... everyone else got to go outside today. i barely got any sleep and while i'm definitely doing better than i was at 2am, it's still a bit difficult to breath and the swelling by the base of my skull is present and tender.
i spent today either working or lying in bed, half the time feeling worse lying down than the awful feeling i had not lying down. it was horrible. i'm glad and grateful that my office is supportive.
i had a chat with our neighbour, who took my news that we might not be interested in purchasing pretty well (not a good idea if we leave the country, and the more we think about it the more it seems like the right thing to do), and the hido arrived for a quick visit which was cool. a little more proud gaming with mr smear, then dinner; it took a while for my system to settle down to eat it. bath-time was good, we seem to be figuring out how to manage things, and bedtime was great (mr smear was really excited by my ending to the goldilocks story, but then a bit disappointed when he asked to see and it turned out she survived after all).
more awesome love, death + robots, and i've just finished recording the latest podcast episode. i'm not sure whether i should try editing it now or wait until tomorrow, i have a 9am appointment with the doctor...
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
pain x 2
on march 17th i posted about a band of pain around my chest, and between half an hour and an hour ago it just struck again, so intense i wasn't sure i wasn't having a heart attack. it seems to be a muscle spasming and putting pressure on the top of my spine and my neck, shoulders and chest into an intensely painful spin.
monday morning 00.15am stress
it's been a good evening, bath-time was manageable and mr smear's bedtime was fun. gd and i watched more love, death + robots and i made some exciting progress on this week's podcast.
but it's now past midnight and the israeli holidaymakers downstairs are making an insane racket and i'm a ball of stress trying to decide whether to hobble downstairs on my crutches or just leave it alone and try to get some sleep.
either way, they've totally distracted me from the sonnet episode and i'm pretty damned resentful.
but it's now past midnight and the israeli holidaymakers downstairs are making an insane racket and i'm a ball of stress trying to decide whether to hobble downstairs on my crutches or just leave it alone and try to get some sleep.
either way, they've totally distracted me from the sonnet episode and i'm pretty damned resentful.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
later that day
1. i'm exhausted. inexplicably exhausted, even if intellectually i know that dealing with my knee is costing my body everything.
2. our temporary airbnb israeli neighbours insist on smoking on their balcony in spite of the rules, and it's really hard to deal with. i'm considering buying a vaping starter pack for each new tenant as a welcome-and-stop-that-shit gift.
3. lunch with sailor: it was a great lunch, but an important one. after discussions of buying the apartment next door and the general lack of community assistance when it comes to raising kids here - by this i mean that lots of parents here are doing a poor job and the schools don't intervene where necessary - couple with a few other things like personal safety and security, our lunchtime conversation did a pretty good job of convincing me that we need to pay israel a visit and see if moving there is a viable option for gd.
4. gd taking some of her conversion class friends for a "boot camp" downstairs was cool.
5. the hebrew version of "super wings" being taken down from youtube is painful. i bought it on itunes but it's english only :(
6. mr smear's proficiency with the new games and the trackpad is wonderful to behold. even more awesome was him suddenly getting up, going off to the table and coming back with the mouse - he even intuited how and where to plug it in (although i did need to show him which side of the connector faces up). 3 years 9 months ^_^
7. the princess bride in french
8. gd and mr smear on the floor playing with the new duplo blocks my mom picked up this afternoon.
2. our temporary airbnb israeli neighbours insist on smoking on their balcony in spite of the rules, and it's really hard to deal with. i'm considering buying a vaping starter pack for each new tenant as a welcome-and-stop-that-shit gift.
3. lunch with sailor: it was a great lunch, but an important one. after discussions of buying the apartment next door and the general lack of community assistance when it comes to raising kids here - by this i mean that lots of parents here are doing a poor job and the schools don't intervene where necessary - couple with a few other things like personal safety and security, our lunchtime conversation did a pretty good job of convincing me that we need to pay israel a visit and see if moving there is a viable option for gd.
4. gd taking some of her conversion class friends for a "boot camp" downstairs was cool.
5. the hebrew version of "super wings" being taken down from youtube is painful. i bought it on itunes but it's english only :(
6. mr smear's proficiency with the new games and the trackpad is wonderful to behold. even more awesome was him suddenly getting up, going off to the table and coming back with the mouse - he even intuited how and where to plug it in (although i did need to show him which side of the connector faces up). 3 years 9 months ^_^
7. the princess bride in french
8. gd and mr smear on the floor playing with the new duplo blocks my mom picked up this afternoon.
complex like sunday morning
okay, to be fair it's been a pretty good morning so far, i've slept and for the second day in a row mr smear is showing interest and competence in computer games that are intended for older kids. i may be exhausted, but there's nothing like cheering on my kid as he blasts through letters and numbers games, and a short while ago he was playing ink and he destroyed all the rectangles on a level entirely by himself! for a three-and-a-half year old, that's an achievement unlocked in my book ^_^
4am yesterday morning we awoke to mr smear experiencing another night terror, we're convinced that he's still not over the shigella infection and are praying that that's the reason for the terrors. night terrors are really rough :(
yesterday morning gd went to her hypnotherapy course and mr smear and i played hide-and-seek or computer games until my mother arrived, at which point she walked in on him sitting on the toilet making devil horns and rocking out to rob zombie. i then put my swollen foot up for a while, was amused when everyone came back home to hear that gd and my mom were both playing hide-and-seek with mr smear outside, enjoyed an episode of ultimate beastmaster in spite of mr smear's protests that it was scary.
i managed to bath with mr smear before leaving for a dinner at friends in honour of sailor's return, but i'd been cooking a headache and started feeling really woozy while getting dressed and sadly had to call it a night. we got mr smear to bed fairly smoothly, and then proceeded to watch the trainspotting sequel: i surprised by just how much i enjoyed it, and pleased by how it didn't feel contrived and tacky.
i woke up this morning from a dream in which i'd done something political and had to run to a dentist's appointment and dispose of the evidence, followed by my accepting a new job and feeling stressed about leaving my current one after only two months when i'm really happy where i am. at the moment, i honestly can't imagine any job in which i'd feel as much at home.
4am yesterday morning we awoke to mr smear experiencing another night terror, we're convinced that he's still not over the shigella infection and are praying that that's the reason for the terrors. night terrors are really rough :(
yesterday morning gd went to her hypnotherapy course and mr smear and i played hide-and-seek or computer games until my mother arrived, at which point she walked in on him sitting on the toilet making devil horns and rocking out to rob zombie. i then put my swollen foot up for a while, was amused when everyone came back home to hear that gd and my mom were both playing hide-and-seek with mr smear outside, enjoyed an episode of ultimate beastmaster in spite of mr smear's protests that it was scary.
i managed to bath with mr smear before leaving for a dinner at friends in honour of sailor's return, but i'd been cooking a headache and started feeling really woozy while getting dressed and sadly had to call it a night. we got mr smear to bed fairly smoothly, and then proceeded to watch the trainspotting sequel: i surprised by just how much i enjoyed it, and pleased by how it didn't feel contrived and tacky.
i woke up this morning from a dream in which i'd done something political and had to run to a dentist's appointment and dispose of the evidence, followed by my accepting a new job and feeling stressed about leaving my current one after only two months when i'm really happy where i am. at the moment, i honestly can't imagine any job in which i'd feel as much at home.
Friday, April 26, 2019
tired and sore
my leg swells up terribly at work because i'm wearing a brace and i can't put my foot up. now i'm at home putting my foot up and i'm super uncomfortable. i'm so over this, and it's just the beginning of this little adventure :(
i made some good progress with my chat server last night and this morning, had a very busy day, and am doing my darnedest to avoid doing anything that feels like work right now.
i have to share this, though: this morning i interviewed someone who not only wasn't prepared for the interview (as in, hadn't gone over the material the recruiter sent them), but was being interviewed via video chat and i could see that he was looking things up. he was cheating, visibly, in an interview.
WTF?!?!
even if you could pull it off, wouldn't it worry you that you're not qualified for the job? that you'll turn your life around for a new job and then lose it almost immediately? or that your first contact with your new co-worker is having lied to him? i can't wrap my head around this.
i made some good progress with my chat server last night and this morning, had a very busy day, and am doing my darnedest to avoid doing anything that feels like work right now.
i have to share this, though: this morning i interviewed someone who not only wasn't prepared for the interview (as in, hadn't gone over the material the recruiter sent them), but was being interviewed via video chat and i could see that he was looking things up. he was cheating, visibly, in an interview.
WTF?!?!
even if you could pull it off, wouldn't it worry you that you're not qualified for the job? that you'll turn your life around for a new job and then lose it almost immediately? or that your first contact with your new co-worker is having lied to him? i can't wrap my head around this.
wrong day
jeebus, i spent the entire day thinking it was either wednesday or friday, and nobody corrected me whenever i said something day-inappropriate.
it was tough getting up, but it was good - mr smear's usually unkind / grumpy in the mornings, and this morning he was happy to see me and when i sat down next to him he hugged my arm and didn't let go, which totally made my morning.
i got into work in time for an intern presentation, got back to the office just in time for the daily standup, then proceeded to a train-wreck of an interview. i worked through some things and then went off to another interview, which compared the previous ones was a breath of fresh air, and then ended up working pretty late because my mom was picking me up and got stuck in bus-fire traffic. because setting fires to buses is a thing in cape town.
my leg brace felt loose for about half the day, and i got home to a really swollen leg and foot. this sucks.
the evening was going pretty well until mr smear, sitting on my lap, peed. it didn't appear to be an accident, and it was apparently the second time today, which was intensely upsetting and led to a fair amount of drama. it seems to be learned behaviour from our friends' kid and until they sort him out i don't want mr smear hanging around him any more. wtf, man, we're doing our best to raise a solid kid and this other child's really bringing him down :(
at least by bedtime we had him proudly stating the rules of (pee) engagement, so hopefully we're going to get through this shit quickly.
more work on one of my chat server, a little progress on the insurance claims. a bit more love, death and robots (DAMN it's awesome), and now back to the chat server before bed.
it was tough getting up, but it was good - mr smear's usually unkind / grumpy in the mornings, and this morning he was happy to see me and when i sat down next to him he hugged my arm and didn't let go, which totally made my morning.
i got into work in time for an intern presentation, got back to the office just in time for the daily standup, then proceeded to a train-wreck of an interview. i worked through some things and then went off to another interview, which compared the previous ones was a breath of fresh air, and then ended up working pretty late because my mom was picking me up and got stuck in bus-fire traffic. because setting fires to buses is a thing in cape town.
my leg brace felt loose for about half the day, and i got home to a really swollen leg and foot. this sucks.
the evening was going pretty well until mr smear, sitting on my lap, peed. it didn't appear to be an accident, and it was apparently the second time today, which was intensely upsetting and led to a fair amount of drama. it seems to be learned behaviour from our friends' kid and until they sort him out i don't want mr smear hanging around him any more. wtf, man, we're doing our best to raise a solid kid and this other child's really bringing him down :(
at least by bedtime we had him proudly stating the rules of (pee) engagement, so hopefully we're going to get through this shit quickly.
more work on one of my chat server, a little progress on the insurance claims. a bit more love, death and robots (DAMN it's awesome), and now back to the chat server before bed.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
that tears it!
seriously, though, i've partially torn my MCL, torn my ACL completely, and i have tears in the miniscus. surgery's scheduled in a week and a half and i've got no clue how we're going to manage... mainly because gd's got *her* surgery 9 days later so we'll both be out of commission and in need of a lot of community help.
mr smear's going to have to step up, three's a good age to start cooking and cleaning, right?
...
amazingly, i actually slept last night! hopefully i'll sleep tonight too.
i spent half my day at the hospital, almost stuffing up the MRI because after 20 minutes of excruciating pain my body began involuntary twitching. then i had to get fitted with the serious brace, obviously the instructions i got from the well-meaning secretaries were to go through an area that was literally impossible to traverse on crutches...
... the workday was long and progress was slow, the highlight being discovering a bug in my first deployed code that forced a rollback! well, not so much a bug as an untested side-effect :P
i've made some progress with the insurance claims, which is a long, tedious process, i've optimized the level i was aiming for in 7 billion humans, found a bunch of cool images to use for stickers, watched some more love, death and robots (freakin' awesome), and it's now past 1am and i'm off to bed.
mr smear's going to have to step up, three's a good age to start cooking and cleaning, right?
...
amazingly, i actually slept last night! hopefully i'll sleep tonight too.
i spent half my day at the hospital, almost stuffing up the MRI because after 20 minutes of excruciating pain my body began involuntary twitching. then i had to get fitted with the serious brace, obviously the instructions i got from the well-meaning secretaries were to go through an area that was literally impossible to traverse on crutches...
... the workday was long and progress was slow, the highlight being discovering a bug in my first deployed code that forced a rollback! well, not so much a bug as an untested side-effect :P
i've made some progress with the insurance claims, which is a long, tedious process, i've optimized the level i was aiming for in 7 billion humans, found a bunch of cool images to use for stickers, watched some more love, death and robots (freakin' awesome), and it's now past 1am and i'm off to bed.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
all the CLs
ha ha ha ha - i thought i was going to sleep last night, but BOY was i wrong! i spent most of the night writhing in agony, and only finally got to sleep a bit about an hour before alarm time. of course.
it was a blustery day, and work was slow and arduous. or was it? maybe it was just where my head was at. the day was split by a visit to the orthopedist, who informed me that my brutalized MCL looks like it's healing on its own, but it appears that i've torn my ACL. which is EXACTLY what i needed to hear :'(
so tomorrow morning i'm going in for an MRI, and then we'll see where that story goes. it's particularly bad timing as we're gearing up for gd to have back surgery... i don't know how we're going to manage all of this. and poor mr smear wanted to be carried this evening and that's just not happening.
my mom helped me home (with a big stack of books for mr smear), i spent the evening editing and posting the latest episode of the podcast, sorting out medical bills, and now... now i'm praying that i'll manage to sleep a bit tonight.
it was a blustery day, and work was slow and arduous. or was it? maybe it was just where my head was at. the day was split by a visit to the orthopedist, who informed me that my brutalized MCL looks like it's healing on its own, but it appears that i've torn my ACL. which is EXACTLY what i needed to hear :'(
so tomorrow morning i'm going in for an MRI, and then we'll see where that story goes. it's particularly bad timing as we're gearing up for gd to have back surgery... i don't know how we're going to manage all of this. and poor mr smear wanted to be carried this evening and that's just not happening.
my mom helped me home (with a big stack of books for mr smear), i spent the evening editing and posting the latest episode of the podcast, sorting out medical bills, and now... now i'm praying that i'll manage to sleep a bit tonight.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
a not-long-enough weekend
i don't know how it's tuesday already. almost 2am on a tuesday. my knees still in trouble and i'm really glad i have an appointment to see the orthopedist. it felt like it was getting better, although without much mobility, but now feels like it's getting worse. my sleep was improving until yesterday and then went right back to awful.
with gd in severe back pain and having to catch up on a whole bunch of work we pay our cleaning lady to do, and with my knee out of order, we've barely been taking mr smear out lately. so my mom came over to help us yesterday and today, yesterday for a walk around the company gardens and today for an aquarium mission. i loved seeing her reaction to mr smear demolishing his tofu / avo / edamame rice lunch.
in general mr smear's been pretty cool the last couple of days, we've had a lot of push-back but only one or two incidents where we've needed to put a foot down. i know i'm biased, but i'm really proud of my little boy and in particular how sharp he is ^_^
we watched titan a.e. last night and howl's moving castle this evening, both movies gd wasn't interested in watching and by the end of which she'd bought into, so that was cool.
i spent the larger part of yesterday refactoring my latest personal project (the chat server), frustrated by the fact that i needed to put in so much work when i thought i was ready for the next phase. that is always the price of quick and dirty hacking.
our neighbor's having a rough time, and there doesn't appear to be much we can do to help him. i hope he comes right.
i've just finished recording the latest podcast episode, which i'm pretty happy with, and there're a couple of important bureaucratic things i've been procrastinating about so i have plenty to keep me busy tomorrow outside of work.
i'm exhausted. i suspect i might be coming down with something. my knee hurts. i'm going to bed.
with gd in severe back pain and having to catch up on a whole bunch of work we pay our cleaning lady to do, and with my knee out of order, we've barely been taking mr smear out lately. so my mom came over to help us yesterday and today, yesterday for a walk around the company gardens and today for an aquarium mission. i loved seeing her reaction to mr smear demolishing his tofu / avo / edamame rice lunch.
in general mr smear's been pretty cool the last couple of days, we've had a lot of push-back but only one or two incidents where we've needed to put a foot down. i know i'm biased, but i'm really proud of my little boy and in particular how sharp he is ^_^
we watched titan a.e. last night and howl's moving castle this evening, both movies gd wasn't interested in watching and by the end of which she'd bought into, so that was cool.
i spent the larger part of yesterday refactoring my latest personal project (the chat server), frustrated by the fact that i needed to put in so much work when i thought i was ready for the next phase. that is always the price of quick and dirty hacking.
our neighbor's having a rough time, and there doesn't appear to be much we can do to help him. i hope he comes right.
i've just finished recording the latest podcast episode, which i'm pretty happy with, and there're a couple of important bureaucratic things i've been procrastinating about so i have plenty to keep me busy tomorrow outside of work.
i'm exhausted. i suspect i might be coming down with something. my knee hurts. i'm going to bed.
Saturday, April 20, 2019
passover easter
happy holidays to all!
this past week was really rough, i had to work from home on monday and spent the first few days really messed up and not as productive as i needed to be. in particular, there've been some medical insurance issues that have been haunting me for the entire week that i simply haven't been capable of facing :(
work: team dynamics got interesting, we had some drama i had to mediate, and one of my teammates is in a hole personally and i'm trying to figure out how i can help him before he burns out entirely... unconscious bias training was kinda interesting, but less than meeting someone in our organization who's tasked with doing the kinds of stuff in education that i'm really excited about and getting to sit down with her for half an hour.
i was supposed to be spending the week training to be on call, but i only finishing delivering my work on thursday afternoon and with yesterday being good friday i ended up with only one or two hours to prepare. no pressure.
knee: monday was super painful, i've barely been able to sleep at night from the pain and discomfort and not being able to sleep on my side. the swelling in my knee seems to have come down and while there're still painful movements it's stable enough for me to put weight on it, but as of this afternoon my ankle's swollen up and we have no idea what that's about.
i actually managed to play catch with him in the garden for a bit this afternoon, though, which was really nice.
i'm icing and rest as much as i can but it's exhausting.
sonnet comics: the good news is that my podcast is finally on spotify and tunein and stitcher, but i only managed to post the latest episode on thursday night and i've now learned the hard way that i really have to prepare a buffer of episodes if i'm going to post on schedule.
passover: after being dragged along to a grocery shopping i was incapable of assisting with, i spent the remainder of yesterday afternoon coaching my cousin's boyfriend for his interview with my company and left myself a hurried few minutes to go through the new haggadot before our friends arrived and we were on our way to the seder. the evening was really nice, my kid made me proud, and it was nice seeing everyone.
mr smear has been giving us some real trouble over the past couple of weeks with behaviour that he's clearly picked up from a friend of his, but we seem to be winning the long game. gd's been in a lot of pain and has had to pick up a lot of slack since i've been out of commission, which really sucks.
our neighbour is in trouble and in desperate need of assistance, if not just an ear to hear. which has been particularly tough to provide with everything else that's been going on, and i'm worried that his fears of chemical lobotomy will materialize because i really don't think he's a danger to anyone.
this past week was really rough, i had to work from home on monday and spent the first few days really messed up and not as productive as i needed to be. in particular, there've been some medical insurance issues that have been haunting me for the entire week that i simply haven't been capable of facing :(
work: team dynamics got interesting, we had some drama i had to mediate, and one of my teammates is in a hole personally and i'm trying to figure out how i can help him before he burns out entirely... unconscious bias training was kinda interesting, but less than meeting someone in our organization who's tasked with doing the kinds of stuff in education that i'm really excited about and getting to sit down with her for half an hour.
i was supposed to be spending the week training to be on call, but i only finishing delivering my work on thursday afternoon and with yesterday being good friday i ended up with only one or two hours to prepare. no pressure.
knee: monday was super painful, i've barely been able to sleep at night from the pain and discomfort and not being able to sleep on my side. the swelling in my knee seems to have come down and while there're still painful movements it's stable enough for me to put weight on it, but as of this afternoon my ankle's swollen up and we have no idea what that's about.
i actually managed to play catch with him in the garden for a bit this afternoon, though, which was really nice.
i'm icing and rest as much as i can but it's exhausting.
sonnet comics: the good news is that my podcast is finally on spotify and tunein and stitcher, but i only managed to post the latest episode on thursday night and i've now learned the hard way that i really have to prepare a buffer of episodes if i'm going to post on schedule.
passover: after being dragged along to a grocery shopping i was incapable of assisting with, i spent the remainder of yesterday afternoon coaching my cousin's boyfriend for his interview with my company and left myself a hurried few minutes to go through the new haggadot before our friends arrived and we were on our way to the seder. the evening was really nice, my kid made me proud, and it was nice seeing everyone.
mr smear has been giving us some real trouble over the past couple of weeks with behaviour that he's clearly picked up from a friend of his, but we seem to be winning the long game. gd's been in a lot of pain and has had to pick up a lot of slack since i've been out of commission, which really sucks.
our neighbour is in trouble and in desperate need of assistance, if not just an ear to hear. which has been particularly tough to provide with everything else that's been going on, and i'm worried that his fears of chemical lobotomy will materialize because i really don't think he's a danger to anyone.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
tattoo taboos
on monday evening a stranger, an elderly orthodox jew, felt perfectly entitled to lay his hands on my tattooed arm and tell me, in a creepy and unfunny attempt at humour*, that he would like to take a grinder and clear the soiled skin off my arm. he then, in what appeared to be an attempt to rescue the clearly awkward situation, shared a wonderful story of his young female neighbour who has a tramp stamp, saying that when she bends over he can only see half of it and he always asks her to keep going so that he can see it all. shadowslight responded first and correctly, saying that her tattoo probably wasn't intended for him, and i spent the next while thinking of all sorts of things i'd have liked to have said but never would - certainly not in the context in which we found ourselves.
this story has been bugging me since last night, partially because i feel uncomfortable with having had that creepy dude lay his hands and ideas on me, but more because it's far from the first time i've encountered this kind of behaviour and it seems that there are a couple of misconceptions that need clearing up, in particular amongst the orthodox community which constitutes the vast majority of my friends and family.
1. let's talk about the tattoo taboo. if your reason to hate tattoos is because you're jewish, and (good) jews don't get tattoos, perhaps you'd be interested to learn where our tattoo aversion comes from?
a) there is a commandment in leviticus about not cutting or tattooing ourselves, which comes in context of not serving other gods and refers to a very particular marking. so as long as we're not tattooing ourselves in service of moloch, we're good on that count.
b) if your aversion to tattoos stems from the nazis tattooing our people in concentration camps, do you share the same aversion to trains? because the trains were a big part of the holocaust experience too.
the torah tells us - in that same set of commandments that that first commandment comes from - to keep our judgements of our neighbours to ourselves. which leads me to the second misconception:
2. for some reason, family and friends and strangers think it's acceptable "good" jewish behaviour to share their honest opinions about how gross and revolting my tattoos are. not "i don't like tattoos", but "those tattoos are disgusting". so let me make my forthcoming behaviour perfectly clear to as many of you as possible, so that when you mother / brother / cousin comes home telling stories of this terrible person that they encountered, you might have a little context in which to process that information:
if you feel like you have the right to tell me that my tattoos are ugly, or that it's a terrible shame that i'm getting them done, i will feel well within my rights to respond in kind. i will "call it as i see it". the following are sample responses depending on which physical "imperfections" are easily visible to me:
"your makeup is spectacularly awful today, did you look in a mirror on your way out the door?"
"you really need to invest in a new wardrobe, these clothes are not doing you any favours"
"has your doctor said anything about your eating disorder?"
"my goodness, you're looking terribly wrinkly today!"
"yuck! you've got botox injections, haven't you?"
"are those breast implants? ooh, i just can't believe you've done that to your body!"
"what on earth were you thinking when you got your hair cut like that?"
if any of those responses would offend you, i warmly recommend reconsidering how you talk to other people.
* i'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, but maybe he's actually a serial killer. who knows?
this story has been bugging me since last night, partially because i feel uncomfortable with having had that creepy dude lay his hands and ideas on me, but more because it's far from the first time i've encountered this kind of behaviour and it seems that there are a couple of misconceptions that need clearing up, in particular amongst the orthodox community which constitutes the vast majority of my friends and family.
1. let's talk about the tattoo taboo. if your reason to hate tattoos is because you're jewish, and (good) jews don't get tattoos, perhaps you'd be interested to learn where our tattoo aversion comes from?
a) there is a commandment in leviticus about not cutting or tattooing ourselves, which comes in context of not serving other gods and refers to a very particular marking. so as long as we're not tattooing ourselves in service of moloch, we're good on that count.
b) if your aversion to tattoos stems from the nazis tattooing our people in concentration camps, do you share the same aversion to trains? because the trains were a big part of the holocaust experience too.
the torah tells us - in that same set of commandments that that first commandment comes from - to keep our judgements of our neighbours to ourselves. which leads me to the second misconception:
2. for some reason, family and friends and strangers think it's acceptable "good" jewish behaviour to share their honest opinions about how gross and revolting my tattoos are. not "i don't like tattoos", but "those tattoos are disgusting". so let me make my forthcoming behaviour perfectly clear to as many of you as possible, so that when you mother / brother / cousin comes home telling stories of this terrible person that they encountered, you might have a little context in which to process that information:
if you feel like you have the right to tell me that my tattoos are ugly, or that it's a terrible shame that i'm getting them done, i will feel well within my rights to respond in kind. i will "call it as i see it". the following are sample responses depending on which physical "imperfections" are easily visible to me:
"your makeup is spectacularly awful today, did you look in a mirror on your way out the door?"
"you really need to invest in a new wardrobe, these clothes are not doing you any favours"
"has your doctor said anything about your eating disorder?"
"my goodness, you're looking terribly wrinkly today!"
"yuck! you've got botox injections, haven't you?"
"are those breast implants? ooh, i just can't believe you've done that to your body!"
"what on earth were you thinking when you got your hair cut like that?"
if any of those responses would offend you, i warmly recommend reconsidering how you talk to other people.
* i'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, but maybe he's actually a serial killer. who knows?
Monday, April 15, 2019
did i say haze?
sunday was going pretty well, gd and i did some exercises together in the morning, we did have one tantrum but otherwise the park visit was fun and mr smear LOVED exploring a real firetruck. and until he popped a wheel, the ballon motorcycle he got was AMAZING. we showered as soon as we got home, gd made a large, delicious lunch that we enjoyed, and then we took the balance bike and skateboard across the road to tool around.
the worst part of me falling off the skateboard and damaging my knee was that the skateboard was stationary at the time. the second worst part was that mr smear didn't notice, and i was terrified that in the amount of time it took me to get over the initial shock and pain and limp to where i could see him something might have happened :(
our neighbour rocked up and we hung around chatting for a while as i tried to regain some mobility, gd arrived as we started making our way back to the apartments and i left her and mr smear at home while our neighbour drove me to the hospital. it was a long few hours, i came out on crutches and with a brace, and i've been struggling to be productive since. i'm calling it a night, and holy crap it's midnight already :S
i had to apologize to another neighbour for being rude to his guests when they made a lot of noise yesterday, which wasn't easy but i eventually managed to gear down and be sincere about it, and it sucks that SxS was here and we didn't have time to meet but that's life.
gd and i are now having an amusing fight over how much snacking i do, i'm kinda insulted but kinda grateful at the same time...
the worst part of me falling off the skateboard and damaging my knee was that the skateboard was stationary at the time. the second worst part was that mr smear didn't notice, and i was terrified that in the amount of time it took me to get over the initial shock and pain and limp to where i could see him something might have happened :(
our neighbour rocked up and we hung around chatting for a while as i tried to regain some mobility, gd arrived as we started making our way back to the apartments and i left her and mr smear at home while our neighbour drove me to the hospital. it was a long few hours, i came out on crutches and with a brace, and i've been struggling to be productive since. i'm calling it a night, and holy crap it's midnight already :S
i had to apologize to another neighbour for being rude to his guests when they made a lot of noise yesterday, which wasn't easy but i eventually managed to gear down and be sincere about it, and it sucks that SxS was here and we didn't have time to meet but that's life.
gd and i are now having an amusing fight over how much snacking i do, i'm kinda insulted but kinda grateful at the same time...
Sunday, April 14, 2019
saturday haze
nothing like waking up to workers coming in to re-install the geyser, and then discovering that gd had the time wrong for her friend's baby shower so not only did we not get to go to the temple for the kids' morning, but we were trapped indoors with no water. a fair chunk of the morning was spent with mr smear watching the telly and me writing a chat server, with a solid break for the two of us to play samorost 3 together which was AWESOME.
and then, about half an hour before gd got home, i caught mr smear scratching the couch with a sharp tool. i called him out, he began screaming at me (which he's been doing for a little while now), and we ended up in a timeout / tantrum cycle that lasted until a minute or two before gd got home. that was the first tantrum. we then headed to the waterfront because we needed to pick up groceries, and between grabbing coffee (or tea), picking up meds from the pharmacy, grabbing a falafel laffa (mr smear ate the crap out of it), walking past die antwoord's ninja and feeling utterly disappointed since seening this and this, some playground time with mr smear, and then a full-scale meltdown in the grocery store (i had to carry him over my shoulder to the car, strap him in and wait for the screaming to stop).
once he was done, it was "hug-uppies" time so that he could pass out on my shoulder, which hurt my back and set off cranial nerve pressure nausea but was an enormous relief after the two tantrums. and then we got home and i realized that i'd promised to help our neighbour out with something and been distracted, so i had to go out again to pick up more groceries. i was feeling horrible and our neighbour insisted on a five minute chat that probably took ten or fifteen but felt like half an hour.
and then i spent the rest of the evening recovering, with my wife telling me i have to lose weight while i finished coding the chat server and got stuck into dealing with podcast aggregators and migrating my sonnetcomix website again, this time because i've received the sketch for the next page from the illustrator and realized that it violates blogger's content policies - fortunately wordpress is accepting of mature content as long as it's tasteful and is flagged as such.
and then, about half an hour before gd got home, i caught mr smear scratching the couch with a sharp tool. i called him out, he began screaming at me (which he's been doing for a little while now), and we ended up in a timeout / tantrum cycle that lasted until a minute or two before gd got home. that was the first tantrum. we then headed to the waterfront because we needed to pick up groceries, and between grabbing coffee (or tea), picking up meds from the pharmacy, grabbing a falafel laffa (mr smear ate the crap out of it), walking past die antwoord's ninja and feeling utterly disappointed since seening this and this, some playground time with mr smear, and then a full-scale meltdown in the grocery store (i had to carry him over my shoulder to the car, strap him in and wait for the screaming to stop).
once he was done, it was "hug-uppies" time so that he could pass out on my shoulder, which hurt my back and set off cranial nerve pressure nausea but was an enormous relief after the two tantrums. and then we got home and i realized that i'd promised to help our neighbour out with something and been distracted, so i had to go out again to pick up more groceries. i was feeling horrible and our neighbour insisted on a five minute chat that probably took ten or fifteen but felt like half an hour.
and then i spent the rest of the evening recovering, with my wife telling me i have to lose weight while i finished coding the chat server and got stuck into dealing with podcast aggregators and migrating my sonnetcomix website again, this time because i've received the sketch for the next page from the illustrator and realized that it violates blogger's content policies - fortunately wordpress is accepting of mature content as long as it's tasteful and is flagged as such.
Saturday, April 13, 2019
whew!
i seem to have made it through the week!
wednesday:
publishing my latest podcast episode while staying home to take care of mr smear while gd went to see a doctor, arriving at work and being dragged into a corporate values workshop with the VP of our division (which was interesting), get a little work done and then driving off to the cemetary for a cousin's funeral, whose kids arrived fifteen minutes late. it was a long ceremony (although not as long as the orthodox), and i "joked" with my mom afterwards that it seems that the most physical exercise i'm getting lately is carrying coffins and shovelling sand onto graves...
i returned to work for a bit before rushing off to the temple council meeting, eventually getting home really tired.
thursday:
"volunteering", but otherwise just working a full day. except for the part where i picked up my new spectacles, ran into an associate of my nephew's and the CPO of the company i interviewed for alongside my present employer, got back to my computer and tried the spectacles on and... i was PISSED. it hurt my eyes and my brain, i couldn't read a thing... i went back, bitched and moaned and wanting to just give them back, but the receptionist convinced me to give them a try in ten minute intervals and i think it's coming right.
a good finish for the day, coming home and relaxing, starting glass
friday:
starting the day off with high fives, a couple of meetings and an interesting lunch, and being called out of a meeting for a plumbing emergency - the geyser's corroded, because our landlord doesn't maintain her shit, and there's a lot of work to be done. fortunately gd noticed it in time to clear our wardrobe!
un-high-fiving when my dev environment mysteriously broke down, struggling to get it sorted but failing to make any more progress before leaving to pick up mr smear and take him to the temple. a generally good experience, but when we were on our way out he became tantrum-y (he was clearly tired), and getting him to the car was unpleasant. he was out by the time we got home, and friday night dinner was simple and good.
unbreakable was amazing, split was amazing, glass was just incredible.
saturday:
it's 1.30am, i've gotten my podcast site sorted out (i've been having minor issues for days), and i've made some headway on a fun tool i've been talking about building for a few weeks now. *deep breath* here comes the weekend!
wednesday:
publishing my latest podcast episode while staying home to take care of mr smear while gd went to see a doctor, arriving at work and being dragged into a corporate values workshop with the VP of our division (which was interesting), get a little work done and then driving off to the cemetary for a cousin's funeral, whose kids arrived fifteen minutes late. it was a long ceremony (although not as long as the orthodox), and i "joked" with my mom afterwards that it seems that the most physical exercise i'm getting lately is carrying coffins and shovelling sand onto graves...
i returned to work for a bit before rushing off to the temple council meeting, eventually getting home really tired.
thursday:
"volunteering", but otherwise just working a full day. except for the part where i picked up my new spectacles, ran into an associate of my nephew's and the CPO of the company i interviewed for alongside my present employer, got back to my computer and tried the spectacles on and... i was PISSED. it hurt my eyes and my brain, i couldn't read a thing... i went back, bitched and moaned and wanting to just give them back, but the receptionist convinced me to give them a try in ten minute intervals and i think it's coming right.
a good finish for the day, coming home and relaxing, starting glass
friday:
starting the day off with high fives, a couple of meetings and an interesting lunch, and being called out of a meeting for a plumbing emergency - the geyser's corroded, because our landlord doesn't maintain her shit, and there's a lot of work to be done. fortunately gd noticed it in time to clear our wardrobe!
un-high-fiving when my dev environment mysteriously broke down, struggling to get it sorted but failing to make any more progress before leaving to pick up mr smear and take him to the temple. a generally good experience, but when we were on our way out he became tantrum-y (he was clearly tired), and getting him to the car was unpleasant. he was out by the time we got home, and friday night dinner was simple and good.
unbreakable was amazing, split was amazing, glass was just incredible.
saturday:
it's 1.30am, i've gotten my podcast site sorted out (i've been having minor issues for days), and i've made some headway on a fun tool i've been talking about building for a few weeks now. *deep breath* here comes the weekend!
Tuesday, April 09, 2019
journey lines and loops
monday:
mr smear staying home, me walking to work
a long day of coding
my mom and i arriving at the same time, spending ten or fifteen minutes enjoying mr smear's recovery
an enjoyable evening at the temple discussing the passover seder
finishing spider-man into the spider-verse, it's hands-down the greatest spiderman movie and we love the deadpool style.
tuesday:
writing a really exciting podcast episode but completing it too late to record it
dropping a grumpy mr smear off at school
journey lines, hearing my teammates' stories and tearing up by the end of one of them
the surreal moment of the woman serving us lunch guessing my surname
allergy eye-closing, maybe i don't need the glasses after all :/
meeting my manager's manager
driving home a bit spaced-out after a long day
a big dinner
mr smear feverish again
reading gd and mr smear harry potter
a long charitable walk with my neighbour
finally starting to record at 10.30pm
mr smear staying home, me walking to work
a long day of coding
my mom and i arriving at the same time, spending ten or fifteen minutes enjoying mr smear's recovery
an enjoyable evening at the temple discussing the passover seder
finishing spider-man into the spider-verse, it's hands-down the greatest spiderman movie and we love the deadpool style.
tuesday:
writing a really exciting podcast episode but completing it too late to record it
dropping a grumpy mr smear off at school
journey lines, hearing my teammates' stories and tearing up by the end of one of them
the surreal moment of the woman serving us lunch guessing my surname
allergy eye-closing, maybe i don't need the glasses after all :/
meeting my manager's manager
driving home a bit spaced-out after a long day
a big dinner
mr smear feverish again
reading gd and mr smear harry potter
a long charitable walk with my neighbour
finally starting to record at 10.30pm
Monday, April 08, 2019
stretched
i was too tired to sit straight on the couch last night, and i hurt my back. it's been painful and uncomfortable and distracting all day and i'm about to enter a new week in dire need of a rest.
i thought i was done with the podcast shenanigans yesterday, but i had some more to do today. i'm really happy that i eventually did the tough work using xml and xslt, because i ended up needing to port my service from node.js to php and i had very little dev translation to do. i'm extremely pleased with the results!
we thought mr smear was doing much better today, he was doing much better but still isn't out of the woods. i braved taking him outside (and away from a toilet) for the first time since tuesday, and just being able to spend a few minutes pushing him on the swing and eating roasted corn nibs on the bench were fantastic.
the preliminary results from the sample i dropped off yesterday are that he's picked up shigella, so we're treating it with antibiotics. reading up on it, i found "shigella cells may cause dysentery. in rare cases, young children may have seizures" and i was immediately both scared of that happening and relieved and grateful that it hasn't happened. jesus. and then i was distracted by the fact that our medical insurance isn't paying for our prescription meds, which we really can't afford and i'm at a loss as to how to manage that.
we watched asterix & obelix: mission cleopatra, which was great but towards the end not so appropriate for mr smear... i tried to make progress on my latest podcast episode, i'm roughly halfway through and excited about the result so far but i've got to call it a night and continue tomorrow.
shane koyczan's turn on a light was a source of inspiration during my two night-terror experiences and i am compelled to share it in the hopes that somebody finds it useful.
i thought i was done with the podcast shenanigans yesterday, but i had some more to do today. i'm really happy that i eventually did the tough work using xml and xslt, because i ended up needing to port my service from node.js to php and i had very little dev translation to do. i'm extremely pleased with the results!
we thought mr smear was doing much better today, he was doing much better but still isn't out of the woods. i braved taking him outside (and away from a toilet) for the first time since tuesday, and just being able to spend a few minutes pushing him on the swing and eating roasted corn nibs on the bench were fantastic.
the preliminary results from the sample i dropped off yesterday are that he's picked up shigella, so we're treating it with antibiotics. reading up on it, i found "shigella cells may cause dysentery. in rare cases, young children may have seizures" and i was immediately both scared of that happening and relieved and grateful that it hasn't happened. jesus. and then i was distracted by the fact that our medical insurance isn't paying for our prescription meds, which we really can't afford and i'm at a loss as to how to manage that.
we watched asterix & obelix: mission cleopatra, which was great but towards the end not so appropriate for mr smear... i tried to make progress on my latest podcast episode, i'm roughly halfway through and excited about the result so far but i've got to call it a night and continue tomorrow.
shane koyczan's turn on a light was a source of inspiration during my two night-terror experiences and i am compelled to share it in the hopes that somebody finds it useful.
Sunday, April 07, 2019
night terror 2
i don't know how to process what we've just been through, it's either a night terror or a parasite, it's the same story as tuesday night. we tried a bunch of things, eventually i laid him on his back, threw a duvet over him and held it tight like it was a swaddling blanket, and it seemed to do the trick. i'm really scared that this is going to become a thing, he's a smart and brave little boy and i'm scared this might bleed through to when he's awake.
god damn.
...
friday was a long day to finish off a short week, i worked hard but left the office feeling unsatisfied. mr smear wasn't well enough to go the temple, he's still not well enough to go outside so he and gd spent the entire day indoors. it was actually a really nice day, i know because i had to drop off a sample at the hospital (we thought his tummy troubles were going away, but they're pretty constant), and then take my mom (who's also sick) shopping.
the podcast garden story has not progressed - those bastards still haven't responded to me and i don't know when i'll hear from paypal - but i have spent the day figuring out how to operate my podcast myself and i'm pretty satisfied with how it's turned out. i don't know how people who aren't software developers deal with the shitty options available to them, i think i'm going to have to find some time to make my solution public.
gd and i were watching spider-man into the spider-verse when the screaming started, so far we're about halfway through and it's amazing.
god damn.
...
friday was a long day to finish off a short week, i worked hard but left the office feeling unsatisfied. mr smear wasn't well enough to go the temple, he's still not well enough to go outside so he and gd spent the entire day indoors. it was actually a really nice day, i know because i had to drop off a sample at the hospital (we thought his tummy troubles were going away, but they're pretty constant), and then take my mom (who's also sick) shopping.
the podcast garden story has not progressed - those bastards still haven't responded to me and i don't know when i'll hear from paypal - but i have spent the day figuring out how to operate my podcast myself and i'm pretty satisfied with how it's turned out. i don't know how people who aren't software developers deal with the shitty options available to them, i think i'm going to have to find some time to make my solution public.
gd and i were watching spider-man into the spider-verse when the screaming started, so far we're about halfway through and it's amazing.
Saturday, April 06, 2019
thoughts on education
[this post generated by a discussion on reddit]
the point of education has, and always been, about expanding one's horizons and advancing knowledge. over the course of the past century the universities have been corrupted by industrialization and are now businesses churning out qualifications to work, they're desperate to attract as much money as they can get away with and the only things that remain relatively solid are the STEM fields, medicine, the "impractical" humanities (psychology, philosophy, etc), and, arguably, law. it's 2019, and any company that demands a university degree is a part of one of the biggest problems the western world today, please listen to mike rowe on the subect. the economy is changing fast, and there're so many other ways to learn and get paid.
besides, to quote one of my professors, when it comes to work there's only ever been one model that's effective: the master-apprentice model. it's the reason why even those leaving university with engineering degrees still need plenty of on-the-job training before they can be trusted to operate alone.
if you can afford an education, that's great, pick a field of study that's interesting to you and it'll be well worth it. you might even make a career out of it. if you're into medicine or the STEM fields, all the better! but higher education is a luxury, it isn't for everyone, and it's not a job factory. if parents are concerned about quantifiable value for money, then they should save their money and let their kids pay their own way.
and for the love of god, never take a student loan. that's only an intelligent investment for a tiny percentage of graduates.
also, read this article on education and economic mobility
the point of education has, and always been, about expanding one's horizons and advancing knowledge. over the course of the past century the universities have been corrupted by industrialization and are now businesses churning out qualifications to work, they're desperate to attract as much money as they can get away with and the only things that remain relatively solid are the STEM fields, medicine, the "impractical" humanities (psychology, philosophy, etc), and, arguably, law. it's 2019, and any company that demands a university degree is a part of one of the biggest problems the western world today, please listen to mike rowe on the subect. the economy is changing fast, and there're so many other ways to learn and get paid.
besides, to quote one of my professors, when it comes to work there's only ever been one model that's effective: the master-apprentice model. it's the reason why even those leaving university with engineering degrees still need plenty of on-the-job training before they can be trusted to operate alone.
if you can afford an education, that's great, pick a field of study that's interesting to you and it'll be well worth it. you might even make a career out of it. if you're into medicine or the STEM fields, all the better! but higher education is a luxury, it isn't for everyone, and it's not a job factory. if parents are concerned about quantifiable value for money, then they should save their money and let their kids pay their own way.
and for the love of god, never take a student loan. that's only an intelligent investment for a tiny percentage of graduates.
also, read this article on education and economic mobility
Friday, April 05, 2019
the buzz
wednesday:
wednesday was hard, between the exhaustion, whatever this bug is and the sudafed i really struggled and i'm still a bit off with my sinuses and throat (but just now starting to feel better). mr smear got a bit of sleep on what was left of tuesday night but still had an accident or two in the morning, his tummy was still troubling him until the evening but by this morning he had had a good night's rest and was on the mend. aside from my work day being broken up by a doctor's visit, it was filled with grinding, and while gd watched the disturbing motley crue movie after we put mr smear to bed i actually made an hour or two of good progress.
thursday:
i woke up this morning after a good night's sleep myself, still groggy; i was going to get back to my book compilation this morning but there were way to many distractions...
i was still a bit out of it at work but i completed some good work, and by the time i rushed out to take over from the nanny (gd was seeing a surgeon, looks like she might be going for surgery) my teammate and i (well, mostly him) had made great strides and it looks like we're a bit ahead of schedule!
mr smear's tummy's still sensitive but he's definitely much better. the evening was generally nice, and once i'd said goodnight i settled down to some bureaucracy and to try and figure out what to do about my podcast hosting - podcast garden would be an amazing service but their site is unavailable half the time and they have no concept of customer service. i decided that i need to roll my own podcast setup, and while looking at options for hosting i realized that now is as good a time as any to explore s3.
well, it took a bit of fiddling but i'm now sorted for hosting, and it looks like it's going to cost me a couple of cents per month (vs. the $9 for soundcloud and [AAAAAAAARRRRGHH while looking up how much podcast garden costs per month i discovered that those sneaky bastards charged me the annual amount!! now in addition to everything else i have to manage a paypal dispute, i can't freaking believe this] $2.99 - in theory - for podcast garden).
jesus, what a day. i started posting this a while ago and it's now 1am already :(
the other disappointment for the day was learning about die antwoord; i wasn't a big fan, but i respected them as artists and i now see that they're pathetic and have no integrity whatsoever. see here and here for details, the first was pretty convincing and the second just made things really clear.
wednesday was hard, between the exhaustion, whatever this bug is and the sudafed i really struggled and i'm still a bit off with my sinuses and throat (but just now starting to feel better). mr smear got a bit of sleep on what was left of tuesday night but still had an accident or two in the morning, his tummy was still troubling him until the evening but by this morning he had had a good night's rest and was on the mend. aside from my work day being broken up by a doctor's visit, it was filled with grinding, and while gd watched the disturbing motley crue movie after we put mr smear to bed i actually made an hour or two of good progress.
thursday:
i woke up this morning after a good night's sleep myself, still groggy; i was going to get back to my book compilation this morning but there were way to many distractions...
i was still a bit out of it at work but i completed some good work, and by the time i rushed out to take over from the nanny (gd was seeing a surgeon, looks like she might be going for surgery) my teammate and i (well, mostly him) had made great strides and it looks like we're a bit ahead of schedule!
mr smear's tummy's still sensitive but he's definitely much better. the evening was generally nice, and once i'd said goodnight i settled down to some bureaucracy and to try and figure out what to do about my podcast hosting - podcast garden would be an amazing service but their site is unavailable half the time and they have no concept of customer service. i decided that i need to roll my own podcast setup, and while looking at options for hosting i realized that now is as good a time as any to explore s3.
well, it took a bit of fiddling but i'm now sorted for hosting, and it looks like it's going to cost me a couple of cents per month (vs. the $9 for soundcloud and [AAAAAAAARRRRGHH while looking up how much podcast garden costs per month i discovered that those sneaky bastards charged me the annual amount!! now in addition to everything else i have to manage a paypal dispute, i can't freaking believe this] $2.99 - in theory - for podcast garden).
jesus, what a day. i started posting this a while ago and it's now 1am already :(
the other disappointment for the day was learning about die antwoord; i wasn't a big fan, but i respected them as artists and i now see that they're pathetic and have no integrity whatsoever. see here and here for details, the first was pretty convincing and the second just made things really clear.
Wednesday, April 03, 2019
where's the week going?!
omg it's tuesday night already, and i thought last week went by too quickly...
[a few hours later]
omg it's wednesday morning and we've spent a good chunk of our tuesday night in the emergency ward; mr smear was running a fever and hallucinating - he believed he was under attack by an infinite number of spiders and it took an hour or two to calm him down sufficiently to take him home and get him into bed. meanwhile i'm still trying to publishing my podcast episode before i crash myself.
my throat has been giving me serious trouble the last couple of days. work yesterday was full of bureaucracy and a couple of hours of serious coding, yesterday evening was all podcast writing and recording, and today was almost exclusively coding hard and making good progress. but i'm beat.
here's to getting up in five more hours.
[a few hours later]
omg it's wednesday morning and we've spent a good chunk of our tuesday night in the emergency ward; mr smear was running a fever and hallucinating - he believed he was under attack by an infinite number of spiders and it took an hour or two to calm him down sufficiently to take him home and get him into bed. meanwhile i'm still trying to publishing my podcast episode before i crash myself.
my throat has been giving me serious trouble the last couple of days. work yesterday was full of bureaucracy and a couple of hours of serious coding, yesterday evening was all podcast writing and recording, and today was almost exclusively coding hard and making good progress. but i'm beat.
here's to getting up in five more hours.
Monday, April 01, 2019
punishment and reward
our sunday started off in good spirits, in spite of me burning all of it on bureacracy - payments and insurance policies and a bunch of other unexciting tasks. gd made pancakes, though, that was awesome.
we went to the first birthday party and it was awful from start to finish. we've decided - well, gd decided and i agree - that we're not doing sea point / fresnaye parties again, even if we like the parents. because of all the other parents, and it's not just us who were uncomfortable, a friend of ours couldn't handle the community bullshit to the point where she went to go cry in her car. some guy bumped into mr smear and he subsequently fell down a couple of stairs, either he's thoroughly oblivious to the world around him or he just didn't care when my kid started crying. mr smear's old best friend's mother didn't just ignore us, but was clearly discussing gd with her friend.
and as for mr smear's friend whose birthday it was, i don't think they're really interested in each other any more. but while he didn't want to do anything but stick with us until we were ready to leave, the moment we started moving he decided he needed to stay and play; we left, all of us in a foul mood.
it took us over an hour to start letting go of the first party and gear up for the second. the second party? that was great. we had plenty of conversation with interesting people and the kids LOVED playing together, mr smear has learned how to play tag and they were all very courageously using the super-tall slide that mr smear freaked out on the year before, the pretty tricky jungle gym, and the surprisingly high swings. win!
gd needed a break so we walked around the block for burgers when we got home, but royale was closed (wtf?!) and plant had already closed their kitchen, so we ended up getting steers veggies burgers which were pretty good.
the evening was mostly pleasant, although mr smear has been testing us the past week or two by ignoring us and then repeating the most disingenuous "sorry", so bedtime wasn't particularly great.
i've tried to work on a quick voting app this weekend, but i just haven't gotten it together. i've tried to make progress on 7 billion humans, but my head hasn't been in it. my jaw's really sore and swollen, not sure if chewing gum has been harmful or helpful.
i've been working on my podcast for the past few hours, it's been slow but i'm happy with what i've got so far. now it's time to hit the hay and hope that whatever my allergies are doing to my sinuses right now relaxes by morning...
we went to the first birthday party and it was awful from start to finish. we've decided - well, gd decided and i agree - that we're not doing sea point / fresnaye parties again, even if we like the parents. because of all the other parents, and it's not just us who were uncomfortable, a friend of ours couldn't handle the community bullshit to the point where she went to go cry in her car. some guy bumped into mr smear and he subsequently fell down a couple of stairs, either he's thoroughly oblivious to the world around him or he just didn't care when my kid started crying. mr smear's old best friend's mother didn't just ignore us, but was clearly discussing gd with her friend.
and as for mr smear's friend whose birthday it was, i don't think they're really interested in each other any more. but while he didn't want to do anything but stick with us until we were ready to leave, the moment we started moving he decided he needed to stay and play; we left, all of us in a foul mood.
it took us over an hour to start letting go of the first party and gear up for the second. the second party? that was great. we had plenty of conversation with interesting people and the kids LOVED playing together, mr smear has learned how to play tag and they were all very courageously using the super-tall slide that mr smear freaked out on the year before, the pretty tricky jungle gym, and the surprisingly high swings. win!
gd needed a break so we walked around the block for burgers when we got home, but royale was closed (wtf?!) and plant had already closed their kitchen, so we ended up getting steers veggies burgers which were pretty good.
the evening was mostly pleasant, although mr smear has been testing us the past week or two by ignoring us and then repeating the most disingenuous "sorry", so bedtime wasn't particularly great.
i've tried to work on a quick voting app this weekend, but i just haven't gotten it together. i've tried to make progress on 7 billion humans, but my head hasn't been in it. my jaw's really sore and swollen, not sure if chewing gum has been harmful or helpful.
i've been working on my podcast for the past few hours, it's been slow but i'm happy with what i've got so far. now it's time to hit the hay and hope that whatever my allergies are doing to my sinuses right now relaxes by morning...
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