Tag: pets

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Shake, Rattle, and Rolls

The girls went home this morning to clean their rooms while I stayed home and took care of pets. The four snails from the 55-gallon tank in the living room don’t seem to want to move around at all, but they’re still alive. The water parameters in the betta bags still seem quite a bit off from the new tank, so I never did get around to actually moving them.

After I finally took a shower, I had the girls meet me at my parents’ house for a late lunch. We were supposed to visit with Uncle Giao, but Mom didn’t tell me until I got there that he wasn’t coming. Summer and Eaddie liked the bánh xèo. There was a pretty big pile of egg rolls there, but I’m not sure we put much of a dent in it. I ended up bringing the leftover cheese pizza home from last week.

When we left my parents’ house, I met the girls at T.J. Maxx for some bargain hunting. I picked up a pink Nautica tie with little whales on it, in spite of the fact that I never wear ties. It effectively doubles my choices for formal wear now though, which isn’t bad for 36 years. We closed down that store and then finished at Ross before deciding we were hungry and wanted milkshakes. We tried Dairy Queen, and probably should have stayed in spite of how busy they were, but we ended up going over to Steak ‘n Shake instead. The employees all looked pretty questionable at best, and it took them a while to get us seated in a mostly empty restaurant. The food came out surprisingly quickly, but the service was otherwise very slow, and we spent most of the evening with empty glasses. At least Eaddie ate free.

After that, Eaddie came back to the house with me while Summer took Autumn home to get some things. I finally moved the snails into the brand new tank. The fish may make that move tomorrow. Hopefully they get along. Summer went to bed pretty quickly. Autumn hid out on the futon while Eaddie watched more Supergirl. I stayed up longer than I should have, especially with how sapped I’ve felt all day. I’m not sure that tomorrow will be much better.

How are these cats taking up so much room in my bed?

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Skate, Rattle, and Roll

I came home this morning and got to work digging out an aquarium to clean up for my new fishy friends. I didn’t spend any time scrubbing glass the way that I usually do because I kind of assume I’ll be tearing this one down sooner than later, but I have to have a place to put these creatures. It took me all afternoon to get everything going, but I think it looks alright.

The girls went to get a gift for Maleea’s birthday, and then went to the park while I did my thing. I was only just getting into the shower when they came over from the park. Once I was ready, we headed to Skate Station where I could just barely keep my head up. I don’t know if I didn’t sleep very well, or long enough, or if I was just tired from messing with the aquarium all afternoon, but I was absolutely beat. The girls skated for a little bit, but I just couldn’t get myself up to do it.

After the party, we went to Walmart so I could pick up another aquarium thermometer, some light bulbs, and Summer wanted some vegetables to eat. Then we went to their house so the girls could get clothes, and I packed the fish up to bring them home. It took me a while to get them situated once we got there, and I still didn’t even get them into the tank. I’ll have to acclimate them slowly tomorrow, but apparently Uncle Giao is coming to visit again, so I really don’t know what the day is going to look like.

Autumn crashed on the couch, Summer went to bed with Grey, and Eaddie sat up watching Supergirl and begging for food to eat.

Most experts say that histamine isn’t the major cause of a runny nose when you have a cold.

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Compounded Interests

I didn’t sleep great last night because I kept waking up to pee, and I assume it was due to how much I ate, and possibly how much salt was in it. Grey was also laying right in the center of the bed, so I just snuggled up next to her as gently as I could. She really didn’t move all night, and only sat up a couple times when I got up.

Rachel never got back to me with a time to chat about esports, and I didn’t want to pester her about it since I figured she was busier than I was. I just kind of tried to stay loosely available in case she ever did say anything. Zach, Sara, Heather, and I went to Morelos for lunch where I broke from my traditional lunch fajitas for some nachos. My food came out really fast, but the service was otherwise abnormally slow. I don’t recall ever getting a refill on my water, and our salsa ran out much too early. It was still good though, and we made it back with plenty of time to spare.

I spent much of the afternoon trying to convince everyone else that we should create a Director of Esports position for me, since directors don’t necessarily require a teaching certification. I keep getting more and more of a feeling that this won’t turn out in my favor as much as I’m hopeful for it to, but really only time will tell. In the meantime, I suppose it’s up to me to expand this to the high school as quickly as possible. I did get some news back from HSTI regarding my proposed presentation. I’m a bit hyped up about it in spite of Ben’s response that they almost always have lots of extra room and that he would have been really surprised if they didn’t accept me. If nothing else, it’s just more experience to gain and a story to tell.

When I got home, I got Grey to eat a handful of treats and some gravy again, but she was noticeably weaker. I’ll have to call the vet tomorrow to see if they’ll even be open during spring break, or if I’ll have to try and squeeze her in tomorrow to avoid any more distress.

Feeling exhausted and spread a bit thin, I managed to do a couple quick water changes before running to Walmart for potluck ingredients. I ran into Amanda there, and we chatted for just a bit and made lunch plans for next week. Then I came home and prepared the kitchen well enough to cook some broccoli, rice, and cheese in the morning. Hopefully waking up and jumping right into the action will get me moving enough that I won’t feel too exhausted.

If I keep saying it, eventually it must become true!

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Coach Cow

It was storming pretty hard this morning, but we got just enough of a break and cared just little enough that we still managed to truck a touch panel to Oakland first thing in the morning. Together, Zach, Gary, and I got the panel hung with only a little unnecessary help from John. It would have helped if we had started with the correct size drill bit, but the important thing is that we got it done.

Afterward, we got the rumor mill going pretty hard, and there were a lot of things left up in the air. Jason’s still going to be out for a while, and apparently they’re letting him use sick bank days for what any reasonable person would feel are seriously inappropriate reasons. I was going to get 50 cent corn dogs with Summer and Ronda, but Ronda backed out, and then Zach wanted to continue our conversation over lunch. The three of us went to Zona K-tracha for lunch, and all ended up getting the same mixed lunch fajitas. The waitress seemed to be new at literally everything she did for us, down to asking if we wanted ice in our waters. The food was good, but inconsistent with our previous experiences. Overall good, but not worth the difference over a closer restaurant to the shop. Previously it had been pretty amazing.

I took care of work orders after lunch, and spent some time setting up an account with PlayVS. Matt and Ben officially gave me the go-ahead to be the coach for the district’s first Esports league team. PlayVS tripled the number of games to three: League of Legends, Rocket League, and Smite. None of us had any real idea how we would start the whole process, so I started by firing off an email to Gabriel, who I had helped pitch Esports to Matt in the first place. My main concern right now is how we will pay to enter the league, and whether we even should for this season with so little time to prepare.

As the day ended, Summer and I were going to meet at my place over some corn dogs while the girls were in karate. Kevin was still in his office working super late, so I thought I’d swing by and bring him a couple, but he had disappeared by the time I got there. I headed home and ate with Summer, then finally ran by the junior high basketball game to feed him there. He was super duper appreciative of that, and we chatted for a while before I headed out. I talked to Ronda and Jennifer at the concession stand for a little bit and ran into Charlie there because his daughter wanted to watch the game. I guess it’s something social to do. I didn’t used to see the appeal, but at least it looked better than an outdoor sport.

When I got back home, I spent some time in the living room with Grey. I think her tumors are getting worse pretty quickly, but she’s not acting totally worthless, so it’s going to be hard deciding when to end it. We’ll just have to take it day by day. Johnny and Aaron got online after a little while and I chatted with Johnny until bedtime.

Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

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Feeling Flushed

It was a dreary second day of testing at Oakland this morning. Someone brought some toppings to the cafeteria and made some fantastic cinnamon rolls. I had a brown sugar and pecan one at first, and then one of the teachers gave me her fig one that was tasty, though not even half as good as my first. I decided to leave for a regular lunch this time, and I met some of the guys at CJ’s for an overpriced burger. At least the fries were super hot and a little crispy.

After lunch, I took care of some things at the junior high before going back to the shop to deliver a touch panel to Oakland. Just after I got the panel and toolbox out and pulled the truck up, it started to pour down rain, so I had to move the stuff under the awning. Just about then, I saw Crystal pulling the mail van in, so I abandoned all hope and ran the truck back to the lot before she locked the gate. I figured we would just deal with being a little late tomorrow, since Zach, Gary, and I should be able to hang it super fast anyway.

I went home for a bit before heading up to Summer’s for dinner. She picked up a couple buckets of KFC that the three kids destroyed. Autumn originally tried eating leftover buffalo chicken strips instead, but when they turned out dry and rubbery she gnawed on about a quarter of a breast before leaving it to be thrown away. Luckily I spotted it and Summer finished it off, but it’s that kind of wasteful spirit that infuriates me to the point that I want to physically harm her. There’s just no reason someone that age shouldn’t be more thoughtful about those things. They have too many outs when they don’t get their way.

As I finished the last little bit of gravy with a biscuit, I somehow managed to punch a tiny hole into the styrofoam and dripped gravy across the entire house and myself. I just felt so defeated, and ended up taking my shirt off to wash it in the sink. I didn’t stay long, and left after about three episodes of Parks and Recreaetion. I headed toward home to get gas, then clean the cat box and shrimp bowl. I pulled some of the stringy algae out, and thought for a while that I had accidentally pulled out the ghost shrimp as well, just before heading to bed I checked again and found him.

Triumph of the day.

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Don’t Get Testy

This morning was really warm, so I rode the bike in to work. Oakland started ACT Aspire today, so I was stuck there all morning. I was able to use their loaner laptop while I was in the office though, so I kept pretty busy just catching up on old emails. I sat there until a little after noon before ordering some Subway online, and then I picked that up and went to the shop.

I ate there and chatted with Gary for a while. It wasn’t too long after lunch until I had to go back to Oakland to meet with the guys that are running the robotics tournament this weekend. I had to find out what they needed from me, and luckily it sounded like a couple people from Tech should be around to help as well so we won’t all be completely without guidance.

By the time we finished there, school had let out, so I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop just kind of vaguely working. When I got home, Bác Vân was sitting out back resting, so I chatted with her for a while until Julie got home so I could swing by to get the apple pie moonshine she didn’t want. We ended up talking for a little while too, but the sun was setting and I didn’t want to be out too late on the bike, so I headed to Gary’s place to give him the moonshine. I went in just because I had never seen his place before, and we chatted for just a few minutes before the girls blew up my phone.

I ran home to get the car and went to Walmart to look at some sandpaper for Autumn’s project. While I was there, I picked up a new bulb for the lamp to put over the shrimp bowl. I did a little Googling and decided that sandpaper wouldn’t work well for the papier-mâché, and left with just my bulbs. Autumn was making some slow but steady progress on her Challenger rockets. I had a little bite of what Eaddie didn’t finish for dinner, and then I had to run back home to test some aquarium water.

Earlier when I had checked on the shrimp bowl, the little baby fish was having trouble swimming. He seemed fine this morning, but couldn’t stay upright or swim straight in the evening. I wanted to test the water and try to fix it, but by the time I got home it was already dead. One of the shrimp even started to pick at it a little bit, so I just left it in the bowl. For some reason, the water was really alkaline in the bowl, but both of my big tanks have been really heavily acidic. I didn’t test the water in the 35 gallon since it’s just been sitting stagnant for years, but I’ll probably do that sometime soon. It definitely doesn’t look very good. In the end, I added a small piece of driftwood to try and bring the pH down a little bit, and got my new lamp set up on the timer.

WHATTUP FISH TANK PEOPLE

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Detlef Shrimp

I got up this morning and warmed up the last of the leftover quesadillas for breakfast. Eaddie continued watching Legends of Tomorrow until they left for home to get the house cleaned up. I’d like to say I cleaned up as well, but truthfully I spent most of my time staring at the shrimp. I ended up moving all four of them to the little bowl after deciding that the darker “ghost shrimp” may be a lighter male cherry red. Then I threw the clear ghost shrimp in as well just because I felt bad leaving it in the larger tank with the tetras. One of the reds molted at some point, and I was upset to have missed it.

I eventually got a shower and headed to Summer’s for dinner. She warmed up some leftover barbecue and made some really good cheesy potato pancake things out of the really gross nacho cheese potatoes. We watched an episode of Parks and Recreation while we ate, and then Summer continued helping Autumn with her papier-mâché rockets for history day. I played Breath of the Wild for the rest of the night, trying and failing repeatedly to defeat the island challenge. I’m going to have to step up my creativity.

It takes shrimp to make shrimp!

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Jack of All Your Labors

Summer had a quiz bowl tournament today, so I slept in a little before warming up some leftovers for brunch and heading home. Back home I played a little Overwatch to get my weekly loot boxes, then spent quite a while sifting through rocks so I could make a shrimp bowl with only black gravel. I found some plants that were still alive in my 35 gallon tank, so I pulled them out and threw them in along with the two cherry red shrimp and my last little baby molly.

By the time I finished with all of that and had a shower, Summer was done and brought Eaddie over to go have dinner with Mom. She picked up a bunch of giò in Houston and made noodles for it today. Then we spent an hour trying to dissect a jackfruit without getting all of its sticky sap everywhere. I tried following a guide I found on YouTube, but it seemed like ours wasn’t ripe enough to pull apart like that.

When I finished with that, Uncle Mai called and gave me several minutes of advice and let me know that the value of his gift to me didn’t matter as long as I would use it at least once and that I liked it. Everyone was pretty tired by then, so we headed back to my house where Summer crashed, Eaddie loaded up Legends of Tomorrow, and I dug around to see if I had a lamp I could use to light the new shrimp bowl. Spoiler alert: I need to go to Walmart.

Now my fingers smell like sweet, fruity butt.

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MRIs are C❄❄l

Summer got up this morning and took the bookend kids to school while Autumn and I got ready. As soon as she made it back, we took off for Little Rock for Autumn’s MRI. The drive was pretty straightforward until we got into Little Rock and encountered two separate highway wrecks. Once we got to Arkansas Children’s Hospital and fought for a parking spot, the check-in process was really quick, and we didn’t spend more than about five minutes waiting to be called back.

Even the wait in the prep room was short, as Autumn got changed into a hospital gown and picked out a movie to watch. They gave us the option to go in with her, which I jumped on right away. I’d never been in a room with that much money per square foot before. It was pretty impressive, and neat to see how even huge medical equipment gets updated with the times as far as aesthetics and user interfaces go. They pumped audio to her through plastic tubes since having metal in there would have likely killed everyone. Summer nearly froze to death even covered up in half a dozen warm blankets.

After that was done, we went to Tokyo House to eat. Autumn objected to Chinese, which was nice. I didn’t want her to think of the trip in any positive, school-skipping kind of way. If she doesn’t follow basic health guidelines, then we can’t afford to pay to rule out the most expensive things first. I didn’t really feel like I got my money’s worth with those two, but the food was really good. I probably filled up too much on sushi, but I had pretty much everything else too. Some of the fruits were surprisingly and especially good.

The trip home was through pretty heavy traffic for being so early in the day. We stopped by PetCo first and I picked up a couple puny red cherry shrimp and a couple ghost shrimp. I pointed out a tank with only some baby mollies to Autumn, and the girl helping us offered to throw them in for free. I was probably a little too excited and anxious to get them, being fooled by a seemingly extra-healthy tank. The last stop was at Target to pick up a SlickDeal on some Starbucks bottled Frappuccinos I ordered the other day.

When we got home, I dropped the girls off at their house and headed home with my new aquatic buddies. I was super tired, but I had to get them acclimated. I took a break for a little while and installed a new watch face on my TicWatch E. When Summer finished dropping the girls off everywhere they needed to be, she came over and helped me run the gamut of water quality tests. I built out a spreadsheet to keep track of the stats over time, and was shocked at how high my nitrates were. Everything else seemed to be about where I expected it, but I was still worried about throwing shrimp and tiny baby mollies in with my tetras. After a huge water change, I finally dropped the two cheapo ghost shrimp and eventually three out of the four baby fish into the tank. We’ll see how they survive the night.

☃

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Six Months

I had ELPA testing all day at the junior high, so I spent all morning over there just in case something happened. Nothing did. I got a few other things cleaned up while I was there, then met Allen at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop and then visited Oakland for a bit on my way home.

I took off a couple hours early to take Grey to the vet since she’s been a little shyer than usual. It was a quick visit. One look to find three mammary tumors. She said cats don’t survive them 90% of the time, so surgery wouldn’t be a realistic option, and all we can do is watch her quality of life. She guessed it might give her six more months.

With that news, I took her back home and gave them both some wet food. Then we sat on the couch together for a couple hours until I had to pick Eaddie up from karate. She wanted to stay and hang out with her friend, but I had to get her home to shower.

Summer and Autumn showed up shortly thereafter, and Summer warmed up some leftover pasta for us before the girls shuffled off to bed. I played Breath of the Wild the rest of the evening while Summer nursed some gnarly shoulder pain.