Tag: work

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Split My Life into Pieces

I woke up pretty rested, having held Split Lip in my hands most of the night. He didn’t leave the way he normally would after I fell asleep, at least until hours into the night when he wanted to go outside. When I finally got up to go to work, I scooped him up and carried him off to the vet. I actually felt a little bit hopeful that he seemed to eat a bit of canned food before bed last night.

When we got to the vet, I parked next to Robyn, who was there dropping off a cat as well. They were super busy running in and out with animals, so we chatted while we waited. Just after she left, I heard the spew of diarrhea in the carrier, so I pulled it out of the car and threw some napkins in to try and cover it up the best I could. It didn’t keep Split’s tail from getting in it though. It was actually kind of normal colored and had some solid in it, which made me even more hopeful. I thought maybe he had just powered through some mouth pain so he could eat last night.

I carried on to work feeling a little better about the ordeal, so I stopped and grabbed a slice of breakfast pizza on the way. From there, things slowly started going downhill.

Sandy emailed me to say Dover couldn’t meet my salary request, so they went with another candidate. I would have liked a raise, even if it was only an opportunity to say no to a couple thousand dollars for a lateral step to their pay scale. I wasn’t heartbroken about it though, and in fact had at least a little bit of relief in sticking with what I know.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why imaging the student laptops was suddenly destroying my task sequence flash media. Ben called a couple times and we chatted about Impero some more. Overall, not much was really accomplished.

Dr. Pearson called about split sometime in the middle of the day, and let me know that she couldn’t find anything in his mouth that would cause the grinding sound we were hearing. Without any real answers as to why he wouldn’t eat, her best guess was that he was wasting away from some kind of cancer, and that it was best to let him go. He was already sedated for the examination, so it was a pretty easy decision with the expected fallout throughout the rest of the evening.

I stopped by to get my pet carrier, then picked up a shirt that Ben got me for toughing it out while everyone else was quarantined. The girls didn’t have karate, so I stopped to see Summer briefly before making it home. When I got there, I realized they had not cleaned the cat carrier at the vet, so I hosed it down a bit and left it out to dry.

Autumn made dinner, so I eventually made my way across town. Summer spent nearly the whole evening on a video call with the automotive guys at the ATCC. Autumn’s hamburger meat with rice reminded me of eating leftover taco meat over steamed rice as a child. Then we played a round of Mario Kart before Summer went to sleep and I headed back home.

It really feels like the end of an era. I’ve never truly been here, home, alone. I had my childhood at home. Then I moved out with Angie and we got Kitty, turned Big Kitty, turned Momma. Little Kitty quickly outgrew Big Kitty, but size didn’t matter when he became Daddy. They had five distinct little kittens while we were away in Hawaii just over 15 years ago – Split Lip, Grey, Chewie, Momma’s Clone, and a fifth that we managed to give away before having to come up with a way to describe it against the others.

Daddy and Clone disappeared after I put a bunch of them outside to keep the males from breeding and spraying everywhere. Chewie stuck around the neighborhood, but quickly came down with a dickborn disease, and I had to put him down suddenly when the vet said he had developed jaundice. For a long time, it was just Momma, Grey, and Split. Then Momma blew up like a balloon and I put her down suddenly after a completely worthless trip to the vet at Town and Country. Years later, Grey got the same thing, and Dr. Tanner easily identified and fixed the issue, giving us a little over two more years.

I had been over the whole idea of having cats, and largely pets in general, for a long time. That whole second era of my life had dragged on enough, and I felt like I was never really able to pick up the pieces and move on. Maybe I used the cats as an excuse for being an awful human, but I wanted the chance to find out for sure. I had been ready to move on for a long time, and I guess he was finally ready too.

I’m gonna miss you, buddy. We’ve sure been through some shit together.

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Self Service

I woke up feeling pretty well rested this morning, but it still didn’t give me a whole lot of motivation for the day. I tried working outside at a picnic table for a little while, but it got a little bit too warm and humid for that. I ended up spending most of the day trying to figure out why the student laptops were only imaging intermittently with the flash media. None of it made any sense, so of course I didn’t get anywhere with it.

I picked up Summer for a late lunch at Cici’s. They had single-use tongs available for the pizza so you could serve yourself. The salad wasn’t arranged the same, but to be honest, it seemed to work better to just have them serve you anyway. I felt like the tongs, though washable, ended up being more wasteful than anything else. The pizza on the bar was all super dry and gross looking, too. My custom spinach alfredo with all the extra toppings was pretty good though.

After work, Autumn wanted me to pick up a friend of hers from the Explorers program, then take him, her, and Eaddie to La Huerta for a fundraiser meeting. Summer was sent home with back pain, so I went back to spend a little time with her while I waited for the kids. Then I dropped them all back off at their homes.

Before going home myself, I stopped by Casey’s for a freebie, then gave the car a good wash. I hadn’t done that in quite a while, and after our weekend in Little Rock, it sorely needed it. When I got home, I got the cat to eat a little bit of a new can of cat food. I’ve got an appointment to get him back in to the vet tomorrow to see if it’s a dental issue. If it’s not an easy fix, then it’s time to say, “goodbye.”

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Option: Flee

I stopped at the practice facility first thing this morning and had a crab rave with their four TVs and projector. I didn’t even realize you could cast to more than one Airtame at once until today. The video was awful, but the audio was worse pumping through those in-ceiling speakers.

The rest of my day was a bit scattered. I had to meet a Dover kid at the Career Center because she couldn’t type a password correctly. I did a bit more running around the building as well, and worked right through lunch again.

After work, I came home and had a chicken salad for dinner. I was really sleepy, and my right hand had been sore all day, so I didn’t get up to much else. I played a very little bit of Overwatch, tried playing with the cat, and eventually made it to bed super early.

Leave it to the school board to ruin my 2021 plans as well.

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The Help

I woke up so tired again this morning, so it was nice that Greg showed up at my office this morning to help out. I sent him on a couple errands while I worked on some more software deployments. I really lost track of time, because lunch time came and went, and I barely noticed.

After work, I stopped by the shop for Autumn’s gift bag for helping over the summer, then went to get her for an Explorers meeting. Once I dropped her off, I stopped to see Summer for a bit on the way home. The girls would end up coming over for the evening, but it would be late, so I stopped for a cheap Bacon Big Mac deal.

When they got there, they made salads out of the rotisserie chicken we bought yesterday, and we watched an episode of Glee. It felt like every bone in my body hurt, so it was off to bed as soon as I could get there.

Don’t panic.

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Cannot Stop the Battery

I got really angry with the cat this morning for giving me fits about his medicine. It was the last day for the antibacterial, and I was just completely over dealing with him. I was nearly ready to strangle him to death.

When I got to work, I had to gather up 10 more devices to ship back for the old lease. Josh stopped in again to pick up some papers he left the other day. Otherwise I wasn’t super productive. I left around lunch time with my small chicken box of laptops, and caught up with Ben at the shop.

He wanted to go to lunch and I was craving a burger, so we went to CJ’s and chatted a while. Then we went by The UPS Store to try and ship my laptops. We hadn’t considered the regulations on shipping batteries, and were turned away for having too many in the box. I ended up back at the high school, where I stuffed two laptops into each of five depot kits that were really designed for a single laptop in each. Hopefully they don’t say anything about that, because I’m tired of packing things.

After work, I went straight home to check on the cat and give him his antidepressants. He actually ate a little bit of food through the evening, but he kept making this weird grinding sound with either his mouth or throat. I guess I’ll have to bring that video to the vet next time.

Summer ended up staying home with the kids because the girls are incapable of keeping their rooms tidy. They waste so much time “cleaning” their rooms that I don’t know how they make time for anything else.

Cannot kill the bat-ter-y!

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Please Listen Carefully as Our Menu Options Have Not Changed

Summer took Noah to school this morning before I got out of the house. I had to struggle with the cat some more to get his medicine down, but we’ve only got one more day of that. Then it’s down to just the antidepressants.

My day at work was a little scattered, a little frustrating, and a little successful. I had more work to do in SCCM, but had to take a break to run down to the arena for a couple things. One of those things was to re-record their phone IVR message. Johnny was great at recording it, and the playback sounded fine, but when I got all the way back to my office, I realized it had reverted back to the old message. I did this a couple more times until we realized it was the WAV file that it wouldn’t, or couldn’t overwrite. I had done it before, but Ben had run into the issue before and just incremented the file name. Josh joked(?) that our solution was likely documented somewhere in the official Avaya manual.

I ended up working through lunch, and then stayed late, so after work I went straight to my parents’ for some leftover spaghetti. Summer had a late work meeting and then a softball game in Conway, so I went by the shop to see her for a little bit first. Then it was home for the evening. I even had a little success getting the cat to nibble on some kibble.

We just need enough to make a poopie that won’t sink into the carpet.

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Plan It

I picked up a free breakfast burrito from Taco John’s on the way to work this morning, and they loaded me up with Potato Olés. I didn’t even finish either of them, so I’ll have breakfast ready for me tomorrow.

I spent almost all day working on an engineering deployment package because I couldn’t get the detection method to work. Summer wanted to go out to Stoby’s for lunch, so when Noah got out of class, we met her there. Later in the afternoon, I finally figured out why my deployment wasn’t working, and got it pushed out.

Summer took Split some different dry food to see if he would take to it, and we thought he was. When I got home, I realized he had just pushed the bowl around and spilled a bunch of it all over the ground. It really seemed like he was eating for a bit though.

I started cleaning the carpet again when Summer came over for the evening. Then Julie called and wanted to talk about our Disney trip, which aggravated me because I prefer to communicate in writing. The kids eventually showed up with some leftover fajitas, but they had spilled them all over Eaddie’s clothes, so I had to start a load of laundry for them.

My body feels relatively ragged, and I’m a different kind of exhausted than I’ve ever felt before. I need a break before I break.

We’ll be in touch.

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My Cat is on Antidepressants

I got up this morning to some more lovely work to do on the carpet. I put the cat out and continued to get ready for work. I went to the shop to sign some paperwork before going to the high school. I stopped for an expiring free slice of pizza, then stuck my nose in some deployment packages, only coming up for air for a late lunch.

Summer met me at Foodie’s, and we had a couple giros. I didn’t find my lamb to be very filling at all, but the waitress warned us about “chewy” steak. Summer really liked hers, but didn’t finish. When I got back from lunch, I continued doing more of the same.

At the end of the day, I called the vet to see what else I could do for Split. Finally, she said it may just be his time to go, as though it was her idea in the first place. I was aggravated, but decided to give some appetite stimulants a try. She prescribed him some Mirtazapine, which evidently is an antidepressant, and said it should take effect within about half an hour to hopefully make him eat something.

I had trouble giving him both medications today, but we made it work. It did seem to bring him around the food more, but he still didn’t seem very interested. He licked a little bit of gravy, and ate one treat. He kept digging in the dry food silo as well, as though he wanted something fresh from up top. I guess I should try a small bag of some other dry food to see if he takes to it.

When the girls got out of karate, I met them and Noah at my parents’ house for dinner. Nova was there again, and it was just a night of leftovers after the Great Labor Day Cook-off of 2020. I made it home a bit later than I wanted, and spent the rest of the night cleaning carpet. Split did seem a little more lively late at night, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

Fear is the mind-killer.

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Over the Week

Split Lip didn’t want to eat again this morning, so I put him outside with some food for the day. I went straight to the high school and tried to find focus there, but I think ultimately I was just too frustrated and mentally exhausted to do much good.

Zach came by the office for a little while and mentioned something about lunch. Then when lunch time finally came around, he said Dale was eating with us at Brangus. I met them there, and got a big table for all of us but Allen, Heather, and Melinda. Then after lunch, Dale came by the high school to scavenge a power supply from my shelf. I walked around the building a little bit with him so he could spook the library and chat with the conservative cop-folk.

The afternoon went by relatively quickly, but it helped that Zach told us to leave at three. I still ended up staying until about four, but at least I wasn’t motivated to stay any later than that. I went home and finally got the cat to eat a little bit while I played some Overwtach.

When Summer finally came over, we went to get some gas, then to Walmart to browse around and pick out some stuff for Travis’s pirate-themed birthday party tomorrow. We got home late and hungry, so we just ate some leftovers out of the fridge, then watched a couple episodes of Cobra Kai before bed.

I wish the cat would stop democrating all over the carpet.

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An Act of Piracy

I took Split into the vet this morning, tears in my eyes, expecting never to see him again. They met me in the parking lot and shuttled him away with the hopeful demeanor that veterinarians have, and I sobbed off toward the shop for work.

They were still mopping up water from the flooding, but for the most part everyone was back to work. I chatted for a little while, then went on to the high school to see what I could accomplish.

I worked a little into lunch, then left in a hurry to make my interview in Dover. I ran home first to change into some nicer pants and shoes, then made the 15 minute drive out of town to try and find their technology office. Excitedly, it’s on a bit of a hill in the old middle school building, so flooding shouldn’t be such a regular occurance.

I felt like the interview went really well. Josh, the superintendent, was there, along with Toby, one of the techs, and of course Sandy, the technology coordinator. They all seemed pretty friendly, and I was probably a little too relaxed, but it was nice to do an interview and not be so uptight. Not needing a job really does wonders for the nerves.

Afterward, I went back to the shop to update everyone. Then ran home to change again before going back to the high school. The vet called in the middle of all of that, and let me know that Split’s bloodwork came back showing signs of normal kidney function and blood sugar, so all we were really looking at was an enlarged thyroid. The stupid cat’s got too many hormones. Or a tumor. Who’s to say? The point was, I would get to continue shampooing carpet until he either quits making messes, or I give up and kill him myself.

After work, I stopped by the vet to get him, along with some meds and a can of special, bland food, to help him “reset” his tastes. I really don’t understand how that’s going to work, but he did at least eat about a quarter of the can of food when we got home. I watched him for a little while, then went to get Eaddie from karate.

When we got up to their house, I snacked a bit until Summer got home, and then she grilled some brats for the girls while I ate some leftover pork chop. I dare say it was better leftover and reheated. It didn’t even really taste freezer burned any more.

I didn’t stick around too long before leaving for Walmart to pick up some plain yogurt to give Split some gut bacteria. It was awful. It’s no wonder he didn’t want to eat it. Of course I also had to clean the carpet again, because that’s still my life. It’s inescapable. This damned cat is going to live forever.

I would say that my biggest weakness is that I never have a good answer for this question during interviews.