1.55am into bed for a night a disturbances and interrupted dreams
up stupidly early, grabbing the wrong shakespeare book on the way out, mr smear's teachers in hysterics when i told them that superman had been mean to him
using a public toilet one-handed with a door that opens into the stall in a way that makes it impossible to avoid touching everything
a promising meeting with the publisher, a quick failed attempt to speak to someone at the israeli consulate, sending shakespeare works for review, picking up mr smear (each time he excitedly runs to me yelling "daddy!" is a gift), putting him to bed, chatting with a recruiter and going to get a quote for the car's panel work from a friend of protoplasm's
lying down on the couch with pink floyd, waking up to chocolate cake and turkish coffee before taking mr smear to the waterfront to sort out my caller id (?!) and gd's phone cover, buy gym gear, and visit the aquarium - a fun little tour and a much improved sandpit experience
home, shower, monsters inc. and dinner, mom joining us, a pleasant goodnight, lying down for a few minutes then watching happy with gd (damn, it's good)
thursday 17th:
somehow working until 2am
another (so surprisingly) difficult wakeup, delivering one of gd's cakes to the school staff (it was a hit), mr smear refusing to eat his without a fork and his teacher being amazed that he sat with the kids eating their ice cream and didn't seem phased by the fact that he couldn't have any
slow but steady progress at my mom's coffee shop, picking up mr smear who'd had to take his superman onesie off because it was such a hot day
quick lunch and teaching gd about the torah structure (and about studying without stressing - information doesn't go in if you're anxious, so learning *for* something is less helpful than just going over the material for its own sake)
a great massage while lecturing the same philosophy and economics i've been harping on about all week, stopping by a couple of pharmacies (one for toys and homeless vouchers, one for meds) and stopping at home quickly before taking mr smear out for a quick walk to the park
a scary moment chasing him on his bike heading towards the road; fireman's pole level up!
handing him over to my mom and going to gd's class; meeting the new shaliach (shlicha), an entertaining class but feeling like a made a fool of myself just before we left
going to bed after a cup of coffee and another episode of happy
friday 18th:
the caffeine keeping me restless all night, but not enough to get out of bed; getting up early, gd too sore to make her not-hypnotherapist appointment
"superman, what's your REAL name?"
"spiderman!"
is it wrong of me to teach my son that the planet he comes from is krypton?
a couple of hours working, feeling a bit chilly when i left but walking out into another hot day (30 degrees in mid-may!)
home, quick grocery run, a short rest, going to the waterfront to fix gd's phone insurance, buy gift birthday books and be lied to about my phone performance by apple's techs
taking mr smear to the park and the beach, him facing off with a tough little girl, one scary wave sneaking up on us, candles and kiddush before going to shadowslight's dad's for a busy and enjoyable evening; being unable to extract myself from an interesting conversation with shadowslight and his brother until past eleven, transferring mr smear to the car and then to bed pretty easily
saturday 19th:
very warm. watching happy and double-medicating rls with magnesium and tonic water and getting through most of the next episode of happy before crashing around 1am
a struggle to order movie tickets
stopping to check online prices before racing to purchase the deadpool collection, buying all three volumes along with the nao of brown then rushing to the post office to pick up the copy of the nao of brown i'd forgotten we'd ordered and hurrying back home to delete the item from the order
the window man assessment, taking mr smear through to his favourite classmate's third birthday:
parking outside airplane's
alcoholic ginger beer
cool parents (smokers not included)
chocolate cake stress and failing to protect the dog
awkwardly sitting while people gushed over the royal wedding
home with an awake mr smear and me going down for a nap, difficulty waking up (physical and emotional) but coffeeing up and getting to the world of birds, signing a form with mr smear out cold on my shoulder
back home for a short while then saying good night to mr smear and going to the temple
a long evening, some entertaining and some not so much
sunday 20th:
leaving around midnight just before i suspected i'd start hallucinating from exhaustion, eating and watching more happy before crashing at roughly 2am
starting the day on a positive note, taking mr smear to another birthday party; establishing who the cool parents are, and who aren't, mr smear sneaking a meringue so fast that all i registered were the traces around his mouth and feeling extreme gratitude when i was sure he hadn't taken anything with dairy
getting mr smear to fall asleep in the car without needing to drive around, everyone napping together, our two potential playdates cancelling and taking advantage, putting on monsters inc and chilling before rushed mall shopping before heading out to meet shadowslight and co.
spur dinner oddly satiating, discovering i'd bought tickets for the wrong day but being allowed in anyway - better seats, too - deadpool 2 was fantastically fun!
monday 21st:
random stuff before my first look at battletech - excellent, but frustratingly slow on the machine i'm using
going to bed around 2.30 after formalizing my work hours for SxS
arriving at school a little late to discover it was closed for the second day of shavuot, a quick stop at my mom's coffee shop where mr smear didn't like us laughing at his babyccino goatee, arriving at gd's neurologist just on time, mr smear alternating between cute and whiny, the neurologist seeming to be on the same page as us but not impressed when i asked if we could discuss me as well (no try no get, maybe, but *oops*)
canal walk, video arcade fun with mr smear before he tucked in to tofu and chinese vegetables (it's so exciting to see him stuffing himself on bok choy and carrots and broccoli!)
an aggressive religious muslim smoking under the no smoking sign at the parking machines and becoming angry when i asked him to move
no naps for mr smear, but all of us excited upon receiving his package of spiderman, vulture, rhino, beetle, sandman, green goblin and arnim zola action figures (!!)
managing to nap for an hour or two before chatting with SxS, being embarrassed to learn how i'd spoken to a coworker recently and hoping my apology would be accepted (it was, i'm grateful)
taking mr smear to meet our old neighbours at the park on a beautifully cloudy, cold evening; successfully negotiating his jacket closed (hooray!)
frustrated but accepting of his misnaming green goblin as hulk and arnim zola as iron man, but blown away by the immediate success of the experiment watching him roleplaying as intended
a big, delicious dinner before prepping him for bed, the rain of a welcome storm in the background
the joy of his play and hearing him struggle and work through little scenarios. the horror seeing him make the green goblin eat beetle's poop and at a complete loss as to how to handle that.
finishing happy season one thoroughly entertained, watching tony robbins on relationships
tuesday 22nd:
an actual conversation with hyperviper for the first time in years, learning that he's been blinded in one eye by a stroke :(
fiddling until 1am... then 1.30am...
in case it wasn't enough waking up with a sore and stiff neck, my lower back had to join the party too. managing to drop mr smear at school around 8am and get lost (using waze and maps) on the way to the auto workshop situated in one of the city's lesser-known godforsaken areas
ubering back to civilization, getting a bus pass sorted then settling into my mom's coffee shop; slowly and stupidly doing things and eventually making a little progress, suspecting the decaf almond latte of not being almond milk and becoming increasingly concerned that it would mess me up (fortunately it turned out to be almond milk)
walking to pick up mr smear and take him home on the bus, a surprisingly straightforward trip home with mr smear falling asleep just before we arrived, finding gd injured again after one false move getting up
passing out for an hour or two, mr smear waking me up to change his diaper and feed him, an afternoon lost to behaviour debates and other distractions
not only did i have to call the mechanic for an update, they hadn't even begun to work on my car and then lied about how long they'd told me it would take, leaving us unexpectedly carless for an extra day
eventually getting mr smear into bed, settling down to watch something before a meeting and having to jump downstairs to spend half an hour with my mom wrestling with a borrowed baby seat
a short meeting followed by a long night of moving things around
wednesday 23rd:
2.10am by the time i figured out VSTS load testing and was ready to go to bed
early up, morning media control generating tension, rushing to get to my mom by 8am for a lift to town
being hugely disappointed to learn that if there's a problem with the car's shocks it'll need custom engineering, and that i might not need anything and everyone's been talking shit to me
making good work progress, picking up mr smear and bussing home (he enjoyed seeing lots of policemen busting the suspicious curio shop next door), tasting gd's weirdly delicious carob brownies (tasted like marzipan), ubering to the workshop to pick up my car - left unlocked with the window open, and nothing was taken! - an agreeable conversation before heading straight to my massage therapist who discovered a new but important way to hurt me (the ilotibial bands on my legs that are related somehow to my rls)
a long but positive discovery meeting before taking mr smear shopping with me, running into my mom which really helped, buying a cheap samsui replacement for my infuriating iphone, eating falafel, mr smear falling asleep at the grocery store
backing up and attempting to transfer data ("at least i won't be doing this again, screw you apple!", i thought... wrongly)
a bit of black panther (the accents! the horror!)
the netflix series letdown has a lot of potential, but is in fact quite a let-down
thursday 24th: transfer day
installing apps until 1.10am - this would turn into a theme over the next couple of days, with the cheap samsui unable to operate more than one app even if everything was pushed to the extra memory card.
...
<lost journal entries due to a failed attempt to switch phones>
so i'm back on my iphone until i can upgrade gd's contract because it sucks but it doesn't suck as much.
...
thursday morning started really badly because we'd forgotten that the cleaning lady would be coming in when we needed to be at gd's not-hypnotherapist, i managed to figure out the solution only to race home to pick up gd and discover that she'd postponed her appointment - rendering all my efforts useless.
thursday afternoon saw the second long afternoon meeting that would prevent me from taking mr smear out to play (i felt like a bad dad), going straight to gd's class about the mikveh (she got emotional)
friday 25th:
a better morning, trying to buy coffee and finding out i'd maxed out my credit card (no stress), using gd's time at her not-hypnotherist to learn to backup whatsapp conversations to the icloud, home (ali wong and late breakfast), picking up mr smear, sailor arriving at some point, another meeting but only half an hour, getting a health check during a pharmacy run and being told i'm in perfect health but need to lose a few kilos, coming home to defiantly eat more of gd's baking, taking mr smear to the park before taking him to the temple
saturday 26th:
a long walk with mr smear that included the blue train, our favourite artisan bread and the green point park, the Big Drama of hunting for gd's most treasured article of clothing for an hour before realizing that it had been thrown out with all her summer stuff (boy, was that a long and uncomfortable story), my mom arriving to let us go to the afrikaburn event just in time to participate, things eventually calming down but gd unwilling to go so i went by myself
meeting shadowslight there, sitting in on a couple of meetings and learning about burn mechanics and how radical self-reliance is actually very similar to my own vision of the future, a generally fun and interesting few hours including an exciting meeting with an old friend and pitching him my new idea
driving shadowslight home (an impressive tech-support call on the road)
finally finishing black panther - not amazing, but certainly very good
sunday 27th:
going to the world of birds with our brazilian friends, the moms and kids enjoying the place and the dads discussing politics, going to the indian restaurant for lunch and finding them closed (on a sunday afternoon?!?) so heading next door to the italian place for an all-round disappointing experience (later leaving them a harsh review and receiving a reassuring call from one of the owners)
two episodes of the new season of 13 reasons why, then managing to put in some personal project time for a couple of hours
monday 28th:
a VERY cold day, and wet too (yay!), mr smear's cough keeping him with us, gd's MRI and taking mr smear to the park to joyfully play in the fallen leaves until the rain started (successfully managing to get him to close his jacket!), getting another panel-beater quote, successfully introducing gd to the virgin active collection, bumping into my cousin and organizing our account upgrade, rushing back to the mediclinic to pay for the MRI, get to the specialist, leave gd there and take mr smear home to nap while i waited for the cleaning lady to not arrive (second time in a row, and i needed to be in gd's meeting), realizing as gd got home that we'd completely forgotten our appointments with the jewish agency!
mad rush to get there, getting lost on the way, one very positive meeting (it IS possible to get around bad consulates), two very awkward ones (student authority and job hunting), and a terrible moment where i thanked a lady for her help and immediately registered that the lady who'd actually helped me was sitting next to her O_o
getting a bunch of things done before taking mr smear to the waterfront, in-out at the aquarium that included mr smear putting his hand on a urinal again (of course it has to be in a restroom that makes it difficult to wash a child's hands), the joy of him tucking into a falafel wrap with gusto, a long and tantum-y visit to the pharmacy and grocery store, leaving half the shopping list because i just didn't have the energy any more and coming home to shower him and get him ready for bed
crashing immediately after getting him to sleep
today:
getting up just over an hour ago, and now finally ready to get some paid work done
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