cook, serve, ridiculous!

according to steam i've just played five hours of cook, serve, delicious!. i'm not sure if i'm embarrassed about that or not, but i do know that i've learned something about being in the kitchen. according to my progress i'm not a complete failure, but i'm absolutely certain that that sort of thing is not for me.

sunday 18th:

a chilled wake up, mr smear enjoying his first reading of leah goldberg's "flat to rent"

a gorgeous day for a visit to hermanus for some whale watching, lots of sun, good food and drinks, most of the driving pleasant with breathtaking views but mr smear getting uncomfortable towards the end and me having to manoeuvre my arm in a painful way to shade him as we drove into the sunset

the disappointment of mr smear throwing up two hours' worth of food before bed

monday 19th:

not intending to stay up until 4.30am, mr smear passing out between us after his breakfast feed and giving us all an extra hour
slaughterhouse-five is such a pleasure to read, i've been playing around with goodreads and i was reminded how much i disliked infinite jest; in stark contrast, vonnegut's brilliance isn't overshadowed by tedium or inconsistency

quick shower, occupying mr smear (not letting him play with the screwdriver, but giving him an opportunity to admire it in action) until gd had finished rescuing our kitchen and then receiving another gorgeous almost-complete page from the illustrator

a productive home visit and mr smear asserting himself, gd's first potato salad WIN
lactation issues, another aggressive physio treatment leaving me quite sensitive, a delayed meeting that proceeded to go on for hours

gd holding the fort well with us wrapping up just in time to put mr smear to bed

tuesday 20th:

going to makro to check out their projector, being thoroughly impressed but not buying it immediately because i wanted to get a makro credit card so that my purchase could potentially win me a car - receiving a credit rejection message shortly after arriving back home and returning in the afternoon with family in tow in order to pick it up

gd cooking in the morning and proceeding to stuff me with food even after i'd taken care of mr smear's leftovers

telkom rage: after 50 minutes on hold for sales, being told that it's not possible to upgrade my account to uncapped. the only reason i didn't take uncapped in the first place is because the sales guy is an idiot and misrepresented the terms; the cap we've been dealing with has forced us to have two "internetless" month ends in a row and be extremely frugal with our usage this month.

the canon lv-x300 is not only an affordable projector, but it's by far the most solid one we've seen; it's bright enough to watch when the sun hits, the controls aren't finicky (and we don't have to find the remote's "sweet spot"), and even though it's not a wide-screen format the size is more than sufficient. we finally have a home entertainment system!

wednesday 21st:

a decent night's sleep after going to bed exhausted, storming out of pick n pay because they don't stock their shelves and driving to checkers to buy bread

slaughterhouse-five is pure genius and it's fun to read

looking after mr smear during gd's physio appointment, it was all fun and games until he almost lost a finger and that would totally have been my fault

our babysitter giving us space for bathing and errands (having a talk with the telkom guy), heading off to baby city and almost buying the wrong swimming gear

walking mr smear on the promenade, having a good time until he clawed at another kid's cheek - extremely embarrassing

mom's visit, dinner and the first episode of better call saul (pretty good), slow work progress and getting crowdfunding advice from an expert

thursday 22nd:

another mistake forgetting antihistamines. waking up to work and being sent out again for emergency shopping and losing my shit

a painful pinched nerve on the other side, gd dealing with a neck spasm and getting to spend my day alternating between looking after mr smear and trying to sort out a corrupt checkout

finishing slaughterhouse-five on a great note: it's rare to find myself this excited about a book that's received so much acclaim

killing my machine with a bad video driver upgrade

friday 23rd:

dreams: playing through a game / simulator so vivid that the last thing i recall was watching a character getting his genitals sliced for disrespecting someone and then switching to his perspective and feeling the combination of bleeding and peeing myself before finding myself on my knees facing a shotgun; there was a blank screen moment before the gun went off before a game over screen before continuing from another character's POV before i woke up

crash bandicoot while mr smear slept and my computer failed to resurrect; eventually realising that i was doing it wrong and beginning a serious backup as soon as it was rescued

an easy morning, then going to the shops and missing the alert for my physio appointment; rescheduling for the afternoon and then missing *that* alert :$

laughing like an idiot all the way home from SARS: i finally went to register for a tax number, and was told to come back next week because they've run out of numbers for the day. do little elves generate them overnight using special number pressing machines?

gd cooking an experimental dinner, eating with my mom, mr smear having a hard time getting to sleep, an otherwise lovely evening and an early night

saturday 24th:

waking up to exciting news: vegan donuts at kleinsky's! after breakfast (mr smear enjoying more kiwi than i did, that's love right there) we all went on the donut mission and were incredibly disappointed to find that they hadn't been delivered. we went to spar instead, running into krybabie's mother, then returned home. mr smear napped so we didn't take him swimming, i played ink, then in the afternoon we went to the aquarium which was a really, really good idea. afterwards we had late lunch at the waterfront's simply asia and bought mr smear new shoes and picked up coffee and came home, managing to get out of the parking lot in spite of the broken machines and exit signs all pointing in the wrong direction

mr smear passed out on the way home and gd was exhausted so i spent the evening preparing virtual food and managing a virtual kitchen instead of sleeping or tidying up our real one...