plans vs life

tuesday 2nd:

working really hard with fiddly stuff and finally getting everything working again (after rewriting almost every single call in the system); powerful relief and an immediate need to crawl into bed

sleeping on my back (usually impossible) and experiencing the kinds of visions i imagine cgi movie animators would use as inspiration

up before our alarms and happily back to school, reading comics and working and handling bureaucracy and picking up mr smear, who was so excited to visit strangers that he made getting home a mission; lunchtime and my sister's letter and gym

learning about my watch's lock function after losing another half an hour of good bag work, then twenty minutes fast walking, climbing and occasionally running until my body remembered that it didn't *have* to feel completely useless

home for gd's enchilada-ish monster and a little surf's up before heading out for a big grocery run; we think we left around 4pm, so coming home three hours later in the dark? it certainly felt like forever.

israeli moments to celebrate independence day: wearing my doof shirt, mr smear demolishing a bag of bamba and refusing to share, and two israelis entering a queue before finishing their shopping and holding everyone up

mr smear sneakily waiting for me to have my hands full then viciously elbowing, scratching, clawing and poking me in the eyes; chasing that with piercing screams that really hurt my ears and a dramatic bedtime, i needed a drink and chocolate more than dinner; the daredevil movie sucked and my mood wasn't improved by painful rls

wednesday 3rd:

getting some sleep but waking up at 3am tired and under mosquito attack, working until 6

dream: stuffing a used tissue into a rat carcass' chest cavity, suddenly it coughed and lay there breathing peacefully

up for mr smear but only vaguely; lying down on the couch with friendship is magic distracting mr smear until gd pulled me up into sitting position with the smell of crêpes under a syrup blanket

the school drop off and taking gd to see the chiropractor; reading while i waited but with heavy eyelids, a short walk around the block then twenty minutes rest before coffeeing up and standing in the parking lot sun waiting for the therapist. not a pleasant session, but productive, followed by another very brief lie-down before picking mr smear up from school

no naps, a few timeouts and generally just keeping myself from passing out until he did; grabbing more coffee and sitting down to work but being inundated with bills instead... then all too soon he was back up and all over the place. he's awesome and adorable and too cool for school but my gods he's persistent and fierce and he relentlessly tests everything. we're as proud as we are drained :P

surviving the afternoon, eventually getting him into bed and settling down to sort out canadian taxes. still a chore and a half, but not nearly as bad as i was worried about.

netflix seems to have its ratings inversed, apparently. backing out of unfunny standup into to hell and back, which is very good balance of fun and funny

rls treatment,

thursday 4th:

sleeping until 6-ish and working hard to learn that my entity framework optimization wouldn't work (you can't one-to-many with an enum)

work and taxes and command & conquer and a quiet moment lying down staring at the ceiling before picking up mr smear

my boy makes me proud, it's really cool hearing such good things about him from teachers and other parents

quick big lunch and rushing to get to my toronto cousin's mother-in-law's funeral; i was a bit nervous about waze taking me a route i wasn't familiar with but i arrived in good time and i'd been able to enjoy music simultaneously. things were uneventful until it came time to shovel dirt on the coffin, i went up to take a turn and suddenly found myself shovelling alone. that was awkward, i put the spade down and took a step back then felt more awkward so i threw a few more heaps on, all the while feeling like i'd missed the cue to stop helping. i put it down again, embarrassed, but by the time i'd gotten clear of the closest crowd everyone else was back in to finishing the job.

a minute's drive from the cemetery and i pushed the clutch in only to hear it snap and feel my foot go straight through a space that shouldn't be accessible. i pulled over immediately, not realizing that i was on a particularly dangerous blind corner until someone was kind enough to shout at me as they went past, so i rolled the car slowly downhill using the handbrake until i was fairly clear and called the breakdown number.

i'd have to wait a while, in the blazing sun in the middle of nowhere, and i amused myself while standing guard under what scant shade i could find. eventually the mechanic arrived, he was very chilled and had the part that was needed - although he tells me he's never seen the plastic clip of a clutch cable break before. watching him work on it made me realize how important it is to get a basic understanding of how cars work; that should be a part of the theory exam, in my opinion, i've been driving for almost two decades and i've no idea how the clutch pedal works the actual clutch.

...

my mind wandered a little, and ended up in my initial polygraph test back in 2009. there's so much wrong with what happened in that little room, inside my head and out, and i guess i've still got a lot of work to do in dealing with that but what i find really interesting right now is that i've managed to fill my life with so much that even when i'm in "self care" mode i don't really give myself time to process anything. don't get me wrong, i process a lot of things, like, all the time. but the backlog is immense and there're some important items on my mental to-do list that i've long abandoned... i really need to learn to "meditate", or in my terms just be bored. not reading, not playing, not exercising, not sleeping. i'm not sure i know how to do that, i certain don't have the emotional motivation even if the intellectual is there.

...

the clutch felt strange after it was fixed but not bad, so i cautiously made my way home. mr smear was sleeping, i rested a little and ate a lot and then he woke up and we got ready to go to prayers. trusting waze, we drove over kloof nek and got stuck behind a slow driver who single-handedly generated traffic on a road that was otherwise clear. eventually we turned into bellevue street, a particularly steep road, and about halfway down the new clip snapped too. here i'll commend gd for keeping her cool, i pulled into the first "safe" spot i could find but effectively trapped the car there, and so after calling the breakdown number again there was nothing to do but go for a bit of a walk and then sit down somewhere and wait.

the walk: the weather was really nice and the moon loomed big over a beautiful sunset sky. the whole way up and down mr smear sang loudly and confidently, "twinkle, twinkle" but with all the wrong syllables, and it was really funny.

sitting down: an italian restaurant with nothing plant-based and no guinness, so gd enjoyed my hunter's and ordered some fries and just as they arrived so did the mechanic; and just as i started moving our belongings between the vehicles the restaurant started filling up and bellevue street was inundated with bad drivers. so the handover was a little stressed but eventually we were done and we came home to feed mr smear and put him to bed. i made some calls to the canadian tax authorities*, completed our tax returns and i'll be printing and sending them in the morning. until this very minute i thought i was filing on time but i realize now that we were supposed to send them on monday. damn.

* revenu quebec: "for english, press 9" so that we can continue to speak to you only in french because %#$@ you.

my reward to myself for completing the forms was to play a level of command & conquer; i completed it, not very efficiently, and then alt-tabbed out to turn on the sound so i could get the next mission statement; alt-tab freezes the game, so i'll have to play that level again sometime. oh, well.

anyway, i really felt the need to post but now i really need to do a little work before getting some rest.