unemployment vibe

 i got up early this morning and began looking over the job application exercise i've been given. it's interesting, and meaningful: they took my request seriously and i'm to contribute something real to their open source project. this is good.

the rest of my time at home was spent fighting mold blooms with gd. we had a little left to do this evening, and i'm hoping that we're going to be okay for a while.

we tried calling her OB/GYN, but there was no answer. we'll try again tomorrow.

...

i arrived at the office, our reservist was finally back after some months stationed in gaza. we filled him in on what we've been working on, and then it was time for our all-hands.

as this post's title suggests, it wasn't great. we're officially shutting our doors. we knew it was a possibility, but it doesn't stop it from being a sad surprise and a real bummer.

it's also a tiny bit scary, but intellectually i'm pretty sure we're all going to be okay.

we toasted the company, then headed out to catch a bus to a restaurant for our "last supper". there wasn't much for vegans, but one of the modified salads was nice and it was a great excuse not to break my diet. speaking of which - i'm down more than a kilo since i panicked over the weekend, which is encouraging.

after that, most of us went for coffee in the unseasonably warm afternoon, then returned to the office (well, there was a back and forth and an opportunity for me to sync with gd and my mom) and talked a bit more.

then i gathered all my belongings, including the m2 macbook i'm about to buy for about half price, and walked home.

...

i guess the most apt description for me today is "all over the place". i'm fine. but i'm not. i'm praying i do well with the exercise and get an offer, because that's the optimal path. i'm looking forward to investing some time in my side projects.

ultimately, i'm going to continue to take each day as it comes and hope for the best.

the not-so-good doctor

 once upon a time, in 2018, gd and i were trying for another baby. gd's OB/GYN prescribed a medication that was supposed to increase her fertility, but instead triggered early menopause and obliterated any chances of her having more children.

i recently spoke to someone who's working in menopause studies, and mentioned this story, and she asked me what the medication was - but gd has forgotten and i have no records of it. so i've requested her medical records from her OB/GYN.

after two ignored emails, i called him up this morning. he knew exactly who i was, had all the details in front of him, and not only refused to release her records but directly lied about having prescribed any medications at all.

i was fuming - i'm still fuming - at his revolting behavior. although it's very clear to me that he's attempting to protect his ass from a malpractice lawsuit, but after making a mistake and hurting a patient he's now doing intentionally doing something that could interfere with her new practitioner's history-taking, even though we're living in a different country.

this evening i read the following. i don't know where this is going, but now i *know* we need to get hold of her records:

The Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000 gives everyone the right of

access to records held by either public or private bodies for legitimate purposes.

In the latter case, people should be allowed access to “any information that is held

by another person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights”.9

This includes access to health records.

Either the patient him/herself, or someone authorised to act on the patient’s behalf,

can request access; ordinarily the request itself is made in writing and should be

responded to within 30 calendar days.

...

yesterday:

another rocket attack in the middle of the night. it took forever for us to get out the apartment, and i honestly don't know why. when i got to the bottom of the stairs i saw mr smear and immediately yelled at him for not entering the shelter, then turned the corner and saw that everybody was outside the shelter because some asshole had locked it.

mr smear and i stopped to watch the demolition guys begin their work yesterday morning on the way to school, and he's decided that that's what he wants to do when he grows up.

i totally get it.

i was tired yesterday - my boss asked me if i was sleep-walking when he realized that i hadn't registered his existence while standing next to me in the elevator. it was a long work day, though by the time i left i felt like i'd made some good progress.

i knew on my way home that i was in no shape to go rollerblading.

on my way upstairs i checked the shelter and found it open. nobody's admitting to being responsible, and we still don't know who has the key :/

gd was at the dentist, so i took mr smear out for falafel. it was a really good experience.

i passed out pretty soon after putting mr smear to bed, and although some of the night was spent restlessly tossing and turning i mostly caught up on sleep.

today:

after dropping mr smear off at school, gd and i met with the guy who's going to do his psychological evaluation over the next few weeks. i feel it was a pretty good meeting.

gd and i had a small fight about something on the way to the bus stop, so that sucked, but we were fine shortly after. the work day was pretty good, minus my phone call to gd's OB/GYN and its aftermath, although the rude people from my cousin's office tried to crowd us out of the kitchen at lunchtime again and it makes things really unpleasant.

...

before dinner, i realized that mr smear hadn't completed his math homework (matific). when he completed it suspiciously quickly, i took a look and saw that he didn't quite do it in the requisite spirit of the thing. i made him do a time exercise because it's one his weaknesses, and where he was struggling i coached him through.

right until he threw an absolutely wobbly because, in his words, "it's IMPOSSIBLE!" even though he'd already done exactly the same thing successfully in the previous question. what followed was a tantrum of note, with much unpleasantness.

after his shower, and a very grumbly start to dinner, he cooled off. after dinner, i wrote out the question i remembered and he sat down and breezed through it (the IMPOSSIBLE question). he then begrudgingly apologized to me for the drama, and to gd, and finally to himself (he needed a bit of coercion to do that last apology out loud, but it's fine).

he then sat down to do the actual thing. the first few questions he breezed through, but then he got stuck again on a question where it was obvious to me why: he was overcomplicating things and confusing himself to the point where he was effectively guessing.

let me just say: there was a LOT of arguing. a LOT of me attempting different ways to get him to approach the question differently. a LOT of me pushing him to "think out loud" so that i could make sense of the weird leaps of logic he was performing.

but, goshdarnit, we got it in the end. and i witnessed what appeared to be a lightbulb moment, eyes wide and mouth agape, when he realized that he was confusing the numbers 0 and 60 because the minute of an hour is effectively both.

holy fucking shit.

the rest of the evening went swimmingly. emotions and strategic arguments with my mom and gd notwithstanding, and now that i've written this all down (has it been half an hour already?!) it's time to try watching venom again.

...

scratch that. after pausing for a twenty minute discussion with gd about the ceasefire agreement and the hostages being released, how every surviving hostage is as much a tragedy as every dead one, and how traumatized we all are, and how we can move forward as a people... i don't know what i'm doing or going to do.

disillusioned

 i think today was okay.

work-wise it was a bit of a wash, which was a combination of mixed messages from the boss and manager and a dramatic lack of enthusiasm on my part.

mr smear seems to have had a good day all round. he walked out of the school with his "girlfriend", as he'd been referring to his zipped-up jacket, and his antics had me in hysterics.

my credit card declined at the grocery store in the afternoon, after we thoroughly overloaded it with grocery shopping in the morning. having said that, we're financially in a better situation than we've been in a very long time and i feel like it's safe for gd to sign up for sewing classes again.

in related news, she had a difficult day today (nerve pain / headache) but seems to be doing better from the most recent cold/flu thing. so there's that.

in the afternoon i took mr smear for a follow up with the "australian" doctor, who turned out to be danish 🤣

it looks like we did hurt his foot removing his too-small rain boots a couple of weeks ago, and the thing that the doctor saw on the x-ray appears to be a sign of normal growing bones.

i'm feeling alright. mr smear went to bed without a fuss, which is amazing. i don't know if i'm tired enough for bed yet, but i think i'm going to get off screens in a minute.

speaking of which:

between two sleeps

 i recently watched thoughty2's video on biphasic sleep. well, it's past 3am and i've just gone through the training in system shock 2, and i don't even feel like i'm doing it wrong :P

yesterday wasn't a bad day. the weather was alright, and i published and babysat a new release at work that went relatively smoothly.

my team decided to go to tamir, which is a terrible idea of you're trying not too eat too much, even if you're vegan and only ever go for their falafel. to avoid the pita i ordered a plate, which was heaped with food, in addition to a large plate of fries :P

in the evening i sent a message to the CTO i met with a couple of weeks ago, and it looks like my timing was appreciated 🤞

we're continuing to watch the simpsons, we're deep into the third season ("homer alone"). and at bedtime, mr smear has me reading calvin & hobbes. there's something magical and fascinating about re-imprinting nostalgia in a next generation.

i passed out watching the latest venom movie soon after mr smear fell asleep. i haven't been sleeping well at all, and it's mostly been due to "the usual" physical pain in my lower back and legs :(

out of it

 the weekend has come and gone, and i'm... tired. and feeling dramatically overweight - i have gained a couple of kilos, but it's less about that and more about how i've been consciously eating too much in general, and generally too much stuff i shouldn't be eating in the first place.

yesterday:

mr smear seemed pretty much fine by the morning. while he was at school, i strapped on my rollerblades and skated across the city to pick up his new rain boots, which happened to be at a place that makes great shakes. my coffee shake was excellent, and i enjoyed just sitting with it in the sun on the sidewalk.

gd hurt her back in the morning, and her cough is getting worse. it would be really nice if things could be boring for once.

after picking him up from school, we did a grocery run, and i was definitely ready for a nap by the time we returned home... only i was sent to the pharmacy to pick up something urgent. that took forever, but in addition to the meds i also picked up a couple of graphic novels translated into hebrew: spider-man: quantum quest! and amulet #1.

and some edamame, which looked really good but turned out to be bland and yucky. and a bagel, which turned out to be really heavy and didn't taste so great. and then, after finishing the bagel on the way home, i discovered that gd had made ramen that mr smear didn't want, so i garbage-bin-dadded and felt awful.

after an unsurprisingly urgent nap, i coffee'd up and did the dishes and helped gd clean the apartment. after that i read through spider-man: quantum quest!, then we had dinner, got mr smear into bed - just as the massive thunderstorm began - and then i passed out on the couch.

today:

i eventually managed to crawl into bed, with the thunderstorm still raging on, but i slept rather poorly.

in the morning, when the world had calmed down a bit, i got up and completed what remains of edith finch:

the mechanics are excitingly clever... the story is tragic. the game does an incredible job of making the experiences wonderfully vivid and disconcertingly real.

this is a masterpiece.

mr smear saw a couple of scenes over my shoulder, and he wants to play some of the stories, but avoid the really sad ones. i think that's fair.

i read some more mona lisa overdrive, then fell asleep on the couch for a while. after i got up, we all settled in to watch thor: ragnarok. we have now seen all of the great MCU movies together (minus guardians of the galaxy, that's for when he's older), and it was a great experience.

i did, however, eat too much popcorn on top of the pastry on top of the definitely over-the-top challah with peanut butter and chocolate spread that i'd had for breakfast. i'm now officially on a reduced carb diet - not low carb, but just avoiding all the obviously unnecessary ones.

i took mr smear out for a walk, which ended up a very pleasant three hours past the museum (mr smear walked into the replica terror tunnel, then immediately bolted out), sat outside habima, walked up rothschild to legenda where he had a sorbet (i'm starting on the right foot), then walked all the way back home without barely any complaining and lots of good conversation.

we arrived just in time for dinner - gd had a squash alternative to the pasta for me, which was good - and mr smear has just gone to bed after a slow but mostly pleasant bedtime ritual.

i have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but i'm once again grateful for the weekend pause.

drips

yesterday:

yesterday was... weird. firstly, my sinuses were busy and i developed a headache towards the afternoon, one which only intensified into the night. i barely slept last night, my head hurt, and i was uncomfortable and restless.

at the same time, i slept really well after my last post and my hips and legs felt much better than usual.

the work day was all over the place, lots of shouting (mostly nothing to do with me) and a few misunderstandings and stress over the work i'm doing. by the end of the day i had a pretty good handle on what was happening, though, which was a huge relief. and i was very proud of myself for bringing home the two extra "happy hour" desserts i'd picked up for gd and mr smear, who definitely enjoyed them.

...

over lunch, a woman from another company made our whole team hate her over lunch when she rudely sat down at our table and invited her friends to join her, when there wasn't any space and we hadn't finished eating.

...

i started listening to the interview with the united nations whistleblower (emma reilly) and it awful, but thanks to UN watch it's not as shocking as it should be. it does answer one of the biggest questions surrounding china's motivation to promote anti-semitic content on tiktok, specifically anti-israel propaganda since october 7th: the chinese are trying to divert attention from the very real genocide that they're perpetuating on the uyghurs, which they're doing in order to secure the particularly resource rich region that they're exploiting as part of their plans for economic world domination.

as much as i was already aware, the interview is an absolute revelation.

...

i've uninstalled the pokemon pocket app. good riddance.

today:

fortunately, i took a tylenol this morning and my head's been alright since then. mr smear had his mid-term today, which apparently went really well 🤞

i left early to pick up a package on the way to the office, but discovered on arrival that it would only be available from noon.

the workday was pretty good. after yesterday's win, this morning's effort went smoothly and i moved on to a surprise "favor" for one of our customers who's still using our pre-pivot platform. i managed to have that code complete by lunchtime, and the rest of the afternoon was a mix of finalizing, and exploring a potential memory leak "on my own time".

i've been using the AI-assisted terminal warp for the last couple of days. it's legitimately great!

...

i picked up one of the three calvin and hobbes compilations i ordered on the way home, and mr smear was very excited - we're all excited to be able to read it comfortably ^_^

i was concerned by the fact that the other two books in the set weren't shipped yet, but as i was trying to contact them about it i received an update that they're now on the way to us as well. awesome!

...

dinner was pretty good, but after dinner we needed to have a conversation - mr smear responded badly to a situation at school today and got kicked out of the class. the first part of the conversation went well, but then it turned to mma and it went... not so well. but as not-so-well as it went, i'm relieved that bedtime was okay.

unfortunately, mr smear's now dealing with an itchy nose and we're worried it might be another herpes outbreak. please god let it be something less exciting 🙏

teeth out

 it was a weird tuesday. it started off simply, but then gd became scared about her tooth extraction so i accompanied her, but i first had a chat with a recruiter scheduled so i walked while she took the bus.

i looked at the scale this morning, and realized i've climbed past 82kg. not fantastic.

i initially thought it was a phone call, but was then reminded that it was a zoom chat, so that was a bit awkward. more awkward was the fact that i could barely here the recruiter, so we gave up and switched to phone calls, which suffered from reception issues 🤦

anyway, we finally got it right, it sounded like she was happy with my history and what i'm looking for, we'll see.

i arrived at the dental clinic, sat down next to gd, and opened my laptop to try to get some work done. gd, meanwhile, struck up a conversation with the arab dentist's six year old. when she finally went in for her appointment, the kid didn't hesitate to switch his attention to me. he's very cute, and bright, but he's in that phase during which kids barely stop for air while telling stories with no point that never end, and by the time we got out of there i felt like my brain was bleeding out of my ears.

at least gd seems to be doing well post-extraction. that's actually quite big news.

i caught a bus to the office, on the way seeing a question from my boss that made me realize that the thing i got stuck on last night and this morning made absolutely no sense, and between the mma blowout yesterday and this morning's goings-on i didn't even register before forwarding a request for help that missed the point completely...

... so that was embarassing. i walked into what i thought was a strategy/update meeting, explained myself and apologized - interrupted twice by my cousin appearing out of nowhere to hand me his laptop to look after it and take it back, for some reason - and only after that was resolved discovered that the actual purpose of the meeting was to figure out where to have lunch :P

i had to choose between gd's delicious (and healthy) cottage pie leftovers alone, or a burger joint with the team. i've mentioned this "new learning" before, but professionally, nine times out of ten lunch with the team should trump lunch alone.

the vegan burger at vitrina was delicious, albeit a bit small. but the chips portion was large, and i shouldn't have eaten all of it. it was at that point that i decided that it was time to rejoin the rollerblading group.

mr smear lost another tooth today!

the work part of the work day was all over the place, although i definitely learned some things and at least moved forward a little bit.

...

i played a bit with pokemon pocket over the course of the day, but i didn't feel quite as drawn to it. a big part of that is the battle matching system, which keeps matching me with players who ridiculously out-class me. when i got home, i rediscovered pokemon live, which is the pokemon i played before, and after reading a bit about the differences and trying out its mobile app i'm pretty confident that it's the "real" pokemon game.

it's certainly the full game, as opposed to the pared-down pocket system.

...

the evening went well until bedtime, we could all have handled it better (a really silly argument over moving a chest of drawers) but it could certainly have been worse.

then i geared up, strapped on my blades, and headed to the group.

it was a really nice night. a good route - an easy one, though by the end of the 17km i was falling apart a little bit - with quite a lot of familiar faces. the last few kilometers i ended up in a riveting conversation with a woman who's just putting together a startup, something that could be really helpful to a lot of women (and something that could have really helped gd a few years back when she was still trying to get pregnant again), and she was really interested when i started talking about gamification.

i made a whole lot of suggestions, and i realized while i was making them that i would love for that to be my actual day job.

i got home feeling pretty good about having gotten a proper workout, and a good social experience, and i'm now stretched and showered and caught up on posting and pretty much ready for bed.

the weeds

 today kinda sucked. i slept a bit better last night, but not great, gd seemed to be getting better and mr smear had a more positive morning.

gd and i had a good parental guidance session with the therapist. this has bcome foreshadowing, it feels like whenever we discuss his (and our) progress we have a major issue on the way...

but i had a really hard time getting into work, i was very sensitive to the cold today and i'm now pretty confident i'm starting to come down with what gd has.

i'm also having trouble with the pokemon app. it's really good at doing what it's trying to, and that's suck all of my attention.

in the afternoon i took mr smear to his jiujitsu class, on the way explaining again why it's important that he goes and he seemed to be understanding and accepting. right until we arrived, at which point he refused to cooperate.

on top of that, he was also pretty rude to me, and that's a thing that's been building up the past little while. i intimidated / scared the shit out of him and we came home is mostly silence. when we arrived, we sat down for a "family meeting" but i was pretty furious and just unloaded. i sent him to his room and gd and i spoke for a bit, which calmed me down a little, then i called him back and we had a proper talk.

on the one hand, it went better than we could have expected. on the other, he's done with mma and we have nothing to replace it with. i've no idea where we go from here and i'm deeply disappointed, not just about the mma, but about his behavior surrounding it.

fuck.

and that's on top of a shitty work day in which i barely got anything done, and the shitty feeling of having blown three workday hours on a failed mma class and three months of mma fees for barely any classes. on the way to school mr smear had expressed interest in playing the drums, and that's about the price of a low-end electronic drum kit :/

gotta catch 'em all (again)

 what a weird freaking day. the primary thread winding through it is the pokemon pocket mobile app, which my coworkers (easily) convinced me to install this morning, and i've made considerable progress at random intervals (travelling by bus... sitting behind my manager... lying on the couch after gd went to bed...).

otherwise, i managed to get more than my 12000 steps in again today, but i don't really understand how.

i took mr smear to school this morning, had a cup of tea and ordered groceries with gd, went to work, had a frustrating morning after discovering that two of us were assigned the exact same work, picked up mr smear from school, wolfed down lunch, and took him to his therapist, had coffee and made zero work progress while waiting for him in spite of my best intentions, brought him home, returned to the office, worked with my manager for a bit, hung around for absolutely no reason while he tested (that's when i got bored and played pokemon), came home for dinner (we waited until mr smear finished eating before watching the simpsons, much smarter), got him into bed (without too much fuss), watched an episode of arcane's second season (it's beautiful art, but it feels a bit soulless), played some more pokemon, and am now deliberating on going to bed.

i slept very poorly last night, again, and i'm pretty sure it's the mattress topper not doing its job.