from light to dark and back again

friday 24th:

fun work (and successful) while downloading something using teamviewer, which crashed just before i did and effectively wasted a night's worth of work that i should have been doing on the legacy shit. the temperature suddenly dipping at roughly the same time.

why would we want to get up at 7.30am?

breakfast deal breaking, not wanting to create a pathology by forcing mr smear to eat but trying to ensure that he eats enough :S
dropping him off efficiently, home to rest and work, picking him up, home, seeing cape town's worst in the insane traffic into town for gd's haircut and mr smear's twenty minute nap, waking up to join me in a very berry smoothie while i ate a surprisingly decent vegan meal from wellness warehouse

back to an afternoon of play and success with work
mr smear pushing over the mirror which fell flat onto its face, fortunately all unscathed, and spending a long moment being in the moment and grateful for my time with my son

he *gets* the word cat! in hebrew and english!

mom over for a really nice shabbat dinner, watching trevor noah and then ali wong - she's brilliant, but we forgot just how hardcore she is in crossing *all* the lines - really bad rls and a little treatment and rest

saturday 25th:

the first most-night's sleep in a while, waking up to a pleasant morning, meeting my sister, her twins and her sister-in-law at the farmer's market, mr smear playing with the woodchips, a couple of people showing interest in learning about food from me, good vegan food, drinks and dessert, mom joining us for a bit and mr smear passing out as we left and staying asleep even as i put him in the car

working the afternoon, struggling with a typo i'd entered the night before but ending the day very satisfied with my progress; thoroughly enjoying i don't feel at home in this world anymore, then turning in early

sunday 26th:

ted talks, then a beach mission to muizenberg! almost being killed by a maniac driver, tailing him to get his plates, losing him afterwards and then passing him after he'd smashed into someone else; the shock and adrenaline taking a long time to wear off and followed by an adrenaline dump of note
arriving on an unpleasantly windy beach, the vegan place looking nice but with no available seating out of the wind, driving back home so gd could make more végépaté
no rest, but too tired to head down to the police station; deliberating over whether to go to a different beach or just call it a day, eventually joining sailor and his dad at clifton 4th for a fun afternoon and a good view of the eclipse. losing mr smear's bucket, which was a pity

scheckter's raw was closed, so home for showers and bedtime and big meals and four brothers (fantastic)

monday 27th:

up early but more rested than usual, rick and morty and dodgy yoghurt, dropping off mr smear, enjoying some time to ourselves (in particular, proper nap time), the unfortunate incident of what appeared to be animal poop halfway through a loaf of sliced bread

picking up mr smear, driving dirty (i only realized he was sporting a full diaper when it was too late to do anything about it), the pretend nap fakeout and looooong playtime

mom taking over so gd and i could acupuncture, passing out on the table then restless and uncomfortable, wasting our time trying to file a police report, dinner frustrations (mr smear refusing gd's chilli again), and mr smear passing out before shower time

protoplasm visit with my brain mostly off and needing coffee just to say goodbye and gear up for work, then finally getting my dev environment sorted only to be pulled away by an inexplicably distressed mr smear who it took forty minutes to comfort

tuesday 28th:

bitcoin exploration before bed, definitely not enough sleep but resting a little on the couch (fending off a barrage of cars and tennis balls being thrown at my head) before successfully feeding mr smear maize meal (he's happy to be back with the usual brand) and the rest of his breakfast then quickly showering him and dropping him off at school

trying to rest but frustrated by the fact that people i respect for their intelligence refuse to even *look* at the facts about food and nutrition, getting up and trying to work but instead learning that my blood test results came back perfect and that futurelife is interested in investigating whatever's in our bread and that i'm late for filing taxes (those last two unrelated)

lunch with sandman's sister, mr smear's artichoke frenzy and pesto removal, his big, inexplicable sadness before we left
a stupidly hot afternoon
working at a staggeringly slow pace while fending off mr smear's attempts to destroy the fan
cloudfunding inspiration
playground slide scare - he climbed up to the top which was just out of our reach and we didn't know which direction he would go in
hot fusion, shopping
mr smear suffering hardcore asthma and throwing up just before bedtime
crashing for a couple of hours then waking up at a run to pick him up while he spiked a serious fever and hurled his lungs out

wednesday 1st:

a long and frustrating and worrying time getting his fever down and getting him back to sleep, not helped by additional unnecessary tension and the awful sensation of mr smear's frailty (he's usually remarkably solid), then working until 3.30am after finally taking the first steps to moving from tfs to github and making insanely slow progress with silverlight xaml

waking up around 8am to continued stress even though mr smear was clearly doing better, mom coming over to save the day and giving me a chance to rest and then go pick up mr smear's passport

the traumatic introduction to the nebulizer

integrating git, taking mr smear out for a walk: he'd been much better since the morning, but as we left his cough started up again which led us into another magical night of struggle and meds and trying to get some work done with my brain somewhere else

thursday 2nd:

another uncomfortable morning, not helped by brother-in-law stress and trying desperately to find french children's books

a visit to the doctor, an all clear for mr smear and a different approach to try for allergy management

mr smear falling asleep on the way home, a quick late breakfast and then a meeting with his teacher which had us all in hysterics: he protects the bigger kids in class, but he's also just as mischievous and (good-naturedly) defiant there as at home

the cleaning lady giving us a couple of hours to rest, mom getting stuck in traffic on the way to babysit and doing a baby handover in the parking lot

acupuncture: less pain when the needles went in, followed by a full-body discomfort that had me deep breathing and slo-mo shaking it off and using pain referral until the doctor arrived for gd and helped me into a sitting position

dinner tricks (gd mixing blended beans with pasta) and a worrying continuation of breastfeeding gagging; figuring out how to redeem my playstation code but not knowing what to do with the money

mr smear going to sleep without feeding, sending gd's brother an ultimatum for her childhood photos, finally getting the silverlight result i was looking for but inconsistently

friday 3rd:

midnight feed success and relief, finishing p.s. your not listening while building and being thoroughly stunned
mostly getting some much-needed rest

mr smear sleeping well but waking up with a difficult cough, taking him to school anyway and it improving dramatically on the way

finally, a breakthrough with the work, feeling really good about it, picking up a happy mr smear and then the single bottle of oat milk the dischem had moved branches for me (more would have been nice) while mr smear passed out on my shoulder, so exhausted that he slept through getting in the car, out the car and into bed
mike birbiglia's brilliant new special (thank god for jokes)

shopping and mom's visit and mr smear's bedtime and horace and pete and bbc's africa series

saturday 4th:

one year back in south africa!

a full night's sleep, africa again, amazing psybient followed by firefly once mr smear hit naptime
taking a walk on the promenade but turning around when mr smear began coughing again
gd cooking while i fed and showered mr smear
the shameful writing of transformers: age of extinction vs gd's great pasta dinner, plus the extremely sore arch of my right foot

sunday 5th:

another decent night, waking up to bee movie - weird, then cute, then pure awful but inspiring me to write because if this drivel earns fat salaries...

finally going out for groceries, mr smear's nap and mike birbiglia

a walk in the park with my mom after narrowly avoiding the worst of the kirstenbosch traffic and grabbing coffee at the gym
i missed it, but the idea of my wife feeding a fly to a venus flytrap on a toothpick is great

mr smear's dinner and bedtime prep, reading xamnesia while waiting for him to fall asleep and eating my dinner while watching rubbish; a little work, a little reading