mid-day update

 i'm sitting here on the carpet in my little office, back against one of the nice new beanbags that finally (!) arrived this morning, in a state that's a solid mix of coronavirus light-headed dizziness and post-meeting euphoric relief.

our meeting went so much better than i could have anticipated. after i presented my findings, the boss made it clear that he believes the new data to be more accurate than the old data, and that he's happy to overrule the product team's requirements. this means that the bulk of the work i've been wrestling with simply falls away, and what's left is a very small effort for bonus points, and pulling the trigger. the only new thing that came up that needs doing happens to be something i've already built for as part of my investigations, so all-round this has been a massive windfall, a huge stroke of luck for me.

...

gd's really traumatized. she made an effort to wash her toe again this morning, and i just inspected it while she's resting and it seems to me to be looking less angry.

i just chatted with my mom, who i was delighted to discover has actually taken the day off. i hope she's able to have a good rest and recover.

...

right, now for a coffee and another meeting, and then i think i'm going to go for a walk to pick up some replacement watch straps that were just delivered to a courier pick-up point.

sleep journal entry + nerves

most of the night my nose and throat were calm, but i felt like i wasn't getting enough oxygen. i woke up with lower back / hip discomfort in the middle of the night and i had to stretch hard before i could get back to sleep.

gd's in pain and scared, her toe doesn't really look much better than before. it's deeply worrying.

...

i've spent the past hour or so adding functionality to my telephony side-project. i guess i'm distracting myself because i'm nervous about the upcoming meeting i have, in which i present a whole lot of information that i neither fully understand nor care about. i mean, it's not fair to say i don't fully understand it, but from what i've read it's two ways of looking at similar data that give different results, and my take-away is that the whole marketing industry is mostly based on a load of horseshit and hand-waving.

...

in the middle of the night i had a thought: metacognition is the ability or skill that protects someone from being caught up in a cult or modernist ideology

a moment of semi-clarity

 today was psychologically tougher than it was physically. i'm fucking done.

trying to be supportive of gd while protecting her from her own terror almost got me sent to sleep on the couch instead of her (she has to sleep on the couch so she's less likely to injure her toe while she's unconscious).

trying to get mr smear into bed on time was simply impossible; i'm still trying to figure out where the hour and a half went between finishing dinner and saying good night to my mom and actually saying good night to him and having to explain the word c*nt and subsequently learning that he heard it in a video gd showed him 🤦‍♂️

i hope i can sleep tonight. i pray i don't get sicker. as i type this i'm developing a bit of a headache...

...

i finally got the network issues sorted out, hopefully for more than a while (one of our neighbors must have triggered a channel conflict). also, the above facepalm emoji was done with a keyboard shortcut, i finally figured out how to get karabiner to map a "globe" key from my windows keyboard!

i had one (million) job(s)

 while i wait for my token scopes to update, and try to make it clear to my child that it's not advisable to be argumentative with a gorram textbook... (the textbook, in this case, is not wrong)

gd and i took a taxi to the clinic, where we faced off with the unhelpful receptionist, and then tried to negotiate our way in to an early visit with the nurses. we gave that up when we realized that there was only half an hour to go before she could get helped without any favors, so i walked over to the pharmacy to pick up some of her meds.

somebody a few numbers before me had given up and put their ticket on the side of the machine, so i switched the tickets and felt guilty even though i'm pretty sure i wasn't doing anything wrong. irritating, yes, but not wrong.

i managed to get gd's meds, even though she'd given me the wrong prescription. thank $#%! i had a digital copy of the right one accessible.

i picked up a teff pita from the neighborhood bakery, then rejoined gd just as she got called in. the nurse was super-kind and helpful, and even though gd screamed when he tugged off the pad there was very little blood and he bandaged the toe up very gently.

we returned home, and after a quick breakfast i crashed for an hour and a half. i got up, figured out how to request doctor's permission for being sick (it's actually quite a reasonable system), and after two coffees and a bunch of chores dived in to work. or, i would have dived into work if i hadn't run into a whole bunch of networking issues.

i'm deeply regretting the whole networking appliance story right now. i don't know what's changed suddenly, but i think maybe i shouldn't have returned it after all.

i promised my clients a report by this afternoon, but the more i've prepared it the more questions i've found unanswered... i'm still going at it.

at least i'm feeling better (overall). having said that, this is probably just like those other covid times when i've felt like i was getting better and then suddenly it's gotten much worse. my mom's having a really difficult time, too.

sleep journal entry

i spent most of the night coughing and barely able to breathe. i did get a couple of hours' sleep before waking up.

gd's unwrapped her nail and is soaking it, the pad seems to have fused to the wound, though, and isn't coming off :(

i'm now trying to rush mr smear out the door after he did another negative test. and then i have to head to the clinic to get a doctor's permission for my work (first time in my civilian life), and inform my client that i'm sick, and that i was sick yesterday.

and i already sent a message to our old neighbor that we ran into yesterday to inform her as well :(

of ******* course

 

aaaaand it's covid.

more than rough

 firstly, i've been so thoroughly exhausted today as to be dysfunctional. to be honest, i can't tell if this is because i didn't sleep last night, or because i'm just through-and-through sick.

in retrospect, i shouldn't have hugged our old neighbor when we bumped into her at the clinic.

oh gods.

after sending mr smear off to school, i accompanied gd to the clinic. the doctor was very understanding, and we booked an appointment with a surgeon. we went home, had a visit from our upstairs neighbor, who amongst other things informed us that they're going to get started working on building a metro station under our building and we're going to need to replace all the doors and windows for soundproofing.

after breakfast, i crashed for a very short nap and tried to get some work done, but was constantly distracted. some of the distraction was about my previous employer; the lead i felt betrayed by has apparently left the company (though he got some of his options), and someone i served with asked me about an opening so i told him what had happened.

then i was time to accompany gd to the surgeon. aside from his poor bedside manner, he didn't convince us that he understood the problem, nor that his solution made sense, so we thanked him and asked the receptionist for advice. she was very kind, and made gd an appointment with the surgeon i had been *hoping* we were going to see.

i'm going to remember his name this time.

so back home we went, i napped again, and got a little work done before we headed out a third time.

the surgeon immediately knew exactly what was going on - there were two possibilities, with the same treatment - and i advised gd to take his offer and get it taken care of immediately rather than wait for it to continue to fester.

we waited for a while, but he eventually arrived. he was clear in his explanations, and made me feel confident; unfortunately, when it came to the procedure itself things went south. the local anaesthetic did not anaesthetic, and i've never heard gd scream like that before. it was painful and nerve-wracking just going through it holding her hand, so i can't imagine what it was like. except that i would probably have fainted very quickly.

he bound up her toe, and sent us on our way. every step was agony, and only got worse as we proceeded towards the street. fortunately, we managed to order a taxi and jump in very quickly, and the toughest walk was getting her from the parking area to the couch.

in retrospect, i don't know how i managed to get any work done before dinner.

gd didn't manage to keep her dinner down, so that unintentionally accelerated her getting her teeth brushed and ready for bed (or rather the couch, i suspect), and fortunately i came up with the idea of wheeling her around in the office chair, which has made all the difference.

as the afternoon and evening have worn on, my nerves have worn thinner and thinner and my throat and my brain are clamoring for bed and threatening to keep me from sleeping again.

and it looks my mom's not doing so great either, health-wise, but at least she got back to cape town safely.

oh! and just prior to gd's procedure, my boss - my actual employer - called to ask me how i'm doing. i asked how he thinks i'm doing, and suggested that we schedule a sync. i hope i'm not in shit...

sleep journal entry

 i was up all night with a painful post-nasal drip (painful swallowing). no lower back / hip discomfort.

i was expecting today to be rough, but it really didn't need to be this rough.

prophesy

i left later than i should have to pick up the car (of course), and arrived at the address to find no cars, having been explicitly informed by the app that no further instructions were necessary. i tried calling the car sharing service, but their lines were down, and it took a while (and some helpful people) before i happened upon the vehicle and realized that the directions were simply wrong.

i made the pickup, and told waze to get us to the airport, and it gave us all sorts of weird directions that neither my mother nor my son were able to read. so my stress levels were kinda high by the time we finally made it onto the highway going in the right direction. when we finally arrived and parked, the signage led us astray (it's incorrect on shabbat, at least, i'm not sure what happens during the week) and sent us in circles with broken elevators before we finally entered the terminal.

at least from that point things went smoothly, and we had time to be ripped off for coffee and sit down with my mom before her flight. after we saw her to the security checks, we made our way back to the car with only one incident (i didn't realize we could only pay for parking at the exit, and made the mistake of getting out of the car and walking all the way back to the locked up pay machines), and aside from the shock of how expensive an hour or two's parking was the drive home was uneventful (fortunately, because we encountered some really insane drivers on the way home). i dropped mr smear off at home, returned the car, and on my walk home managed to get hold of the service hotline and complain and was offered a voucher as compensation.

this afternoon, after returning from the car ordeal, we watched the starship troopers movie together. i've always loved starship troopers; it's not a perfect movie, but it's a fun action film with some interesting ideas. so i'm embarrassed to admit that it took me this long to finally get around to reading the book.

in addition to what i wrote earlier, it's also surprisingly prophetic, considering that it calls out the kind of irrational 20th century ideology that's infected the west and the movie producers who tried really, really hard to misrepresent, subvert and undermine everything the author was trying to say. that's not an adaptation, it's a deeply disrespectful bastardization. thank god the original ideas hold up so well that so many people didn't "get" the "satire".

we're about to enjoy a late dinner, mr smear and i have showered and taken out the recycling, and my nervous system is bouncing up and down because i keep thinking about tomorrow's tasks.

i guess i'm really grateful for having had a couple of days off, a lot of which felt like actual days off even though i was pretty busy.

a calm before the farewell

my mom and i caught a bus to azrieli, we picked up a couple of things and then moved on to try and meet up with the mongoose. we got off the bus at dizengof center, walked up to the square to pick up a coffee, then walked all the way back to the square to meet up with the mongoose, only to end up having to leave again to meet him on the way back to the square again :P

at least we managed to see the baby and deliver her gift! the catch up was quick, and then we were off to do some last-minute shopping before coming home for the afternoon.

gd wasn't able to go anyway - isn't able to go anywhere, with her toe being so bad - so my mom, mr smear and i walked to an unfamiliar synagogue (relatively) nearby.

at least i wore pants and not shorts? i was hands-down the least appropriately-dressed there, everyone else was in white button shirts. the liturgy and nusach were familiar from my youth, and it was really nice not only to have a shared singing experience but to hear mr smear singing along as well :)

for mr smear, his reaction to the baby right behind us and the woman with tourette's on the other side of the mechitza was (relative, for him) admirable, my mother seemed comfortable enough from her side, and although i did feel like an outsider it was overall a good shul experience.

i'm not sure how gd would handle it, though. she's softened on the sitting separately thing, but i think she'd find following along a bit tough with her own marked siddur (she wouldn't be the only one) and i think the biggest obstacle is how far away it is.

kiddush and dinner were quite late, but both were lovely. even though my mom's been here for two friday nights, this was the only one where it was just us doing it our way, together as opposed to on a video call.

we were all pretty tired last night, but to keep things interesting my mom started getting sick and we have to take her to the airport in less than half an hour... FFS.

and gd's toe is only getting worse...

and mr smear still not 100%...

i just finished reading starship troopers:

"Controversial". I've read some suggestions as to why it may have been called controversial. I'd heard many times before how one of my favorite movies was intended to be satirical, and failed.

I've also served in the military, and am living through a crisis in the west where the people yelling loudest "for" democracy and "against" fascism have no idea that they've succumbed to communist, terrorist propaganda and are, in fact, begging for the opposite.

With that in mind, there's nothing "controversial" being peddled in this book. What is in this book is a phenomenally accurate depiction of military service, warts-and-all, a compelling notion of civic duty, and - barring one technically heavy pre-battle scene - it's a thrilling glimpse into what galactic war could be like.

...

someone proferred the name of the 2D side-scrolling aerial combat video game where you battle waves of enemies and shoot down ducks in between levels that we used to play on the ps3: minisquadron!

sleep journal entry

 the extra coffee was really strong, i was tired but had a lot of trouble actually sleeping for the first few hours. i didn't have trouble with discomfort, though. after getting up, drinking a decaf and reading starship troopers, i napped hard on the couch for most of an hour and just got up to write this down and start being functional.

mr smear had a better night, though he's not quite ready to go back to school (and certainly not be near any newborns). gd woke up with her toe in a lot of pain.

ikea day

 the first two pieces of furniture went smoothly, and didn't take long at all. the third one, i asked - nay, compelled - mr smear to be my assistance. that did make it take considerably longer than it should have, but i wasn't in a hurry and he actually participated and engaged; there were very few aspects of the build he couldn't handle.

but then we got to a part that wasn't machined correctly. fortunately, it was a minor piece of the overall build and we could try a workaround later. but then we encountered a metal bar that didn't fit correctly, which i hammered in to a point where it almost broke, after which the whole build failed and it was impossible to put the pieces together.

this was an expensive piece of furniture, and heavy, and i did not want to return it to the store for customer service. i called their number, and spoke to someone, who assured me that unless ikea workmen were doing the build, returning the item to the store was my only option.

i was upset, we were stuck, and then suddenly i had an epiphany: i deconstructed to before the bar i hammered, and switch two of the two seemingly identical pieces around. and it worked! i'm not pleased that it was so easy to get it so thoroughly wrong, but i was hugely relieved that the build was salvaged without great expense.

once that was done, we decided that my mother and i would head back to the store to look for window blinds, and along the way try to get the poorly-machined part replaced.

getting there by bus was quick and painless, and after our previous visit it became immediately apparent that taking the train had been a mistake, so we didn't do that again. i was pretty tired when we arrived, so we picked up coffees, and i (in retrospect) probably made a bad call choosing a double espresso when i'd already had my three cups for the day...

we started off at the customer service desk, and they were very helpful once they established that our claim was legitimate, in spite of the fact that it's an item i purchased just over three months ago (and never got around to opening until now). we went upstairs to look for blinds, learned that the blinds were downstairs, and entered the lower labyrinth. not only did we manage to quickly find what we were looking for, but we stumbled upon a number of items we'd previously agreed were bonus finds and not worth the side quests.

from there, getting through the cashiers and back to customer service was unusually quick, and although it took a while to get the replacement part extracted from a new item (which enabled us to eavesdrop on the very angry, racist french women yelling in a combination of hebrew and french at each other and the staff) we we out of there in excellent time and boarded the bus home with everything we wanted precisely one and a half hours after disembarking.

mission accomplished!

we got home pretty quickly, completed the build and moved things around and cleaned up. i also got the ball rolling with the landlord about getting the door replaced.

my son is going to be responsible for my aneurysm, or at least for accelerating it dramatically. he just told me unsainted is boring. BORING. not "i don't like it". this is even more disturbing to me than when he called led zeppelin muzak.

i complained to gd, and she was shocked too (and asked me to send her a link, we'll make a slipknot fan of her yet!)

i finally beat slay the spire 2 with the necrobinder against the doormaker just before dinner (they waited a couple of minutes for me), which was really exciting! dinner was nice, and afterwards while mr smear was showering i received a call from the mongoose which was very welcome; we'll try to see him tomorrow and give them something for their little girl :)

mr smear's bedtime was late, but smooth, and i watched a bunch of random shit and played through the plague inc: evolved tutorial. it *is* interesting.

it's half past eleven. i'm hoping i actually managed to sleep tonight. i'm still feeling a bit wired, but i *am* yawning, so... we'll see.

sleep journal entry

 i watched a couple of youtube videos, then played slay the spire 2 until 1.30am (i feel like i might finally on a winning run with the necrobinder, but i'll probably get my ass kicked by a regular monster soon).

between my brief wake up just after 3am and my alarm going off at 6.30am, my hip discomfort returned. the hour and a half i spent trying to get back to sleep was disturbed my son being loudly sick and lower back pain. all-in-all, it wasn't a great night.

i've just had my coffee while reading more starship troopers (it's always an experience reading something that gets the army), gd's just informed me that our balcony door is going to need replacing soon and my stress levels just spiked.

my only real, personal plans today are to build ikea furniture that's been sitting around. or do whatever my mom wants to do, and be sad that she's leaving this weekend already. not only is it great spending time with her, but in spite of the rare friction she really does make our lives easier even when she's just hanging around.

a day off

 according to dr google i'm at risk of developing a stroke because i used a massager on my neck. i'm not sure that's true, but i'm definitely scared off doing that again as the back of my head's been feeling a bit numb since i did it.

...

i got a relatively good night's sleep last night, minus waking up in the middle of the night with my neck / shoulder locking up and needing more than half an hour of work to be able to return to bed, but little-to-no lower back or hip discomfort.

mr smear, however, did not have a good night. he's clearly properly sick, regardless of yesterday's RAT outcome.

the three of us left him home alone as my mother and i dropped gd off at her physio appointment, then walked about florentin looking for blinds. we eventually found a place, but were rather put off by their charging approximately NIS 500 per small window, and double that per door. we have quite a few windows and doors.

as it is, i'm feeling decidedly financially unstable lately...

we met up with gd and went to meshek barzilay for a really nice lunch. speaking of financially unstable :P

we then returned home for a while - disturbing mr smear's full day of screen time - and a bit later my mom and i paid a visit to the library, where i checked out a better (though not pristine) copy of my name is asher lev. we meandered all over the place until catching a bus home, then meandered between the shops to find vegan marshmallows, then returned home for a relaxed evening.

i mean, it was relaxing for my mother and i, for gd and mr smear not so much. him because he's sick, her because in spite of a good physio session her shoulder's been locking up the whole afternoon.

my mother made - and taught gd to make - her pea soup for dinner, which was delicious ^_^

i've just put mr smear to bed, reading between his coughs, and i'm amazed to see it's 11pm already (O_o)

...

aside from contesting my parking fine, and opening an investigation into our bean bag purchase (after holding for half an hour to be told they'll call me back, after more than a week of trying to get hold of them to find out where our bean bags are), and holding for half an hour with social security to be told that i should just ignore the last message i got from them, i've been made very uncomfortable by the idea that there are authors warning other authors not to so much as quote a lyric of a song - even if it's clear that it's a quote - because that's not considered fair use. i cannot believe that's true, but if it's true, then the state of copyright law is even more awful and even less aligned with its spirit than i thought.

...

i saw a couple of disturbing things today: even "educational" tech is interfering with our kids learning, and this guy's quote is heartbreakingly powerful: "do you know how hard you have to abuse a mammal to make them not have children?"

we're in serious shit as a species right now.