prejudice and pride

monday 18th:

waking up GNT (gross nose & throat) and struggling (also very tired), dropping mr smear off at school then coming home to suck a lozenge and nap, waking up and realizing that i should've been taken sinusitis meds for days already...

getting a little work done, then picking up mr smear and getting out relatively quickly. dropping him at home, trying three different print shops for a high-quality scanner with no success, but drawing cash for a microwave repair to pawn it for the same amount...

gd's revelation (finding a new passion), working and waiting for mr smear to wake up to take him for a playdate with his class best friend; he was miserable until we arrived, although temporarily distracted by the dr horrible soundtrack

taking immense pride in mr smear's relaxed response to another kid's roughhousing and in his immediate sympathy when his little buddy cried (sorry! are you okay?), and missing a classic embarrassing wedding video opportunity when one climbed on the other and yelled "you're my wife" (two year olds!!); a generally pleasant chat with the parents (not our kind of people, but pretty cool nonetheless)

missing a work meeting (feeling pretty uncomfortable and unprofessional for losing track of time), but coming home to the illustrator's revisions and feeling thoroughly satisfied and excited because i'm finally ready to start preparing the book for publishing - whoo hoo!!!

getting mr smear ready and into bed, then rushing over to my mom's worried because she wasn't answering her phone (she was fine, and not home), gd falling asleep while waiting for me to finish a quick meeting, a half hour of marc maron's too real, investigating sailor's proposal (very interesting), writing a good chunk of the new fairytale i outlined over the weekend, and working

tuesday 19th:

until 12.45am then going to bed with the cough again; a miserable, uncomfortable night full of coughing and a stuffy nose and tossing and turning, eventually getting up early with mr smear and finding myself more comfortable tired and *not* in bed; mr smear advancing quickly with his ipad-fu, us generally managing to be productive and almost on time for dropping him off and heading into town

a magnificent morning that no camera of mine was going to capture; a very pleasant and professional experience at the printers (orms) and a frustrating and nerve-wracking one coming home through crazy traffic

taking gd to the chiropractor, getting some filing done, picking her up and then doing chores and font selection before returning to the school to pick up mr smear who kindly fell asleep as we arrived home (no thanks to the woman shouting by the elevator, but she responded politely to my rather unsubtle request for consideration

wasting nap time with shopping

gimp doing a great job with cropping and text, but unable to handle cmyk. pixlr doing a great job with cmyk but unable to handle text and doing strange things to the image sizes.

after much frustration taking mr smear to the park where he was very friendly towards kids who clearly weren't used to hearing "hello" from strangers, and where for the first time he slid down the big slide with out prompting or hand holding; plus he did a little acrobatics from the top which was pretty cool. i also introduced him to the fireman's pole, it was great having him jump from above my head into my arms but i'm now nervous that he'll try the distance to the pole itself which he's only kind of understood...

accepting sailor's offer of a crazy but exciting side-gig

bedtime yelling at the boxing instructor downstairs for his stupidly loud music again, mom's visit (still coughing but finally being treated), and an evening of downloading photoshop (legally, my gods adobe's servers are slow), watching an idiot abroad and using gimp to preview the text

wednesday 20th:

struggling with photoshop to export colours correctly, in bed late and sleeping badly, up around 5am to try again while i sorted my nose and throat out, mr smear up at 6 and the three of us passing out and finally sleeping well until alarm o'clock

a pleasant morning, dropping gd off at the acupuncturist and mr smear enthusiastic about getting to school, sending fingerprints and picking up the last remnants of our montréal lives, driving to pick up gd and returning alone to the parking i'd just left as she insisted on walking to meet me, an unpacking and tidying ceremony then rushing off to pick up mr smear

a little rest before the telkom technician arrived then stealing away to the bedroom to work: working from home with a two year old is like playing a game of hide and go seek, only you don't get bored while you wait

no nap and no afternoon outing, getting to the temple on time; mr smear doing fine for a while, then playing quietly, chilling with a childminder, coming back and rushing to join another kid on the platform where he fell and bumped his head to everyone's horror; fortunately it wasn't a biggie and he was pretty relaxed for the rest of the service

rushing home to pick up my forgotten driver's license and change mr smear; he fell asleep on contact with his car seat and spent the evening sleeping like a log on my sister's bed - we actually had dinner eating and chatting with everyone like adults for the first time since he was born!

a lovely evening, following my mom back to sea point and everyone fairly quickly going to sleep

thursday 21st:

not a bad night, but waking up at 6am thoroughly exhausted and trying to catch up on the couch

a long three hours in the temple, mr smear behaving surprisingly well and i only suffered a few coughing fits; he fell asleep in my arms about ten minutes before i went up to read the prayer for israel, my first time speaking in front of a crowd in ages and awkwardly reading it with him still on my shoulder, then being asked personal questions by the visiting rabbi on everyone else's time

dropping a sore and upset gd (she didn't expect such a long service) at home with mr smear and taking off to airplane's place to learn just how little i know about graphic manipulation, then home briefly before a cold wind tashlich at the lighthouse and getting ready for a really nice dinner at my cousins with my sister - this time mr smear engaging until dinner time

that pumpkin pie!

home and bed

friday 22nd:

another 6am, finishing my book's text arrangement, walking mr smear and the nanny to the park, half an hour on the treadmill with a brief period of elation followed by a painful foot (bad running form), a day of trying and failing to create or convert different ebook formats minus an hour of work and another of walking mr smear to see the sea

adobe and the cc fails; having to download legitimate software illegally

dinner with mom, mr smear falling asleep quickly, more ebook struggling and an idiot abroad then crashing before 11pm

saturday 23rd:

the fallout from my mom misspeaking the night before (fortunately resolved the same day), a really nice, intimate and interesting saturday morning service with lots of people commenting on just how well-behaved mr smear is, home for lunch and a nap, mom's visit and finally making progress with epub and pdf formatting just as sailor arrived, a little work and a lot of strategy plus playing with mr smear, hitting the waterfront for birthday present shopping and dinner plus decadent treats from wellness warehouse (although the macha tea was awful) before returning home to eat, shower and put mr smear to bed

gd passing out quickly, working on my book

sunday 24th:

until eventually publishing (but not promoting) just after 2am, only vaguely confident in the quality of the files and the online shop (wordpress isell and who knows what paypal will do) and wondering how amazon reduced the size of my book so drastically (up to 72 hours to find out) [isell works great! and amazon dropping the dpi significantly from print quality still looks great on an ipad]

3am upstairs drunk neighbours' shit music at full blast, 3.30am going up a second time and working hard not to physically climb into those sacks of sociopathic excrement; by that stage our night was done

waking up to my first live offering on the kindle store, gd's back too sensitive to travel and taking mr smear out to polkadraai alone for his friend's birthday party - arriving beyond exhausted and struggling to manage mr smear and deal with other parents for a couple of hours, although some were fun to be around regardless. mr smear's possessiveness of his nanny, running into our first playdate friends, arranging preschool hebrew meetups, slugging down a cup of coffee and driving back home the long way through rough areas (my gods, cape town is an ENORMOUS sprawl), mr smear sleeping most of the way

surviving the afternoon with a little help from my mom, getting through the evening, the last bits of leftovers and an idiot abroad, a little more book / author page tweaking, some investigation into iot and going to bed early

monday 25th:

a few ups in the night for mr smear talking in his sleep, sleeping in a little and starting the day with the dr horrible soundtrack and some games, general unpleasantness, backups, baby city, learning that our shitty neighbours had had a break-in (not sad for them), things getting worse then better, walking mr smear to sleep, a little work before he got up and then gd's first visit to the scratch patch, mr smear a lot easier to manage than the friends we met up with there (gd's concerned that he's trying really hard to befriend a kid that's antisocial), angry clothing shopping (for me, but eventually when i found good trousers gd realized that i wasn't being uncooperative, just selective); coming home for dinner, shower and one last unpleasant episode, then finally settling in to our regular evening routine

working until suddenly finding myself overwhelmed by fatigue and rushing into bed

tuesday 26th:

a marginally better morning, dropping mr smear at school then returning to take gd to acupuncture and head to town for an interesting meeting about my options for digital printing (next stop, lithographers); the rain beginning as i got back into the car, taking gd home and fiddling with image compression before picking up mr smear - starting to be concerned by the behaviour gd noted, we want him to stand up for himself as well as be affectionate and we're only seeing the latter (although he is only two, my gods parenting is tough)

the struggle to get him out the door with his nanny and her return about ten minutes later with him fast asleep, test driving a chev (just like an opel!), taking mr smear for his last vaccines before age six (and damned expensive ones, too, but we only just learned that we had cheaper options): unlike most kids (and pets going to the vet), he had no issues with the place itself, he played nicely and was very chilled. it was only when we put him on my lap on "the chair" that he knew exactly what what was coming and the administration of the three shots was pretty traumatic... but fifteen seconds later he was chilled and playing again.

huh.

artisan bread, home for dinner and finally finding a particularly stupid bug that visual studio had introduced into my code that had sent me on a wild goose chase for days

bedtime, a little idiot abroad, an important conversation with sailor (should i have been THAT candid?), rick and morty, mr smear mysteriously unhappy for a while, a little stripe store experimentation and then work

wednesday 27th:

until 12.30am

a pretty standard morning, returning home from dropping mr smear off and finally sitting down with the gap insurance claim form and a support agent on the phone, suddenly realizing that i'd gotten the hospitalization dates wrong* and that it was precisely six months ago to the day and therefore literally the very last day to submit the claim: not helped by frantically searching for the supporting documentation for half an hour when it had been right under my nose beneath the claim form the whole time

* might have something to do with all related parties taking a month to send their bills

picking up mr smear, dropping off gd at the gym, putting mr smear into bed just as the jackhammers fired up, trying to work and really struggling to get my head into it, mr smear waking up just as gd arrived home, the nanny taking him to the park and us going an hour later to relieve her, a little football time and a walk to learn where the horses aren't stabled, home for some shopping, reading, eating, bedtime, an idiot abroad, rick and morty and work

thursday 28th:

storming downstairs twice to complain about midnight construction (i actually asked "did none of you have parents?!")
resolving one set of issues to get stuck in another
1.30am bedtime

6am the hammering resumed, sleeping in a bit and eventually getting up to dr horrible's sing-along blog, dropping mr smear off at school then returning to take gd to the chiropractor and finally coming home and getting some work done

chatting with the "we're just following orders" contracts manager, i told him and later his boss that that's a very nazi attitude to hold

gd walking all the way home, picking up mr smear, an afternoon with an enforced nap (read: me dancing him to sleep) but mostly working and dealing with his defiance - and his new crying-for-everything thing he's picked up at school :(

our neighbour trying to sell us a more-than-just-a-vacuum-cleaner (i wish him luck, but even if we could afford it i'm not sure we'd really want one), bedtime prep and mom's visit at bedtime, a cider and chocolate disturbed by 9pm hammering, working until 11pm then crashing

friday 29th:

making a real effort to avoid waking up with gd and mr smear at 6am, succeeding well enough to dream about researching academic publishing opportunities for my mother and exploring moving to live in another area of cape town (the possibility of which gd would end up raising in the morning in an unrelated conversation)

beginning the day meeting with the preschool principal about removing dairy from the school; a very encouraging discussion as she was very receptive and accommodating

work - back to the struggle integrating microsoft and openssl encryption keys - picking mr smear up early, between a difficult diaper change and a slow uphill taking half an hour to get home

an unpleasant afternoon triggered by a detail mismatch and lasting until evening, a serious sorbet and booze run, mr smear (mostly) helping me shop after waking up from his nap, gd's delicious pre-fast dinner, showering and putting mr smear to bed... going to bed ourselves not long after

saturday 30th:

3am pride and fall

6am back to sleep on the couch

walking mr smear, playing at the park, meeting gd, mr smear falling asleep on the long walk to the temple; all dressed in black and with no kippah on the holiest day of the year - but fasting and repenting honestly nonetheless

walking home, feeling really dizzy and breaking my fast on cold coconut water (a most sensational relief), a quiet afternoon (mr smear guzzling leftovers and falling backwards off the couch)

dropping gd off at the temple, mr smear off at my mom's, a quick and painless ne'ila, a very nice breaking of the fast with lots of good food

sunday 1st:

crashing at midnight, waking up before everyone else at 6.30am

our first non-tv morning in a long time, good breakfast, mr smear's potty milestone (ripping off his diaper and using it correctly) and making a little work progress before heading out to buy pull-ups and enjoy a delicious meal at the hungry herbivore (mr smear demolished my burger!); coming home to take full advantage of nap time, waking up begrudgingly when he did, then going out for a late afternoon stroll / park / blue train ride before returning for the dinner gd had prepared

bedtime prep, a little star trek: discovery then rick and morty before messing about with this post (and trying to do other things in the background; not so successful.