interviewing chicken hero

monday 14th:

was that just monday? waking up late (i needed the sleep, desperately, and i was dreaming), warning the nanny about using her phone when on the job, making just enough progress to report to my coworkers, working and looking after mr smear (including literally walking him across the road and back to keep him away from the vacuum cleaner), heading to the gym and being too late to secure a room, studying for an hour then rushing home to pick up keys for my mom's and arriving there with three minutes to put the kettle on before my phone screen...

... passing the screen, rushing to pick up emergency groceries and get home in time to take mr smear swimming, shower, and leave him with my mom while gd and i went to the temple for our monthly study group

home, reading the chronicles of narnia until bedtime, working through until 1.30am and going to bed with an almost complete proof of concept

tuesday 15th:

two green teas instead of coffee, home alone with mr smear, struggling to work while he desperately wanted to play: the heartbreak and guilt was crushing
a quick swim in cold windy weather before rushing off to a lunch with some recruiters, feeling awfully tired, sudafed and a great interview for a product that i've wanted to build myself, a quick stop at home then off to the temple for our first committee meeting

mr smear being surprisingly well-behaved during the meeting

home, mom arriving for help with data recovery then disappearing, dr horrible's sing-along blog, a quick bedtime reading, then working straight through

wednesday 16th:

to 1am, taking half an hour to actually getting into bed

a tough wake-up, but green tea instead of coffee again seemed to be helping
morning traffic jam to mr smear's first day at the new school, total chaos as nobody knew what was happening, our concerns over allergy awareness and his stress over not getting a superhero sticker on his locker

working a bit then heading to the tattoo parlour, the artist not feeling well so we postponed the appointment and sat planning for an hour an a half instead, with both of us feeling excited by the end of it

running into our neighbour on the way home, poor dude's been super sick, writing up the morning's experience and working a little more before taking gd to pick up mr smear

a much-needed nap, waking up to "no! we must go without daddy!" followed by "daddy is my best friend" (i was stunned ^_^)

a great swim with mr smear and gd and really playing in the water, a good shower, delicious dinner and hook

working late, finally getting my code running on a demo server

thursday 17th:

struggling to get out of bed, getting a little work done, dropping mr smear off at school, a blank space (work? bureaucracy?), dropping gd off in sea point and settling in at my mom's for a really cool semi-technical interview, an amazing lunch from the sunshine food company, difficult personality assessments, too much renovation noise for the cognitive ability assessment so driving to the gym for that, the confidence-crush of bad time management and then rushing to sort out consent forms for the next day, two coffees later and generally feeling anxious and overwhelmed

home, dinner, mom's visit, running to our friend for interview prep and leaving feeling far more confident, home again in time to say goodnight to mr smear and have a few laughs while gd read him the witches until he passed out, hackerrank...

friday 18th:

... until 1am

a pretty decent morning, but running late with a big rush to get mr smear showered and to school before hunting for parking at the offices i was to interview at. in the middle of the rush mr smear came up to me for a hug and said "i love you, daddy" and that really made my morning!

a full day of interviews, generally engaging and pleasant, finishing the day with a (half a) beer with our friend (and realizing that i've been friends with the guys i met up with at that same bar recently for twenty years, since my first year at university)

a quick stop at gardens centre, picking up one bottle of wine but forgetting the other, getting home planning on taking mr smear to the temple but walking to pick up the forgotten bottle and deciding to just relax for a bit instead.

taking my mom and mr smear to my aunt's for a really nice friday night dinner, mr smear passing out on the couch towards the end and giving me no trouble all the way to putting him into bed at home and going to sleep myself

yesterday:

waking up but needing plenty more rest, starting the day with adventure time and eventually getting out the house around 11am, picking something up in sea point then driving to my mom's coffee shop, chilling there for a bit (mr smear napping on granny for a while), running into a cousin and his girlfriend, and then bumping into our friends and their kid and taking them with us to plant to pick up shwarma and to the eco-village at oude molan for a great afternoon with the kids both riding horses.

on the way back to the car we saw a hen and her chicks by a sewer grate, and our friend realized that some of the chicks had fallen through the grate; i jumped to lift it, only realizing just how heavy it was after i'd already gotten it off - fortunately, while i'm feeling the strain in my lower back i did pick it up with relatively decent form and it could've been a lot worse. it felt really good returning the two lost chicks to their mother.

getting everyone home, showering mr smear, watching stardust, getting mr smear to bed, falling asleep watching titans,

this morning:

jesus, netflix, where did boj and he-man go?!

this post aside, i really do have a lot of work and podcasting to catch up on in addition to family / birthday / community obligations. i'm feeling relatively relaxed, though, this weekend has so far been an enormous relief from the intensity of the past two weeks.