recovery

 the most important effort of the past few weeks was successful, mr smear had his birthday party today and it went well: a bunch of his friends and family came, everyone had a good time. he also loved all his birthday presents. definite win.

this past week just flew by, i'm still amazed that i actually got in a forty hour work week (possibly for the first time since i joined the company). that goes a long way to making up for the two covid weeks. my boss called me up mid-week to inform me that i would be switching teams (and to verify that i'm okay with it), and i admit i was a little bit nervous about my new manager (a guy i've been working quite closely with for the last year or so) until we had a chance to chat one-on-one on friday and now i'm feeling a lot more confident about the changes.

mr smear went back to school on thursday, and our cleaning lady came in. the world returned to its regular speed.

 i've been exhausted this week - he says, about to go to bed really late - but in spite of that gd and i have gotten through all but the last episode of season 1 of legion, and aside from one episode that was twice as long as it needed to be it's been exquisite.

i've made enormous progress on my side project, but today (this afternoon, since getting back from the party) was long and extremely frustrating and i only just (like, about half an hour ago) managed to figure out a hack around some of react's rendering behaviour. i'm loading and processing so much data into one page that i have to avoid unnecessary reloads, so i spent a day moving all the logic into its own module and then couldn't get it render even though i have another page and class doing exactly the same thing but working.

anyway, at least it's operational now and i can move on to what i initially thought was going to be the hard part :P

(not to mention that i spent an hour or two wrangling the client's data export during the week, the software they're working with does *everything* non-standard, including exporting to invalid csv, and apparently the vendor is being unhelpful with regards some other data that's not included in the export at all. what these idiots don't understand is that by making it unpleasant for their clients to walk away, they're breaching trust to the point where they'll never want to go back)

mostly post-covid

 this has been an interesting and busy experience. before i begin:

this last week we all got covid, and for a day and a half i was on my own taking care of my son and working and trying not to let the house fall apart while my wife rested. it's not the first time since the lockdowns started that i've freaked out about how insanely tough single parenting must be on a good day, let alone having to babysit/entertain/troubleshoot AND do chores AND get work done AND stress about whether you can keep your job / survive the pandemic along with your loved ones.

last year we were hearing stories post-hard lockdown about people with small children - frightening numbers of them - being forced to return to work before the schools opened and either leaving the kids with neighbours they had no relationship with or locking them in their houses and praying that they'd somehow be okay (physically, not even discussing the psychological trauma).

jesus christ, have we lost our way as a society... i'm no fan of john oliver, but watch the episode of last week tonight on maternity leave and tell me that's not scary.
i really, really hope that all the horrors of this pandemic lead to some more awareness and support. parenting is tough enough for two parents.

fortunately, i didn't have to take off last week, but i did do way less hours than i would have liked. it's tough to self-care under these conditions. there's some reorganization going on at work, but so far it's all feeling positive and i'm getting my work done at a good enough pace. hours-wise, at least this week's off to a good start, and although it's been a bit daunting my side-project progress has been slow and steady (i registered a major design flaw over the weekend and was very relieving when meeting my client today to hear that he's happy with my solution to it).

i lost some weight due to covid, but am slowly putting it back on. we're REALLY excited for thursday, when we can finally send mr smear back to school and start living our lives again. i'm particularly excited about the idea of getting back on my blades again.

over the course of the last few nights my mum's been reading harry potter to mr smear over video chat (we both have copies), and it's been a great experience. which reminds me of sad news, my mum's really struggling to get rid of her coffee shop and cut her losses and it's super frustrating to not be able to help in any substantial way.

...

dance dance revolution has returned to its spot as our only reliable exercise regime. i get the strangest feeling that the designers intended us to wear red/blue 3D glasseses while playing, it's trippy AF. additionally, i bought little planet 3 this weekend. our boy's been stuck at home for weeks and we all could use a little treat... this was a fantastic purchase!

boy, was i wrong. hello, covid.

 so it turns out i *did* have covid. and i've no idea where i managed to pick it up. runny nose aside, i was feeling fine until thursday morning, during which i was decidedly unfocused. then i took a walk with mr smear to drop off the rented video as an excuse to be outside, got back home and felt so utterly lousy i actually had to call in sick.

i proceeded to feel progressively worse, very "man-flu"-ish, and on friday morning i took my meds and slugged a cup of coffee and fast-walked ('cause i was running late) to a covid test so that we could be certain for mr smear's birthday party on sunday.

let me tell you, i was beginning to feel a little better on saturday morning, so when i got a call from the doc that afternoon informing me i'd tested positive i was stunned. frantic retracing of steps (with brain-fog) and reporting my test result to my contacts, followed by lots more time in bed and staying as far away from my family as is reasonable considering we all live in a tiny space together.

i was still feeling uncertain on my feet (dizzy and fatigued) until sunday night, but monday morning came around and three things had changed: 

1. i was feeling pretty good for the first time in days

2. my lower back nerve pain had fired up again for the first time in a long time

3. gd hadn't slept well and was beginning to struggle with her own covid experience

i spent a lot of yesterday working on my personal project, mostly because it was an unpressured thing to do and i'm still supposed to be resting and taking it easy. i eventually managed to put in a couple of paid work hours too, which was satisfying.

today was difficult. gd was in excruciating pain, so it was on me to manage mr smear while trying to take care of small things around the house and get a little work done. some of it was fun! some, not so much. we've been really fortunate to have a community volunteer looking after us, after this morning's report they sent a nurse to look at gd and she was heartbroken, we called the doctor together and i took gd off to the hospital.

while she was being treated there, i took mr smear back home and we did our things until she was ready to be picked up again. just as we were leaving his best friend's mother dropped off a huge bag of gifts, we picked up gd, and after dropping them home i had to go off to the pharmacy for an outside pickup.

the rest of the afternoon / evening has been a juggling act of working, chores, entertaining / exercising with / feeding mr smear, with the usual shower / bedtime routine ending just before 10pm.

lesson of the day: i'm a complete stranger in my own kitchen. i'm also tired and nervous about taking a week of leave that i won't get paid for. the downside to contracting...

thing that has helped the most to maintain sanity over the course of the last few days? alugalug cat 2.0.

dependen(ce|ts)

sudafed... is the real hero. at least whatever's making this happen (probably allergies?) isn't being made worse with a decongestant dependence, i've been off iliadin since the last episode and the symptoms really aren't so bad.

have i really not posted anything in a week? i know there've been a few interesting things happened, but i'm sure i've forgotten more than i've remembered.

mr smear turned six on friday, so for his birthday we got him a covid test and then isolated for 24 hours. as we thought, he didn't have it. i'm still not sure why his doctor was so insistent. fun times.

my mother and i had a conversation about a business opportunity that i'm praying she dives into.

tattoo 21 is the first that's right next to my belly button, pain-wise it was bearable but *damn* it's hard to breathe in a helpful way and i now understand why tattoo artists find the belly so tough to work on - because there's nothing to press against. especially if you're carrying a few extra pounds.

most of my weekend went to weaning off my google reliance, or documenting the process. i'm still updating things today, but i believe i've covered all the critical stuff.

saturday afternoon i took mr smear down to the garage with his bicycle and my blades, and we had a good time. i think it's time to remove the training wheels.

sunday evening mr smear and i went for a promenade walk with sailor, which in retrospect may have been a mistake considering mr smear's chest is still compromised. we did all thoroughly enjoy a ride on the blue train, though.

monday was a public holiday, and i joined the rollerblading group again - it was great fun! i definitely got exercise and had quite a few engaging conversations.

something's happening with one of my coworkers, but we're not quite sure whether he's leaving or being promoted. work has been going pretty well.

last night gd and i watched sof ha'olam smolah, which was not the movie i thought it was going to be (i somehow confused it with ahava colombianit). it's a brilliant movie almost entirely composed of cringe that we both enjoyed.

...

the other day i got a taste of a reddit post going viral. it's exciting, but it's work.

weird coincidence

 a few days ago i was walking somewhere when - and i don't remember any context for this - the following insult popped into my head "if i had a dog with a face like yours, i'd shave its ass and teach it to walk backwards". that's from gleaming the cube, a childhood favourite, with brian kelly (christian slater) insulting detective al lucero (steven bauer) in a particularly - at least for 8 year old me - memorable way.

so last night gd mentions something about a "thrasher film" - i presume she meant to say "slasher" - and i said that that reminded me of thrashin' and gleaming the cube.

a little later, and probably unrelated to her earlier comment, i noticed that she was watching primal fear. i loved primal fear, and after being surprised by the fact that i recognized it from the lawyers' interactions even before the murder scene, i saw pinero and thought "geez, that guy looks so familiar!". i couldn't place him at all, so looked him up on imdb, but there was nothing i would have recognized until... al lucero.

blank

 i'm tired, but no more than usual. gd and i managed to get the first of our vaccinations yesterday, both our injection sites are sore but she's also been thoroughly fatigued.

mr smear started a cough today, we're hoping he'll be well enough to not miss his "birthday circle" at school...

i don't know if i'm doing the intermittent fasting correctly. i'm having no trouble with the not eating part, but i feel like i'm compulsively making up for lost time during my eating window.

every time i look at my bank statements i'm forced to scratch my head and wonder where the heck all our money's going. it just doesn't make any sense.

gd got *all* the teensies in rayman: legends this evening! that game is insane and brilliant and i have a suspicion that we'll be replaying it quite a bit.

back on blades

 it's midnight and i'm exhausted, i just wanted to post this quickly before going to bed:

today i bought a second-hand pair of oxygen inline skates and they're really good, i was on them for three hours and i was amazed at how immediately comfortable i was and how well my knee / legs performed!

the last two days of the work week were quite frustrating, but life in general over the course of the past four days has been good. all the tattoos except the latest one have now been outlined, and the artist and i are both excited about the next one. our first double-pager is done (although there were a few last-minute edits required).

we've been having some very interesting conversations with mr smear lately, he seems to be slowly but surely gaining control of his fears. we've both enjoyed the new masters of the universe series but after seeing skelegod he asked me a question that i simply can't find the answer to: why does skelegod have an H on his chest that looks like he-man's?!

good night.