it's not my party but i'll sulk if i want to

 wednesday was rough, my neck was hurting all day after sleeping badly and by late afternoon i was starting to have headaches and needed to get out of there.

wednesday night i seemed to have gotten my pillows right again (and marked them, this time), and so thursday was much better. i ended the week on a very positive note, super excited by getting the thing i wanted to work working.

yesterday morning i made the mistake of enthusiastically setting up a test for the thing i got working on thursday. setting it up took a lot of effort and time, testing it was hard, and the ultimate failure sucked. not an optimal way to spend a friday.

we did, however, manage to get the bathtub's drain unclogged.

in the late afternoon i took mr smear for a walk down to the marina, we had a really good time.

this morning started with dragon's quest builders 2. i cannot praise this game highly enough! it's what happens when final fantasy meets minecraft, and i was thrilled at how invested mr smear was in reading all the text. and playing the game, which is exquisite. and the music was so lovely that i ended up passing out behind him on the couch for a while.

that gave me more than a couple of hours of "me time". then we all headed out to the birthday party. gd's neck has been in spasm since she got up this morning, so she bailed a few minutes out of the house, and mr smear and i had a nice walk to the trampolines. we arrived in time to verify that my registration earlier this week was valid, and after i installed a dice app on my phone we played an oversized game of snakes and ladders.

so far, so good.

the party started off well, but some kid told him that only one kid per trampoline was allowed and he walked out of the fun area to sulk.

i don't know how to deal with the incredible sulk. i tried supportive, i tried manipulative, i tried coercive. i failed. over and over. every time i almost succeeded, i failed. eventually, many lifetimes later, i managed to convince him to come give it one more try and then we arrived at the gate to realize that he'd been so upset he'd ripped off and thrown away the bracelet so we weren't allowed in anymore.

genius.

at least there was a whole vegan pizza just for us and he got his own private dessert in lieu of cake, and then end of the party was positive.

i mean, mostly. i'm not taking him alone to a party ever again. it was heartbreaking and horrible.