i went to bed way later than i intended to last night.
i know i slept, but only because i had seriously weird dreams.
i woke up tired.
i hurt my back stretching (it's somewhat locked up right now).
i dropped mr smear off at school.
i returned home.
i ate breakfast.
now i need to figure out how to navigate yet another complicated day (gd's appointment, then mine).
i think i had plans for tonight. like, real ones, i was excited. but after a really long day - accompanying mr smear to school while practicing the sign language for FAFO and singing nant's ingonyama bagithi baba, trying to console gd who's stomach's messed up again, investigating weird messages from my mobile provider, long hours working with AI*, a huge, delicious vegan lunch from an unfamiliar place, more hard work, picking up mr smear while "participating" in an hour and a half zoom workshop that i didn't need, lots more hard work, losing my temper trying to help mr smear with his homework (him claiming to not understand a thing after successfully doing pages of the same stuff), sitting down with big data (and then his family) over a utility app he wants to build, a great dinner and ready player one followed by the terrible mistake of trying to eat 99% chocolate (why TF does it exist?!) followed by a rather shit bedtime, followed by more hard work.
* and understanding that AI is really teaching us to be better mentors and instructors to juniors
oh, and i saw and killed a fucking flea this afternoon. we have no idea where it could have come from. fuck.
i mean, at least i managed to sleep a bit last night. i wonder if i'll be so lucky tonight.
i went to bed late last night. i finished with the button a little after midnight, then climbed into bed and found myself entirely unable to sleep. i don't know why, but i was completely wired and spent the entire night miserably uncomfortable.
the 6.30am alarm was painful.
i accompanied mr smear to school - again, because i'm worried about when the war's going to resume - and we had a fun conversation about the drawing for our front door. on the way home, i stopped at the pharmacy to pick up something for gd, and had a chat with my mom about whether she'll be able to land here next week, and what we should do about her laptop (i'm thinking of giving her our windows machine).
i came home, and struggled to get started with work; primarily because in addition to exhaustion, my back and feet were really hurting. i eventually remembered our foot/back massager, though, and i have to say i'm quite grateful for it!
[turns it back on again]
i prepared a scary bit of work last week, and this morning i pulled the trigger. i nervously monitored the dashboards, but a half hour later i was convinced that a) the deployment had gone smoother than i'd hoped and b) i've discovered something quite bad (a memory leak) that's been causing disruptions, probably for years.
i also helped the team lead of my previous customer team navigate the airflow interface - that shit is hard!
in addition to working, i assisted gd with a wolt driver who couldn't figure out how to find our address on a map and was unable to follow directions. not only was he shockingly dumb and incompetent, but he had the nerve to tell me that we shouldn't be using our correct street address and should go for the (essentially) illegal one instead.
we also managed to figure out how to return a pair of shoes she bought online, and it was much easier (albeit much more expensive) than the other site.
in the afternoon i returned to the school to pick up mr smear, and managed to buy raisin brain (for the iron fortification) along the way. mr smear made me wait for a while, so i took off that same amount of screen time, but the journey home was mostly pleasant and once the timer began, he grabbed watchmen off the shelf and started getting into it.
i spent the next few hours drowning in a task that's heavy on the AI because i only vaguely understand what needs to be done. so while i'm constructing (hopefully) a mental model, i'm casting magic spells and praying they don't backfire...
and then mr smear had homework to do. fortunately, he worked through it pretty well, with only one short episode of me losing patience (he couldn't understand the problem, but wouldn't pay attention while i tried to help him), and he managed to score himself some game time before dinner.
dinner: delicious corn soup / corn on the cob combination, accompanied by the next part of ready player one. i've been avoiding spoiling the chest-burster scene from the alien movie because we're planning on watching it soon, so i was pretty bummed out by the disguise scene! at least i know mr smear won't be traumatized by it, though. he thought it was funny. (though he still hasn't plucked up the courage to continue with terminator 2, which he finds too intense)
we managed to get through shower and bedtime pretty smoothly. i didn't have energy to read to him (and it was late), but instead i recited the slam. the last time i recited something i received some pretty harsh feedback from him ("i HATE your poetry!"), but tonight? he was riveted, and actually praised it ^_^
...
i'm going to try to get to bed earlier tonight (ie. soon). it's clear that the "cease-fire" with iran is officially over, so if there's an attack we're moving mr smear back into our bedroom immediately.
gods, this is a really confusing time. strategically, it seems like the americans have really done an amazing job, but right now being in the moment and in the IRGC's crosshairs...
well, the good news is that it wasn't our apartment, someone drove into a power line yesterday and the delayed effect was destabilizing the power for everyone on our block. fortunately, the electric company had everything back online by 9pm, though we did end up having to order food and eat it in the dark.
we started watching ready player one, though. so that was cool. and at least mr smear had showered already.
while i was starting to wind down for the evening, trying not to pay too much mind to mr smear not winding down (but at least making an effort, so it was much easier to be patient about it), big data asked me about using twilio to make an app with a button to open our parking gate. so instead of going to bed early, i'm busy playing with that...
i'm probably iron deficient. or maybe just exhausted. or perhaps a combination of the two.
...
i kinda slept last night. with a few disturbances, i tried sleeping on my back - or, at least, lying on my back until desperately tired - and i think that helped.
i began the day with a coffee and booth's sonnets, but my brain was pretty much offline. i think it's safe to say that i spent most of my day playing slay the spire 2, but i did read the balatro creator's story while trying to understand what the good card games are backed with.
the first attempt to talk to mr smear about making plans for the day - after it had initially gone sour - turned into wrestling, which was fun until i had to call a time out for a nap. later, when i came to (with a sore neck), we began the arduous process of getting him out the door; of all the suggestions i'd made, he found one i hadn't thought of, and we ended up taking the basketball up to the courts.
worst experience of his life, he says. he doesn't like sharing a court, and he's really not a fan of any kind of physical exercise. his neck hurt from looking up at the net, his fingers hurt from the one time he caught the ball badly, he was convinced he'd split his lip when the ball *touched* his face, the sun was shining, and his skin was threatening to sweat. but for all that, he put in the time, and he clearly had some genuinely enjoyable moments while we practiced stealing the ball (he's such a cheat!), so as much as he suffered, at least it wasn't all bad.
the sun is setting, gd's making dinner, he's playing minecraft, and i'm just... being. that's gotta be okay.
...
nope. the stovetop's not drawing enough electricity, and i have to find an electrician now 🤦♂️
...
nope, the whole apartment's electricity is behaving badly. jesus 🤦♂️
winding down... i messed around, including playing balatro, until way later than i should have. i'm guessing i went to bed around 1.30am; i lay down, closed my eyes, and that was precisely when the air raid sirens sounded without the usual pre-warning (it turned out to be from lebanon) and i rushed to mr smear's room to drag him back into ours.
bearing in mind that i didn't get much sleep the night before, i got practically none last night. between him being in our bed, and a sore back, and needing to pee at least four times before daybreak, i was a wreck by the time our alarms went off. and then, after the night's excitement, i had to figure out whether mr smear was really expected to go to school or not.
surprisingly, it was a "normal" friday morning. i accompanied him to school (because wtf), then returned home for a brief cup of tea to wait for gd to decide whether she was able to come out with me or not. we then headed to south tel aviv to hunt for rocking chairs and beanbags. it was a beautiful morning, and we went up and down florentin looking at a wide variety of stuff, and ended up buying some really arbitrary things.
we didn't find anything to sit on, but we did enjoy the morning.
a little before we headed home, mr smear called from the school, which caused me to panic a bit before i realized that he'd been invited to a birthday party and wanted to know if that was cool. so we were excited to hear that he was invited in the first place, and that he was interested in going, but later were quite disheartened to learn that he'd decided that he wasn't interested in tempting himself with birthday foods so opted to come back home instead :(
gods help us.
after gd and i hashed out our differences regarding beanbag ideas and i'd ordered them online - seems the thing to do - we spent the next couple of hours putting up some more of our pictures. the apartment's definitely looking more homely :)
i put a couple of hours into looking into comic publishing, and it's looking like the right way to do this is to use KDP again.
my throat's feeling a bit scratchy.
gd made a delicious dinner, we chatted a long time with my mom while eating it, and then shower / bedtime took forever. i picked up slay the spire 2 today, and have been playing it along with a bit of baba is you, which is insanely challenging.
i think i'm going to go to bed soon. please god let tonight be quiet and let me get some damned rest.
last night was a bit rough. first, getting mr smear into bed at a reasonable hour didn't happen, after we finally did get him into bed i went to bed soon after, only to wake up a while later and find him out of bed. that led to some bad emotions, because we were already out of patience and we knew how difficult this morning was going to be.
we finally threatened him (one hour of screen time for any infractions) into bed, and i eventually managed to get back to sleep.
for a bit. but then i found myself awake again, sore lower back and hips, and indigestion. so i dragged myself out of bed and spent an hour or two playing balatro and listening to tousi making it clear that this ceasefire is bullshit.
i finally got a couple of hours' sleep before our alarms went off at 6.30am. getting out of bed was hard. my neck hurt.
to be fair, mr smear handled himself pretty well this morning. he got up, made his bed, brushed his teeth, and then sat down to do some of the homework. he made a good effort.
then i accompanied him to the school, early because i had two back-to-back meetings starting 45m before his first class. we arrived just in time for my first one, and he sat across from me reading on his kindle.
after my second one - by which stage he'd gone off to class - i made my way to a KSP to stand in line for half an hour for a couple of ethernet cables. then i picked up some groceries for gd, then i returned home.
i was at home for an hour and a half, struggling to get work done, then headed out once again to pick up mr smear, and then return home for another hour or so, before heading out with gd for her dental appointment.
in spite of the fact that her dental appointment turned out to be a few minutes - and that we didn't need to be there - i got an hour of real work in (jira tedium) and felt at least kind of okay about calling it a day by the time we started back home.
we stopped for an expensive visit to the grocer, then gd picked up more groceries, and then it was finally time to come home and unpack the other groceries that had been delivered.
so lots of groceries.
i had a good chat with sailor before dinner, over dinner we watched an episode of the littlest hobo (gd was bit upset that mr smear didn't love it, but i was impressed that he watched it through to the end without complaining), chatted with my mom, got through the evening stuff (including moving his bed back to his room!), and then i sat down to watch all the videos that were open on my work computer, set it up for the OS upgrade, and now i'm on my second cup of tea and winding down.
we walked up to the park, then across to the port, and we settled on babylon park even before either of us said anything. we had fun, though two of the games mr smear played (motorcycles and snowboard simulators) were remarkably unfair; if you win, you should get another go, no?
we looked for ice cream, but golda had removed their vegan indicators which was super suspicious. so we picked up a couple of drinks instead, and began our walk home. along the way, mr smear decided that he didn't want the traditional post-pesach pizza for dinner because he's watching his weight, which led to a lengthy discussion with gd over the phone because she was trying to be supportive and he... neither of us really understand what he was gunning for.
then, most of the way home, he decided he needed to stop by the candy store...
long story short, i "supported" him by not letting him go to the candy store, and we all thoroughly enjoyed the olive & mushroom pizza (with black salt, too, in my case). of course, gd ordered two pizzas when one would have done just fine :/
at least they were vegan. i'm never sure, and i *really* didn't feel like taking mr smear to the hospital this evening.
now to (hopefully) find out whether the kids are returning to school tomorrow or not.
i really don't understand if there's really a ceasefire or not. or if it means anything or not. none of what's happening makes much sense.
...
yesterday:
we managed to get up at a reasonable time, and i woke up with an itch to reinstate public access to my comic pages and post an update to my patrons.
then i jumped on our daily call, and my manager reminded me that i was supposed to be on holiday.
i dragged mr smear along with me to the mall after learning that home center had not sent me the items i'd ordered. their in-store staff was just as useless. mr smear's friend met us there, and we paid a visit to the candy store, where i picked up a "hot mama" flavor of van holten's pickle-in-a-pouch, which still makes me giggle.
i dropped the kids off at home and continued on to the hardware store, but 100m out got trapped in a sudden heavy electric rainstorm. when it calmed down i jogged further on, arriving (wet) at a synagogue just as our missile alert system kicked in. i spent the next ten to fifteen minutes in their shelter, surrounded by people and animals with heavy smells, and i was half-asleep by the time we were able to leave.
i made my way to the hardware store, picked up a tape measure but not a garden hose, then paid a quick visit to a nature store to pick up a protein bar, passed one of my ex-bosses on the way to the grocery store (i didn't greet her, she didn't see me and i'm still sore about her and her co-founder back-stabbing me and not even having the decency to try to speak to me on my way out), picked up a bag of carrots and made my way home.
gd had let strangers into our mamad because she didn't know that it's safe enough for them to use the stairwell. weird people, apparently.
the kids had a great afternoon (mostly playing rayman: legends), we all tried the pickle (it wasn't that hot, but made for a great matzah sandwich) i had an emergency coffee and the put up two of our maps (a real world map, and our map of ankh morpork) in our office, and later i put up some clothing hooks too. and also managed to get our new sound system set up, and it's SO much better than our previous one!
i did, however, almost fall off the ladder doing that (i mis-stepped after forgetting i was on the top rung) and i managed to hurt my hip again, which had finally been feeling better :/
our upstairs friends came downstairs with wine, and we sat talking negligently late, which included some uncomfortable expressions by gd about some of their friends... not that she's entirely wrong, mind, but how one says stuff... :P
we had a nice dinner, chatted for most of it with my mom, and then watched the final episode of strip search. gd had had enough of the day (and parenting) by that stage, so i handled shower and tooth brushing, and i went to bed exhausted before mr smear had himself fallen asleep.
today (so far):
sleeping late, napping, reading and loving most of the importance of being earnest, eating a pretty good breakfast of matzah, peanut butter, banana, vegan nutella and tabasco. i tried watching jujutsu kaisen with mr smear but i passed out, and i woke up to spend a frustrating half hour or so trying to fix our microsoft / minecraft accounts so that i could reinstate his birthday present (the marketplace pass).
now we're heading out to try and make the most of what may or may not be a peaceful afternoon.
