less quiet

 well, that didn't last too long. yesterday morning mr smear was still too sick to go to school, and gd and i began the morning with a series of miscommunications that kick-started a no good, lousy, very bad day.

at the office, i resumed the soul-grinding task i've been stuck with the last few workdays, only to be whisked away to another task that had been stalled and it took me hours to find myself stuck without being able to debug my tests and then hours to get the damned debugging configured.

i wasn't feeling very positive when i stalked out the office around 6pm.

i picked up a beer on my way home, installed will you snail on the playstation. it helped. after putting mr smear to bed i had a bath, though not after a long conversation with gd, after which i slunk into bed emotionally exhausted.

at least i slept (relatively) well.

unfortunately, while mr smear is thankfully well enough to go back to school, gd and i woke up with scratchy throats and sickly feelings.

joy.

quiet time

> in five minutes we're leaving the apartment to find out if pre-booking a taxi was good enough to get us to our cousins on time for dinner.

it wasn't. and we finally understood that it's not that it's difficult to get a taxi on the big holidays, it's impossible because all of the drivers take the holidays off! it feels like there's a gap in the market for hiring foreign drivers, but maybe that's just us...

fortunately, our cousins were able and willing to pick us up and drop us off, and we had a really enjoyable evening with our family. we got to meet our newest cousin, who's super cute but pretty much slept the entire time, and we overheard mr smear actually speaking in hebrew to the kids his age and they all had a great time together, and we ate too much and talked a lot and it was an excellent way to usher in the new year.

monday afternoon we went over to friends for lunch (mr smear's friend's family that we had dinner with a while back), and that was also great fun, and we ate far too much, and met a few other people and talked a lot.

aside from that, things have been quiet and indoorsy. i invested a lot of time on both days trying to set up stable diffusion on my desktop machines, i managed to get it working this afternoon but the results were disappointing and the whole process was just as tedious as the uglier elements of my day job; it was work. maybe it is worth just putting down some cash on the more powerful / configurable public cloud offerings.

we also spent a lot of time gaming. it's been a pleasant, mellow couple of days. and we watched E.T. today, and mr smear loved it.

new year!

the last half of this year was tough, but much... much... MUCH better than the two years that came before it. my gods, we have lots to be grateful for. here's hoping and praying that the next year is an improvement all round.

handing over the dog yesterday wasn't as uncomfortable as we expected, although there was a lot of sadness before the handover; he obviously felt that something was up, because he did *not* want to go outside with me in the morning even though he definitely needed to go.

the rest of the day was spent trying out a bunch of the games that got a mention in the wowie jam 4! winners video (all the ones available on itch.io, at least), and after an hour or so that mr smear and i went out for a walk (and ice-cream) we got back into the godot tutorials. slow progress is still progress.

i hurt myself sleeping last night, i woke up this morning to find that breathing was painful.

no school today. half a workday that was *probably* more than half a day for me. minor progress.

afterwards, mr smear and i tried out the rest of the wowie jam 4! games.

that was the day.

in five minutes we're leaving the apartment to find out if pre-booking a taxi was good enough to get us to our cousins on time for dinner.

shana tova!

a sad, scratchy state of affairs

thursday was a horrible workday. i jumped from task to task and got zero satisfaction. the day ended on a sour note, with a repeat of a nonsensical failure that i thought i'd corrected for. not a great send-off for my team lead, who's taking a month's leave...

on thursday afternoon i walked my ex-coworkers dog home for a couple of weeks of dog-sitting. we've had him for a day and a half, now, and things have been mostly great (we love him!) although we have been concerned about his lack of socialization: he's four years old and terrified of most other dogs, though he's cool with humans big and small. we feel sad for him. this morning i managed to get him into the idea of being brushed, which went really well (we got rid of a few dreads along the way) until gd spotted a flea. i'd seen him scratch a couple of times but this was the first evidence we had.

so after picking up mr smear from school we took him to the pet store where they put ampoule drops on him, and we hoped that that would take care of things... but when we took him out later, he was suddenly walking uncomfortably and constantly sitting down, looking as if he might have worms, too. this was just too much to bear, and while we feel awful about this we really can't handle playing host to anything more than just a dog right now.

we feel awful for the dog, and awful for the dog's owner (who's on his honeymoon right after losing his job), but we've asked his brother to come and pick up the poor creature and we're hoping that everything works out for the best. this is a remarkably shit feeling, but as the saying goes: "not my circus, not my monkeys". or, "not my circus, not my fleas"...

gd's back's feeling much better since her nerve block on tuesday, though. that's something. and mr cat and i made good progress on the upcoming graphic novel page. it's also nice that aside from some good exercise today mr smear and i played through a ton of games from the honorary mentions segment of the AI collaboration game challenge and some of them are just brilliant.

...

i hate this feeling.

what a week

sunday:

i don't recall anything specific from sunday.

monday:

monday began with a total shift in work focus onto a project i'm completely unfamiliar with. in the afternoon we had an interdepartmental team-building exercise, which we not only won but apparently set a record for: nighthunt. it was great fun, we worked well together, and i definitely proved my value as part of the team's problem solving arsenal ^_^

in spite of the lack of vegan options, i enjoyed dinner + beer + coffee with the guys, although as much as i enjoyed the espresso it really messed with my sleep that night.

tuesday:

yesterday was a half day that started with a glass of dry red wine (a company toast for the new year), as i left early to accompany gd to the hospital for her nerve block and immediately became chief caretaker of mr smear for the next few hours. gd's experience was so dramatically better than her last nerve block it's shocking, because it demonstrates just how incompetent and unprofessional her "pain specialist" doctor actually is (she's taken to referring to him as a jewish dr mengele).

gd has been sore since, but it seems to be having a positive effect.

we ordered dinner from karnaf last night, and we won't be making that mistake again.

otherwise, we finished watching superman:

by and large, it surprisingly still holds up! creepy non-consensual kiss scenes notwithstanding - that warranted a conversation. the only things that *really* bother me are

a) the completely ridiculous notion that being exposed to kryptonite would somehow weaken a child born on that planet, or that a tiny quantity could somehow "undo" the effects of being in proximity to a sun that gives him his powers when they don't even fail him as he travels beneath the earth's crust

b) the going back in time shenanigans.

still fun, though!

mr smear and i both felt ill going to bed last night.

today:

it took me most of the day to start feeling better. mr smear says he's still not doing great but dammit he's going to school tomorrow.

aside from a lot of admin in the morning and a lot of admin after mr smear went to bed - an overwhelming amount - i spent most of the day deep into work in spite of the whirlwind going on around me. i feel like my biggest achievements so far this week involve getting linters to work.

a pretty good saturday

 well, it's about 1am on a sunday morning, i was tired earlier but i've decided i need to get back into the habit of hustling into the night.

not that i hustled very much, mind, but i did get the ball rolling.

i also found a bunch of ways to "clean my desk", because... that's what one does?

...

today was by and large a good day. fall guys is great, although players have been begging for years for local multiplayer and i'm stunned that they haven't made that available. we watched a fair bit of superman (the 1978 version), which has very slow pacing but is still good, and we played a bit of rayman: legends and king's quest. i took mr smear out for a couple of hours in the late afternoon, we headed to the beach and had a good time.

after reading to him (we're almost done with the magic pudding, and he's loving it as much as i am), gd and i (mostly me) persevered and struggled and completed the last few paintings of olympus maximus with all the achievements. that shit is hard. although we were certainly faster than our first time around.

then we (finally!) got through the second episode of the sandman. it is absolutely gorgeous.

wrecked, but here.

 was a wreck this past week. thoroughly exhausted, highly anxious. overwhelmed by bureaucracy / admin / the infinite number of things that i'm expected to deal with in addition to paid work just to make it through each day.

it doesn't feel like there's much relief.

thursday was a bit better than the previous couple of days, i managed to resolve an issue i'd been wrestling with and spent my afternoon improving test coverage and tidying up my tooling configuration. at least thursday ended on a positive note.

yesterday i went to endless roll to try and buy wheels and bearings for my rollerblades, and i now understand why everyone in the group recommends going literally anywhere else. i left in frustration after twenty or thirty minutes. gd and i were late picking up mr smear from school. when we got home, we played king's quest for a couple of hours and then drove to bat yam for a lovely afternoon on the beach with my coworkers.

a good time was enjoyed by all. mr smear was buried in the sand, he and gd made a kite and he flew it, we had fun in the water in spite of the lifeguards... it was a really great day.

this morning's been pretty good so far, too. mr smear spent some time developing drone intution with fpv freerider, mr smear and i have played some of the lord of the rings card game, which is really cool, and we're now about to give fall guys a chance.

also, mr cat's been making progress on page 25 of the comics and one of the panels has been proving tricky, i'm hoping my latest suggestion is viable.

processing

the saddest item is that there was a horrible road accident in our neighbourhood earlier that claimed at least one life.

...

i'm feeling wiped out. we're dog-sitting for my now ex-teammate (he's one of the people in the department hit by the layoffs) in preparation for our week looking after this wonderful animal while he goes on honeymoon (it was his wedding i went to recently). i just* got back from walking him, after walking home from a farewell event for a few others from the office, after an hour long lecture by mr smear's teacher (she's prepping all of us for the coming year), after a long and somewhat stressful day at work.

* probably half an hour ago, before i showered and couldn't decide if i was hungry or not.

we're in the middle of an "innovation", and i've teamed up with a couple of guys for a simple but interesting project, but i pushed code this morning that Broke Stuff and it took quite a few hours to put our fingers on what went wrong... otherwise, it was nice to receive public acknowledgement from the head of r&d, not least because i've been worried that i've pissed him off or something as he really hasn't had any time for me.

yesterday was wildly successful. surprisingly so. and then i capped it off by picking up tinker racers for the playstation - not only is it a really fun little game, but it was a great vehicle to get mr smear to practice "grit" and i convinced him to keep trying until he got the hang of it, after which point we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

...

i'm really struggling with all the bureaucracy and bills and admin.

...

i've had fall out boy's this ain't a scene, it's an arms race stuck in my head since yesterday evening, i don't remember if i used to enjoy it back in the day but i'm totally appreciating it now.

how much is psychological?

it's been a good weekend. i have experienced some anxiety for not getting much done, but i keep reminding myself that i'm allowed / in need of a weekend and it's okay.

it's okay.

thorsday was... uncomfortable. three of the people who were let go came in to the office, and i don't know who of all of us was more awkward. i spent the first half of the day planning work, the second beginning to execute, and finished off with a long phone call with an italian counterpart during the first half of which i thought my brain was going to bleed out my ears.

yesterday started off with two things: the first, me completing and publishing my parody lyrics to the everything is awesome song. the second, gd and i finally finished watching the third season of the boys.

omg it was brilliant. absolutely exquisite. i don't know why i found myself disengaged from some of the third season's episodes, perhaps the pacing was a bit off, but overall i've thoroughly enjoyed the series from start to finish. we even watched one of the animated spinoffs, the boys: diabolical, and it was great fun!

we picked up mr smear from school together, and he'd had a good couple of days in spite of his wednesday blowout. we were all excited by the extra-mural expo, so looking forward to this week's trial classes.

last night we finished watching the second tobey macguire spiderman movie, this morning we watched the third. i've never forgotten just how much i hated some of the scenes in the third one, but i didn't remember just how thoroughly rotten the entire trilogy is. in addition to the terrible over-acting, the only way the plot moves forward is by every single character in the movie being utterly stupid.

every.

single.

character.

maybe doc ock was a possible exception. maybe.

anyway, so after a nice couple of hours spent with new-friends neighbours at a kids' play area in the mall closest to us, we came home and watched spider-man: far from home, which was an excellent palate cleanser.

mr smear is now in bed, i'm trying to decide if i should hit the hay, continuing watching the new doctor strange movie or get some of the sandman in.

decisions, decisions. everything on my real to-do list is a tomorrow's me problem.

a little bit broken

i can't believe it's thorsday already. (we've taken to calling the days by their original names, woden's day being our favourite)

tuesday was a productive day. as i was on my way out my team lead "reminded" me of a 7pm all-hands meeting which i'd never heard about... i played rayman with mr smear while listening to how we're downsizing, and a bunch of people have been let go. what they're doing and why they're doing it makes sense, and they're doing it in the best way possible (two months severance + assistance in finding new work), but it's still horrible. and some of the decisions were surprising, to say the least.

after putting mr smear to bed i hopped on my blades and went out for a 23km ride. i almost gave up less than five minutes after leaving the apartment because my knee was feeling wobbly, it only settled yesterday evening but i feel like it was important exercise both for it and the rest of my body.

which is still feeling broken, but hey.

yesterday was also productive in spite of the feeling that i was falling apart, although there was a lot of distraction and sadness and the last hour or two i found it particularly difficult to focus and the fourth cup of coffee didn't help much. then i came home and joined a council meeting that was entirely uninteresting and i had nothing to contribute to.

so i updated my machine and shovelled sushi into my mouth until it was over.

i went to bed early, but struggled to sleep. not only was my neck and back hurting, but my brain was all over the place. i spent most of the night with my headphones in listening to NSDR recordings.

...

i took mr smear to school yesterday morning after a very dramatic episode of failing to follow instructions when trying to leave. the walk to school was mostly fine, but then after saying goodbye and walking a couple of meters he stopped, turned around, and i could see he needed a hug.

but the hug wasn't enough. he exploded in a tantrum of how he's not going to school, how he's always being harassed. the principal happened to be standing right there, she tried to help, then someone else arrived that i didn't recognize and she tried to help, and then finally his teacher arrived. i went inside with the two of them and we tried to figure out what was happening, but we already knew what was happening: there're a couple of kids in his class that he doesn't like, one of them is a bully and they're both a bit... slower than the rest. and because he doesn't like them, he interacts with them negatively instead of leaving them alone, and he doesn't like the consequences and he doesn't accept responsibility.

and he also refuses the outs he's given. when i, or gd, or his teacher gives him a choice of (a) or (b), he will always choose (c). and it will always be a (c) that he knows is not on the table.

...

gd's worried that he's self-harming because he he damaged his skin scratching off one of his fake tattoos, apparently because of something related to the bully. i don't know if she's right, but whatever's going on is fucked up and i'm really sad for him.

manic monday

and sunday, too. what happened on saturday?

oooh, i remember. we all had a quiet day indoors, except in the late afternoon when i took mr smear for a walk to the park by the beach. we had a great time and some interesting conversations, although i don't quite recall what about, and on the way home we stopped in at a synagogue to help them make a minyan. they offered me the honour of hagba, which i've never done with a sephardi torah scroll before, so that was an interesting experience.

sunday was another work day spent chasing the tail end of wednesday's surprise. yesterday? more of the same, although i did enjoy a few additional successes along the way and finished strong.

both sunday and yesterday i was feeling... manic. also, on saturday i listened to a podcast on chiropractors and my take away was that there's a distinct possibility that my neurologist's recommendation to avoid all upper body exercise may have been shortsighted.

...

on sunday night i joined vfmp for a game night for the first time in aaaaages. we played villagers, i was tired and it took me a while to get the idea but it was a lot of fun regardless.

...

on saturday night, after closing the book i was reading to mr smear, i was about to turn off the light when i noticed he had what appeared to be a thousand-yard stare.

"are you okay?"

"uh huh."

"what are you thinking?"

"imagine if the pound actually did what it's called, and smashed dogs and cats into nothing but blood."

jesus christ.

...

yesterday morning, during the twenty five minutes between mr smear picking up his toothbrush and actually starting to brush his teeth, he shared a bunch of musings. one of them went along the lines of "when i'm older, i'm going to erase all my memories and turn myself into a naga". i put on a crying face and asking him if he really wanted to forget his childhood with us and our love for him, and he immediately understood how his plan implied that and felt so bad that he bawled while i consoled him.

parenting is a rollercoaster.

...

during breakfast yesterday, mr smear asked me if zombies are real. this is what transpired.

so tired

 i've been up for more than an hour but i still feel like i'm in that soft, in-between state where i was lying comfortably for the first time all night but neither asleep nor awake. now i'm sitting here sipping coffee after helping mr smear out with little big planet 3, which i took a risk on last night and was pleasantly surprised to find that it works decently on the ps4.

thursday: i arrived at work, got over the next hurdle. it took a while to be confident that i'd resolved the main issue, but subsequently got hit by another one. that took all of my energy for the rest of the day, and when the third surprise landed i remembered that i'm not on-call and giggled uncontrollably while handing over the task to the poor guy who is.

i honestly hope he's had a quiet weekend.

i was *very* glad to reach the end of the day and say "fuck this, i'm out".

...

thursday evening was a mess. my mess, and i'm still feeling horrible about it. i tried to have a conversation with gd about a potential ski trip next year, and only after doing some damage did i realize that my internal concept of a ski trip - a solid week of nothing but snowboarding - is no longer appropriate as i'm now married with a child.

having painfully uncovered the root of the problem, our plans are now as follows: we try to get to montreal this winter if we can afford it, any part of winter there's snow but preferably around christmas time. although i had initially fantasized about going snowboarding there, it just doesn't seem feasible... and if by some miracle we can afford it, we try to go on a ski trip as a family.

maybe i'll even suck it up and take my family to the hermon. maybe. the idea of hitting the slopes alongside israelis who don't realize that using other people to stop isn't cool is not especially appealing to me.

...

yesterday morning was "me time", but i didn't really know what to do with it. i made a little progress on one of my personal projects, i played some of batman: arkham knight (definitely not for kids), read random things but couldn't keep focused.

we experienced a weird moment when a wolt delivery arrived on our doorstep with a thank you package from our now ex-neighbours that was decidedly not vegan (we kept the challah, put the rest of the lovely baked goods on a bench).

then we picked up mr smear, who'd had his second good school day in a row, picked up some stationery, bought sushi prep stuff and then spent the afternoon chilling. mr smear helped gd make sushi, we all stuffed ourselves.

i, as usual, put myself to sleep early reading the magic pudding to mr smear - i love that he's old enough to enjoy it! - and then woke up restless and with a stiff knee in the middle of the night. i joined gd who was just completing a binge-watch of kevin hart's true story, and when she went to bed i watched a couple of episodes of rick and morty (i'm quite behind) before turning in again.

...

i'm still re-reading neuromancer. i'm perpetually fascinated that all i remembered from my first read was an opening scene moment completely irrelevant to the story, and a massive spoiler that i still haven't encountered yet, but pretty much nothing about the plot or the myriad brilliant moments and ideas along the way. it may be outdated in many respects, but it's still a phenomenal piece of work and highly entertaining.

happiness and sadness

 the birthday party didn't just go smoothly, it went GREAT. i wasn't there for most of it, but mr smear had a fantastic time, even managed to be cool with the class bully, and put on a show when invited up to the "stage" that had all the other kids in stitches.

gd and i are so damned proud, and hoping that he's turned a corner.

...

work yesterday was a mess. i enjoyed some successes in my project - not complete, but exciting progress nonetheless - but towards the end of the day got handed a particularly nasty, urgent task by a coworker who'd been handed it by our team lead, each struggling with it and then leaving on vacation. so here's me, not on vacation and not on-call but working long hours alone trying to resolve a "spaghetti western" that i've never encountered before.

...

my eyes were *sore* when i turned in last night, having moved forward a bit but still completely lost in the woods. having enjoyed my first cup of coffee this morning and taking mr smear off to his first day of kitah bet (he was mostly good this morning, although we're still all struggling with getting out of bed), omg it's september already, i'm now heading off to the office and hoping for a miracle.