february fly-by

so... in just over a week we're relocating to south africa. this coming week is my last week at work, after which (when we land) i'm going to be doing my best to either land some contract work or just get a job. i just gave up on the new, exciting illustrator, who i believe is the third or fourth to begin working on a paid job and then simply stop communicating (is this an illustrator thing?).

we have packing to do and selling to do and storing to do and transferring our lease to do.

and then 30+ hours of travelling to do.

no pressure.

monday 1st:

there's nothing like being kept up at night by the feeling that you're not parenting right.

a disturbingly delightful spring morning instead of february weather

an anxious morning, a pleasant welcome back to work

one fun job, one non-starter
finishing limbo - a disappointing ending to a phenomenal game, but at least it's got great replay value

a walmart run on the way home, enjoying a jolly family evening, an impressive feeding, an exciting (over-exciting, gd had to call "time!") play session and a highly amusing set of sleepy sounds wherein mr smear demonstrated the amusing new additions to his vocalizations

tuesday 2nd:

nightmare rls from the waist down for hours of extreme discomfort
family conjunctivitis (or so we thought), gd in more pain

wasted hours trying to ssh into a vagrant box, eventually giving up so that i could investigate something broken and learn that the new, "clean" setup we've just begun porting to has already been corrupted by the chief troublemaker

lunchtime cs:go and thomas was alone

coming home to another positive call with the illustrator, a very loud mr smear practicing interesting sounds, an impressive feeding and a solid demonstration of his mobility

wednesday 3rd:

a better night, but not a good night, with a relaxed morning

freezing rain just as the ice began to clear

two tall, skinny black kids bumping into me as they ran out of the dep with a couple of bottles of alcohol, one with a beige tuque and blue scarf; i'm embarrassed to admit that it took me a full minute to decide that they might've just stolen them...

... and of course, my boots have sprung a leak...

a day of distractions (playing with continuous testing), finishing with some laravel plugin frustration and eventually realizing that just doing things myself (in that specific context) is much easier

skype fails with my mom, double dinner and garbage day ending with a bite on my foot and is-the-insect-still-there paranoia

thursday 4th:

by 1am it felt like a long night already, and we were woken by his cries at regular intervals afterwards. gd was convinced it was teething pain (his new tooth is *sharp*), but i think it was either bad dreams or just general discomfort...

struggling out of bed for an unnecessary diaper change (i think he farted just as i was checking), a chilled morning with some apparently good news

reading shitty laravel documentation until i felt my brain was bleeding out of my ears, but eventually getting a fix on the direction i need to take

a rush home to pick up mr smear and meet gd at the clinic, then a rush home and a wait which forced a rush to work for half an hour before rushing to my weekly meeting

the problem with analog timers is that they work even when the machine they're supposed to activate isn't plugged in. i thought i'd timed my toasted muffin perfectly for the veggie burgers but after i heard the *ding* i pulled it out cold

late for the meeting after a metro slowdown, some intriguing insights

a really nice family evening (although mr smear really should've been in bed an hour or so earlier)

friday 5th:

an amazing, refreshing two solid blocks of sleep, but waking up from a bad angle with a sore neck and back.

hunting down and killing a creepy spider inspiring an amusing introduction to parktown prawns for gd (and she'd just been watching die antwoord - fatty boom boom, too)

the godmother last chance debate

wasting some more time, then giving the laravel approach another chance (a third ldap package): this one mostly works, but i had to fork the repo and make an important fix* and spend ages defending it to the owner who was trying to coerce me into writing all his tests for him...

* php's ldap functions don't work as specified. some developers write simple wrappers to correct the behaviour, but most just pass it on to the user which is offensively pathetic

a walmart / oshkosh mission after lunch, mind blowing thomas was alone puzzles and an insanely large quantity of delicious cocoa halva, seriously arguing about cashew nuts with a coworker

leaving late, missing a train and the next one delayed, kids singing and some miserable git yelling at them to shut up but the parents chiming in in response

digging holes in what could've been a relaxing friday evening

saturday 6th:

ups and downs

the godmother incident

the shopping mission (hurting shoulders)

six months to the day!!! and his first real adult poop (actually his second, but my first experience)

running out of time to watch the martian - 48 hours is never enough

sunday 7th:

easy like gd's birthday morning, minus a bad-news haircut
a kind-of-a-nap but i was still exhausted and restless and wondering if i was sick or over-tired or deficient in something

finally seeing the imitation game and rewatching a completely forgotten unbreakable

heavy awkward cumbersome donation bags, dodgy bastards lurking in front of the pharmacy forcing me to ask if i could enter

the second nail filing incident in which i was much braver than before (but still struggling)

evil apples with gd until bedtime

monday 8th:

some decent sleep and some weird dream fragments
no breakfast and metro rush hour with a child and an inordinate amount of time waiting for a signature after a blazingly quick x-ray

the good doctor's appointment (especially after the radiologist failed to do the one thing he was called for, stamp the damned report), a short visit to subway followed by a highly stressed afternoon

the one piece games on sale, booking toronto (holy crap this ordeal is expensive), discovering that i'm fully back in debt after finally approaching zero

tuesday 9th:

a long, sleepless night (post-vaccination), duct-taping the balcony door to keep the cold out, early out of bed for a really good interview

catching up and strategizing with dirk diggler, mr smear taking more than one step forward!

a little one piece, a quick lunch and verification that mr smear was experiencing his first fever

being aroused from a nap to report a death threat to the FBI from a lady gaga fan who got pissed off by a comment from my wife - no more unconsidered commenting in public forums for her :P

papers panic while mr smear struggled, the printing rush and speeding over to the notary

the cashier at iga made sure to smear her slimy cold virus on each and every one of the products i purchased

...

i use my healthy diet as an excuse to shamelessly consume junk food with no consequences... i regret nothing!

except the home fries. i knew i shouldn't have bought them, and i got halfway through before i felt like i'd made a big mistake.

every time...

...

mr smear's fever breaking

wednesday 10th:

bad timing for a team transfer request, although it was very flattering
a mostly decent night
a highly stressed last-minute morning, leaving early (what we thought was early) and almost missing the final call, our first times with the new car seat quite successful

a pretty good train ride (practice run for the airplane), mr smear getting along nicely with other kids, two major dis-ass-ters (two soiled onesies) on the train, a smooth welcome to toronto, quick and easy passport photos, being joined by supertongue for high speed shopping and rushed gobbling while trying to play big catch-up with very little time

a super-tired hyper-active mr smear who seemed to have advanced a step overnight but appeared to need to make up for missed playtime after his bedtime

discovering a severe google maps fail when printing the last documents; i guess if i hadn't forgotten those documents we would've found out too late that we were a twenty minute drive away from our destination and not a five minute walk... our night in toronto would probably have been significantly cheaper, too...

thursday 11th:

so no, a playpen and a crib are not the same thing and a floor-height crib is impossible to use to put small children to sleep (not to mention dangerous for parents' backs)

sleeping in the fridge: an unsealed window in canada in winter???

3am losing my shit and organizing a properly heated room that we wouldn't move to because it was too much work, drunk fucks leaning on me in the elevator generating a massive level of rage that could've turned into an evening with the police but instead just saw me shoving my way out and seething and losing a bit more sleep unnecessarily after i finally came up with a solution that involved mr smear sleeping on the bed and myself on the couch so i could add bad angles for my neck and back to the equation

starbucks rush, hurried packing and a call from my toronto cousin combining with gd noticing a subtle photo issue sending us on a mission to the mall before we could checkout and grab a taxi and leaving for the consulate almost an hour after we were supposed to have arrived

if we hadn't had an incomplete application, we might've been rejected immediately because it took two sadistically bureaucratic scenes before our overlord was reprimanded for inappropriate cruelty by her superior. swimming in my own consciousness, all three of us exhausted to the point of dysfunction and having to jump to a notary at 11.30am to deal with a secretary who confused the instructions multiple times but was good enough to let me print statements from her pc, finally returning at 12.15 to fill out tough forms under the gun when the consulate shuts down at 12.30; not quite making it but being rescued and pulling through to a very fair compromise on the consulate's part - giving us a few more days to fix our files and not forcing us to return to toronto.

it was horrifying to think of how much money we'd had to sink into this endeavour and how all of it and our future was riding on a bunch of unfeeling forms and number crunchers.

walking out with a large collection of discarded expensive documents feeling a mixture of shock and relief and dread; having to hurry to get to the train station and find a place to sit and eat and rest (there isn't one, of course), more hours waiting for the train

another lucky train break (four seats available! score!) but feet too smelly from two days in boots to even partially relax and unwind on the way home
parenting advice to the rail guy

getting home to a freezing apartment

friday 12th:

a solid night's sleep for all but waking up on the verge of collapse; chatting with mom, messaging godmother for her birthday, bathing mr smear and being absolutely amazed at how much he's advanced in a matter of days, alternating between playing with him and playing some more one piece, just getting through the day trying (and failing) to rest and doing a shopping run and then taking forever to get everyone to sleep

surrealist bon appetit to the aids guy

saturday 13th:

it felt like mr smear put on five pounds during the night, a couple of short wakings and getting up in the morning still wiped out and with a test ahead of me

ice walk at -32
blueberry skinning fail

a long day setting up my home dev environment and digging in to laravel

me and my big mouth while listing priorities

mr smear having a decent day but it appeared that he had a cold and since toronto it's been unclear whether his cries are actual cries or just him practicing...

circumcision adherence correction and planning a clinic visit just in case

sunday 14th:

a difficult, sleepless night, outside at -35 for wet wipes that won't mess with mr smear's skin, making progress on the test but finding it tricky, insoles for my boots, a freezing cold clinic run

gathering documents, working late into the night

monday 15th:

passing the point of hallucination, running out of onesies at 4am, the opposite of what we meant, not being able to sleep and getting up to finish the test and wrap it in a bow and pray that it satisfies

gd and i both extremely nervous for the big day, forcing myself to swallow each bite of my breakfast

hand nerve pain

the big announcement being followed by a series of smaller, more awkward announcements, receiving a surprising amount of support and an open offer to return to work whenever i'm ready

pushing comixology

a pointless lunch run to buy clothing for mr smear but apparently buttons on pajamas aren't fashionable for children over six months

making magic with node.js, having an old mexican friend visit for a beer and a great chat, gd feeling awful after a long day of being screamed at by our son who's either very irritable lately or is exercising his ability to produce highly ambiguous noises. some of them are cute or funny, some of them scary

clearing up miscommunications, going to bed late but relatively early

tuesday 16th:

a better night, up at 6am to send important emails and make calls and successfully avoid discussing money with a potential employer

rushing to the supermarket for emergency stock, overheating on the way home at 4 below, stressing non-stop about the scheduled consulate call

fun with command line node.js, not being able to contact the consulate and last-chance emailing potentially problematic statements, just getting back into work mode before receiving an email informing me that gd and phoenix's visas are in the mail, that we aren't going to have to return to canada in the coming months, that the incredible investment in the toronto visit paid off, that our highest priorities are in order and we can now focus on the insane task of selling and storing and packing and leaving over the course of the next two weeks

a pleasant evening's work

a quick, quiet evening (though mr smear's stuffy nose kept him up for a while), finally announcing publicly that we're moving to south africa

wednesday 17th:

very little sleep, getting up early, a slow day at work, giving the pharmacist the wrong medical insurance card

thursday 18th:

2, 4, 6am and no more sleep
a mostly uneventful day in the office getting shit done the right way; leaving on a positive note after a solid cleanup session. pushap for lunch (heavy, delicious), not picking up $200 lying in a puddle

friday 19th:

3.30am mysterious awakening, a restless couple of hours and getting up at 6am again

playtime, breakfast, psychometric evaluation, post-evaluation stress, the hospital run that failed because the department only opens at 1.30pm for a couple of hours each day

the shopping mission: from no wind to utterly freezing in five seconds flat

taking pride in being the parent who can change the diaper without gagging

dinner and passing out as soon as mr smear did for his nap

saturday 20th:

wild dreams: festival, snowboarding and catching myself with my hands over a deadly drop

spit-up day

nox's surprising family services offer, liking pokemon in spite of myself, the first bath-time where mr smear calmed down and let me dry and dress him without freaking out

the morning shopping expedition turned into picking up lunch with horseman, fending off old people who feel that touching my baby is their right, long goodbyes stretching into making viewers of our apartment wait for twenty minutes, their smelly feet and our moron landlord, still proud that i'm the parent changing our son's diapers without gagging, listing furniture prices, a long chat with my mom, law and order and pinching nerves

some people are pieces of shit dressed up as mouthwatering chocolate cake

sunday 21st:

wild dreams: flying over mountains on a board and picking up broken batman before escaping from the troll by yelling "it's a bomb!"

amazon payments bullshit
paypal bullshit
another illustrator bites the dust
freelancd bullshit
yellow jelly poop