the long tail

thursday:

i began my day with a couple of hours of bureaucracy, stressing about money while paying our nanny a large christmas bonus which took us down to almost nothing. interesting timing, as we had to send her home with chicken pox. we're praying she didn't give it to us, primarily because gd's still compromised by her surgeries and she's not sure if she's ever had it :(

i had a positive introductory call with a consultant operation, spent an hour playing rummy with gd and mr smear and then another hour prepping for an interview, which i realized too late was in a language i haven't touched in more than a year. i hadn't prepped sufficiently for the personal story section of the interview, and the coding portion wasn't great, so i don't feel particularly confident about that one...

thursday night was an improvement over wednesday - mr smear appears to have learned the lesson, for the moment at least.

yesterday:

the money came in! huge relief. i met up with a now-ex-co-worker for breakfast, it was great feeling the walls come down and having a refreshingly honest conversation (even if we were very careful not to make explicitly disparaging remarks about anyone). i get the sense that i have had a positive impact, at least on my fellow seniors, and it did me good to get some resolve.

i met up with gd and mr smear for a quick shopping run, and we all spent the afternoon together walking around the company gardens and then hunting (successfully) for reassurance beads for mr smear in case we have a repeat of wednesday morning. mr smear behaved abominably for a chunk of the experience, then beautifully. he's been all over the place lately and we're really not sure what the deal is, but it's possible he's feeding off our anxieties...

the evening service at the temple was generally great. after a mixed bag of hide-and-seek (mr smear hid REALLY well, but then so did i and i had to go running when he gave up and began yelling for me at the top of his lungs), he played nicely while i actually got to sit and enjoy the service. my mom picked us up for dinner, it was very pleasant and ended in a late bedtime for mr smear and an early one for everyone else.

today:

i'd managed to leave mr smear's epipen and asthma medication at the temple last night, so we didn't have much choice in going again this morning. once again, i actually got to participate in the service, and afterwards it took forever to leave as i got caught up in a not-uninteresting conversation with someone who doesn't really pick up on signals such as "i'm sorry, i have to go". eventually we made it home, i played some games with mr smear before lying down with leviathan wakes for a bit before having a very heavy conversation with gd before going out for a walk, again with mr smear giving us the occasional bit of trouble.

when your kid-who's-old-enough-to-know-better is screaming like a banshee in a public place, it's hard to be kind. i've learned some pretty hard negotiating tactics, like "would you like me to put you in this convenient hole and leave you here?", i hope he remembers some of the funny bits one day when he's describing his childhood to a shrink.

the evening was pleasant, he's very excited for hanukkah tomorrow, and now that everyone else has gone to bed i have to decide whether to be functional or to go to sleep myself. i've been burned out and depressed for so long i don't know what "normal" feels like, and i'm struggling to figure out whether i need to be sleeping so much or if that's part the problem.

...

anyway, i was pleased and saddened simultaneously this afternoon when mr smear told me we had to stop watching an asterix movie because they were eating boar.