleaned up to go help with that.

I stopped by Walgreens to pick up my iron pills, and I should have just asked the pharmacist if I could take it with my antibiotic, but I didn’t think of that in time. I made it to Mark’s place and waited a couple minutes for them to get in, and then I tried to help him talk through the concerns he had. They’re never really deeply technical problems that he has, but rather software quirks he has to work around because he just seems to have a lot of stuff he wants to manage. I ended up hanging out there for about three hours, in part waiting for OneDrive to sync, and he handed me a hundred bucks as we finished up for the day.

Summer had Eaddie outside taking pictures before the Sweetheart dance when I got home, and I made it inside to find my Mothman onesie just in time to get dressed up and take some pictures with her. Then we took pictures of her with Eli when he showed up.

Dad invited us over for spaghetti earlier in the day, and I still had to run the dogs before dark, so I took them out while Summer saw the kids off. We were doing pretty well until we made it around to Promenade Circle. We got to the last stretch of that road, and Stilgar decided he had to make an emergency stop to poop. Muad’Dib was already pretty far ahead, so that yanked everybody by the rope, and I tripped off the board as I tried to slow down. I landed on my right hand hard enough to draw a little bit of blood on my palm, and the dogs both wanted to come up and check on me. I got myself up, picked up the trail of poop, and we made our way to my parents’ house for dinner.

I left the dogs in the fence out back, and Summer showed up while Mom was prepping the last of the salad. It was completely dark by the time we finished eating, so we didn’t stay long. As soon as I stepped out back, Muad’Dib was there to greet me at the door. They must have pushed their way out through the fence and run around and back in somewhere else. I called to Stilgar, and saw him climb out of the pool cover to excitedly come greet the three of us. Dad and I tried to inspect the fence by phone flash, and he found a couple loose boards they probably pushed through. Luckily Stilgar didn’t appear to have pushed the cover all the way into the pool, but it made another good case for a taught cover.

Summer followed me home and the dogs were rowdy enough that they didn’t get dinner. Summer sat on her phone in the living room while I wrapped up on the computer, and we eventually made it to bed. Eaddie ended up bringing her friend Emma over to stay the night because she lives a little ways out and it was late.

Don’t oversync it.

Rolled Foods

The drive to work was super foggy this morning. For the first several miles, I could barely see a couple car lengths ahead, so I had to take things slow. Gary and Randy were there, but things were quiet. Maggie gave me a sausage, egg, and cheese eggroll from the donut shop up the road. After that, the most excitement we saw was our CDW rep getting successfully phished. He tried shipping us a lab-worth of laptops, but luckily they caught it. Randy wanted to gripe at Steven, but of course when the conference call actually happened, he was much less confrontational. I told him not to rag on him too hard in spite of the PO printed in Comic Sans. He’s a human dealing with paperwork from possibly hundreds of clients.

I ended up taking lunch by myself, so I thought I’d try Blue Coast Burrito. It was a bit like a Chipotle, but for the hood. The food was good though, and they had individual cups of different salsas available by the drinks. I would have preferred a salsa bar to eliminate the plastic waste, but the salsa was good. After that, I went by Walmart to check their clearance aisle. It’s always sparse, but since they also sold beer, I picked up a couple things for Summer.

On the way back to the shop, I picked up some fries from Rally’s since I had an expiring coupon. Then the afternoon was mostly dull and quiet. I tried getting Jim into SCCM, but for some reason his laptop wouldn’t connect to the server.

There was an accident or something on the way home, so traffic was super slow for about a quarter of the way to Conway. I didn’t really have to, but I stopped to charge so I wouldn’t run my battery too low. Summer had dinner going again, so I quickly ran the dogs and made it home to eat. She made a sort of baked chicken cordon bleu with Burssels sprouts and mashed sweet potato. I thought it was all really good, but the potatoes were cold, which made them taste more like pie.

After we ate, I had a bunch of big Vine packages to process. My absolute favorite was a watch winder that felt pretty high quality from the moment I opened the shipping package. It was in another brown shipping type box, which housed a well-padded retail box. The winder itself was super cool looking. I never thought I’d actually get one, but I’d wanted one ever since I saw the dressup scene of the first Doctor Strange. I had to search to find out why his watches were spinning, and from that moment I knew I wanted one. Funny enough, his setup probably didn’t actually wind his watches because they were all laying flat instead of standing upright.

I tried not to stay up too late after that. I contacted the clinic again because I still hadn’t heard from a hematology referral. She sent me a prescription for iron, but the antibiotics she put me on specifically say not to take them with iron products because it reduces their absorption. Hopefully I can just take them a few hours apart, but it still got me worried about how urgent this alleged anemia is. She said to call the clinic myself on Tuesday, but didn’t tell me which clinic. I was feeling really good about having a new PCP, but now I’m questioning it.

Ah, cramp.

Don’t Break Anything

I got out a little earlier today and had a slower drive in to work to save some battery power. I could have made it home on the charge, but I still ended up supercharging on the way home anyway.

Randy was out at a conference, so it was just Maggie and me all day. She was in better spirits after her friend passed yesterday. Randy emailed us some things to do, but it seemed like those weren’t entirely our job to do. It’s confusing what we’re actually responsible for because the district is so overstaffed. We personally handled much more at both of my previous districts. On top of that, people kept knocking at the door all day, pulling me away from whatever I was avoiding.

I actually didn’t even take a lunch, but Maggie made me eat her leftovers. I can never tell if she’s just worried about me being hungry or if she’s just genuinely not hungry enough to finish her food. It’s a pretty regular occurrence for her to have leftovers, so I try not to feel guilty about eating stuff she gives me. I thought I’d leave a little early because I never left, but I only got out about ten minutes early.

I stopped in Conway to charge a bit just so I wouldn’t have to shuffle cars late at night. Then I got home and ran the dogs to the Ridgewood Brothers to see if I could catch Robert. I actually saw Grant, and he seemed to be doing a little bit better. I think their whole situation has probably just gotten to the point where you throw up and then start to feel a little bit better.

We got rained on a bit as we made our way back across town. Just as it started to sprinkle, we encountered Hannah driving the opposite direction. She stopped to chat and we caught up for a little bit before we continued on to my parents’ house. By then it had started to rain pretty hard, so my leg was soaked by the time we got home. The dogs were good though, so they got hot dogs before dinner.

Someone had brought a bunch of Vine packages in for me, so I sorted all of that before Summer got home. The morning went by fast, the afternoon went by slowly, and then the evening flew by. Summer had a bad day at work, and I think we’re both feeling pretty unsatisfied in general. We chatted for a bit before she went to bed. Eaddie got home late and went straight to her room, and then I crashed as quickly as I could.

You broke it.

Bummers

Traffic was pretty bad on the way in this morning, but I got there. Randy was early again, and we all sat and chatted for a while in the morning. Maggie was stressing out due to something happening with a friend or family, so she ended up taking the afternoon off. I tried to help Jim with some stuff over the phone and was mostly successful, and Randy was in his executive team meeting all morning.

Lunch came a little late, and I met Kyle, Jim, Randy, and Jay at Brewski’s for their version of Taco Tuesday. I remembered thinking their burger was okay last time, but it was still bar food. I was even less impressed with their tacos, so I’ll never order those again. Everything was incredibly dry. Even the limes fell apart into pulp when we squeezed them. I actually ended up stopping at McDonald’s on the way back to get some fries, which were actually pretty good since I went to the one on McCain this time.

Sometime in the afternoon, Greg stopped by our office and for some reason wanted a tour of our shop area. I had a feeling someone put him up to it, but eventually Randy came back inside and said I couldn’t charge my car in there any more. That’s a pretty big bummer, especially in the winter, and it may be the straw that prompted the camel to update his resumé. It’s all about minimizing my time away from home, and if a few pennies worth of electricity is going to keep me away any longer, then it’s just not going to be sustainable for me.

I got home without any trouble and took the dogs out for a run. They weren’t great, so they didn’t get any treats when we got home, and I cut down their dinner a little as well. Muad’Dib hadn’t been eating some of his meals anyway.

I took care of some large Vine stuff before Summer got home, and she didn’t have a great day at work either. Then I had to fire off a message to the clinic because I was completely out of amlodipine for the next morning. Luckily they phoned it in to Walgreens and I was able to pick it up just a few minutes before they closed.

After I got back home, Dad said Uncle Tuan wasn’t doing great, so it looks like we’ll be going to visit. I don’t really know what happened to him for the past several years, but I know I’ll have a very different memory of him than what we’ll find, and he likely won’t remember me at all.

No Win Tuesday

Fish Fry

Almost exactly 11 years ago on January 30, 2014, I messaged a guy on Reddit about some fish he needed to re-home. My parents and I stopped by the Air Force base to meet him, and I brought home two corydoras and five tetras. A couple of the tetras died fairly quickly, if I remember correctly, but some of the others lasted a while. None of them lasted the 11 years of mostly neglect that the cory catfish survived. There have been a couple other tankmates, including a female betta that would eat out of my hand and let me pet it. Several snails have passed through the tank. They seemed to thrive through the neglect as I spent less and less time at home, and then made the move with us to the new house.

Then tonight, as I dropped some food into the tank and added some water to satisfy the gurgling filter, I noticed a baby. The tank was too dark and covered in algae to really see, but my eyes didn’t deceive me. At least one little cory fry was swimming around, along with both of the adults. I never had any inkling that they might be a breeding pair, but at some point, conditions must have been right. I’m afraid to even try and clean up the tank, for fear of damaging the ecosystem. It may just continue forever as it is in the guest room.

The rest of my day was incredibly boring by comparison. I was a little bit late leaving the house, just after Summer. I tried to catch up to her, but caught some slow traffic coming into Morrilton. There was no way I’d make up the time before she got off the interstate in Conway. I made it to work and was surprised to see Randy there before me.

People were mostly out of the office, and I worked on SCCM as my Vine ticker scrolled. Lunch time came and nobody else was interested. Everyone else left the office, so I took a late lunch and went to Cici’s by myself since they had a $4.99 deal. They were absolutely packed, almost entirely with old geriatrics – slow ones, at that. It mostly looked like poverty, and a couple people had crocheted hats that reminded me of the pigeon lady from Home Alone. One particularly ignorant old woman kept yelling loudly at one of the hispanics working, and asked multiple times where she came from before she lived here. In the end, I had a good salad and tried not to overdo it. I felt pretty good afterward, and it was actually rewarding to have paid less than I would have anywhere else.

The afternoon was pretty lonely since Maggie and Randy didn’t make it back until near quitting time. I made it to the end and got home to run the dogs. It wasn’t frigid out, so we had a good time. At one point, I stopped momentarily at the basin and Muad’Dib immediately peed on my Onewheel. I couldn’t believe it, because he’s normally pretty good about that stuff. I don’t know what prompted him to do such a thing.

From there, we made it to my parents’ house where Dad met us in the road again. I rinsed the Onewheel off under the faucet outside, and then we made it home. The girls ate some leftover pasta, I cleaned up what Summer didn’t finish, and then I took out a bunch of recycling before all of the excitement happened with the fish tank. I messaged the guy on Reddit just to let him know, so it’ll be interesting if I hear back.

Fishy