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No Buds

I didn’t sleep great again, but I managed to get up and out to check on my parents before going to work. Dad was out of his chair before Mom was, and sounded much better. We ended up getting to work just a little later than usual. I chatted up front for a little bit, then headed upstairs to find a project.

Summer told me last night that she was taken out of the regional meetings, so she wouldn’t be going to Little Rock any more. That meant she wasn’t meeting me for lunch, so I went to McDonald’s for a $2 order of McNuggets, and then Arby’s for a gyro. We took it back to work to eat, and I started on the nuggets in the parking lot while Muad’Dib wandered about. The wind had been going, but about halfway through it wanted to carry my food off, so we went inside to finish.

The afternoon carried on a bit as I caught up on the Google I/O summit. Quitting time eventually showed up and we headed home, driving with my meats because it was raining too much for autopilot to do it quickly. Summer was playing Torchlight, but I asked if she wanted to check on my parents with me. She got up and we made it over there to talk briefly. Mom got up to warm up some dinner for them, so we left. Terry walked up just as we were leaving, so I pointed him to go on in.

Just as we got to the house, I realized I forgot my eyeglasses at my parents’ house, so I dropped Summer and Muad’Dib off and went back. Terry was just leaving and commented on my car, so I talked him into a joyride. Then I had to find dinner because Summer didn’t want to eat like we had planned. I tried Gary and Grant, but neither answered. I circled around a bit, but still ended up at our planned Cici’s for a $5.99 salad. The salad was great, and I felt like I didn’t stuff myself.

I made it back to the house and took Muad’Dib on an acoustic walk before coming in for the night. I thought to look for my earbuds for our concert the next day, and couldn’t find them anywhere. I’m pretty disciplined about putting things like that in their home, so it was frustrating that they seemed to have disappeared. Even Summer eventually got out of bed to help look, but we couldn’t find them anywhere. I just went to bed, disappointed again.

How did I get here?

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Up in Arms

I felt like I woke up about every thirty minutes last night, but somehow I didn’t feel completely worthless when I got up. We made it out the door a little early, but then I remembered at the last minute that I had a Starbucks deal, so we actually showed up at work just a few minutes later than usual. I was greeted by an office of four other dogs, and I’m pretty sure they’re planning to take over our jobs. I was also greeted by a concerned controller who thought her account may have been compromised based on a bunch of automated emails that were sent from her address.

I traced back the emails, and along with some good old fashioned human memory, discovered they were from an old Traverse report that somehow came back to life after being broken for many months. That was how I learned a little bit more today.

I wasn’t super hungry by lunch, but we went to Sonic and McDonald’s to “build our own combo” out of deals. I ate in the office since it was super windy outside anyway. The afternoon was some birthday cake and then a bit more of the same until quitting time.

We were just approaching the Phoenix bridge when Summer texted that Mom had to take Dad back to the emergency room. He had surgery for his torn rotator cuff first thing in the morning, and he said it was worse than he expected. After he had been home all day, he discovered he wasn’t able to go to the restroom, and also felt nauseous. Mom had called Summer since she was in town while Julie and Kevin were on vacation and I was working out of town. I met Summer and a very groggy Dad in a packed waiting room while Mom was out getting prescriptions filled.

We eventually got him into a room, and then I swapped with Mom so she could go in and I could take Muad’Dib home and change clothes. They let me back as well, after fetching his discharge paperwork and some Jell-O, which he actually wasn’t allowed to eat. We sat for quite a while until Mom kicked us out to find dinner and get cars charging.

Summer and I went to Cici’s for a quick and cheap salad, and I had more pizza than I planned, but this time I really meant it. They had half the restaurant closed up early, but the pizza was somehow still good. Afterward, I took Summer back to her car at the hospital and checked on Mom. She refused anything, so I went to the Neighborhood Market again for some bananas, cheese, coffee, coconut water, and then a bag of bagels for Summer.

I got back to the emergency room and Mom refused everything but the coconut water, so I headed back home to quickly unwind. It wasn’t very long after that when Mom texted that they were headed home, so I raced over to help get Dad out of the car, up the stairs, and into the recliner. Then it was back home and straight to bed.

Don’t shoulder it alone!

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Reedy or Not

I slept in pretty well today, and hoped that would help my recent concerns. Summer and I ate some leftovers and Eaddie left to get ready for Jenny’s recital in the afternoon. The whole day went by pretty quickly, but I tried to stay useful and productive. Summer took some time to get out her old laptop and play Torchlight II, which seemed like a good mental health break.

I got showered and we barely made it out of the house in time to drop Muad’Dib off with Dad before making it to the recital. Eaddie was only playing in one of the songs, but it was a nice, quiet show with just a bunch of the band kids and families. The kids did great, and then afterwards I saw Russ and talked to him for a moment before heading out.

Summer really wanted ice cream, so we went to Las Delicias where she got a cone and I got a mangonada. I didn’t think it was as good as Bocadillos, and I didn’t much care for the atmosphere being dark and loud, so we left and headed back to my parents’ house to get Muad’Dib. We visited there for a while before I really wanted to find dinner.

I wanted to try and find something with a bit more nutrition than the leftover Ridgewood nachos that were in the refrigerator, so we drove across town looking. We turned around at the old Valley Park Center where they had a whole lot of construction finishing up. Then we stopped at Aldi’s to see what aldi fuss was about. It was surprisingly cold and quiet in there, with a pretty limited selection. It didn’t seem worth the drive to me.

I got a box of salad, and we headed home to eat the last of the spaghetti squash casserole that Summer made. Then she cleaned the kitchen while I picked up around the house. She eventually went back to Torchlight and I took Muad’Dib on a run to take some old shirts to Dad before his surgery in the morning.

We wound down a bit more, then I did my best to get to bed on time.

DRINK MORE!

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Browntown and Down

I managed to wake up feeling better this morning, though I didn’t sleep very late. I have no idea what caused my sudden confusion last night. I suppose I had been low on sleep, and I was stuck looking at confusing file paths trying to recover my lost tabs sessions, but I’ve never been so immediately disoriented like that before.

Summer went to the gym while I got around. I took my iron pill again, which may have upset my stomach a bit. Once Summer made it back and we got all showered up, we went to Brown’s to use a couple coupons for lunch. Muad’Dib had to wait in the car since Eaddie left for rehearsal. The restaurant lobby was absolutely packed, but evidently it was just one large party, because they were able to seat us in a fair amount of time once all the others were taken to the back room. We also saw Steven while we were waiting. I guess he just walked over from his food truck to use the restroom. We should really go visit him again.

After we ate, I dropped Summer off at work for a closing shift. Then Muad’Dib and I found Eaddie at home, ready to do some pressure washing. She brought out all the chairs from the back porch while I set up the pressure washer in the driveway. I was full and it was super hot, so I burned out quickly just moving around. She did a great job of cleaning the chairs though, and I even got to wash my car and try some new soap and a new foam cannon. Once everything was cleaned up, I covered them on the back porch so they’ll be clean the next time we want to go out for an impromptu porch sitting.

Summer finished up around six, so Muad’Dib and I went to pick her up. Then I spent way too long trying to clean up the battery in the Murano so we could get it charged. It has always kind of eaten batteries, and both terminals were completely caked in corrosion. I had to clean off the toolbox to get to my sockets, but I couldn’t get the positive terminal off at all because the bolt was stripped or something. I vaguely remembered having trouble in the past, so it could probably just use a new terminal, or at least a new nut and bolt to tighten it.

I came in to take a cool shower for the night, and the girls settled in quickly. I was up later than I really wanted, and didn’t feel great, but it could have been much worse.

Sleep more!

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Mortality is Weird

I felt like I hardly slept at all last night. I just laid in bed feeling like I was awake all night, but my watch and phone insisted that I got a good night’s rest. I didn’t feel groggy when I got up, and we made it to work a little early. I brought along a Soylent for breakfast and my leftover Subway sandwich for lunch in an effort to save money and my health. I felt surprisingly good all day, and kept pretty busy.

Things got pretty quiet upstairs with Janice out. I don’t think anybody said anything to me all morning, and the guys left in the afternoon after I had eaten. I did step outside after lunch to give Muad’Dib some air, and decided to install my headliner to block the sun and try to keep my car a bit cooler in the summer.

Joel reminded me that we had our Traverse call in the afternoon, so I made it upstairs just in time for that. Having my phone muted lately has me missing most of my notifications, but I’ve also got notification fatigue from all the noise coming through. I’ll have to work in finding a balance.

Later in the afternoon, Elizabeth called me down for some help, but she was the only other face I saw the rest of the day until we stopped by Superfast to see Summer when we got back to town. She was just finishing up, and then we came home where I ate some leftover spaghetti squash casserole by myself.

I took Muad’Dib for a run to the Neighborhood Market to drop off some recycling, and he did great. It was probably our best run of the year, and I couldn’t say why. It was nice outside, but not as cold it normally has to be for him to get super excited. He even sat outside the store and waited for me while I deposited the recycling. We trimmed a couple blocks off of our usual path to see my parents, and then Eaddie called for advice on washing her floor mats at the carwash. While I was there, Julie called my parents from the beach, so I popped in to say hi before heading home.

When we made it back to the house, Summer and I finished the Kevin Hart roast before she went to bed. I was still feeling pretty good, but when I went to my office to try and recover my lost tab session, I started to really space out. I felt lost and confused, and I felt like I couldn’t remember things. It was like I knew I had a history of anxiety attacks, but I couldn’t remember what they were like. I was really disoriented for a while, and it was pretty scary because I just didn’t understand what was going on.

I took my blood pressure a couple of times, and it was a little bit high at first, but fine the second time. I slowly came out of the fog, but it was super strange. I don’t know if it was some new health concern, or maybe just the anxiety plus a lack of good sleep, but I just felt lost. I could hear Eaddie coming home and I knew where I was, but it was like my memory of everything was cloudy. All total, I think it took about two hours for me to recover from whatever that was, and then I went to sleep.

Let’s try extra hard to wake up this time.

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Unseasonably Stressed

I tried to relax coming in to work, but we had a staff meeting first thing in the morning. That went okay, and then I brought my stuff downstairs to work with Tammy for a bit. I didn’t feel bad up to that point, but then I had an anxiety attack while I was kneeling next to her at her desk. I was able to quickly log it in my spreadsheet, but I asked later and she said she didn’t notice anything strange about my breathing or anything.

I was a little foggy for a bit after that. I wasn’t super hungry at lunch time, so I grabbed the Soylent I didn’t drink in the morning and carried it outside for a walk to see if I could stir up an appetite. We did a short lap before I decided to grab some Subway, and brought it back to the office to eat.

I managed to get the price sheet updated in HubSpot, though it took me a couple tries because it didn’t properly check all of my import rows. Things got quiet in the afternoon and we wrapped up helping downstairs for a bit before heading home.

As we got close to town, I decided to stop by AT&T to give Kevin a gift I had for him. I chatted with him, which jogged my memory about having anxiety issues due to anemia. I decided to start taking iron again before my next checkup at the clinic, to see if that would help. After he left, I talked to Candice for a little bit before heading home. We just barely beat Summer to the house, and I told her that talking about red meat had me craving a steak, but she wasn’t very hungry.

We ended up going to Ridgeewood Brothers so Muad’Dib could sit outside with us. It was a nice evening for it, and I wish I had felt better, but I didn’t feel awful. We ate, and of course Muad’Dib got some “scraps.” Then I took him for a short run when we got back home.

It was a rush to get in bed after that. With any luck, it’s the lack of sleep and iron getting me down, but something’s got to change. I don’t feel right.

Outside, in the distance, a wildcat did growl.

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Delivery Wheel

I had a Soylent this morning to see if keeping things nutritious would help me feel better, and at the very least it didn’t hurt. Consciously breathing hasn’t been great fun either, but it might help. I had a cup of hot tea instead of coffee, and just kept busy.

McDonald’s pushed a notification for $2 McNuggets yesterday and said the deal wouldn’t expire until the end of the month, but I couldn’t find that deal anywhere. We ended up going to Sonic for a pretty cheap, small lunch. I still felt fairly hungry but didn’t want to overdo it either, so I went to Harp’s to browse a bit and picked up a couple tuna snack kits just in case.

The afternoon was a little dull until quitting time. I tried to gather notes for the staff meeting in the morning, and then I headed home to find Summer where she had been all day, not feeling well. She wanted me to pick up pizza for dinner, so I ordered some Domino’s and took Muad’Dib on a run down the hill to the new restaurant. He got lots of pets from a couple of the girls there, and then we headed home to eat.

After dinner, I took him to see my parents briefly, and them came back home to quickly wrap things up for bed.

Preferably, the backup solution would work.

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ANX

I didn’t feel great for a lot of today. We made it to work and I distributed a bunch of dog treats, but within a couple hours I had an anxiety attack in my office. It took me a little bit to shake that off, but sometime later I felt strange like my blood pressure dropped. My heart rate was right around 60, which was unusually low for doing even as little as I was doing. I took my blood pressure, so moving around got my heartrate up, and my pressure wasn’t terrible.

We got up and met Summer at Ortega’s for lunch, and I meant to scale back a bit but didn’t. She wasn’t feeling well either, so she went home with a headache. I finished up the day and tried to stay aware of how I was feeling.

We had therapy after work, but he was tired too. It wasn’t a great session, but I think we decided we could work together well enough to survive on a deserted island. Dwayne asked if we minded wrapping up early, so we left after just half an hour. I got some washer fluid from the lube and then met Summer at home.

I had to pick up a prescription before they closed, so I ran Muad’Dib to the Neighborhood Market on the Onewheel. When we got there, they said they couldn’t fill it because insurance had just filled it at Walgreens, so we raced home and then I drove by myself to Walgreens before they closed. Luckily I was able to get my prescription there, and they even filled it for 90 days instead of 30 like Walmart.

I made it back home where Summer had curled up in bed. I took Muad’Dib for a quick run to my parents’ house to visit for a bit, and then my Onewheel died just as we were a couple blocks from home. I was able to limp it most of the way after walking up a couple small hills. At least this was actually closer to the low end of the battery instead of over 50% like before.

I wrapped things up relatively quickly, but then I lost power to my computer, which broke my Tabs Outliner plugin again, so I lost the past several weeks of history again. I’ll have to fight it later to see if I can recover anything, but sleep calls.

Damned tab hoarding…

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Bumble Fly

I didn’t sleep great last night, but we made it to work and seemed to be rested well enough. Joel was back with Dexter, but he was still too chicken to play. I had a couple things in particular to get done, but otherwise just kept busy. The morning went by pretty quickly, but we were interrupted around lunch time when Julie texted that she messed up her website and email.

We went by Subway to pick up a sandwich, but then ate at the office while I tried to figure out what happened. Evidently ChatGPT directed her to set up a different hosting company, so she messed up her DNS settings. It took a while to come to that conclusion, but I got things straightened out. Verizon was slow to get their DNS updated though, so she had trouble getting her email on her phone all evening.

We made it home to find Summer on the couch. She bathed a little later while Julie came over to get help fixing her phone email. Then I unboxed a bunch of stuff from Vine. As it started to get dark, I knew I had to take Muad’Dib on a run. I cut it short since he hasn’t been very fast for very long lately. We stopped to see my parents, then chatted with Rick for just a second when we passed him on the way home.

Summer was ready for bed, but ate a few leftovers and poked at Julie’s website for a bit. I got WordPress installed, so at least now we’ll have something a little familiar to work with.

It been that day for me. Sit down.

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Family Assembled

We slept in a while today after a long day yesterday. Summer got up, and I followed to make breakfast croissants. Then Eaddie got up and they spent the day together cleaning up the porch and assembling planters I had gotten from Amazon Vine. We originally had plans to have Mother’s Day with Eli’s family, but several of them couldn’t come down, so they wanted to try for another time.

The day went by pretty quickly, but it felt good to get so much done. There’s more to clean up, but we have at least a little more space now than before. We wanted to do something with my mom, but they didn’t want to go out to dinner with everyone else in town, so Summer and I went to Popeye’s to pick up some chicken.

Eaddie went to visit her grandparents while we waited in the longest line I’d ever seen at that restaurant. The drive-through was wrapped around the building and there was another line inside, but they did a fantastic job of working through all the orders.

We made it to my parents’ house, and then Julie responded that they had been napping all day, but they’d end up coming to visit. Eaddie showed up late as well, so we didn’t wait for her to eat. It was a good time, and then Eaddie took Summer home. I followed a little later and let Muad’Dib run off some energy before driving him the last couple blocks.

We ended the evening watching some of the Kevin Hart roast on Netflix, but we didn’t start early enough to finish it. I was proud of Summer for staying up as late as she did, but we had to get sleep before work.

Motherhood takes many forms.