🎶 and i would walk 4 point 5 miles 🎶

 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.

wtf wednesday (ceasefire?)

 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.

wtf monday

 wtf monday.

we all got up early (my hip's still locked, but not quite as badly as yesterday) so that we could accompany gd to her dental first aid appointment. we arrived on time. her dentist was running late. after we'd been there about an hour, gd decided she didn't really need to be there after all.

i raced to find an appropriate spot to join my team's daily, but realized too late that where we'd settled wasn't one. at least the coffee was good. i hope the little white bits falling all over the place weren't from dried bird poop.

we then caught a bus home, on the way doing a bit of hardware shopping.

once home, i was somehow dragged in to trying to diagnose an issue my teammates had been working on but abandoned due to their holidays. i spent the following hours trying to make sense of things - mostly asking AI to investigate a variety of things - and eventually i was able to suggest something that seemed reasonable.

only to be informed by the devops team that that's just what they'd been thinking. so why the hell didn't they do something about it without getting me involved?!

gd received her shoes, which cost half again as much due to customs.

i took a break to be assisted by big data, who began the work of installing proper ethernet outlets. it was very stressful, and i have no idea how he managed to get the clip wired up properly. finally, just before he had to run off, we discovered that one of the pieces i ordered was replaced by something incompatible :/

after closing up my work for the day, i headed out to the local store again, this time for a stack of dark chocolate, because apparently it's a good iron source. the more i try to do the math, though, the less sense that claim makes.

it gave me an opportunity to chat with my mom, though.

after returning home, it was time for dinner, two episodes of strip search (we're down to the last episode!), a family chat with my mom, shower and sketch time for mr smear, and now that he's in bed i'm posting this and getting my evening squared away before climbing into bed myself.

...

mr smear has seen some of the last halloween before, tonight i bought it and another book of abby's on kindle. i was a bit disappointed by the merch available, though. i wanted Stuff.

the square hip

 not so restful, but i did eventually manage to get my hip to stop bothering me enough to get some sleep. but then, when i was woken up by the third alarm for an all-hands event that had nothing to do with me, i got up to find that my hip was totally locked up, front and back.

i started my day on the carpet on the floor trying to stretch it out while sipping coffee and reading the importance of being ernest - i've owned my copy for years, how have i never opened it before?

i guess today was pretty constructive, all things considered. i think i've finally nailed down the upgrade of a service to the latest golang version (from 1.11), and i think i handled my RCA ticket being irrecoverably deleted by someone who didn't know what it was quite admirably.

i took mr smear with me to witness my very painful limp and call me a cripple pick up the internet cable outlet plates and return the comic books to the library, but arrived at the library to discover that they'd been closed for half an hour. because holidays. and war.

getting through the mall gauntlet was alright. there were a few cosplayers doing their thing, but i don't think mr smear noticed much.

after we got home and dropped off the box, we went to our new 24/7 to pick up a couple of things, then returned home for more work, to receive the new soundbar, and then to dive in to a dramatic homework session.

ultimately he did well, and he was pleased with himself, but the journey there was fraught with him doing everything he could to sabotage himself. i truly believe he can do anything he puts his mind to - and i don't believe that of many people. but omg getting him to put his mind to anything is nigh impossible.

dinner (and strip search) was great, gd rushed him through shower and toothbrush time surprisingly rapidly, he read while i showered and brushed my teeth, and then we said good night.

gd and i spoke for a little while - mostly she's feeling bad about stuff that's totally normal for all of us right now - and i tooled around (mushing my brain with trash) until posting this, and now i think i'm going to try to get some rest.

again. my hip's still acting up.

extra-innings

 we all slept late, though in my case "sleep" is an exaggeration. i slept poorly. again. lower back and such.

i woke up with a bee in my bonnet, and spent a day i needed to be full of downtime working hard herding AI agents to build me a game i concocted. i'm certainly not the first person to attempt combining scrabble and balatro, but as of a minute or two ago i'm at a point where it kinda feels like i've come up with a viable alternative.

we shall see.

otherwise, it was a pretty quiet (cluster bomb attacks notwithstanding) day, mr smear entertaining himself with a mixture of reading comics and watching solo leveling (he very kindly caught me up when i did sit down with him), and the biggest event of the day was us taking a walk to both stretch our legs and pick up snacks (and then eating a lot of said snacks, and then getting into trouble with gd because we're both bothering her with our weight sensitivies).

in unrelated news, gd managed to crack a temporary crown today, so tomorrow's going to be more interesting than planned :/

that seems to be all, hopefully tonight with be a little restful.

recovery

 today was nicer, though not by too much. i didn't feel nearly as shit and dysfunctional, but my neck's still sensitive and i spent a large chunk of the day either lying with my neck at stretched angles or avoiding screens (i found a pack of playing cards and played old-school solitaire).

otherwise the day was very much spent indoors, we watched the first half of terminator 2 and the first episode (TWO HOURS OF IT?!?!) of the second season of the live action one piece.

there was some arguing over privileges, but mostly the day went smoothly. after kiddush with my mom we had a nice dinner and watched an episode of strip search, and then after all the kids were in bed our upstairs friends paid us a visit, and just left a few minutes ago.

now i'm going to play a little more balatro (i've been vascillating between balatro and full throttle) and go to bed.

passover 2026

we're approaching midnight, and for the first time since this afternoon i'm feeling a little better, after spending most of the day with a neck issue causing a massive headache, nausea and dizziness. now i've showered, i've made myself a lavendar/chamomile tea, and i'm hoping to get some rest tonight.

...

i was so relieved to be on holiday and turn my brain off. feeling extremely ill and sore is not relaxing.

yesterday:

we didn't do so well when it came to coming up with april fool's pranks, but i did have a fun idea inventing an elevator that detects smells; if someone farts in the elevator alone, it emergency stops until the extractor fans clear the air. if there are multiple people in the elevator, it immediately lets them off on the next floor.

it was erev chag, so of course we had last-minute shopping to do. gd sent me and mr smear off to find stuff i've never bought before, and we ended up on a serious mission, tired, and frustrated by all the other last-minute shoppers as well as the shops themselves for largely being disappointingly crap.

we did manage to get everything by the end of the mission, though.

aside from helping gd out a little bit here and there, mr smear and i spent the afternoon resting or reading or playing games. nothing intelligent. gd, on the other hand, had a very dramatic afternoon and evening cooking for the pesach seder for her very first time.

as unhappy and stressed as she was during the cooking - not helping by a long series of rocket attacks timed perfectly to mess with everyone - she was as happy as we were with the results and the seder with our upstair friends - which included reading and singing in their shelter - was great. the kids were generally well-behaved and involved, we got through to the meal in pretty good time, and dinner was delicious.

today:

the first part of the day was perfect. i finished reading crumb's kafka, which unfortunately has a few too many inappropriate things for me to be able to suggest that mr smear reads it, but is thoroughly brilliant and engaging. we all enjoyed a huge leftover breakfast. mr smear and i walked to the gas station to pick up the new playstation controller and charger; neither are amazing, but they'll do.

that got us into resuming our latest replay of rayman: legends, and it went really well with some exciting invasion runs!

and then my day fell apart. everyone else seems to be doing okay. i managed to eat some dinner while we watched another strip search elimination, and then lay down on the couch stretch my neck and watching random shit until just after mr smear (finally) went to bed.

i hope tomorrow's nicer.

lackluster

 today was a weird one. not a bad one, mind. lots of it was comfortable and comforting.

i got up tired. i read a bit more of mairowitz and crumb's kafka (it's amazing, with a very interesting perspective of ghetto life), i worked, with shenanigans around code ownership, and i eventually ended the work day in the middle of making some progress but also ready to put everything down because i'm officially on leave for the next couple of days.

i left the house around noon to get to a blood donation site, but for the first time in my life was rejected because my hemoglobin count was too low. so there's that to stress me out now.

mr smear tried desperately to get as much screen time as he could even though he was under punishment from calling me a jerk yesterday. he did music homework - garageband, he's making cool stuff - and later we sat down on yesterday's human resource machine problem and had a positive experience.

i'm not sure if his "performance" of being sick just as we started training was real or not, but whatever. he's the one concerned about his weight.

actually, that's not entirely true. mine's been climbing a bit, too.

but he did join me for a very serious mission hunting down matzah meal and healthy snacks, which proved surprisingly difficult to find.

either way, we watched strip search over a delicious dinner, spoke to my mom, and then got through the evening rituals and a bit of the colour of magic before calling it a day.

...

i've engaged in three or four different, toxic arguments on facebook over the course of the past day. people are fucked. i've now watched a whole lot of random youtube videos (some news, some not), and now i'm going to play some more balatro and have one last cup of tea and then climb into bed.

the needle

[currently battling a mosquito and losing]

 well, i did sleep last night. i had horrible dreams, though. involving really gross public toilets, amongst other things.

i gave up on reading dragon ball. it's like a pre-teen fever dream. combined with dragon ball: rick & morty i'm now pretty confident i never missed anything important.

our subwoofer situation: i was so excited the past couple of days, because it looked like the subwoofer was finally stable for the first time since we bought it. but today? garbage. i finally bit the bullet and ordered a new one, which will hopefully hook in to the shelf in the same way 🤞

work ownership mystery: i asked my manager to investigate, and he managed to get someone to approve my pull request. but then we learned that they didn't have the authorization to merge, either. a bunch of us (virtually) ran around trying to find out who's in charge, and so far the answer appears to be "nobody".

in the afternoon, my employer team had to sign in to a presentation that went on about an hour longer than it should have. i had to turn my camera off halfway through so nobody would have to keep seeing me rubbing my eyes and yawning.

mr smear had a regression today, and homework turned into a massive, unpleasant thing that got him punished. as part of the cooldown, i took him to the park to use the exercise equipment (i was too pissed off with him to train him, and i'm pretty sure he wasn't in the mood either), and then we continued on to do some sweet shopping.

i'm not doing to well with my weight situation lately. something about war and lockdown and yada yada yada.

dinner (we were forced to order in because my employer doesn't let me use my food allowance to buy vouchers) was much calmer, getting mr smear showered and toothbrushed and into bed proved stressful and stretched our patience completely, and that was on top of two attacks launched in that exact window. and i still had a little more work to do after he went to sleep, so i was even more annoyed.

now i'm playing catch-up and calm-down, as i type this i realize it's already past midnight :/

...

gd's friend (the glassblower who made us massage tools and gifted us with some bitcoin a couple of years ago) has been contemplating suicide for a very long time, and gd's finally reached a point where she can no longer bring herself to keep trying to talk him out of it. she's upset about this, and she wants to be a good friend, and i told her to just make her feelings crystal clear and deal with whatever may come.

you can't help everyone.