almost boring

 it was a bit of a weird weekend. i guess i slept okay, i got the balcony pretty clean yesterday morning, mr smear had a very long and screen time-filled hang out with his friend on his last day in israel, and i managed to make a little progress on my tarot game, though a lot of my time spent on that was understanding that my initial ideas didn't really make as much sense i thought they would, and subsequently thinking very hard about what could and would work.

i've nailed the experience of getting into and out of a "level", and i've understood that i need to figure out the relationships between tarot, astrology and alchemy in order to put something coherent together... and i really didn't have bandwidth for that...

in the evening i took mr smear out for a walk, which was great right up until the last five minutes or so. at that point, he got into fight mode and started pissing me off (the trigger was him being too precious to drink from a water fountain, and asking me to stop and buy something instead), and when we got home he went into a downward spiral from which gd lost her shit.

it got so bad that we agreed he wasn't welcome to eat with us, and the situation wasn't improved by him coming out of the kitchen to tell us he actually quite enjoyed eating alone in there and could he please do it every night 🤦‍♂️

anyway, we had a family meeting after dinner that went late, but very positively.

i've spent this morning uncovering things that need to get done, but not actually doing anything (aside from a little tarot game polishing), and now i'm off to by mr smear a lock for his toolbox (he appears to have thrown away the lock i bought him last year, jesus fuck) and then go to work.

le'chaim

 i spent very little time last night making sense of things, i was very sleepy and went to bed soon after posting. i slept... i guess i slept alright.

the morning got off to a rough start, but then it calmed down, and then i became quite nice. big data paid us a visit, and we played a pretty interesting game of cthulhu fluxx, and a bit later gd and i went to the school to pick up mr smear and take him to dizengoff center to pick up his art supplies.

we bumped into his friend along the way and travelled with him, apparently everything is cool but it sounds like he was taking a break from mr smear over the holidays (when he wasn't drumming with his dad).

the shopping experience went relatively smoothly, we found the toolbox we were looking for along with a gluten-free toaster for gd, and the woman (?) at the art store really helped us get All The Things, and mr smear received a pretty hefty arts school discount which was particularly welcome.

then we came home, i had lunch (the last of the chili), and gd and i went out to pick up wine and snacks, and the rest of the afternoon was me slowly but surely making progress with my tarot game and spec repo projects.

mr smear and i just got back from shul, and i'm still stunned by the fact that next week is rosh hashana already (O_o)

i'm enjoying an arak and mr smear's testing out a new minecraft skin he made, while gd finishes preparing another sushi dinner (we're feeling pretty spoiled).

good shabbes.

cleaning the filters

 i slept like shit last night, but at least i woke up without the headache. and gd got her shit, so that's okay.

it was a long day, beginning with me leaving the apartment with mr smear and going to the clinic, only to discover that i didn't actually have an acupuncture appointment today. i took care of a bunch of admin and chores when i returned home, then dived into the troubleshooting session that i walked out of the office on yesterday, which i resolved at roughly the same time that a guy came to clean our air conditioner and vents.

oh! and i spoke to one of the async game jam guys for half an hour today, mainly encouraging him and assuring him that there are no rules or guidelines regarding which tech we use :)

the cleaner was very respectful, and didn't make a lot of mess, but it still demanded a lot of running after him and then cleaning up once he left. he did a great job, but there's mold in the tubes and he explained to us that it'll cost us more to clean them than to replace them...

so that's a fight for another day, at least i know how to take care of the superficial cleaning myself now and harassing the landlord about the tubes is for later.

poor guy (our landlord) is currently dealing with his father developing dementia, so definitely not today.

the rest of the work day was spent onboarding / setting up my dev env for my new client, which was mostly successful by the time i called it a day and headed out to the school for the parents' evening.

i walked into the school with firefighter and his wife, who were very interested in my mom's aliyah story. i mentioned it to her when we spoke a bit later, and now i'm concerned that she's not moving on it...

the arts track for the sixth graders just got serious, and their program sounds amazing. i was stressed about not having known about the arts stream whatsapp group - were we supposed to have joined it last year? - but then i learned i wasn't the only parent worried and that we were only supposed to find out about it today :P

the class meeting was a bit awkward, but peak awkward was the crazy mom yelling and putting on a show because she's - apparently - the only parent who doesn't want there to be a class whatsapp group with the teacher 🙄

there was a big deal made about which parents would be on the class council this year, and i think everyone was rooting for the teacher who was using every trick in the book to prevent the crazy mom from being on it. i really didn't want to volunteer, but in retrospect i think i should have.

it was already 9pm by the time we walked out the classroom, and i felt awkward, so i walked straight out and took the light rail and bus home, said good night to mr smear, ate and then spat out some leftovers that i think were bad, had a whole other bowl of chili (just like i did at lunchtime), didn't join big data for a game of fluxx (it was too late by then), showered, and am now drinking a cup of tea and writing this before i spend a little time trying to make sense of the world before going to bed.

undo not disturb

gd's phone tends to beep all night, which disturbs me but not her. so a few days ago i set up do not disturb on her phone, with exceptions for when anyone calls more than once during a short period.

i noticed that this didn't really stop the notifications, but whatever. tonight, though, it made big drama - gd was waiting for a delivery of something, and her phone never rang. it's clear from the suppressed notifications that it *should* have rung.

fucking samsung.

so now she's pissed, but also terrified that she'll be blacklisted for putting a delivery person through this :(

...

i wasn't sleeping well, but now i'm not sleeping at all. and my head's still aching.

stuffed brain

 fortunately, i didn't regret that last coffee, but not because i was able to go rollerblading... i wasn't. i was so tired even after the coffee that i just showered, and then minesweepered myself to sleep. i somehow ended up sleeping alright.

this morning went alright, although gd was very angry with mr smear for not leaving his books and equipment in his locker yesterday, which meant that he left this morning with the same heavy bag on his back plus another heavy bag for today 🙄

...

i wrote the above, then got distracted - mr smear called me when he got to school, he was unable to get his combination lock open and i almost lost my voice; initially, yelling at him to go somewhere quieter so that he could hear me. then, because he couldn't follow basic english instructions and spent more time complaining about how bad the design of the locks is instead of applying himself to understanding what the term "full turn" means.

by the end, i got him through it, but while gd was laughing hysterically as his reflection of her behavior, i was thinking that i'm pretty sure i'm not going to be drowned in college fees after he's old enough to leave the nest...

i started the day at my employer's offices, where my mentor ran a workshop in responding to CFPs. it was pretty interesting, and i guess my homework is to record the auto-doc presentation i promised to re-record a few weeks ago so that i can put it online and use as an application sample.

i went straight to my client's offices, arriving just in time to meet some more of my team and enjoy a catered lunch. not as good as yesterday's, but still pretty good.

over the course of the afternoon i made progress with my onboarding, almost fell asleep during a particularly droning talk during an employer group tech circle while sitting in the heat of a balcony because none of the booths were available on any of the four floors i checked, tried hard to be helpful when a not-so-bright guy i used to work with at my previous client contacted me for assistance doing something i've specifically warned them isn't necessary and isn't a good idea, sat in on a meeting where someone explained prompt caching in a way that actually made sense, and then left the office feeling tired.

like, am i sick? or just tired? i don't even know. i might be sick.

on a related note, gd's having lots of asthma attacks and she's convinced we have mold in the air conditioner. this is now the third week in a row i've asked the landlord to do something about it, i guess if he doesn't soon we're going to have issues :/

i dropped off my bag when i got home and took mr smear for a walk through the park, stopping to draw money twice (the ATM didn't give me any money, i really hope there was a proper error and that i didn't just get taken), and then we returned home for a delicious chili dinner and a great episode of the wonder years.

i've got a ton of stuff to do, but my brain is fried.

the first day of fall

 things that upset me in the middle of the night: looking at my phone's notifications, and then finding myself scrolling on instagram, and coming across these two self-hating jews discussing the ugliness of a rigged system that is everything anti-capitalists claim capitalism is: the opposite of a free market.

...

i'm regretting taking a puff before bed last night, partially because i'm feeling totally exhausted right now and it's almost 8pm and i'm drinking a fourth cup of coffee in order to be able to go rollerblading, partially because i passed in and out of conciousness earlier while listening to my new client's all-hands and i realized at some point that i'm not breathing with my whole lungs and when i do, it feels... smoky. like, tight and sticky.

i hope i don't regret this coffee.

mr smear surprised us by getting up and being ready on time for school, and then away he went. i took care of a bunch of first-of-the-month admin, and then suddenly it was time to go to work.

overall, i'm really impressed. the offices feel good, everyone i met seems relaxed and organized, even though they all described the work as anything but. during my first daily with the team mr smear called me, twice, while i was introducing myself - turned out he was worried that he couldn't find his meds, when he finished taking them yesterday already 🙄

i spent most of my day setting up my new machine and accounts and beginning the onboarding process, and talking to people, and i was *really* surprised to learn that my client offers catered lunches that include vegan options that are pretty darned good.

in the all-hands, i was literally amazed to hear them discussion employee retention and training, and making their approach very clear, and their approach is stellar. to go from a company continually laying off good workers to one making a point of developing theirs is quite a relief!

i guess mr smear and i shouldn't have eaten when i got home, because we also ate at dinner time and we both stuffed ourselves on gd's sushi while watching an episode of the simpsons that irritated me because its premise revolved around everyone in town being a total moron.

yes, yes, i know.

anyway, here we are. mr smear apparently had a great day at school, i'm going to at least try to go rollerblading tonight, and gd seems to be doing alright herself, so... 🤷‍♂️

the calling

t'was a strange day.

the guy who was at the same client with me asked me if i was coming to the office, he meant my now ex-client's office :P

i spoke to the sales guy, after about ten minutes the conversation went in a way i didn't know how to end, eventually i just kind of extended my hand for a handshake and then fucked off.

i'm convinced the awkward guy from the game meetup is autistic, because i spoke to him today and when we were done talking, he just stared at me for far too long until i unintentionally continued the conversation, and then we had another long silence before i said "cool" in a way that finally made him go "i should get back to work"...

but they're interesting conversations, and i'm learning a lot from him, so i guess if that's the price i have to pay 🤷‍♂️

i spoke to my boss, who was cool about my work and my contributions to his project, which was cool.

i had lunch with a new guy and an old guy, and we had a really long and interesting argument about team management that ended with "it's hard to argue when everyone's right".

i had a talk with our insurance broker, we managed to reduce my payments by a little and i hope not in a way that'll end up hurting us.

i got some work done on my auto-doc project, and at the same time on my tarot game, though the latter took on/off work until just a few minutes ago to finally get right, and i'm still not quite sure what the problem was. regardless, every small achievement makes me feel like i'm finding my calling in life.

am i missing anything up until this point? i don't think i am.

i went past osher ad on the way home, and picked up a cheap set of pots, and then walked a ways to run to get on a crowded bus to get home, drop off my stuff, and walk to the clinic for my first feldenkrais session. it was a bit weird, not least because my right shoulder started hurting intensely while she was working on my left, and we weren't able to trigger it again.

i'm not quite sure how i feel about this stuff just yet, but it's intriguing.

on my way into the treatment / examination, i received a message from my new client informing me that they expect me in the office tomorrow. cool.

mr smear was quite annoying this evening, but overall we had a good one. we watched the third episode of fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood and ate a huge dinner, and mr smear got into bed not unreasonably late. between sessions of arguing with the ai about my game, i watched fascinating videos about falling down and watchmen, the former being compelling and the latter completely blowing my mind, especially in light of me having just re-read it.

it's late. i'm going to try to get some sleep now.

...

another mashup the world needs: she's got the look / hold on to my fur. i can't help but hear similarities both in the non-chorus versus and in the "na na na na na" "nya nya nya nya nya nya" 😁

false start

yesterday was NOT the big day i was anticipating! it was a super weird day, to be honest. when i finally got up (i originally woke up feeling totally broken, so i slept on the couch for a while), i discovered that my new client had sent me a message the night before informing me that i wouldn't be able to go into the office.

later i learned that this is because they forgot to send me an NDA in time. so now that everyone's signed off on it, apparently i'll be able to go into the client's office tomorrow. maybe.

in the meanwhile, i submitted my spec repo article to my employer's publication and sent the whole company an email, realizing immediately after the window to "undo" the send that the subject of the email made it seem like i was challenging the project our boss has been championing... oops.

that set the ball in motion for two things: first, establishing that i'd be spending my work day trying to get on board with the boss's project, and second, that i would go into our office to try and catch the boss for a face-to-face to assure him that my project supports his rather than undermines it.

i jumped on a bus, listening to transformed - it's got a lot to offer, but i think i'd have benefitted just as much from skimming one of the many product operating model web pages - and eventually arrived at the office to find it empty and locked.

fuck.

so i immediately caught another bus home, and said goodbye to that hour and a half of my life.

i spent the afternoon jumping between the boss's project and mr smear's horror game, eventually getting ahead with both, and then took mr smear to the supermarket to try and spend as much of my lunch allowance as possible before it resets at the end of the month.

otherwise, we opened cthulhu fluxx and enjoyed a fun game before dinner, we watched the second episode of fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood, and the rest of the evening was quite boring. we all went to bed relatively early, although mr smear didn't actually fall asleep until something like 1am.

i woke up this morning after a relatively good night's sleep, looked out into a world that didn't make sense - it was cloudy and rainy in tel aviv on this last day of august - was reminded by gd that i have a kindle (i had to explain squatting to mr smear so that i could call him a squatter) and read some more of stranger in a strange land, and was very excited to receive vocal support for my spec repo initiative from my boss and for them to have accepted my article into our publication.

now i've explained to mr smear that today is get-ready-for-the-first-day-of-school day, and i'm about to have breakfast, and then head to our office to see what the day brings.

just the good stuff

 it's been an hour or two and i have no idea why i'm not sleeping, so... here i am 🤷‍♂️

...

on friday night, we watched the first wallace & gromit, which was great, but gd and i were both falling asleep by the end of it. we all went to bed, and i slept well.

after starting my morning on the balcony - having cleaned a whole lot of bird droppings and re-sprayed the bird repellent, and then being harassed by a bumblebee - i then moved to my office and finished writing up my article about my new spec repo.

that felt good.

...

i then spent the next few hours working on my tarot game, which involved website scraping, establishing the rules for the basic game, and implementing a deck being shuffled and dropped in to the game, which worked out *really* well! i mean, like, so well that i got high fives from both gd and mr smear, and not just myself :D

in addition to that, mr smear joined me and we worked on his game for a while, figuring out the design needed to do the first real experiment of "is it fun?" while he regaled me with descriptions of the enemies he's invented. which, by the way, are genuinely disturbing and make me continue to question whether i should be assisting him with this or not...

by the time we got the design worked out, and my initial experience implemented, we were down to 1% of the five-hour window's tokens remaining!

...

we strapped on our blades, a little worried about the weather app warning that it apparently felt like 36℃ degrees outside, and went out for a while. as we headed out i warned mr smear not to whine about how far we were going to go or about going home, and to his credit he didn't - we went all the way to the park lake, and he was great! he did excellently, we had a good time there and back, i managed to get him to drink from a water fountain without too much drama, and when some kids kicked a soccer ball right into his path and he fell, he landed really well. score!

...

after getting home and showering, we re-watched the first episode of fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood over dinner, then received a package from our upstairs friends who had just returned home: cthulhu fluxx and star fluxx! i'm very much looking forward to playing them ^_^

...

i got into judge dredd comics when i was a kid - my first tattoo was inspired by the world of megacity one, and chopper in particular - and when i saw the stallone movie i was at the same time overjoyed to see so much of the world brought to life, and upset that dredd removed his helmet and rico wasn't rico. i've been carrying that with me for over three decades now (say what?!), but this week i decided that it's time to put my big-boy pants on and introduce my son to the franchise via the movie and then let him discover the magic of the comics if he wants to.

we watched the first half of the movie tonight. mr smear is definitely enjoying it, and i let go of the minor grievances and enjoyed it far more than i did in the theatre :)

...

i really hope i can get back to sleep soon, today's a big day!