Tag: sad

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Nobody Asked You Patrice!

I caught the dogs in the act of digging under the fence this morning, and in spite of being in trouble, they were super excited to see me. I gave them some pets and treats with the hopes that they would stick around, and tried to cover up their start of a new hole, but they got out again while I was in the shower. As I was walking out the door, a new neighbor stopped to let us know. Summer woke up and got the front door just as I was discovering they weren’t in the back yard. Luckily we were able to get them back inside without too much trouble, but they were pretty high-energy.

There was no time for breakfast, and traffic was stupid. I got to work a little over 10 minutes late, but again, the place was mostly a ghost town. I submitted my vacation request form, though technically my contract will be over by then, and they don’t have to hire me again. I’m playing this one by ear. I ended up in Blake’s office and chatted with him for a while, and then a guy came in with three big bags of sweet corn for the school. I eventually got some for the office, and then took some home at the end of the day.

Other than that, my big human interaction was when Troy stopped by and actually sat down and chatted with me a little bit. I thought that was kind of neat, but I’m sure he mostly just needed a break from the heat. I eventually headed home and fed the fish.

I got to the house just as Summer was finishing up dinner. She thought it would be a good idea to cut up the leftover dried chicken and form patties with egg and bread crumbs. They were even dryer than the chicken was by itself, and it made no sense at all. I rolled the grill out and cooked some corn while I played with the dogs for a while. It sprinkled with a little thunder in the distance, and the dogs stuck around on the porch. It was really nice that we didn’t have to hunt for them at all today.

I wish they were trained well enough to take to work.

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Digdog

I checked on the dogs as soon as I got out of bed, and they had already dug their way out. I figured they were hanging out with a neighbor, but I never saw them when I eventually left for work, and neither of the girls looked for them in the morning. It was a long day at work without knowing anything.

I had another bagel and kept fairly busy with some more trivial stuff that may have actually been clues as to what keeps breaking parts of my network. Then at the very end of the day, I walked in on Harry watching a Strong Bad video in his office. I had to laugh, because I had just texted Gary a GIF of Salad Fingers earlier in the day. I told Harry that we hadn’t had much time to build rapport with one another, but that we were going to be good friends.

After work, I fed the fish and then headed home to try and find the dogs. I probably rode over 10 miles on the Onewheel, but forgot to start logging my ride at first, so I think I captured way less than half of my total ride. I stopped by my parents’ house once just for a quick break, and then again later to eat since Summer wasn’t hungry when she got home.

I lingered around outside for a while, but never saw or heard anything. I did find a couple other dogs loose in the neighborhood, so maybe they’ll still turn up, but I’m not particularly hopeful. If they don’t come back, I hope they find a better home.

Good boys.

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Roped Up

I actually managed to leave a bit early today, and grabbed a bagel on the way to work. My first order of business was to review camera footage to find who took my network equipment. Failing that, I just texted Todd and he fessed up to it. I don’t know that I believe he just “borrowed” it out of a need, more than “took it” to see if I would notice. At least I should be getting it back now, and I went ahead and placed a couple cameras in the core closet.

I spent much of the rest of the day building maps in VI MonitorPlus, so hopefully finding the right camera will be a bit easier now. Otherwise it was super quiet all day long. Becky said they were leaving a little early, so I didn’t wait behind.

Eaddie said she was going to Clarksville and Summer said she would be home a little late, so I fed the fish and then headed home to play with the dogs. Only Stilgar was around, and I considered that Muad’dib might have just run off for good. I put a leash on Stilgar and took her out for a walk on a rope to the end of the street. She did pretty well on the way out, but got stubborn on the way back and didn’t want to move. Maybe it’s the name. Stilgar fit when it was a scruffy-looking boy, but I don’t know if it’ll still be a good name for a mother, if that’s really what’s happening.

Once we got back home, I took the Onewheel around the block to look for Muad’dib, and ran into the neighbors as they walked their own dog down the street. She said he had been chilling out on their porch, so she returned him. I think he got out a couple more times in the evening, so I’ll need to fix that since the girls haven’t been able to do it themselves in a week’s time.

Summer eventually made it home, but wasn’t fit to go out anywhere. I had a coupon for some cheese dip from Stoby’s, so I went out to eat by myself. It was quiet there too. When I finished, I headed home and pet on Stilgar some more, but Muad’dib didn’t come around. He was probably in the neighbor’s yard again. Maybe Summer will have a new home for him soon.

dip

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Querious Planet

Kim was out today, so it was just Denice and me all day in the office. She spent all morning testing one kid, which seemed absolutely asinine for someone making more than $15,000 more than the newly overpaid minimum wage for teachers. It took me a little bit to get the motivation to dive into anything serious, but I eventually got word back on my Savvas roster import project, and I ended up working on that all day with a lot of help from Gary. I felt bad for being so needy, but it just wasn’t documented in any meaningful way for me, and they had already reinvented the wheel once before.

Time got away from me at the end of the day, and I got back to town a little bit late. I fed the fish and brought a bucket of trinkets home from the old house. Summer was home and already into the fresh leftovers from yesterday’s grilling. I went outside and cleaned out the gutters on the front of the house before coming back in to uncover and ultimately throw away a large container of spaghetti meat sauce and half of a pot of rice. When I went outside to put that in the dumpster, I found a fresh, unpeeled orange that had been thrown away for seemingly no reason as well. It would have been less infuriating if I hadn’t had to argue with both of the girls on separate occasions about eating my leftovers from the day we accidentally stumbled into Toad Suck. I’ve been feeling like an alien from another planet of people that give a shit about waste.

Rather than scream or yell, I just warmed up a little bit of leftover lasagna and corn from weeks ago, and ate that outside by myself. It started to rain a little bit, so I ducked under the porch. Dad said they had shrimp soup, so I left to eat with them and just get some space for a while. It’s no longer about feeling frustrated or angry all of the time. Now I’m just unhappy.

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3 Little 2 Late

I woke up early this morning so we could get to Tulsa for lunch. The girls were chittering around the rest of the house, so I stayed hidden away until I was ready to leave the house. They had disappeared in a cloud of body spray by the time I walked through.

I did another software update on my car, which wasn’t long after the last one. This one evidently gave me a 30-day trial of Full Self Driving, which would ironically only get me to the Tesla dealership in Tulsa where I would relinquish my car. I followed Summer most of the way, stopping at Rose Drug, then the Van Buren Supercharger, and finally the Love’s oasis. Somewhere before we hit the turnpike, a truck kicked up a bunch of large pieces of wood. One of them struck the middle of my windshield, but fortunately no damage was done that I could tell. After Love’s, I led us the rest of the way to the dealership where they seemed to be waiting with baited breath for me.

I only had a couple of pages of paperwork to sign, including handing the title back over. Then we unloaded all of the remaining stuff into Summer’s car and left it there to Supercharge while we test drove one of the brand new Model 3s and a Model X. The new Model 3 was incredibly quiet, and had a great ride. The doors were the other big improvement. The turn signals were less of an issue than I expected for normal driving, but in a pinch I would still want stalks to quickly signal and maneuver. The only solace is that the responsiveness of the vehicle makes it nimble and quick enough to maneuver around most other vehicles faster than any signaling might help, in that type of situation. I guess that’s what really matters, and signals can be left for more polite, less urgent driving.

After our test drives, we found a nearby Shoe Carnival to use a birthday credit I had. Then we crossed the street to get a free birthday burger from Red Robin. We were more disappointed than usual with our lack of “bottomless” fries when we sat down, so we ordered a couple more rounds as soon as our server brought our food to the table.

Bellies full, we headed back home with a nearly full charge. Headwinds made us stop to charge for a couple minutes in Ozark, and then we made it home without incident. I went out on the Onewheel to destress and stopped by my parents’ house. I was really sad about selling my car back, but the market price and current upgrades made it the right financial choice. It’s just nuts that I could buy a brand new one and still save money after the whole ordeal.

Once I got back from my ride, I cleaned up Summer’s car and put my aftermarket console trays in for her. All I want now is for her to keep the car clean, but she just doesn’t live that way.

Miss you in the saddest fashion!

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Less Than Marvelous

Ben texted that he was too late to meet for breakfast, and I noticed a couple of cars parked outside the Old Mill Bread Bakery & Cafe, so I swung in there to eat instead. The guy was just opening up, and had to leave to take his son to school, so he just left me with another customer in the store. Then Ben called after he realized the sessions didn’t start until 8:30, and met up with me just in time for the guy to make it back. I had a breakfast burrito and a scone with some coffee, but in hindsight I probably should have gotten something on BREAD instead of a premade spinach wrap. The food was good either way, and then we headed to the conference.

I went to a session about budgeting and finance, which I thought would be helpful to start the conversation with my business office and admin team. Hopefully I can come up with a decent proposal, and then use Technology money for a better salary. After that session, I went to Ben’s talk about Burp Suite, which was interesting. I was in a room with a very small number of very smart folk, but I wasn’t sure I had an immediate use for it.

The final session was the closing ceremony. Charlie was in Ben’s session, and he let me have his room key to get into the garage and charge. Then Ben and I sat through the closing remarks and went to the lobby for our bagged lunches. They didn’t have very many left, so we were lucky to get anything to eat at all. I figured he might stick around for a little bit to chat, but he actually ended up sticking around the entire time I was waiting for my movie. We chatted about all kinds of stuff, and then he helped me fix my eSchool student photos, which was awesome.

That left me just enough time to get across town to the IMAX to watch The Marvels. I had a reward for a free hot dog, purchased an ICEE, and sat down in my usual seat. There were only a few people there for the IMAX 3D showing on opening weekend, which I thought would be a good thing just for myself, but for some reason the bunch of old folks just kept talking through the entire movie. It would have been way more distracting if I had been more invested in the movie. I just couldn’t take it seriously at all. It was fine, but it was far from great. The dialog and plot just made it feel like another forced girl team-up movie.

After the show, I finally headed home. I stopped at the old house to check on things and air up my tires. Then I washed my car and headed to the house. Everyone was awake, but nobody heard me come in. Eaddie had left the Murano unlocked, so I made her go out and lock it up. Then I realized she left the back door unlocked, as well as the front door after she went out to lock the car. I don’t know how to correct these habits other than to make her life really annoying by making her go back outside repeatedly in the cold. Summer only got out of bed to use the bathroom while I unpacked and got things put away. I got my acrylic chair mat in, so I cleaned it and set it up under my desk. For one day, it seems like it will hold up alright, but only time will tell.

No appointing here.

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Caring for Plants

I was a little scattered and a little off track today. I wanted to make a slide presentation for the teachers on Monday, but I never got around to it. Eaddie wanted to go to the park, so I had her take me to my house while Summer went to the gym. Dad came by to meet Kevin and take Bác Vân’s old mattress to the dump. Mom stopped by at the same time, and then Doug came out to see everyone. I loaded up the bike rack and a couple bikes for Eaddie, which got me super sweaty due to the humidity. It threatened rain, but it never came down.

I eventually had a shower, and then Summer picked me up for lunch. We found Eaddie at Kroger so I could return the bike lock key to her, and then we went to New China. We ran into Sharon there, and she stepped over from their table to talk for a moment. The sentiment about the district seems as shaky as ever.

Summer didn’t feel great after we ate, but we still made time to go by a junk store in the old mall parking lot. I guess they buy pallets of returns and fill a bunch of bins with it, and then sell things for a set price that drops every day of the week until everything finally goes for a buck. It was mostly pilfered junk, but we picked up some Andes mints, a bag of coffee, and the most surprising find of all, a sync module for my Blink camera.

We laid on the couch when we got back to the house, and I played a game on my phone while Summer watched TV. Eventually Eaddie was ready to come home but had to do something with the bikes first, so I met her at my house to put all of that away. Then we came back to the house for the night. I watched Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 with Summer, and then it was off to bed way later than I intended.

Just a little watering routine. Nothing to cry about.

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Antici

I woke up on my anniversary with Summer, already dreading an evening with John and Melissa. I didn’t realize how emotional the day would become.

Shortly after our morning meeting, I got an email from Thomas saying that he needed to meet with me, and that the meeting was disciplinary in nature. Of course that got my mind reeling, wondering what I could have possibly done. I didn’t know if I had offended someone, or if I just wasn’t keeping myself busy enough. It’s been a slow time of year, but I’ve always offered to help anywhere possible.

I was eaten up with stress for the rest of the day. Gary took Zach, Greg, and me to IHOP where we coincidentally ran into Brody, who was upset that he had suggested IHOP multiple times but we would never go until after he left us.

I went to Dwight right after lunch to return a laptop, but didn’t learn anything there either. I headed back to the shop and eventually went to my meeting in Thomas’s office at 3:30 with Gary, who offered to stand in as a witness, or representation I suppose. I was written up for the parody poem of A Visit from St. Nicholas that I wrote for my CPPC minutes email earlier in the week.

I thought the poem was rather clever, but I have to assume that Ginni took it as an opportunity to twist the words and make it sound like I was speaking ill of the district. Though Thomas wrote the write-up himself, it seemed out of character for him to call me out on something like that so specifically. I have to assume that he was instructed to shut me down by the superintendent, because it’s the only way I can continue working for him for the time being.

My stomach had been in knots all day, so it didn’t even register that everyone left at four. Kyle found me in the office by myself, and then we left for the weekend. I drove by my parents’ house, but Mom was working late. I ended up back at home for a bit before going back across town. Mom was working really late though, and I ended up swinging by Brody’s house to take him for a ride.

We chatted for a bit afterward, and then I finally went to visit with Mom for a bit. We discovered a very small leak under the kitchen sink, so I cleaned up a bit but didn’t actually do anything to fix it. She said she was sleepy after a while, and I went home to trade vehicles and head to Summer’s.

Summer wanted to talk about my day, but I was already completely beaten down by it all. I killed a whole bunch of time and nearly left, but drank myself to bed instead.

What’s wrong with being me?

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Choice

The Montego didn’t appreciate being started this morning, and the idle bounced around for a bit until I got a “failsafe engine mode” message. I shut it off, gave it a moment, and then started it right back up again without any trouble. I asked Summer if she’d ever encountered that before, and she said sometimes it just happens.

Death trap.

I made it home, but took the Shadow to work again on account of the weather. It was a bit on the cool side, but it didn’t take me long to work up a sweat. I had to walk to the Support Services building a couple times to pick up some old junk, and though the humidity wasn’t reported to be very high, and it wasn’t terribly hot outside, I couldn’t stop sweating.

I had to stop by Transportation for a moment after that, and then I spent the rest of the morning working on things in my office. Lunch time came quickly, and a group of us went to Slim Chickens. Greg had his daughter with him for an appointment in the afternoon, and she was shy at first, but by lunch time she was bouncing all over the place. I had a BOGO deal of questionable value, and took the leftovers back to the shop fridge.

The afternoon was quiet, but I kept pretty busy. I ended the day upstairs with a few new work orders, and then came back to the shop to close up. I had to shoo Tammy out, otherwise she would have kept working late. Autumn had called to ask me to pick up Eaddie because they had a disagreement about who had to do what. Autumn wanted to go mow the lawn at her grandparents’ house, but Eaddie had to finish an assignment for band before she left school. Autumn did a good job of making it sound like Eaddie was the asshole, but of course Eaddie ultimately had other details.

I took my time getting home, wanting to make Eaddie sweat it out a bit since she didn’t pre-arrange for me to pick her up. I stopped for gas at Casey’s, but then changed my mind and went to Shell instead. When I got home, I called Eaddie back and went to pick her up. We stopped back by my house to get some air in the damaged back tire, and then went to Lowe’s to drop off some recycling. As I was walking back to the car, I passed an old guy that had been staring at a riding lawn mower parked behind his trailer since before we pulled in. I stopped to offer a hand, and managed to push it up onto the trailer by myself. He didn’t really have proper straps to tie it down, but I did my best and left the rest to hopes and dreams.

Autumn beat us home with some stuff to bake cookies, but then went out to mow the rest of the back yard. I started grilling some burgers for the girls a little before Summer got home, and then we all ate a mix of a bunch of leftovers. I was astounded by how well the old lettuce and tomato had kept from the last time we grilled burgers, but it all turned out pretty good. I had a slight overflow issue with the deep fryer, but that cleaned up alright.

After we ate, we sat the girls down to talk about how both of them were both right and wrong, and pleaded with them to work on their communication with one another. Then everyone went to bed while I waited up to finish Autumn’s laundry. When I put Summer to bed, she said John invited her to Thanksgiving, but evidently I had done something last year that offended him enough that I wasn’t allowed.

I’m never particularly afraid to offend anyone, but I certainly never go anywhere with that intent. I know I can get into belligerent moods where I say things off the cuff, and then dig in even if things go awry. I don’t think it was really fair to Summer to put her in that predicament, but I’m glad for her that someone chose to be her friend. We both know a lot of people, but I don’t think either of us really have that many that we can call “friends.” I always think that I do, but then when it comes down to it, it’s really just whoever I’m working with most frequently at the time. I try not to feel too sorry for myself because I believe that to be common among humanity. They always joked that if Summer and I broke up, they would keep her over me. I’ll have to apologize, because I never meant to put anyone in a situation that might make them feel the way that any of us feel now. It’s just a sucky situation because of the way that I chose to be.

It always plays better in my head.

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Convenience Over Results

Summer made eggs and sausage for breakfast this morning, and then the girls got ready for a long weekend with their father. I showered there before sitting down with the kids to reiterate my role, and the fact that parental decisions would be shared between Summer and myself. I could tell that Autumn had just been playing nice to get permission to drive to Lamar on her own, but Summer wanted a break from shuttling her around everywhere.

Before they left, I went home while Summer went to the gym. I tried setting up an old GPS tracker that I had purchased years ago, but the battery appeared to be completely toast. We met back up at their house to see the girls off, and then we spent the rest of the day laying around.

We watched the original Top Gun, which did not impress me much, in case we wanted to go to the theater to see the new one. Then we went to Colton’s for a steak dinner. By the time we finished there, Summer decided she’d had enough fun for one day and we went back home where we burned the rest of the evening. She watched TV while I laid around not feeling great, and eventually we went to sleep.

So noisy, and nothing’s getting done.