#321 - Maritime Eggs and Rabbit Holes

It was a blissful experience to sleep in until elven am. I could have easily gone for longer.

Kiddo #2 convinced Robyn that we should all go to breakfast as a family at Denny’s and then grab some groceries from Walmart. Denny’s is not my most favourite breakfast place, but Robyn and the kids love it. I reluctantly agreed to go but made sure to voice my descent at the choice of location.

We headed out and I was able to find something on the menu that intrigued me. Something called the Maritime Slam. Scrambled eggs covered in a hollandaise sauce with bits of lobster meat and Old Bay served with spiced home fries. It also came with a bowl of fruit. I paired that with a coffee and enjoyed the entire meal.

As much as it isn’t my favourite breakfast spot, I can usually find something to enjoy. From there we headed to Walmart. I scoped out some of the men’s clothing while everyone else shopped for their favourite foods. I didn’t see anything I liked, but then I remembered I needed some sport socks!

My eyes were irritated last night as well, so I grabbed some eye drops. And I checked out the Alani energy drinks. They had a peach flavoured one I hadn’t tried, so I picked up two of them as well. And then I got to thinking about how kiddo #1 keeps taking all the food storage containers to do her meal prep on Sunday nights. I grabbed a glass rectangular container with the locking lid. Maybe we would even get to use it one day, if the kiddo permits it.

After randomly grabbing things, I was time to get out of there before I spent too much money. I met up with Robyn and kiddo #2 at the checkout and we left Walmart. The question was…where is kiddo #1?

She is a very slow shopper at the best of times. After asking where she was, she texted back asking for shopping bags since she had not planned ahead. We rightfully refused; there was no reason for us to walk across the parking lot again. We told her to keep her items in her cart, and she could put them in a bag when she got to the car. That’s what she ended up doing and it worked out just fine.

It’s funny how often the answer to her problems involves us expending more energy than she is willing to put out. And she always looks a bit put out when her treat her like an adult instead of like a child. But in truth, she is getting better at adulting. There are just some residual behaviours she still needs to shake.

Back home we unloaded the car, and I went upstairs to watch some YouTube. Robyn went out to a friend’s house to try on some dress for the wedding we are attending next weekend.

I tried on my suits and there are too tight to be comfortable in. So, I either need to find something at Value Village or splurge for a new sports coat. I really don’t want to spend money on a new suit, but my choices are limited.

While digging through my closet I found an old leather jacket I bought about thirty years ago. I tried it on and it still fit, but I never think to wear it as I have other jackets. I brought over to kiddo #2’s room and let him try it on. It fit perfectly and his eyes lit up when I said he could have it. I remember paying a lot of money for it back then. It was a quality item. But it’s good to know it will get some use and be appreciated by someone going forward.

I had a tutorial from my writing classes to watch that I thought might be of some help with writing a story tomorrow. The topic was urban fantasy. My story needs to be a contemporary fantasy. The class made me see what certain genres need and what the reader expects. One of the things I learned was that an urban fantasy story is usually dark and gritty, while the contemporary can be lighter in tone.

I’m not sure the course helped me much, but I did learn somethings and took plenty of notes down on a yellow legal pad. Maybe something will stick.

While I was trying to learn, I was interrupted by kiddo #1 who was redoing her resume. I was called down to fix the formatting in the word document some AI crap had shitted out.

Basically, she had two columns of bullet points, but the AI had formatted it all weird and it looked awful. I had to learn how to undo what it had done and the learn how to do it properly in Word. I was not happy about being distracted as it was, but eventually I managed to get it fixed and ran back up to continue my lessons.

One of the rules of writing I have learned is: No one will need you more than when it’s time for you to sit down and write.

Robyn left to do her support work.

Not two minutes went by when I got a text asking where the resume file was. I had left it open on the screen. Kiddo#1 had closed the program without saving it.

After a great deal of screaming and swearing, I went back down and redid the correction a second time, turned on automatic saving and made a second copy of the file. There was no way I was going to do this a third time!

I ran back upstairs and resumed my studies and was able to get all the way to the end without another interruption. The yelling and screaming may have deterred anymore requests for help.

After the class, I did a little brainstorming for tomorrow. I’m still not sure what bit of fantasy I will introduce into the story. I thought about using ghosts, or a ghost ship, but nothing really stuck. I might do something along the lines of a magical item or a magic user that has been using it for years.

My mentor wrote a nice story about a mermaid that comes to the shores of the Oregon coast. I liked how she captured to moodiness of the water and the seaside.

I watched some more YouTube videos about machinists making a giving each other gifts. The gifts tend to be intricate one of engineering marvels and it’s interesting to me to see how they were made. One team made a helix shaped metal marking tip that corkscrewed out to become longer. I would love to have pen that was made in that fashion. It would make for a perfectly wonderful pocket pen for EDC. Not sure that something with such tight tolerances is possible to mass produce, but I can imagine there are many pen enthusiasts that would love to own one.

When Robyn returned, she went and read for a bit more while I went down the YouTube rabbit hole. I stopped to make some grilled cheese sandwiches for my dinner and Robyn made some egg bites. She came up to the room and we watched an episode of Bill Maher followed by one of Lucky.

We’d run out of things to watch, at least the things we are into, when I remembered there was a stand-alone episode of the Bear called Gary.

It has cousins Mikey and Ritchie going on a car ride for their uncle. And it has all the ups and downs of the Seven Fishes episode. So, you are in for a rollercoaster of a ride if you watch Gary. It got a bit stressful for what we were looking for on a Saturday night, but I still enjoyed it.

Robyn was done for the day after that episode, and I had some writing to do. She rolled over and I fired up the laptop.

I’ve really come to like this computer. It’s starting to feel like an extension of my fingertips. One of the reasons I bought it was for the renowned keyboard experience you get. And it hasn’t disappointed. I tried some new Lenovo laptops at Best Buy and didn’t think they were nearly as good as my old 2018 laptop.

One day I am going to have to replace this little beauty, and it will break my heart trying to find a replacement that is half as good.

I hooked my laptop up to the tv in our room for the first time when I was watching the classes. I had a usb-c to HDMI connector that I was using when I realised this laptop has a full-sized HDMI out. I switched it over and got a better result. One thing that I needed though, was a longer HDMI cable. I can see myself doing this again in the future, so I ordered an 8ft braided cable from Amazon to use for this specific scenario.

I had longer cables downstairs beside the TV, but I think the kiddos raided my stash. Whenever someone else needs a cable, I seem to have it, but when I want one, I have to buy it new.

While I was browsing, I picked up another magsafe portable phone battery. I like not having to worry about cables. Robyn uses her phone to read quiet often, but she also needs it for her insulin pump and sensor. She is always running gout of battery, so I thought a thing magsafe battery would be perfect for her. It’s lighter than the ones I already own and small enough to put in your pocket.

It’s one am.

How time flies.

Tomorrow is going to be a long writing day, and I should get a good night’s rest and let my subconscious mind work on the story idea.

Until tomorrow.