off script

 so there was a monday, and a tuesday, before today - but i only really recall the tuesday, so i'm going to work backwards and see if i took any notes...

today:

i did do a little work, in the morning and in the afternoon, but for the most part it was an admin day. on my way to the bank this morning i called the absorption ministry and made an appointment for gd to find out if she has cover for private hebrew lessons. at the bank, i signed off on the documents to open a savings account, one that i have to message them to ask them to deposit money into [i tried to locate a "scratch head" emoji and failed]

i walked to the mall and grabbed a cup of coffee, and then was joined by gd and mr smear and we got into buying his stationery for the fifth grade, which he enters next week 🤯

a religious woman overheard us working with the clerk to try and figure out what the list we had was asking for, and decided she knew better. the clerk was offended ("i'm not a retard!") and she didn't have much to offer that was actually helpful. afterwards, she tried to make smalltalk and i managed to drag gd out of there just as i heard her awkwardly transforming it into a real conversation...

we spent a few hours indoors, with mr smear playing a monster-eye-view of poppy playtime on roblox and promising that it wouldn't affect him.

we all went to the school together to pick up some of his books for the new year, then picked up a couple of things at the supermarket, walking home with our minds and tastebuds blown by the vegan cornetto ice-creams...

we then headed off to dizengoff center to try and find belts and sleeveless shirts for me, and a school diary (one that doesn't suck) for mr smear. we gave up on the shirts, but we did pick up new, smaller (better fitting) shorts for me, and then we went downstairs to the vegan market.

the burgers looked great, but i didn't trust the guy making them with his bare hands. mr smear wanted tacos, which was a great experience even if the filling wasn't amazing. we took barbecue seitan and quiche from the mom & son's random wares, and it was amazing. we made a terrible mess (mostly gd booby-trapping a drink and me and mr smear eating the tacos as best we could), but overall it was a good dinner and we ate too much. (we have untouched leftovers in the fridge)

we ran into some cousins on the way out the mall, hopped on the bus home, watched the second episode (episode 1) of ren & stimpy, showered and brushed teeth (i'm now using an ultra-soft brush, it's a weird experience), and read some more of the neverending story.

yesterday:

yesterday was supposed to be relatively relaxed. what began with me trying to finalize monday's fix (i'll get to that) turned into debugging bigtalk's build scripts, turned into me understanding that he literally built it from the ground up in direct opposition to what i'd instructed him, and in such a way that it would never work. i actually reverted his change before adding some stuff we needed to the original scripts, and every piece of code he wrote for us (or his imagined alternate universe version of us) has now been purged.

everything after lunch and until about 7pm was us scrambling to rescue a cloud machine that a) we have no way of interrogation for what went wrong and b) we had no idea was being treated as operational by our customer (officially it was a preview for testing). to make matters worse, in spite of my loud protests, one of the guys instructed the new devops to take it offline which made it impossible to recover. additionally, before bringing it back up they changed something critical about it, which broke my scripts.

it was as much miracle as effort, but we eventually managed to get it back up and running, and tomorrow i'm going to poke and prod everyone about doing a thorough RCA (even though i've already posted my recommendations).

we watched the second episode of ren & stimpy (to review it for appropriateness), but i started to fall asleep towards the end and i completely passed out while gd watched (until she passed out) the second season of the sandman.

monday:

i had difficulty getting up. i got to work, straight into a meeting with the new devops and incoming devops. and the meeting devolved into very severe unpleasantness - both in terms of cross-cultural communication (the incoming boss said something that our british devops understood as "your idea is shit"), and in terms of both me and the british devops losing respect for the incoming guys before they've even arrived. i ended up speaking to my boss about it, and his response to my saying that the drama "really isn't in my wheelhouse" was to chide me and remind me that in my current position, it's precisely in my wheelhouse.

anyway, at least the boss knows what's happening, and i'll worry about actual repercussions when the time comes.

the day was full of random distractions, but came to a head when a bunch of us sat down to troubleshooting the canadian contractor's code with him. we had no clear direction, but after an hour and a half we'd tracked down the issue and resolved it, which was a huge win because it's been hurting everyone in the team and preventing us from moving forward with a new release.

...

i tried to help my mother with her email issues after putting mr smear to bed, but i needed a nap. so i lay on the couch and set an alarm for half an hour, which i effectively snoozed over and over until eventually crawling into bed around 2am.

better

 today was better. it started rough, with a lot of time on hold with our medical insurance, and then we all went for a walk to track down the sleep lab at the hospital (the old lady at the information desk initially sent us to the wrong floor, a not-very-hospital floor) and i booked the earliest appointment available (april).

oh, and i picked up a copy of claudia ira davimes' the joy of being wrong, which is off to a promising start.

we then walked down the road to our bank branch, where it took about fifteen minutes for them to tell me they couldn't help me (i got a call in the afternoon and i'm satisfied with one of the savings "products" they offer) but gd picking me up an coffee slushy took the sting out. on the way home we picked up a bunch of things, including a lemon juicer like we have at the office which i'm way more excited about than i should be.

most of the afternoon was me installing and being sad that counter-strike doesn't run on macs, playing slay the spire, reading watchmen, and deciding that we were out of bookmarks and needed to fix that. and that if i was fixing that, i should make an attempt to figure out how to get organized with a gaming machine. so i hopped on a bus with mr smear, and the first store we arrived at was closed. then we hopped on another bus, and while waiting for my turn at the computer store i examined the bookmarks at the book store and was disappointed (to say the least). the guy at the computer store gave me a good quote and then advised me to try facebook marketplace first.

we went to the anime store, but while they didn't stock bookmarks, they did have a bucket of various trading cards so we chose a few one piece cards which will now serve us just as well. and then we got another quote from another computer store, and mr smear obsessed over all the anime figures, and then we walked home, having pretty good conversations along the way.

dinner was great, we introduced mr smear to ren & stimpy and watched another episode of the simpsons. gd's neck's been spasming all day, but i read a bit to mr smear at bedtime and the rest of the evening has been a mix of slay the spire and a new round of tool reaction videos.

omg i just realized it's 00.30 already and i'm working today. i had a couple of anxious moments today because i had to assist a couple of coworkers, and also had a chat with an applicant i used to serve with, but overall i guess it was a pretty good day off.

kombat

 yesterday was pretty horrible. gd and i had a couple of fights during the day, the first one triggered by me losing patience with mr smear and telling them i needed my space for the afternoon. the second one because later, i was trying to get to the bottom of something she'd said earlier.

we took a break from fighting to go to our friends for dinner, and we all had a really nice evening. everything was great until we got home, and then things got explosive and continued to be full shit until about 2am.

today was spent... recovering? i dunno if that's quite right, we both still feel horrible. i spent a large part of the day continuing to read nightwood, and napping, but we did watch the mortal kombat movie this afternoon and i really enjoyed how much fun mr smear was having. later, we took the bike and blades for a ride... there was a bit of an emotional breakdown triggered by his brakes not responding fast enough, but we moved on and i introduced him to charades (it appears we've never played that with him) and the rest of the ride was really nice.

dinner was pleasant in spite of no screens (he took too long in the shower), i read some more of the neverending story to him and gd at bedtime, and gd and i watched a psychotic episode and a half of the rehearsal reality tv show which is unbearably disturbing.

down

 burnout? probably. sick? possibly. slow and clouded? definitely. yesterday was still rough, i walked in to the office (with mr smear) into a production upgrade that hadn't been prepared for, and that was missing a critical element. and then, on top of everything else, it took forever to understand that something in my personal environment was broken. it would take three hours before we were confident that the upgrade could be done and that somebody else would be able to take care of it.

at lunchtime, the salad group made salad. it didn't even occur to me to ask them to leave the walnuts out, which mr smear couldn't stand :(

the afternoon was full of interruptions. and when my boss informed everyone that bigtalk's out of the picture, he tried to take the sting out by joking that i'd "be happy to tell you the details" 🤮

happy hour was pretty good, mr smear loved the massive savory crepes and i made the mistake of drinking an 8% cherry beer right before heading into a nasty hour of troubleshooting with our frontend lead and a canadian contractor.

eventually, mr smear and i headed out and home, dropped our bags off, and jumped on a bus to join gd for dinner. but due to the protests the bus got stuck in heavy traffic, so we jumped off and practiced live location navigation (gd was a bit panicky about it), meeting up relatively quickly and then continuing to look for a place to stop.

...

the first place we sat down didn't have much that we were interested in, but then mr smear refused to ask a waiter for something he wanted and the ensuing argument made me get up and go. a short while ago we just had a repeat of that, and with everything else i'm dealing with i've explained that i'm taking a "parenting break" for at least a few hours.

...

the second place we found was rainbow burger, which was already one of our favorite spots. they've just introduced yo! eggs to their menu, as well as their new "sensational" seitan burgers, so we ordered one original and one sensational with an egg and the new won out over the old, and everyone was happy.

tired and grumpy, but happy with the food, at least.

the rest of the walk home and the evening was fine, though i was thoroughly drained. everyone hit the hay early, and aside from waking up and playing slay the spire for a few hours i was in bed until quite late.

...

i sent bigtalk a message this morning, even though i'm feeling completely out of it right now, to let him know i want him to succeed and offering him (when he's ready) to talk. i really hope his path corrects quickly.

...

i'm probably going to lie down again soon.

processing

 i'm feeling less physically and emotionally drained today, but i'm still struggling. mostly emotionally and in terms of desperately needing an uninterrupted day off.

yesterday:

starting to write up my experiences with bigtalk

mr smear and the drone workshop - he kind of shut down the moment he encountered the other kids, which really sucked. but my coworker who was running it was kind enough to do a private drone session later, and mr smear had an amazing time ^_^

...

making progress with the new devops guy, but uncovering layers of bigtalk's bullshit (amateur-hour and AI vomit). my boss informing me that bigtalk's hearing was basically him begging not to be let go, which is heartbreaking. i really feel bad for him, and i feel like the whole world has let this dude down; and he is one courageous dude.

...

a big moment with mr smear about tearing up artwork he doesn't like

planning to get dinner with mr smear (gd was getting her hair cut), and his friend inviting him to play table tennis. accompanying the two clowns on the bus, sharing hummus, falafel and chips for dinner, and occasionally jumping in to play some ping pong.

my mom's laptop being expertly stolen from her car

getting the kids home late (because his friend realized he'd left his phone by the tables when we were already on the bus we'd waited a while for)

a very late bedtime for mr smear, and therefore for us too

today:

i slept alright, but woke up early with my thoughts. continued writing.

we had a family meeting in the morning (regarding mr smear's workshop behavior, and his looking-at-his-failures behavior), and mr smear was very angry with me. but on our way home this evening, we had a very mature discussion and he acknowledged what we were trying to get through to him.

gd took mr smear to have bloodwork done while i had a meeting, apparently mr smear handled it impressively well.

it was a quiet day at work, though jam-packed with meetings and included a very intense lunchtime debate about israeli politics. it also included a two-hour long demo by a contractor, and i found it very validating that the new guy and i both came up with similar alternatives to his architecture and we both feel that what he's put together in two months is something either of us could do in a matter of hours... and better.

i came home, and took mr smear to dizengoff for their japanese food. we had dumplings and onigiri again, and mr smear ate the dumplings with chopsticks this time, and then we walked home picking up ice cream on the way. and talking a lot.

a lot of the talk was about bigtalk, and why this is such a difficult experience for me personally.

...

on an unrelated note, but running in parallel through the day, is responding to a south african connection on linkedin's anti-israel propaganda post. i felt i couldn't let the lies stand unchallenged, but the experience is gross.

...

i don't want to take vacation days unless i can actually enjoy the vacation, and i don't feel like that's going to happen anytime soon :(

off a low base

 well, to be fair today was easier. but i felt completely exhausted, and disorganized, and my brain seems to be seeping down my spinal column and into my butt.

i started the day with a walk to the post office to pick up my new phone covers - the three of them cost less than gd's failed one, and they're all awesome. so i'm proudly sporting the hunter license:

(ugh, those nails 🤮)

on my way home i stopped by a mor clinic. it was uncomfortable that i couldn't even get a number for the receptionist because i didn't have an appointment. when a receptionist did become available, she informed me that they can't help me with what i'm looking for. when i asked if there was anyone i could speak to about gd's cannabis story, she shrugged and complained that she, too, has difficulty getting human assistance and she works there.

i came home, completed the deployment i'd triggered on my way out, picked up my gear and walked mr smear and gd to the clinic (he was supposed to get blood tests done, but we hadn't realized he'd needed an appointment). i bussed to the office, where my future team was already waiting for me, and we spent the following few hours strategizing and getting some work done.

two jumpy dogs + a bunch of jumpy kids = distraction.

i spent the remainder of the day being set upon by various coworkers, constantly context-switching and generally feeling worn out and slow. i did get some good stuff done, a few good things, actually, but at least twice i got told off by my boss about not having taken a holiday.

i definitely need to take a holiday. it would be nice to not literally be the only person holding the devops fort right now.

at 7pm i told gd i'd be leaving in ten minutes, and ten minutes later it was 7.30pm, so i don't know what the hell happened... i came home, joined my family for dinner (accompanied by a shot of rum) and some of the fifth harry potter movie, was shown some of my son's amazing artwork (his "realistic" minecraft characters), and after showers and toothbrushing (i'm being very cautious about brushing as softly as i can) i read a little more of the neverending story.

sometimes mr smear isn't in the mood, but tonight he was upset when i stopped reading.

it took me a little time to decompress enough to write this, now i'm not sure if i'm ready to crash yet.

facing the music

 i slept surprisingly well, all things considered. but i woke up feeling wired, so i skipped my first coffee and had a tea instead.

i'd woken up to the sounds of protesting, so i was surprised by how quiet everything was on my way to work.

i went past the clinic to try and make an appointment, but the receptionist didn't know how to help me. i walked to the closest bus stop, but didn't trust the public transport app and walked on, which turned out to be the right call. i did take the light rail for a single stop, but that was mainly as a break from the already rising heat. (still nowhere near as harsh as the last week)

i walked into the office just as my boss had informed bigtalk that he was going home until his hearing. i offered to speak with him, which in retrospect may have been a mistake, because a) he really has no idea why he's being let go and b) he blames me for my reporting to the boss and c) i realized, helplessly, that no matter what i say to him he's only going to hear what fits his narrative, which is precisely how we got here in the first place.

so... i tried not to say much, and i tried to be comforting, but doing both those things was literally impossible and it was just shit feelings all the way down.

and - since last week - the more i think about it, the more i think about how much of what he's told us is fake-it-till-you-make-it self-deception. all i saw today was a scared little kid, raw vulnerability, trying to make sense of something in a way that he's not going to be able to make sense of without a much deeper level of self-awareness.

as i said to my boss afterwards, if we were big enough to afford it, i would offer to mentor him.

the next hour or so was fully invested in disabling all of his accounts and rotating shared passwords.

...

at lunchtime i walked to meet up with gd and mr smear for his psychiatrist appointment. the intention of the appointment, to my understanding, is for the "doctor" (see the attached summary) to determine whether his social anxiety (which we now believe is no more severe than any kid's) warrants an "accompanier". but, of course, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

the meeting was okay, mostly, although there was a fair amount of awkwardness in mr smear's discomfort answering his questioning in hebrew (and the questions were uncomfortable questions in any language) and then, after he'd repeatedly mentioned his english not being great, he became offended when mr smear responded in english that he has "intrusive thoughts" and i asked if he was familiar with the term :/

...

i returned to the office for an hour or two of frustratingly difficult IT (security) work, then a couple of hours working with the new devops guy trying to restart the project that bigtalk never delivered.

and then the day ended (kinda) with me and another team member running through all our accounts to make sure we'd caught everything in the morning.

...

the protestors were gathering by the time i went home, and i walked through crowds of more and more people whose behavior (and placards) just upset me more and more. they're protesting against our government "abandoning" the hostages, as if there's anyone reasonable on the hamas side of the table to negotiate with. while i certainly appreciate their intention and their desperation, in practice all they're achieving - in my opinion - is demonstrating to hamas that the time for playing games isn't over.

...

the evening was pleasant, although i'm struggling with radiating nerve pain down my right side. and while gd had a much better day today in that department, she's also been struggling a bit this evening.

i'm exhausted, emotionally and psychologically. i hope tomorrow's easier.

fairy tales

 it was a hot walk, even if it was less hot than the previous days. we walked past a store and picked him up a malt beer, which made his day (up until that point), and eventually got to a coffee shop where i ordered a vegan dessert that was so over-the-top that it really made his day, and i read a brothers grimm story (the golden goose).

then we walked back home, where i picked up a (free) copy of joseph jacobs' english fairy tales and read jack the giant-killer while he played minecraft. then it was dinner time, and a smooth evening including more of the neverending story at bedtime.

after he went to sleep, i synced with my boss about tomorrow, which (confusingly to me) looks like it's going to be spread over a couple of days, so my plans for taking a day off this week are clearly on hold. i've spent the rest of the evening just trying to wear myself out with youtube and slay the spire in order to get some sleep, but i'm not feeling too confident right now.

i probably shouldn't have had that late iced coffee...