02.11.20: Dashing, Looks, Scouts, and WebDev

Tuesday, February 11, 2020:
Renton, Washington

The daily grind of getting up between 5:30 and 5:40 am is becoming standard play for Oisin these days. Then meeting with Etain and getting Cian between 6:00 am and 6:20 am has become the routine on weekdays since the beginning of January. Oisin and Cian take a nap instantly afterwards either at the Air BnB or the Starbucks parking lot in the car so that Cian can edge closer to having 10 hours of sleep a night. Oisin can only guesstimate that he’s actually only getting between 7-8 hours even with the addition hour or hour and a half in the mornings. Sometimes Cian just falls right into the sleep transition, other times he fights it so he can play games on his kindle. But more and more Oisin is pushing him to continue sleep. Cian is falling behind in school and is being diagnosed as learning disabilities.

They were up and ready to go by 8 am, drive to the school, and Dad drops off Cian to the lineup at 8:30 am hanging out with him until the teacher arrives. Cian loves this he says, no other parents do it. Not exactly true as there is a mom who does the same with her two kids, but most of the parents in a rush off to work, push the kids out the car door pointing to the doors of the school, telling them to go line up and race off into traffic so as not to be late. This is definitely the benefit of working for yourself and making one’s own schedule.

Oisin heads to work on Web Development, Vlogging, blogging, and doing research to his Chai n’ WiFi. As 11:30 am approaches, he logs into DoorDash to catch the potential good tips and gigs of the lunch crowd. He dashes from 11:30 am until 1:30 pm. The pay was low and minimal, not worth dashing. So he cut out early grabbing some Pho from Pho Roll in the Hills. He got the seafood Pho, it was “just ok”. Minimal amount of shrimp and fish balls added to the bowl. He wasn’t impressed.

He then returns to Starbucks to work on SEO – Search Engine Optimization for a client, creates a Travel consent form in Word for his trip to Canada (If parents are not together going across an international border, they are required to have a travel consent form from the other parent.) He has some moments of energy crashes, regardless of the caffeine, mocha, or chai he puts in himself, as these days he’s pushing himself to the limits and experiencing sheer exhaustion. He really doesn’t like “dashing”. Working for GrubHub is grand when they have available hours (not very likely these days) as they pay twice as much and guarantee hours. After doing calculations of poor pay before deducting gas, wear n’ tear, distance, and his valuable time – it sucks he is paycheck to paycheck and has to wait long periods to get client pay … therefore having to do this to make his daily mark to stay afloat. Today he made just enough to cover lunch. That sucks he thought.

The instant cash out fees are not that grand either … Doordash charges $1.99 per cash out (but you do instantly get the funds) whereas Grubhub charges .50 cents, but can take up to two or three business days to see the funds in one’s account. One year, Oisin had to do Doordash just to make sure he had gas in the tank to do Grubhub but GH changed course and added daily cash out as a benefit. So instead of working til sunday and waiting to the following thursday for payout, he can get it much sooner.

He runs by the library to use the printer, discovering he no longer has a Renton library card, and they don’t have agreements with Whatcom county where he does have a card. So he had to get a guest code to log into the computers and pay 15 cents a copy to print out the travel consent form.

Drained and concerned on finances, Oisin headed on to the school at 3 pm to pick up Cian. Cian was excited to see his dad and ready to play, really enjoying that he doesn’t have to do after school Daycare thanks to his mom’s new tough schedule needing help from Dad before and after school. How long it’ll last is always the question at hand. But King Cian is definitely happier, or so he says with a smile that projects it.

They played together the “ding dong doorbell game” – a creation of Cian’s while he and his dad are in the car … role playing of dad being someone at the door ringing the door bell saying “Ding Dong”, and King Cian saying “Knights – answer the door or look through the key hole” and Dad having to play the knights as well. They encounter characters from girls that have a crush on the King and want to be Queen someday, to friends wanting to play Minecraft or games, citizens of his kingdom, villains trying to take the King out, or mission specific individuals. After doing homework, they played military soldiers (plastic army figures), have a snack, and then dinner – off to Cub Scouts meeting at 7 pm back at his school. They went over boundaries and working as a team exercises.

After scouts, Oisin and Cian headed over to the Starbucks to wait on his mom to pick him up. Dad and Cian worked on homework. She got there after work just as the Starbucks was closing at 9 pm.

After Cian went with his mom, Dad dropped by the Wendy’s around the corner and had the four-for-four deal as a late dinner since he was sill hungry. The double stack, 4 chicken nuggets with sweet n sour, fries, and a coke. All bad for his health, but he didn’t care, he was tired, exhausted, and sleep deprived. He got back to the air BnB and while physically tired, mentally the mind still racing. So he watched the Netflix series “Locke and Key” until he passed off to sleep.

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