talk talk talk drip drip

i've just gotten up at 2am on friday morning uncertain as to whether or not i'm out of the woods on this sinus/chest thing. it's been a looooong week, sunday's drip came back with a vengeance to the point where i spent an unreasonable amount of time looking up csf leaks and wondering if i'm going to need to make an appointment for it... (i don't think so? but maybe? if it doesn't stop soon i will)

i've been playing a lot of freecell and sudoku this past week. i really haven't been in the headspace to do much else. it's soothing.

tuesday:

due to nationwide protests, tuesday was a work-from-home day which suited me just fine. i felt horrible all tuesday, it was the kind of day that under normal circumstances i would've put in for sick leave for, but putting in for sick leave on a day sandwiched by vacation days probably isn't a smart move.

so i felt horrible, and unfocused, and i struggled all day, eventually managing to get whatever tuesday's job was mostly done.

in the evening i took mr smear and my mom on a tour of the neighborhood parks, which was good until mr smear did his self-sabotage thing...

i had a couple of interesting chats with potential employers / recruiters during the day.

wednesday:

i woke up into a mild anxiety attack around 3am, dreading that the bad-feeling HR interviewer might have actually contacted my current boss without my permission. i put together an email, went back to bed, then fired it off when i got up again.

was sending that email a mistake? perhaps. but i really don't trust their HR manager. he'd asked me about red flags, and the only red flag i noted was him :/

gd and i started the day with a guidance session, which was quite emotional for both of us.

in spite of my health situation i went in to the office. i wasn't feeling great, but at least i was doing better than the day before. i managed to get my previous day's task completed pretty quickly, and then moved on to something new and out of my wheelhouse that i didn't know where to begin. i was advised to set up a similar scenario, which involved a bunch of things i've never worked with before, so i tried using an example from our italian coworker's test repo. his cdk repo Didn't Work. so i ported the example into my own, and over the course of a couple of hours a) figured out that his example was constructed badly and missing a bunch of critical things and b) finally completed the base setup by home-time. i mean, i ended up leaving a little later than planned because of it, but i at least left the work-week ready to move forward during the next one.

it was a bit late to begin constructing mr smear's side table with him, but we at least got started and only put the tools down when we got to the hammering bit.

i had a couple of interesting chats with potential employers / recruiters during the day.

there was a bad-feeling incident at bedtime, but i think i handled it well.

yesterday (thursday):

happy "aliyaversary" to gd! it's been one full year since our ridiculous saga came to an end, and i think we're doing okay.

another difficult night/morning. another baking hot day.

another day off, but with my mom and i still feeling shitty enough to make it not-really-a-vacation. i began the day finishing off mr smear's bedside table with him - he was very excited about it - we were interrupted a couple of times for "quick chats" with recruiters that took ridiculous amounts of time. my mom went off to meet a cousin and mr smear and i accompanied gd to the clinic to get meds and assure ourselves that the tiny thing on his face that he scratched is thoroughly benign.

i rested a bit when we got home, woke up dripping and freaking out and searching dr google.

my mom, mr smear and i headed to the museum of art, which didn't have the installation that upset mr smear last time but also didn't have a whole lot of other installations that we were hoping to see. there was a lot of good stuff, and a fair amount of amateur wannabe-artist shit stuff.

between the two, there was a phone call from the company i interviewed with on sunday, with the anticipated "no".

oh, well.

we bussed through to mr smear's weekly appointment, getting off early and sitting down at goodness for really nice drinks and vegan ice-cream. after dropping him off, my mom and i milled through the shuk and then took a long walk up and around sheinkin.

did i mention it was baking hot?

after picking up mr smear we returned to ibn gvirol, walked past crowds of protestors, discovered that most of mr donuts' donuts are vegan! we grabbed a box and continued on to the falafel stand where we celebrated gd's aliya victory. unfortunately without gd present, but at least for her we had the not-cooking and donuts :)

the guys working there weren't the regulars, and only after the falafel were ready were we informed that they didn't have any hummus. i was stunned. "what, bro, did you expect me to say 'hi! we have no hummus?'" - yes, that's exactly what i would have expected. as i was finishing up my meal - which was surprisingly good considering there was no hummus in it - i considered telling the guy "oh! i forgot to tell you before i ordered, i don't have any money" to make my point about the transactional nature of falafel purchasing and value.

ironically, as i typed this, i suddenly realized that i completely forgot to pay! we just walked straight home, i guess i'm going to have to go back tomorrow and take care of the bill :P

we got home pretty late, both my mom and i were thoroughly exhausted and sore from a lot of walking (about 18000 steps for me, more for her). as usual, we're the only two awake (she's been giggling to herself while reading on the couch behind me this whole time) - as I'm pressing "publish" she's just said good night and gone to bed :P

...

i'm sad that another visit from my mom is coming to an end, and especially sad that - just like last year - we've spent almost all of it sick and unable to enjoy it properly. hopefully we'll miraculously manage to get her moved here soon...