now with extra cough (the dead sea)

 well, it's friday evening already, and the cough's still here and apparently has no intention of leaving. my mom's also still struggling, although gd and mr smear seem to be done with it.

tuesday:

i worked from home on tuesday, because the country was very busy going nuts about the judicial reform. quick summary: netanyahu and his cronies are rapidly and successfully undermining israeli democracy. from my perspective, i feel like for the next few years at least things are still going to be okay, and i'm fervently hoping and praying that the next elections will bring a counterpoint to the current madness.

at least my family has a potential fallback. thank you, canada.

okay, that was grim. let's move on.

it was a day reminiscent of sunday. i wasn't feeling great physically, and i wasn't feeling motivated. it took me until well into the afternoon to gather steam for my primary task (partially because i spent all morning trying to make sure i thoroughly understood the code i was reviewing), and it was precisely at dinner time* that i managed to complete my task and make sure that it was in a state somebody else could easily move forward from if they couldn't wait for me to return from my vacation.

* okay, that's not fair - dinner had been waiting for me for a little while :P

tuesday night was another rough night for me.

wednesday:

we got up early, i picked up the car, and we drove through to ein gedi. it was a long drive, but a pleasant one, and we were saved from a dodgy route by accidentally missing a turn and going through jerusalem instead.

we arrived at kibbutz ein gedi instead of where i thought we were going, which gave us an opportunity to use clean toilets, mill around their botanical gardens, and drink good coffee. it's a really nice kibbutz!

we then drove back to the nature reserve, but decided to visit the ancient synagogue there instead. it was really special for all of us, but my mom suddenly felt faint and we scrambled to get back to the car and continue on to ein bokek.

we stayed at the "enjoy" hotel, and it was a pleasure. gd and i picked up really good hummus from the mall, and after eating we headed down tot he beach.

it was too hot. we couldn't figure out where the mud came from. the water felt like a hot bath, and although i enjoyed floating for a bit and then cold-showering, gd couldn't handle the heat and mr smear had a scratch that was hurting him and my mom was really not feeling well, most likely a combination of the heat and the not being well.

we were really concerned for her, and we've been generally concerned about her for a while - i think a lot of it has to do not just with her getting on in years, but with how ridiculously and disproportionately difficult her current jobs are.

she deserves a break, and a real rest. with all the hardships she's been through over the past two and a half decades, what she deserves most is to be able to retire.

we spent the rest of the afternoon in the swimming pool, mr smear geeked out over the games at the little arcade, and we all had decent vegan mexican food at the mall for dinner.

TRIGGER WARNING: GROSS STUFF. so it was the end of a Very Nice Day, a very "vacation"y day, and all was good. then i stuffed up my shoulder trying to open a bottle of "mojito" with my keyring, and chased that with a night that was interrupted by horrible coughing that was so bad that i ended up puking for a good ten minutes. it would take at least another hour to be able to go back to sleep.

thursday:

it was not a peaceful night. not for me or my mom, who also had terrible coughing fits, but not for gd either - she hadn't been able to sleep because she was having an allergic reaction to the down pillows.

mr smear really wanted to swim after breakfast, so we enjoyed a good breakfast and then hit the pool. we had originally intended to leaving the hotel around 10-10.30 and head to masada, but by the time we left it was 11am and gd was in too much discomfort for us to even give that a try.

the first part of the journey was quite unpleasant, but it got better. about three hours later we arrived in tel aviv, tired but in one piece, relieved by the relative coolness of 37° compared to the dead sea's 45°.

for dinner, gd rested while i took my mom and mr smear to the green cat for an excellent pizza dinner, showing mr smear around levontin 7 while they conducted a sound check (he was so excited!) and we eventually got home, full and content and ready for bed.

today:

we got off to a slow start today. one great thing that happened was finally managing to get online in SPORE, someone finally responded to my cry for help on reddit from over a year ago and we're now able to play the full game in all its glory!

my mom and i took mr smear to check out bikes and buy a couple of standing fans, then returned home to drop them off and pick up gd and hit the mall. we bought some shorts for me, rested with cold drinks at aroma, and came home with a large grocery shopping. the rest of the afternoon has been all about napping and gaming.

except for the bit where mr smear woke me up from my nap, and decided to make up for it by reading to me. that could have been really sweet, except that the book he decided on was you can say no so i just lay there being disturbed while hoping he was internalizing the lessons in a positive way (ie without becoming more anxious than he already is).

so that was weird.

now he's creating things with blockbench while i tried out a couple of games, and i'm a little shocked to note that it's already 7pm even though it feels like 3am in two days' time.