Tag: Traditions

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Re-Pumpkined

The girls went to Tech for the band’s Member for a Day event. It ended up raining when they were supposed to go out onto the field, so Eaddie ended up wishing she had gone to orchestra tryouts instead. I took Tres out in the rain and picked up Summer after her workout, and we went to Taco John’s for lunch. Eaddie didn’t want to go to the game in the rain, so we picked her up and let Autumn stay on her own. Summer really wanted to go to TJ Maxx for a yoga mat , and then Eaddie wanted to go to Hobby Lobby for a new paint-by-number.

Once I dropped the girls back off at the Murano, I went home and traded for the Montego before going up to their house. Once Autumn got home, Summer had to talk to her about her failing English grade. The kid is just lazy and unfocused, and needs to be micromanaged. I was a lot like that growing up, so I get it.

I ordered a pizza, and once Summer got out of the shower, we went to my parents’ house to carve the last couple of pumpkins. Autumn did hers in a rush and then hopped right back onto her computer, allegedly to do homework. Judging by how much she was smiling, I would say she probably had other things going on. Dad and I finished ours with the new tool kit I got from Amazon, and it made things a lot easier. Julie stopped by for a bit after Mom bragged about my car to her on the phone, but we didn’t drive it there.

I was the last one to finish, and once I did, we headed back to the house for the evening. I pretty much hit a brick wall once we got there, and I laid in bed for a bit. Then I got back up to finish my evening chores before going to bed.

Needs mud flaps.

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Pumped

I came in and out of sleep pretty early this morning, but kept making myself go back to sleep until Summer got out of bed. As everyone else roused, she made a small batch of pancakes for breakfast. I played Into the Breach for quite a while between poking around on the computer. I got my first call from an actual human being at Tesla to confirm my delivery appointment.

My parents called for some help with Bác Vân’s iPad, but I couldn’t do much remotely. Summer ended up taking a nap, so I went home to clean up. My parents were still next door, so I walked over to see what I could do. The iPad wouldn’t support an iOS version compatible with the YouTube app, so that was a bust.

Once my parents got home from running around town, I ordered some pizzas from Little Caesar’s and went to get the girls. We loaded up the pumpkins, stopped to get the food, and then made it to my parents’ house to eat and carve. I was surprised by how little food was left, so I was glad I actually ordered enough.

After we ate, Autumn said she was too tired to carve a pumpkin. Dad preferred to wait until closer to Halloween, but Eaddie didn’t want to come back to do it after school. She and Summer just carved theirs together, and we left the other three for later. They turned out really good, so once my carving kit comes in on Monday, I’ll have to really think of something good to carve.

We loaded everyone up to go home, and brought the two pumpkins worth of seeds along for roasting. Summer cleaned them up and simmered them in some water for a few minutes before we had to dry them out. We ended up drying them in the oven on its lowest temperature setting, since leaving them on the counter would have taken days. She seasoned them with some olive oil, salt, and cayenne pepper, and they turned out great.

Everyone settled into their rooms after that, but Noah was supposed to come over after work. I didn’t stay up for that, since we had a full day of driving in the morning.

36 hours!

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Not My Favorite Uncle

I got up this morning and headed home to finish up my taxes before cleaning up for a late Easter lunch. With the way my short-term trades were calculated, I got to pay for the gains I made without taking into account my unrealized losses that nullified them. I thought I might do some additional research to make sure it was all correct, but in the end I trusted the system.

Dad had lunch ready just a few minutes earlier than he expected, which was a departure from running late. Bác Vân and Doug were already there, and Summer and Eaddie arrived just seconds before I did. Autumn had to work, and Julie is still ignoring us all. Lunch was good, but we didn’t stick around for very long. Eaddie still had homework, and I still actually had to submit and pay my taxes.

As soon as Autumn got home from work, I helped her file her own taxes. She didn’t earn enough for it to be required, but by filing she’ll get a refund of what her employer held out of her checks. For some reason the social security and such weren’t refunded, which made me question whether she should have paid in the year before when the school district paid her as a contractor. I don’t get why we can’t just receive a statement telling us what we owe every year instead of propping up a ridiculous industry. That, or a high sales tax seem like great ways to fix this.

Summer had a headache and climbed into bed well before sunset, and the girls were off in their own rooms to avoid any human contact. I left, but ended up stopping at Walmart for a bit before making it home. My lava lamp went out at work, and the retro dorm theme just isn’t the same without it.

As I pulled into my driveway, Michael called to chat some more about crypto taxes. I’m into it in theory, but I worry he’s reading too much into the tea leaves. I didn’t accomplish anything else like I had hoped, but with any luck I’ll sleep through the night before work in the morning.

It’s buoy bells.

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Witchcraft!

We all woke up early to leave for Eureka Springs this morning. I had to stop by Superfast first though, to check my coolant level again. We took a jug of some extra along just in case it got bad later, but I really shouldn’t have, because at the end of the day we found it had leaked all over the trunk.

It was a long and pretty drive, though the trees were all still dead from winter. Eaddie did great in the car, and we didn’t even have to drug her. We got to the Inn of the Ozarks a little before the last lecture let out for lunch, so we picked up Dad, then Mom and went to the top of the hill for lunch at Myrtie Mae’s.

After lunch, we watched the matinée for Dad’s performance. Then the girls had to cut out partway through the closeup show in order to make their zipline appointment. My parents and I got back up to their room just as the girls finished up, so once they walked back across the street, we headed to The Rockin’ Pig Saloon for dinner.

They had a bunch of menu items with Wagyu beef, including an $85 ribeye that made even our server’s eyes go wide. Mom got a non-Wagyu ribeye for less than half that, and the rest of the table got a pretty good mix of things. Somehow Autumn ended up with a pepperoni pizza, and even it was pretty good. I still think the brisket at Ridgewood is more tender though.

We got back to the Inn just in time for the raffle drawings, and then we watched the evening show. It was a good time getting to see everyone again after putting the event off for COVID. As they closed up shop, we left my parents to go find our hotel across town.

The Statue Road Inn was a cute little motel, at least in the dark. There was some confusion with the check-in process, because I was sure that I paid in full online, but I received an email saying I had to make a partial payment at the inn, and the lady at the front desk didn’t have any record of payment at all. She was super friendly though, and unable to find any credit card history, I felt comfortable making the partial payment. After researching some more online, I’m not convinced that I don’t owe the rest of it, but we’ll sort that out later.

The room was kind of cute, but it looked like they had some renovations going on at the other end of the building. This was the second time I’ve had a physical, metal key for a room I’ve stayed in as an adult. Aside from the miserable water pressure that Summer reported, everything seemed to be on the up and up. I guess we won’t know for sure until morning.

Short trip.

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The Time Honored Tradition of Explaining Things to Your Denny’s Server

I thought we might go see The Batman today, but things quickly started changing. Autumn had to go shop for uniform clothes for her new job at Denny’s. Summer just wanted to go to the gym, but was otherwise flexible. I spent most of the morning shopping for refrigerators online. We started to warm up some food for everyone, and then Autumn got a call from her father asking to meet up, so they abandoned the pizza we made.

Eaddie wanted to watch a movie, but later ended up going to see The Batman with her boyfriend instead. I made it home and continued shopping for a fridge, but was suddenly hit with a bit of nausea for some reason. I laid down in bed for a bit until that passed, then took a shower.

After her movie, Summer went to get Eaddie and I met them at Denny’s for dinner. Autumn was there shadowing our server, and it quickly became apparent that it won’t take long for her to become the best employee there. As long as she can keep from picking up any bad habits, she should be able to get some experience and take those newfound skills somewhere better. I’m a little afraid she’ll just let herself become comfortable there, though.

After we ate, I went home and did some laundry. At some point I heard a mystery song on YouTube that had been rattling around in my brain since I worked at the call center. Nearly a decade later, I was able to use Google audio search and Shazam to find enough other relevant YouTube videos that lead me to a Reddit thread where someone else was also searching for the song’s origin. All this time, it was just royalty-free music. With that finally out of my brain, I eventually made it to bed.

Eureka! Fifth Avenue Stroll!

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Wanna Fight?

I got in a couple minutes late this morning after a split night of sleep. I wasn’t as sore as I thought I might be, but I still felt pretty gross in general until I had my shower. Thomas was out again, and Zach was transient all morning until he took off for the afternoon. That left me with a grumpy Gary to sort through everyone’s messes.

Several of us went to Taco John’s for Taco Tuesday, and I had a light lunch that left me surprisingly satisfied, if not a little peckish. The afternoon was pretty quiet, but I had Justin come down to chat about our meeting tomorrow. It’s time to put thoughts into action and stand up for what I believe. At least I won’t be completely alone, and maybe I can get a couple raises out of the deal.

After work, I ran home to change before going to my parents’ house to wish them a happy new year. Then I stopped by the bank so I could be prepared to put my money where my mouth is, picked up my “free” taco, and headed up to Summer’s for the evening.

Noah came over, and all of the kids went to some kind of wrestling event. I showed Summer a bit of what I was working on until the kids made it back home. Then Eaddie and Noah stayed up being super loud until Noah went home. I kept feeling like my blood pressure was up, even after being pretty good over the last couple of days without medication, but I didn’t have my cuff to check. I guess that’s one more thing to check during my morning prep.

Opinions are like armpits, and yours are wrong.

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Need a Little Christmas

Summer jumped out of bed early this morning and ruined the secret of Santa Claus for me. I couldn’t sleep in much and was a little hungry after having a complicated relationship with food last night, so I got up. Summer made us some scrambled eggs, and we eventually got both kids up enough to dump out their stockings. Eaddie was in an immediate mood, throwing an absolute tantrum at everything. I was very near slapping it out of her, and both girls just kept picking at one another.

We got Eaddie up and around to some chores, and eventually got everyone through the shower so we could make our way to my parents’ house. Summer made all of our contribution to lunch, and we were off.

Bác Vân and Doug beat us there. I think Julie made most of the food and was about two hours late. Eaddie took a nap in my bedroom until the food was ready, and came out in much better form. We ate, did our quickest round of presents ever, and then left so I could clean up house a bit for some friends.

I had messaged Diana happy birthday earlier in the day, and she said they were in town along with Josue and wanted to get together. They agreed on a fire at my place and we all met up for a nice quiet evening outside. It was really nice seeing them all again, and the kids enjoyed some roasted marshmallows.

Josue stuck around for a little while and chatted with me after the others left. The girls all went to sleep, and eventually we packed everything up and he headed out. By then, I was ready for bed too.

Hasn’t snowed a single flurry, but Santa dear we’re in a hurry!

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Hot Coffee Mod

I slept in pretty late today, and felt great for it. I remember waking up in an anxiety attack briefly, but it didn’t last long or keep me from falling right back to sleep. I ate a leftover smoked sausage for lunch, and eventually got cleaned up to go to Summer’s for the evening.

Amanda asked me to stop by and bring a package in for her, so I did that, then grabbed a free 2-liter from Casey’s, and finally made it up to Summer’s where she and all three kids were playing Mario Party. It was pretty loud while everyone was screaming at one another, and it made me a little woozy.

Presents didn’t take long to open, because it was a pretty lowkey Christmas. Summer went overboard and got me an Ember mug, which I looked at on a whim after seeing them on sale at Costco. I made some loose leaf tea in the Manatea infuser she also got me, and the cup really made all the differnce. After hours, even the very last little sip was as hot as the first.

We tried having the kids put together the gingerbread houses, but I don’t think they cared much about it. Eaddie had some fun with it, but Autumn didn’t participate at all, and Noah mostly just made a mess. After they got the walls up, they finished their game. Noah left, and the girls went to their rooms. Summer went to bed pretty early, which left me up late, sippin’ hot tea.

Tropical Christmas

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Indistinguishable From Child Labor

I stopped by Casey’s this morning for a honey bun, and spent the morning listening to the Kmart holiday reel-to-reel from 1973. It was otherwise pretty quiet again, especially since we’ve had several people out sporadically.

We went to Sam’s for lunch, and the gumbo seemed much more liquidy than usual. It tasted alright, but I think it’s been better. When we finished, I spent the better part of the afternoon at Oakland taking care of a few things. I got to spend quite a while with kindergarten, which are some of my favorite teachers. It’s like everyone else loves their kids for the most part, but in kindergarten, they’re just over it and they’re not afraid who knows it.

When I got back to the shop, I took a break to do some tinkering and soldering on a ground loop isolator that I wanted to use somewhere. Kyle had to hold the board for me while I worked the soldering iron, which meant that it took two grown men to do what one small Chinese kid can do. That pretty well got us to the end of the day, so I headed home and waited for Summer to get there.

We ended up going to Brangus for our anniversary dinner, and I wish it had been better. The onion blossom was small and overcooked, and my steak was overcooked and kind of sandy. At least Summer enjoyed hers. She watched some TV while I did a load of laundry when we got back, and then it was a relatively early bedtime.

For your convenience, smoking is permitted in the snackbar area only.

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Room Full of Losers

Autumn was up before me this morning, and kept banging around and yelling at the cats, so I couldn’t sleep in. Summer got up and made a couple eggs for a light breakfast, and then I continued my game of Don’t Starve until I eventually died from a spider bite.

All three of the girls went to the gym today. I stayed and ate a little more food before going home to clean up. Summer and I had to go to their company Christmas party in Little Rock, so the girls went to spend some time with their grandparents.

I picked Summer up and we headed out of town. We got to the Westwind School of Performing Arts, which appeared to be, at least in the dark, nestled right into the back of a relatively low-class neighborhood. The building was pretty nice, with more room than the place we went to a couple of years ago.

There were enough people there, trying to eat in some form of orderly fashion, that those that went first were done eating well before the last groups got up to get their food. They also decided to draw tickets for a single grand prize, but by eliminating people periodically throughout the night. Not only did it take longer, but also served as a method for management to call everyone a loser. I suppose the desired result was to give the last five standing the opportunity to split the $500 worth of gift cards, but they opted for all-or-nothing instead.

I made it through Christmas trivia and into the second round of Splash-specific trivia, but lost there on account of not being aware of anything relating to the company. We left as soon as they wrapped things up and made it home to a house of sleeping children, so we didn’t waste any time ourselves.

At least there was “food?”