i smell a rat

our little poop bomb goes off every hour or two (and i've now experienced the joys of repeatedly cleaning him alone in the middle of the night) while screaming for food and contact. the problem is that you can't leave him stewing in his juices for very long, but there's no indicator that lets you know if he's actually done or if you're about to waste another diaper. have i said that already? we have cloth diapers, but they're too large for him right now and we haven't learned how to handle them yet...

this morning i stared for a while in amazement at my wife being milked by an electric breast pump.

i really can't wait for him to learn to speak. i certainly feel like i'm getting the full infant experience, from the ultra-exhaustion and the frustrations to the joys of seeing and feeling him relaxed on my chest to the panic every time he squeaks or coughs...

---monday:

a relaxed morning but overload aggressive by the afternoon trying to fix gd's android again and figure out how the breast pump works.

according to the quebec government agent i spoke to, uploading and emailing are illegal forms of communication but taking a photo of a document, correcting it, emailing it, printing it and then handing it over to a third party for delivery are totally legit. amusingly, they only operate on digitized documents so they can't process what we've sent until someone has scanned and uploaded it on their end.

shopping mission, then baby care until late.

yesterday:

lone ranger from half past midnight to 2.somethingam handling being pooped on during a change and a long, incomprehensible howling

waking early for a shitty morning that a walk couldn't fix. finally sorting out gd's maternity payments. mom's lunch, some project work and accompanying gd to acupuncture which basically entailed starbucks coffee and treasure island.

a good dinner and an evening brought short by a combination of the morning's continuation and mr smear's now regular campaign to make nights tougher than days

today:

drawing the 2am shift, an hour and a half of feeding and changing diapers and worrying about the small rodent or giant roach that scrambled when i entered the kitchen that rammed itself loudly enough into the underside of our stove that i can be sure it wasn't merely imagined

waking up early to speak to israeli social insurance and learn - clearly, for the first time - that applying to deregister as a resident will not affect my citizenship in any way. should have done this almost three years ago...

lactation consultation

yesterday:

a day full of poop, a long, hot, frustrating shopping walk, not getting much rest, sterilizing equipment and learning too late that i'd bought the wrong tubing*, a visit from horseman, dinner and junk food and rls

this morning so far:

1am feeding waking up feeling horrible for the third day in a row

4/5am waking up to gd's feeding frustrations and desperately researching latch issues with medela nipples: i finally came across http://thebreastfeedingmother.blogspot.ca/2012/07/the-trouble-with-calma-and-quest-for.html and it's now abundantly clear that all of these companies are a bunch of liars taking advantage of parents with no solid resources**. the lactation consultant's "shangri-la nipple" (as gd put it) doesn't seem to be available anywhere, either.

fortunately, gd's brother bought us the playtex one recommended by the article and the medela bottles won't be a waste because we need them for pumping...

* hating medela so much right now

** and actually managing to hate them even more

relentless

monday:

the unbearable heat.

another mostly peaceful night, almost-but-not ruined by my inappropriate tonality. jumping out of bed to pick up correctly sized diapers (whoops!) and breakfast (receiving compliments for airplane's shirt) before settling down to manage the tax office, health insurance and parental insurance. rushing out at lunchtime to print documents and return in time for a circumcision follow-up. walking past a stupid girl smoking in the entrance to the mall: "what do you want?! i'm outside!"
yes, but you're standing in the entrance and forcing everyone to walk through your clouds of smoke.

a long wait for a quick visit, hunger distress before we could leave leading to gd's first public feeding, post office mission followed by restless stress followed by an urgent food mission

an evening of lactation stress and potential post-partum depression and guilt and difficult bottle feeds and a taste of jericho

tuesday:

the even less bearable heat.

(perceived) 2am feed failure meltdown
a good morning and a late sleep, struggling to select formula powder (hint: don't use powder for at least the first six months, there's a high risk of contamination)

breastfeeding consulting: gd's doing okay, but we have some adjustments to make. our boy's not in trouble, but neither is he eating as much as he should be. this is surprisingly complicated stuff :(

a hungry baby with a dirty diaper and two taxis in a row whose UAS did't work correctly - it appears that the drivers modified their seats.

babies r us / purolator delivery fail: the second fail when we (thought we) needed the item the most.

feeding (all three of us) and resting and then the awful sensation of having to wake him up and then the worse sensation of waking up gd because i was feeding him wrong which turned into some deep unpleasantness

wednesday:

babies are remarkably inefficient. he keeps pooping right after we change his diaper or falling asleep on gd's breast or just as soon as his bottle's finally ready.

a horrific bout of rls that left me *trying* to sleep for four hours when i really needed to actually be sleeping...

another good morning, mr smear living up to his "poop grenade" onesie, a little bit of project progress, off to borrow an industrial (hospital-quality) breast pump

i made the mistake of walking through the perfume section at the bay. the assault on my nostrils was painful, and it never ceases to amaze me that women will actually pay to smell this bad. i can smell the faeces... can't anyone else?

subway run and arriving home to learn we had a surprise frenectomy surgery planned, would've been enough time for a power nap if rls and back spasms hadn't hit me

the procedure was definitely harder for us than for mr smear, he was bothered by the fingers in his mouth but we could see the scissors

a relentless evening of diaper change after feeding ad nauseum (he did spit up at one stage) with plenty of screaming in between (and a garbage day run, and no dinner), finally calming down when we'd had enough and started some raging of our own.

guilt is a fabulous way to get some rest, apparently.

thursday:

a better night with only one frustrating feeding, dreaming of:
my dog tells me we need to get to "happy place", and we go hunting through the suburb. it begins to rain, and we stumble across a house that appears to have been converted into a sleep lab only the lights are all off and the bodies on the beds lie at strange angles and seem distressed. someone exits the control room and attacks us, chasing us through a garden until we meet at a pool where we wrestle and i'm forced to crush his throat with all my power if i want to survive.

waking up to gd struggling to get the k'tan configured and learning that mr smear's too small for it
a calmer morning with some perspective and mr smear enjoying the cranberries with me

QPIP fails: gd's ROE's edge wasn't scanned correctly so even if it's obvious what the data is we need to rescan and send. this would be fine if the accountant would actually scan the original properly instead of send a scan of a bad print. just as i was losing my temper with that stupidity i received an email update informing me that i needed to resubmit my documents because one of my scans is unreadable (i looked at it again, it's absolutely clear) and because their questionnaire is so badly written i had to have an agent walk me through each question...

an afternoon that included a nap, fixing gd's stupid galaxy s4* and cleaning and feeding. if only mr smear had little bars indicating his hunger level and the amount of time remaining until the next poop drop we'd be way better at managing all this.

* and losing all her client contacts permanently. android is stupid, here's how to not repeat my mistake.

suddenly, 9pm feels like 1am.

friday:

finally, cooler weather and open windows.

and waking up to screaming after having missed a feeding alarm, a perpetual shitting machine and failing to feed

a painful 7am, he's started reacting badly to the formula. otherwise, sitting in the bed having coffee while listening to ac/dc and k's choice with mr smear lying next to me was awesome.

lessons in android shittiness (see above), a doctor visit and almost falling over from exhaustion. a rushed stop for lunch, a visit to the breastfeeding expert (our little poop grenade went off in her hands), a twenty-five minute wait for a taxi driver who then threatened to throw us out when we complained, a visit to the pharmacy for a little bureaucratic runaround, returning to a broken front door and a screaming baby after an hour of feeding who finally relaxed either on me or between my legs with me tapping on his feet along to jamiroquai and trying not to pass out myself in order to give gd a break... i didn't realize he was starving until afterwards because he wasn't making the mouth motions and was actively refusing the formula, but after he woke up he breathed in 140ml like it was nothing and i felt really bad. one of our neighbours popped in from upstairs to discuss our broken shared entrance door and we learned that the problem is really only one of them; we advised her and her ally to put their feet down or kick her out before we all pay for it.

yesterday:

gd's quote for the day: "we're like a ren and stimpy version of the addams family"

getting up at 4am feeling sick, cancelling my laser session and feeling blissful relief when my mother finally arrived.

definite sabbath vibe on my way to mail documents, awkwardly entertaining weird acquaintances of gd's, home improvement adventure, a couple of hours in granny-care feeling like a vacation but not actually sleeping because of my rls

a pharmacy visit via a crazy-beautiful dusk, sudden exhaustion, a solid dinner, just enough time for a shower before the night excitement began

projectile vomit soon after my mom left, just because nights have to be more interesting. a long hour or two sorting him out, then finally crashing.

today:

one not-so-bad midnight feed, then sleeping late while gd let her inspiration take her, feeding to foo fighters and getting sunday rolling.

safely backing up a samsung galaxy s4

1. use kies3, not helium! the internets seem to think that the latter is a good option, and i think the internets are a bunch of elitist masochists.

2. kies3 has a contacts option for backup, but if you read it carefully it explains that it won't actually backup any kind of contact data that you might be interested in keeping. the only way to safely backup contacts is using your google account, and there's a good chance that your contacts aren't configured as google contacts in which case you WILL lose them permanently when you perform a factory reset or upgrade your phone.

a) always save contacts as google contacts. why there are any other options or why the google option isn't the default is an absolute mystery to me.

b) if your contacts aren't already google contacts, you have to convert them. there's the way to manage importing, though it seems a bit round-about. you might want to try playing with the menu options for contacts. there should be a move device contacts to option but you might have to go settings->contacts and use the import/export contacts option to import from your SIM or device to your google account.

it's probably a good idea to change contacts to display your google account contacts only.

fun stuff

it's hard to keep track of what day it is, but at least i can still tag things i find interesting.

should *you* go solar?

a hands-free umbrella!

an hysterically on-point portrayal of dumbledore's shortcomings.

robot battles? my money's on japan.

a book to put him to sleep quickly? we're investing.

"soylent is poison" is not good marketing, guys. as exciting as soylent is, it's intended to replace all our meals. if they're sourcing ingredients with high levels of lead and cadmium, that's a serious bug.

maybe tablets weren't the best option for the ten commandments.

shade balls? amaze-balls. but if you wanted to deal with the water shortage, how about promoting plant-based diets? i'm mesmerized by how much difference that appears to be making. [although looking at the relevant wikipedia article, i'm left a little confused. feel free to help clarify.]

routinely unpredictable

the learning curve for parenting is pretty damned steep, let me tell you. there's not much like the joy and relief of holding your son's relaxed little body against your chest after hours of drama. just as there's not much like that moment where you're holding your child and a bottle at just the wrong angle and he begins choking, or the one where he's been screaming for a while and you haven't yet put together your little checklist of things that he could be screaming about. there're twelve of them, apparently.

i've been through some difficult moments in my life, but holding my son's tiny hands during the performance of his brit milah was absolutely the toughest. we're proud and pleased and relieved that it's done, and that the doctor who did it was professional, and i now strongly believe that the trauma resulting from the aftercare of a circumcision is more on the side of the parents than the child. on a related note, i'm very glad that the reform movement recognizes paternal lineage in determining my son's status as a jew.

tuesday:

highly informative nurse visit, beginning to tidy but getting sidetracked by an emergency shave as gd's friend arrived for a ten minute visit, trying to sort out my mother's email (mtn, your website security negligence is criminal), cleaning and bathing with sore backs, becoming very stressed about our landlord and neighbours, a walk to the pharmacy, distinctly not napping as planned, half eaten microwave dinners and feedings and changings and short sleepings and then waking up in a sweat with no baby laundry for more changings and feedings and changings

wednesday:

a horrible, horrible night, hours failing to feed, finally falling asleep and waking up quite late feeling pretty good, some positive bureaucratic experiences and a pharmacy mission with my mom that included a surprisingly decent vegan red velvet alternative
a chilled afternoon involving some more Getting Stuff Done (including a fair amount of paperwork filing)

meeting the landlord and negotiating badly

breastfeeding is really, really hard. gd was lucky enough to begin milk production quickly, but latching is still a painful issue and so we're still supplementing with formula. formula is dairy and so not good at all. gd's also exhausted and in pain, but until she's been feeding for a while her production won't increase sufficiently and the pain won't die down. to make matters worse, worrying that she's not feeding him enough also decreases production. thoroughly encouraging :/

learning late about tongue tied babies and the simple procedure available that could've been diagnosed and explained at the hospital. [although we've been informed since that it should only be performed if necessary]

we've taken to calling our son "mr smear" because he's developed the amusing habit of dribbling formula and rubbing it all over himself before we can stop him... cup feeding has become practically impossible as he has developed a habit of gripping and flipping anything close to his mouth.

thursday:

2am getting up and trying to wake and feed him and panicking because i thought he was experiencing breathing difficulties; after struggling for a while gd woke up to his cries to point out that he was in need of a diaper change :$

waking everyone from a good sleep for two hours of struggle and dirty diapers and emergency laundry, all for twenty minutes of feeding and for mr smear to refuse the formula when we got desperate (another whole bottle of similac literally tossed down the drain. i abhor the stuff, and it would only be the next day when we would learn that we'd been given inaccurate (wasteful) information about it at the hospital). this is a shout-out to new parents everywhere, especially women recovering from c-section who need to deal with severe discomfort and scary wounds at the same time.

overall, a better night. waking up to mr smear catching us with a poop surprise while we were already changing him (this has become somewhat of a theme, it's certainly preferable to him relieving himself right after we've put on a new diaper)

not enough sleep, but quality sleep nonetheless. a pleasant wakeup, leaving mr smear with my mom to go to the clsc to get gd's staples removed, learning while there that we'd gone to the wrong place.

passing out just before the nurse arrived, then wasting another formula bottle trying to calm the incessant screaming before simply holding him skin to skin. finally, to our surprise and relief, being informed that he's putting on weight at a good pace. the nurse tried to assist gd with latching but unfortunately made things worse, followed up with some calming advice and then sent me off to pick up a nipple shield.

a rather rough afternoon requiring mom's assistance during which both gd and i broke down in various degrees; it has been made quite clear to me that my aspie "features" have rendered me intolerable. i've been wearing myself out in an effort to support gd both emotionally and practically over the course of the past nine months and i was feeling decidedly misunderstood and unappreciated [though things are feeling considerably better after the past couple of days]

being impressed by outlook.com's features almost as much as by windows 10 having rescued my laptop.

preparing mentally for my son's circumcision in the morning.

friday:

having it all out - calmly and quietly - at 2am after almost an hour of feeding prep; nipple shield success after an age of trying to wake him (we just had to turn the main lights on), then a small formula victory followed by a big breast pump / nipple simulator bottle. technology. every woman planning on breastfeeding should be handed a medela nipple shield and their harmony kit. our post-feed pre-sleep snack felt like a celebration.

up early, dressing nicely, arriving on time in a crowded clinic filled with old equipment and a wide range of humanity, emotional prayers catching in my throat, suppressing the "you're not the doctor i was expecting" fear because he was professional and efficient

coming back home to a slip for a failed delivery* and awesome pizza and a nap to celebrate

* the reason we wanted the item delivered was because the store is too far away. we were informed that the delivery would be during the next week, and when they missed us they asked us to retrieve it from a station that was just as far away as the original store. i called them seething in anger and disbelief, and fortunately the service agent i spoke to saw his way to scheduling the item to be delivered again.

a couple of shopping runs and then an evening and morning of serious difficulties. our first candle lighting as a family.

yesterday:

the first twenty four hours after the circumcision were a nightmare of inconsolable discomfort and insatiable hunger, only we're not sure what the source of the discomfort actually was and suspect that it might have been the over-protective swaddling. after an emotional explosion when gd was unable to easily remove the gauze from his penis in the third attempt, we all jumped into a taxi and headed to the clinic's significantly posher rooms at decarie square where they reassured us that their services were worth paying for. we headed straight back home (well, there was a long and uncomfortable wait for the taxi), then an evening of preparing to complete the parental insurance documentation that got sidelined by dinner and feeding and burping. gd and i, over the changing table while our son sprayed crap on her and soaked my hand in urine, had an important conversation about my parental incompetence and the impracticality of ocd and perfectionism in new parents. taking care of a feeding and everyone getting a solid five hours' sleep which was exquisite.

today:

a remarkably relaxed day, although mr smear was furiously hungrier than anyone expected. my mom and i enjoyed a pleasant shopping outing and she let gd and me sleep a solid couple of hours before taking her leave. we had some difficulty afterwards with feeding and changing, but i've had him by my side since giving him his last bottle of formula a couple of hours ago and he's been pretty calm while i've been working on my project. i suspect i should be going to bed now, it's getting towards 3am on a monday morning and i have some serious business to attend to...

a whole new life

how do i begin expressing that everything everyone says about parenthood is true, even though in such utterly different ways than described? words fail where biological imperatives catch hard. maybe i'll find time to discuss the details some day.

last sunday (T-4):

baby room ready, pictures hung, p.m. dinner mission, good project work, raging against pinching nerves

last monday (T-3):

coffee and database design, early morning document hunting with some success

a long day in the office, mostly spent in meetings making sure nobody screws anything up; "if you want something done right" is an unfortunate truism when there are limited number of hours in the day

monty python fluxx is the best fluxx. and exploding kittens is brilliant!

discovering jim norton: contextually inadequate and a bit of american degenerate

last tuesday (T-2):

struggling out of bed to arrange the circumcision and try to get other stuff done while reassuring gd at the same time (not so successfully)

getting good work done and a much clearer picture of the system
a good run but only having energy for half of it...
having to resync with my manager after disappointing him with my apparent "general disdain"

big circumcision questions with no right answers, historical circumcision is a lot less off the top

shopping, dinner, sherlock, having to step in to defend gd from an old "enlightened" friend who'd turned mega-creep, circumcision freak out and heavy research

wednesday (T-1):

feeling shitty waking up, chatting with my sister and my mom, managing to pay taxes over the phone, getting emotional over mike's post about nightlight

it's highly motivating promising my managers that there'll be something to present at the end of a sprint and delivering something more elegant and more powerful than they ever expected. i sat down on the last remaining part's design for a bit and then hammered out an implementation i'm proud of, then documented everything as extensively and redundantly as i could in the hope that nobody will mess it up while i'm away.

the sheer, giddy insanity of leaving the office and being officially on paternity leave; the raw excitement of expecting our son to be in my arms in less than twelve hours, laughing at my mom posting enthusiastically on facebook

thursday (THE DAY):

a long, unhappy morning with a terrified gd
freaking cold and exhausted and waiting for a long time
separation for preparation and panicking that they'd only call me after the procedure, but entering the operating room just in time to say hi to my mind-bogglingly beautiful baby and hold his mom's hand and cut the umbilical cord and escort him back to the recovery room and hold him skin-to-skin forever until gd arrived and she got the latching thing going and after another forever being moved to our room and getting settled and suffering minor separation anxiety while out getting myself lunch which was the only real food i would eat all day and getting through to the evening with him being ultra-zen and after a severe miscommunication with my mom leaving for the airport after she'd already picked up her baggage with a taxi driver who didn't know english but we managed in my broken french in spite of the fact that i was so tired i couldn't think in any language and picked up my mom and took her to godmother's where i had a bagel and a horrible experience trying to organize emergency food for gd in ndg at 11pm then struggling to find a taxi to return to the hospital to a hungry gd and a hungry child that we'd underfed

friday:

because until 2am nobody had bothered to explain feeding schedules to us and all that was discovered because he was having trouble breathing and although that stress was overcome fairly quickly time wise it felt like ages as both gd and i were perpetually on the edge of collapse and eventually when he calmed down we tried to sleep but the other newborn in our room wouldn't stop squealing and screaming until morning so we kept jumping up to check on ours...

i haven't been tired to the point of hallucination in a long time and knowing that you're making stupid decisions while you're making them when it's your child who needs you is overwhelmingly distressing. the relief i felt when gd finally breastfed him successfully after two turns cup feeding made me cry like our baby hasn't because he's so freakishly strong and relaxed

showering, picking up granny, our first hour and a half of actual sleep, relaxing until 9pm emergency mommy feeding with no solution failed subway followed by a medication mess and almost discharging ourselves early

saturday:

but sleeping eventually which was much easier with nobody sharing the room and with a couple of cup feedings the first of which i was way too tired for and then a much better morning with gd walking around and my sleeping on the bed and her brother and a friend visiting along with my mom and sorting out an acceptable lunch and lots of feeding and loving and registration and then a sudden breakdown due to bad beds and trying to leave earlier and a question of identifying fleas / bedbugs / gnats / just dry skin while rushing home with a giant, fluffy frog to shower and return with the car seat and there's nothing like trying to read an instruction manual for installing and operating a car seat when your wife needs to get home as soon as possible but although it took a while the experience of setting it up in the taxi was surprisingly simple and coming home was an incredible change eating well for the first time in days

sunday:

not knowing why he's crying is tough stuff to deal with, granny time is more mommy-and-daddy-sleep-like-a-baby time, and after three nights as a parent who's blessed *knocks wood* with a peaceful, healthy child my disgust at women not getting paid maternity leave has turned to rage: we don't live in villages anymore, learning baby steps is hard, hard work and god help you if you don't have helpful people available. suddenly overheating inexplicably (just like his dad?) and gd's recovery complications (allergic reaction to bandaging glue) and an argument exacerbated by an upstairs neighbour antagonizing us

yesterday:

trouble waking up in the middle of the night, early morning formula feeding and him making it clearer and clearer that he needs the real thing
the surrealistic experience of registering my son's birth and the bureaucratically stupid details of putting in for paternal leave
from sofa negligence to misreading bedsprings to getting some quality sleep in and figuring out how to double-team him while we're both half-asleep

this morning:

sleeping, feeding and installing windows 10 at 5am (more time spent protecting my privacy than installing)

sunday afternoon

this evening's feeling is brought to you by high tone - watching you

i have been absolutely exhausted since before i woke up this morning, but if gd's up early then i'm up early. last night's late night painting and furniture construction session didn't help much either.
i started the day with the installation of the smila sol. now, i don't always shop at ikea, but when i do i expect the installation to be simple enough that a child could have fun doing it. there should be a warning for any item that requires an understanding of electrical wiring, an able-bodied partner, two tall, stable ladders and a flashlight.

after a little more painting (hopefully the last of it) i crashed for a few hours which i desperately needed. i've just put together the last of the furniture, and gd's made coffee, and we've got high tone in the background and i guess i'm ready to see what i can get done in the next few hours.

there's a LOT to do.

---i just saw an inspirational video about spinal cord technology - in spite of all the awful shit that's going on in this crazy world today, we are truly blessed to be living in an era of such incredible wonders.

t-5 days and defiitely counting

the past few weeks have been exhausting, emotionally and physically, but this here's our last weekend before our son is exposed to the elements and we've still got much to do, albeit more in the form of paperwork than physical tasks. gd's really struggling, each day seems harder than the last, and she's really to get on with it. me? i'm getting spacey just thinking about all this and i haven't even held him yet.

---*last* thursday:

aside from a nice break accompanying gd to the doctor, it was a long day spent despondently trying to optimize code that i couldn't help but characterize (vocally) as: someone took a dump in the code, and everyone who's touched it since threw up around it on contact. after wasting hours trying to determine whether my obnoxious coworker's improvement was actually making a difference, i invested some effort in building a function timer class to integrate useful metrics. the results were considerably more helpful than experimenting with die() statements, but the results were inconclusive and i later learned that i'd somehow managed to undo his fixes along the way with some poor git-fu :$

...

i'm sure gd isn't the first pregnant woman to pass gas in the doctor's room, but i'm not so sure that the result is usually as amusing; the three of us were giggling hysterically about her reactions for the rest of the session.

obnoxious coworker (i'll just call him nox) aggression followed by unappreciated amusement over database naming

walking out into a gorgeous sunset and stopping by the bell store to pick up "complementary headphones" for my "loyalty". i've paid for those headphones many times over, and i'm still stuck with these bastards for another thirteen months...

once i get started making salad it's all good, but working up the energy in the first place is always an issue.

bad ink is a great series!

*last* friday:

understanding why people lose their minds when trying to deal with organizations like hydro quebec, half an hour of torture *after* gd became frustrated and i felt responsible for asking her to call in the first place.

some people are trouble on the metro, that morning it was an old man with two open, over-sized bags that tipped over as he entered the car and spilled their contents everywhere.

a morning finishing my function timer (it met with managerial approval), learning all about xdebug and being mystified by the fact that no php developer i've met ever uses it

being stood up by nifty and taking my surprisingly vegan sandwich (the sign said "feta", i was expecting to have to scrape it off) to play space fluxx instead

a disturbingly rude hydro quebec "service" provider putting me on hold for forty minutes, during which time i rewrote mysql scripts to their muzak - scripts to deal with the fact that mysqldump performs unexpectedly when tables have been renamed and replaced. it removed the new tables overwrote the original (renamed) ones instead (O_o)

getting involved with an annoying bug i'd found, which was interesting to fix but had me stuck in the office until late because each time i deployed i discovered yet another reason why the junior who'd written the code hadn't been able to debug it properly...

...

perfume in the fan: gd meant well, but the results were horrifying :(

*last* saturday:

waking up slowly after a good night's rest
aggravated spray paint not taking and making a mess and us almost throwing out the piece (though it eventually turned out well)
missionaries gd knows dropping off a cute but unhelpful gift (a children's book introducing them to religion)

painting, random bureaucracy, chatting with scrapper and my mom
a scary look at spice and the union: the business of getting high

thought for the day: the mullet metaphor for the conscious versus the subconscious. "business in the front, party in the back."

sunday:

difficult dreams, then trying to get back to sleep but i couldn't focus on anything other than gd's previous boss who took forever to get a document ready that she needs for maternity leave, told her to pick it up and then "helpfully" mailed it just before she arrived. did he really? and if he was trying to be helpful, couldn't he just have called and asked what she preferred?

unhappy haircut, french lessons, paper sorting and taxes, heavy shopping

gawking at the big man entering the store picking his nose shamelessly violently

an evening spent coding, wondering at how simple some people can get away with being, finishing the weekend with dr who

monday:

a night full of discomfort and nightmares
slight project progress in the morning followed by running around looking for emergency cream cheese and leaving late for work

an unfocused day, some good work with some uncomfortable evaluations, lunch break at babies r us to buy a car seat and feel like we're pretty much ready

israeli social insurance fail: i have to find a way to stop paying without jeopardizing my passport, and i have to find it soon.

...

snacking, an episode of arrow, and mind blown watching the tig documentary. powerful, painful and inspirational.

suddenly realizing that i'd eaten my delicious dinner for three all by myself...

tuesday:

waking up from incredible dreams that faded away into oblivion as soon as i opened my eyes

...

the other day i complained about the fact that you can only call the israeli consulate between 2 and 4pm and whoever was there repeatedly picked up the receiver and put it down again. i then sent an email requesting information to which they didn't respond. tuesday morning, while i was being helped by the teller, an older woman walked up to the counter and slammed printouts of my complaint and my email down on the counter.

"is that you?" she asked.
"yes," i replied.

i'm not saying that i expected anything different, but instead of dealing with the problem she tried to bully and shame me. i stood my ground as politely as i could, in spite of the fact that she continued to belittle me for the rest of the hour that i was there.

i will file more complaints, but she's succeeded in making me wait until i'm no longer under their power.

"nobody else complains," she told me. i suspect i know why.

...

a short day entrenched in my work; learning at the end of it that a) i seem to have been given less vacation days than promised on my contract and b) paternal leave is delivered late, so if you're on a tight budget there's no way you can afford to take it

my manager sent me home when he saw how worn out i was. burnout imminent, motivation low and incentives for stress rather high.

super-heated muggy afternoon, picking the wrong lines at babies r us. awkwardly interrupting squirrels mating on my way to the supermarket.

too hot to eat, making good progress on my project

wednesday:

an explosion of frustration at the temperature soaring unbearably when we don't have cash for air conditioning and our apartment is cooking

waking up in the middle of the night to distress and being absolutely helpless to take care of it

really interesting dreams, getting up exhausted with the following thought to run to pick up an air conditioner:
well, i'll be damned: montreal and tel aviv have the same temperature highs today, only here there's more humidity. #outofthefryingpanintothefire

...

"do you have a loyalty card?"
"no."
"would you like to register for one?"
"no, thanks."
<pays>
<sees sign that says "$25 off your first purchase">
"what's this?"
"that's for customers with loyalty cards."
and you couldn't tell me that *before* or when i said "no, thanks"?

it didn't help that she refused to speak to me in english, 'cause that really lit a fire under gd's and then her manager's ass.

...

a chat with my mom planning my way out of this financial downward spiral and being exceedingly grateful that she can help at all

work: trying to focus and being harassed non-stop, walking out for a fun boxing session

pathetic passive aggressive bullshit from nox before and during the meeting wherein my team got ripped a new asshole

feeling better after unloading on my managers, getting a great coding high from coming up with an elegant solution to a tricky problem

thursday:

waking up slowly - though really early - putting together a speech for nox in my head that i probably will never get to say:
i'm not your boss, and i have as much interest in being your boss as i do gouging out my eyes with a spoon. whatever your history with the company may be, your open display of contempt and your passive-aggressive behaviour over the past few days is utterly inappropriate. as your coworker - not your lead, not your boss, not your friend - i expect a minimum of courtesy and professionalism. you've succeeded in making the work environment toxic and hostile, and there's no excuse for that. i'm just trying to do my job and with this team that's difficult enough without your shit.

long discussions about facebook algorithms and the real life disasters they cause distracting me from important chores, leaving late for the doctor and then the taxi driver getting lost due to construction detours

quote for the day: "my sumo belt is too small for me now"

morning reviews, mostly positive but not actually getting my work done
green team to vegan team?
losing hours walking through trivial stuff with nox

twenty minutes with nem talking about his personal projects. i may be unable to stomach him as a coworker but he might make a great client!

leaving late and hurriedly packing up my desk on the eve of another moving day i won't be there for, meeting a buyer for some old phone gear and then having to meet again to refund him for one of the pieces missing a part

falling asleep to seinfeld

yesterday:

waking up late but feeling like it was early. the last dream was of me hurriedly walking through a mall after leaving my flip flops at the entrance, returning to find one and a half flip flops and a dirty, weird slip-on.

...

thoughts for the day:

star wars is so primitive. "the force" is just so, like, symbolic of the patriarchy... real men would use "the compromise".

the poster says "smell me", but i'm not falling for that one again.

...

hospital visit to learn about the c-section procedure and the before and after coaching, hitting the mall and being unable to find a single thing that gd needed, then trying the pharmacy with marginal success

going to the post office to send off a tax return, coming home and rewarding myself with what's eating gilbert grape (holy cow! leo was incredible before he sucked before blood diamond!) and forrest gump.

circumcision and rabbinic law vs the bible

today:

sleeping really late and waking up with the sense that i needed plenty more

nothing brings me to the limit of my patience like shopping at ikea. i never think i'm capable of outright hatred of strangers, but struggling to get through a maze amongst crowds of zombies with no spatial awareness really highlights the worst in people.

being present feeling our son pushing against my hand and in the post-rain walk, then getting rained on as soon as i left with heavy bags