T-1: "mostly"

 aaaand meltdown. this morning started off alright, and then took a dive when mr smear went head to head with me over something really unnecessary. gd and i both tried to get him to see reason, and i felt really shitty afterwards that i was yelling in response to him yelling, ironically yelling that he needs to change his strategy if wants to get his way... i guess we both need to change our strategies.

gd's still in a lot of pain, but apparently it's less of a nerve pain since this morning. i've no idea what to do with that information.

the rest of the day (for him) went much better, at least, but gd and i are both concerned about what friday will bring. and that's in only one more day 😰

i arrived at work and walked in to a crisis - we use circleci, and for many weeks circleci has been dropping the ball regularly. our entire dev team was brought to its knees for most of the day, and their support agent didn't feel it was important enough / we were important enough to post updates to their status page / give us an ETA, after admitting that the problem wasn't just us :/

so that was a big distraction for me, although i did manage to make some progress on my new task. i think i got most of my work done while mr smear was in his mma class, and he seemed to be having a good time even though the class began with me fuming after realizing that he'd done everything he could to run out the clock on eating his goddamned apple.

i love my boy, and as i said before he was mostly good today, but by that stage in the day i was all out of patience and it was hard to keep my cool. for the most part i managed, but we did a grocery run on the way home and there were a couple of times i was short with him when he didn't really deserve it :(

let's just say i needed that beer that i opened while he was in the shower.

at least dinner and bedtime went smoothly. then i lay down on the couch next to gd for a while, and now i'm writing an article and preparing to face another night of questionable sleep quality...

T-2

 it's tuesday night, and i've just woken up after passing out during a re-watch (for me) of neal brennan's 3 mics (gd watched the whole thing and enjoyed it) due to what was clearly a sugar-low after consuming too much candy after dinner. after a busy evening after a busy afternoon during which i almost passed out next to one of my coworkers while trying to help him debug something weird.

this evening was awesome, and a bit bitter-sweet because i'm almost sure it's going to be the last mid-week wall climbing for a while. mr smear and i had a deal and we both stuck to it, he had a great time and did some cool things and i didn't set any parameters. he's doing great :)

i had a sync with his new teacher over the phone this evening - hopefully i'll learn how to pronounce her name soon.

we got excellent news this afternoon! the public therapist has a slot opening up, which is going to save us an enormous amount of money (not that we don't feel it's well spent), so perhaps we can get back to reducing our debt sometime in the near future. that would be cool.

...

after a good HR interview yesterday morning, it looks like we're proceeding, although still quite slowly. ironically, i'm feeling confident and settled in my current job for the first time in over a year. i'm working on something that's less of an uphill battle against my coworkers (and part of the core business, as opposed to the ci/cd infrastructure), and the work itself is a lot more interesting.

i had a long chat with an ex-coworker yesterday evening, it was nice to catch up and reassuring to know i have a good reference in hand.

...

gd's legs are hurting. this sucks.

...

mr smear's generally doing really well with mma, and he seems to be making friends there too. this is good. i'm really feeling like this summer holiday has been good for him, i hope his return to school in two days' time is positive.

post-nap

ah, i forgot about my call with a dermatologist yesterday - he gave me satisfactory answers to my questions, and i'm pretty sure i'm almost done with the treatment now.

...

i posted, i napped. i didn't nap enough, but sufficiently to spend the next couple of hours playing around with winkill and considering retrying unity development.

for a while before mr smear and i left the apartment, something i'd chewed on had trigger The Pain in the back of my jaw and it got so bad that i needed to take anti-inflammatories for it. they kicked in about forty five minutes after we left.

i coaxed mr smear outdoors with pokemon go. at least, he came out for the pokemon, but had to have an apple before he could play (he doesn't like eating fruit, it's a thing)... that gave us plenty of opportunity for chatting before i lost him to the phone :P

we walked all the way to the beach, at which point i convinced him to hand over the phone and put his feet in the sand:

are you having fun in the sand? yes. can you explain why coming onto the beach had to be a struggle? yes. because my feet weren't dirty then. now i don't care.

we had a good time at the beach, followed by the usual struggle in getting him off the beach once we were there. but the walk home was nice, the last stretch was physically taxing, mostly good fun with a "tickle fight" turning into a proper chase. i didn't feel good when we got home, though, and i think it was partially the anti-inflammatories on an empty stomach, partially the chase maybe moving stuff in my neck around and putting pressure on my vagus nerve. whatever it was, it calmed down shortly after we began eating and i'm feeling alright now.

i'm reading the wind in the willows to mr smear, i feel like he's actually ready for it this time. he's been really into bugsnax lately, i'm quite impressed by the depth of the game, and only after typing this thought to look up some reviews and realized that it's in the horror genre.

huh. do i tell my 'fraidy cat son?

nap attack

 yesterday:

it was a busy morning. we headed to the mall to return the horrible watch we'd bought the week before, and while gd and mr smear took care of the grocery shopping i had a long chat about israeli politics and the community project (mobile app) that i started a couple of years ago. i'm now convinced that making a mobile app is just too much effort and cost, and that it's time for a redesign.

my family needed my help with bagging the groceries (i'm the expert, apparently, but also i'm the one who carries everything so i do appreciate that my wife didn't want to upset the bag balance and make the walk home harder), and even though i leaned over and said "why's he taking so long?" under my breath i realized as i said it that it was too loud, and that he probably understood me. a minute later i wondered out loud "i think there's something wrong with the scanner" and i'm hoping that took the edge off, because the cashier then made a point of talking to us in english...

the bags felt heavier than usual on the walk home, my arms were sore by the time we arrived. then we realized that we had less than half an hour to get mr smear's watch. on the way there, and afterwards, i had a loooong chat with sailor about our mutual plans, which included quite an embarrassing moment when we realized that i'd completely forgotten what the project he's been working on was essentially about, even if i'd worked with him on the concept.

getting the watch fixed was quick and painless, but getting a sandwich afterwards was trying, primarily because of the old lady who lit up a cigarette right next to us and the cafe owner who set the volume ridiculously high.

i completely crashed after we got home, i would take me a couple of hours to be ready for a sync with horseman, after which it was time for washing dishes and dinner. and then the bedtime ritual. and then watching random things until passing out from sheer exhaustion.

today so far:

i slept badly, and woke up groggy. mr smear and i started the day on a positive note, with a little rhyming game and playing some toodee and topdee. and then i learned about winkill while trying to post this, and then we all stopped for breakfast and to binge-watch bluey. which really is as good as they say!

i'm syncing, i'm syncing

 sync is still syncing, i'm beginning to experience a little buyer's remorse.

my neck and shoulder have been a mess today.

i have spent, and continue to spend even right now - in the background, "it's compiling" - an enormous amount of effort (two work days, basically) trying to set up what should be a very simple demo. everything is broken. i feel like i've just been bashing my head against a variety of brick walls, repeatedly and enthusiastically.

today i thought to ask mr smear if he understands what we mean when we tell him that he needs to change his strategy. i worry about my kid, because he said he didn't. he did, however, rather enjoy watching me demonstrate repeatedly walking into the glass panel of a bus shelter in order to illustrate my point.

i had a long, very serious chat with sailor about an idea i had this morning. the only problem is that it went from a private chat in an empty room to a private chat surrounded by a bunch of dads waiting for their kids...

we raced to get mr smear to his therapy session, and just made it on time. i found "my seat" and had "my usual" while working and waiting for him. it was nice.

i was supposed to have a zoom interview, but it was postponed again. i'm so damned half-hearted about the job alternatives these days... i don't really want to work for anyone else. i want to build something really important.

i opened facebook earlier and was shocked to have received a warning for spam content, although it wouldn't show me what the original content was. i couldn't very well request a review if i didn't know what i was asking to be reviewed, so i tried to close it and open it again and came to the conclusion that somebody may have gained access to my account. updating all my security is such a pain in the ass, but i'm grateful that i wasn't locked out or anything...

sync

well, dropbox finally did it - they've harassed me to the point of pushing me to pay good money to migrate to another provider. i'm now migrating everything to sync.com, which appears to provide everything i need and is the second-most reasonably priced offering on the market.

...

it was a long day, that began rather unpleasantly. i worked from home, and spent most of my time bashing my head against a really stupid wall. a couple of really stupid walls, i should say. it's exhausting and it's giving me a headache.

i took mr smear to his mma class and worked from there. no drama until the very end, when we thought he'd lost his mouthguard and we searched everywhere for it. i became progressively more annoyed until eventually, preparing mentally to give up, i thought to look behind where i'd been sitting and saw that it had somehow fallen behind the bench.

*sigh*

mr smear and i bussed to the mall and took care of the grocery shopping, returned home for dinner, and i've spent the past couple of hours alternating between the sync migration and writing up one of today's experiences while simultaneously continuing to try more things just in case i hadn't been thorough enough.

i think i've been thorough enough. now i'm gearing up to go to bed.

sweet tooth

 today was a bit better, though i did have a bit of an occasional cough. one of my coworkers came to the office with a nasty cough, so i'm praying i didn't get another thing.

the day began with unboxing mr smear's new watch. unfortunately, it needed to be charged and the app's a bit wonky, so we'll have to continue setting it up tomorrow.

*sigh*

the work day was quite meh. i left early to pick mr smear up from his jiujitsu class, half of tel aviv's traffic was shut down (gd and mr smear had been kicked off a bus earlier because the driver gave up) and i had to walk the entire way there. i managed to get mr smear through a quick shower, and we hopped on a bus to the mall.

half an hour waiting at the pharmacy to not be able to get the main thing i needed, and to forget the name of the other thing i needed.

*sigh*

after a successful grocery shopping, we returned home, at which point i was in need of a beer and candy.

[grabs some more candy. i think it's expired. whatever.]

and work a bit.

then start a new attempt to read some wind in the willows to mr smear - apparently it was successful?

huh.

 i woke up tired this morning. i'm still feeling about the same level of tired.

the skin situation is mostly clear, but still not 100%. 

with a little help from a friend, i finally managed to submit gd's disability application this morning. it's been preying on me for many months, and it's a huge relief that we've finally started the process!

the work day was a bit iffy, intellectually i know that what i did had value but it didn't feel like i did much.

i took mr smear to his mma class in the afternoon, and overheard a husband and wife pair of fitness freaks trying to convince the receptionist to go keto, so i caught him for a quiet chat on the way out and established that he's pretty clued up on what is and isn't working for him. i think it would have been less awkward of a chat if mr smear hadn't been deliberately trying to sabotage it by harassing me non-stop...

the two of us waited at a bus stop for twenty minutes, there was a really creepy homeless-looking guy there with his pants half the down his bum who was generally making a nuisance of himself. eventually our bus arrived. we got to the first stop before i realized that we'd been waiting on the wrong side of the road the entire time 🤦

anyway, we managed to get to the mall to do the grocery shopping, mr smear was generally very helpful, and we got back home just in time to shower and sit down to dinner.

...

i don't know why i haven't gone to bed yet.

good sabbath

 today got off to a rough start - i'd gone to bed around 2am, and four hours later i was paged for some nonsense. fortunately, it was similar nonsense to tuesday night's incident, so i knew where to look. by the time i was on the case the problem had already resolved itself, i'm just a bit irritated that things were broken for about an hour before the alarms went off :/

anyway, we all had a nice, slow morning. i completed steamworld heist for the first time, and i have to say that i've really enjoyed it from beginning to end. the final boss kicked my ass the first time, but by the second i had a simple strategy that held up the entire way through.

a little later we all settled in to watch short circuit. i fell asleep for a good chunk of it, but what a surprisingly fun, entertaining and wholesome film! of particular interest is just how similar wall-e is to no. 5...

we then followed that with a full viewing of funny people; i don't know how much was staged or how to identify what was staged, but the upside-down living room is for sure one of the greatest prank ideas ever conceived!

afterwards, it was a bit of a chore to get mr smear to come outside, but we went to the climbing wall, had a great session, came home for him to shower, then walked to our local vegan coffee shop for dinner. mr smear and i had interesting conversations the whole way, bumped into his best friend's mother and sister along the way, and an old friend of mine from rollerblading when we ate.

it really was a good day. i'm tired, and this weekend was very different from how i thought it would go, but i'm feeling really good about it and i think i'm just about ready to go to bed.

bits and pieces

tuesday night:

i went to bed a little while after posting. about an hour later, i got paged. i was groggy as ****. i dragged myself out of bed, and began investigating.

an hour later, the alarms went back to normal and i still had absolutely no idea what had gone wrong. it was awesome.

wednesday:

it appears that i forgot to mention that on tuesday morning, i made a mistake when setting up a wire transfer order and rushed to the bank on the way to work to get it cancelled. as useless as my personal bankers always are, the manager handled the cancellation in two seconds between other clients and i was on my merry way.

on wednesday morning, i attempted to create the correct order and was mortified to see that i'd received the following message from my personal banker: "the instruction from yesterday was executed successfully". i scrambled to get back to the bank and try and fix it, only to have him apologize weakly that what he'd meant to say was that the instruction to cancel the order was executed successfully.

#@$!ing IDJIT.

i got into the office and immediately tried to work out what had gone wrong the night before, one of my coworkers gave me some tips and i learned that we have a constant test that failures are handled correctly, which fails when the failures aren't handled correctly. so if there aren't failures - which there weren't - then the tests (correctly) fail.

but why weren't there any failures?

because our tests use an external API that wasn't responding as expected. WHO THE #@!$ USES AN EXTERNAL API FOR PRODUCTION TESTING?!?!

it turned out that wasn't the only problem with this repo that hadn't been touched in months, and i ended up losing the entire day to eventually get the first part of a three-part fix deployed. then in the evening, when i got home, i realized that i hadn't  reviewed one of my coworkers PRs from the day before - i personally *hate* long turnaround times, so when he messaged me around 9pm asking if he should rather pass the review to someone else i felt even shittier. so there i was, wednesday night, reviewing code...

over dinner, we finished watching spider-man: across the spider-verse. i actually do have a very serious complaint about the movie: *SPOILER ALERT* it doesn't have an ending. WTAF?!!

yesterday:

"no, no! i didn't mean for you to do it on your home time!"

sure. anyway, at least it got done and i still felt / feel a bit bad about the delay.

i finally got the wire transfer order right, and was very pleased to see the money arrive in my canadian account within a couple of hours - that still amazes me.

thursday felt like a bit of a wreck. i worked from home, what i got done took much longer than anticipated and was quite frustrating. i also joined gd and mr smear for an emergency grocery shopping run in the intense heat. i worked at an outside table while waiting for them to need me to carry bags, because all the inside tables with air-conditioning were occupied.

i felt quite faint when we finally returned home from carrying heavy bags in the heat.

we had just enough time to cool off a bit before i took mr smear to his jiujitsu class, where i worked while he trained. we did have an incident on the way, i feel like i handled it pretty well but i don't know if he really *got* the message...

afterwards, i took him to see his therapist and worked from the coffee shop next door. at least the allegedly-vegan chocolate ball and delicious iced-tea made that a good experience.

today:

i woke up around 2/3am sweating and uncomfortable. it must have taken me anywhere between half an hour to an hour to finally get up and put air-conditioning on in our bedrooms. in the morning, gd informed me that that's what's been happening the previous days as well, only she was bothered before i woke up.

the day began with a plan, and we did a pretty good job of sticking to the plan. i cleaned our standing fans, we hung the curtains, and we headed to the mall to pick up all of mr smear's third-grade stationery, along with a new school bag and a watch with a SIM that we can use to get a rough idea of his whereabouts as well as enable us to communicate with him, without giving him a phone (which almost all the parents agree is a bad idea).

there's no way we could have handled the stationery shopping without the expert at the store. not a chance in hell.

i was relieved to have a meeting with the temple executive postponed regarding the mobile app i haven't touched in ages, and once i'd ingested sufficient caffeine i called horseman and we chatted for a long, long time. our main focus was blockchain stuff, but i was inspired to invest some time in an idea for a game i had this week.

which, in a roundabout way, led to mr smear and i playing two games of jones in the fast lane. that game is hard, and for all the right reasons. i love how mr smear really got into it, not only for his newfound appreciation for how much easier being a kid is, but also for him getting a grasp on some pretty adult concepts.

...

gd and i watched a bit more of the the need to grow documentary. we're about halfway through and as intriguing as some of it is, and as on point as some of the claims may be, there're things that have me raising an eyebrow and i had to look them up. the "power house" seems too good to be true, and it's really hard to take a documentary seriously when they present vandana shiva as a physicist, or any kind of authority.

...

my screen's started flickering randomly since i installed an updated driver earlier. that sucks.

on-on

 on-call and wired. significant dermatological improvement, though still not out of the woods. a stiff neck making just being a little rough.

i managed to deliver an important chunk of work today. and discover a bunch of broken things along the way. it's very weird to be moving forward with the interviewing, and at the same time feeling better about where i am than i have in many moons.

our handyman friend returned, and our curtain rail seems to be solid. this is good. i feel bad that mr smear didn't leave the house today, though...

my keyboard language-input settings have been driving me nuts, hopefully this latest attempt will do the trick.

watching spider-man: across the spider-verse in parts isn't easy.

i'm tired, and i'm blaming ending the day with a beer. i probably shouldn't have had the marshmallows on top of that :P

improvement

skin situation:

not good, but somewhat improved.

work situation:

i received a day's reprieve, i'm only going on-call tomorrow. i'm still on "ninja" (ops) duty, though, but i had exactly one ticket i needed to look at and i managed to figure out the root cause which turned out to be a mistake on the customer's side. that felt good.

i also managed to push the stuff i've been working on and make some progress with the next task, so that also felt good.

dental situation:

i went to see the first dentist who couldn't identify my cracked filling, but in spite of that i really like him and his approach. he's not convinced that i need a root canal and crown - which i've been dreading - and my homework is to tentatively experiment with chewing on the damaged tooth to see if the past weeks have given it a chance to heal.

i haven't chewed yet. i'm a little scared.

interview situation:

apparently we're moving forward? i was a little surprised, but that's good news.

after the dentist i tagged gd at mr smear's jiujitsu lesson, there was a bit of discomfort because the instructor didn't think mr smear would benefit from the second class but he enjoyed it and i enjoyed a little more time to figure out what my code was and wasn't doing.

we then took the bus home - which took a lot longer than it should have - he had a really fast shower and we caught the same bus returning in the other direction (same bus, line and driver) and went to the port for the "festival of lights" with  dod and his family.

we had a really good time. the kids were entertained, the adults had good chats. it was very late when we eventually went our separate ways, mr smear and i raced to catch the bus home (*just* made it) and he ate a little on the way. i'm very glad we managed to get there!

...

i was very sad, again, to realize that a few years ago i said something while mishandling a tantrum that did some real damage; on some level i think he actually believes that we might one day give him up for adoption or something. i hope and pray he internalized some of what i said to him this evening.

awkward

today's skin situation felt somewhat worse.

work: it was a good day.

interviewing: i feel like i made it awkward, and i've no idea what impression they got from me. they asked questions, i answered those questions even though there wasn't a good way to spin the answers. hoping for the best.

a quick catch-up with sailor before dinner, some more spider-man: across the spider-verse, a pretty smooth bedtime, and i'm now watching barbarella in bemusement while trying to decide if i'm going to bed soon or not.

partial

i didn't really have much energy today, and the dermatologist's meds don't seem to be helping and it's... umm... getting under my skin.

gd's been feeling progressively better since her procedure on sunday, but this morning she woke up in trouble after sleeping badly :(

i did manage to send off the next pages' script, though, and i re-themed the sonnetcomix website, so that's a thing.

there was some gaming, though not a lot. i did get back to playing counterstrike a bit, but i'm really rusty and the "casual" games i was playing were a bit rougher than i was ready for.

in the afternoon, i took mr smear out on principle, and in an effort to keep him outside for more than ten minutes i installed pokemon go. well, that worked :P

in the evening, our handyman friend rocked up to take a look at the broken curtain rail. he's fixing it in two parts, so far the first part seems good. he looked at a couple of other things, too, but apparently those things are alright.

during dinner we started watching spider-man: across the spider-verse. so far? holy shit.

highs and lows

 today was a bit rough, although having a beer and watching growing living rat neurons to play... DOOM? with mr smear have clearly helped.

we began the day with coffee and co-op gaming, but mr smear started griefing me and i had to walk away. so not a great start. in addition to that, our curtain rail came crashing down because it was installed by an incompetent jerk, so now we've got that to deal with :(

finally, just before we left, mr smear had a fight with his new lego spiderman figure (i'm still not clear on what happened) and decided he's *done* with lego. fortunately, we managed to talk him down from his ridiculousness but it was still a bad vibe to leave on :/

then we went to the optometrist, but their information on google maps wasn't up to date and we walked around encountering smelly mall people for far too long before we found what we were looking for: the optometrist upstairs :P

then getting mr smear to pick out a pair of glasses was a whole story, and we realized that we'd left the prescription at home.

ugh.

then we did a grocery shopping in the mall store that we don't particularly like.

then we caught a bus home.

and the whole way there and back, and a little bit of time at home afterwards too, was me trying to sort out our moovit apps because they've become really pushy about paying for their basic service and the google play store won't let you choose which account to install an app on / make payments with.

eventually i figured out that the only way to get it right is to remove accounts, uninstall/reinstall, and hope for the best...

mr smear really wanted to try playing the original DOOM: "that's not scary!"
he watched me play for a few minutes, tried a bit himself, and by the time i got to the end of the second level he was out :P

ending the week well

yesterday:

i worked from home yesterday, the first reason being that i needed to pick up mr smear's book for next year. i was anticipating long queues and unpleasant run-ins with other parents, based on our previous year's experience, but was completely taken by surprise to find exactly one other parent walking out as i arrived and then it was just me getting my books and returning home.

in the afternoon i took mr smear to a back-to-back mma class, where i spent a short while chatting to another ex-south african and then put my head down and got some work done. not a lot, but that was because i managed to hit every wall i could :P

mr smear went to bed rather late again. gd and i watched a little more o brother, where art thou?, but pretty soon both of us needed to get into bed.

today:

i started the day by slugging down a coffee (after gd and i resolved a disagreement) and then jumping on a bus to meet with the public therapist; it was a very interesting hour, and there was one thing that we discussed that i haven't thought of in a long time - the time that mr smear saw spiders - and then in the evening, on our way home, he suddenly referred to that out of the blue. weird.

i spent a good chunk of my workday on everyone else's work, so i was a little concerned that i hadn't made any progress on my own ticket... i took mr smear to his jiujitsu lesson, and managed to get most of my work done while he did his thing. i was then super-impressed by the fact that he showered after his class with any fuss!

we took a bus to the shuk, and after dropping him off i settled down and got in a good hour of work, ending on a delivery just before picking him up again. then we walked through to goodness, the service was a bit meh but the main part of the meal - the schnitzel on challah - was brilliant. the second part of the meal? the kid's mushroom burger? not so much.

it was also ridiculously expensive. but overall we had a good time together after a good afternoon together, so i'll take it with a smile. we had a pleasant ride home, a pretty straightforward shower-and-bedtime, then gd and i almost finished watching o brother, where art thou? - i'd forgotten quite a bit of it - and then she crashed and i've spent the past while just sort of staying up, because that's what i do. and wondering how it's (technically) friday already.

...

gd started feeling a bit better yesterday, and today she was feeling better than yesterday. this is good, hopefully it'll stay on this trajectory for a while...

the perhaps not so big day?

yesterday was highly anticipated, but was less fireworks and more weirdness.

pharmacy elucidation: i went to pick up my meds, but the pharmacist's instructions were incomplete. so i took a look at the original script, and learned that my skin thing that i've been dealing with for almost a week is apparently an eczema thing...

i went through an architectural interview with two guys, which was fine, i guess? i wasn't feeling super-confident by the end (not unconfident, either), but two of us appeared to be caught off-guard when the third ended the meeting saying that we were going to continue the application process without any deliberation. i was expecting to be told "we'll get back to you", and i got "let's schedule the follow-up for next week", so i'm curious as to whether that's actually happening or whether there'll be a retraction :P

it was a positive workday, i managed to get most of my task completed although i was sadly surprised to learn that both javascript and python amqp instrumentation doesn't register single message consumption which really makes testing unnecessarily complicated :/

too much indian food for lunch - actually, it was more a case of eating too much breakfast too close to lunchtime, and even though the lunch was really good it was a struggle :P

the meeting: by the time the meeting started, i was no longer convinced that i was getting fired, but just merely uncertain. then the meeting began in a surprising and strange manner - my boss took a deep dive into my personal projects (specifically, the sonnet comics and the book), which was a really interesting conversation but after ten minutes i had to ask "so, what are we meeting about today?"

and we continued with an ordinary weekly one-on-one, everything's fine, he's very happy with how things are going, and he's impressed by my improvement relating to his feedback a few months ago. we synced on a couple of task-related aspects, and that was it.

no drama, except for everything that had been in my head. amazing.

our meeting was followed by an all-hands, which i tried to join while doing grocery shopping on my way home. the first issue was connecting to the meeting, because zoom has a thing - desktop or mobile - that you can't join unless your app is up-to-date and it took forever to download. then it kept disconnecting me from the meeting any time i switched to another app (even for a few seconds) or locked my screen. wtf, zoom?!?!

i got the groceries home in one piece, all efforts of the bus driver to the contrary, picked up smear, and we headed to the climbing wall. it was a good session, overall, and he earned himself an "achievement popsicle" for making three real attempts on a new wall :)

the evening was a bit messy; making sure that mr smear eats fruit every day has always been a struggle, and last night the after-dinner fruit turned out to be... not good... and he made a point of eating it and its replacement so slowly that we couldn't get into bed until just before 10pm. for the second day in a row. holy shit.

i had a long catchup chat with vfmp, then found myself too tired to do anything and around midnight i crashed hard.

in an attempt to combat the recent increase in excessive late bedtimes, i woke mr smear up early this morning, and so far it's been a good morning from his point of view (he just got off a video call with my mom where he introduced her to his new lego action figures, he was very excited). gd's having a rough time post-nerve block, so a part of this morning is going to be looking at next steps...

getting my head straight

 i'm feeling a little more organized, and considerably less overwhelmed than i have in a while. i feel like i'm managing to put all the pieces of the puzzle into place, and producing a coherent narrative that has reasons.

my chat with our ex-VP r&d this morning helped, especially in conjunction with a chat i had earlier with my mother. i had no idea what it was going to be about, but he opened up and i opened up and if any of that gets back to my current bosses, that's an exit interview for sure!

with everything that's been going on in our first year in israel after years of struggling to get here, it's only been through this last month or so while i've been interviewing and talking about interviewing that i've finally been able to understand precisely where i am and what i've been dealing with:

1. i work for a company that sees its human resources as single-use tools to be used and discarded at whim. we're constantly looking for "superstars", instead of raising up superstars from within. there's no coaching, there's no real cooperation, no attempt to improve processes or ensure that employees actually feel like a part of the team. everything's very superficial and shallow when you know that you can be dropped without warning.

2. as above, so below. the surviving members of the department - we're now just a team - aren't in the slightest bit interested in improving themselves or their own work conditions. everything's just fine as it is, thank you for asking, now fuck off and let me continue to do my miserable little thing in peace.

3. we have developed a culture of competing to merge our code which makes devs delay reviews until their own reviews are taken care of. even after we managed to bring the ci/cd roundtime from 3-5 hours down to 1-2.

4. i now understand that surprise firings are completely illegal in israel, and i am confident that the two months' salary the company claims to be so generous for paying out is actually hush money.

5. it also looks like there's some complication regarding the options - when you work for options, it's in lieu of the full salary you deserve. it's a big deal when your options vest, because one day they might be worth something. apparently, after being fired there's a very short (three month?) time window for "purchasing" or exercising one's options. if so, that runs counter to the whole point of options in the first place.

it may be "just business", but it's bad business. we have data that all of these ugly things are not good for anyone. this is just more fuel on my "i need to start my own company" fire.

...

it ultimately seems to have been a pretty productive day, work-wise.

mr smear spent the vast majority of his day enthusiastically constructing and playing with his new lego.

i left the office early to pick up mr smear and take him to jiujitsu, it was a good lesson. he really wants a playdate with a new friend from his class, the kid talks shit non-stop and drives me nuts but okay whatever.

i was *mortified* when the two of them were talking about lego, and mr smear very loudly and repeatedly yelled "you're RICH?!" (,,>﹏<,,)

...

it's late, and i've got a really big day tomorrow. a job interview in the morning and possibly being fired in the afternoon.

i'm going to finish my tea and hope for a good night's rest.

the birthday boy, the nerve block girl

still coughing. waiting on a new dermatologist appointment.

...

we managed to get up and make a card just in time to present it!

*whew*

it was a busy morning, rather productive in spite of the birthday message distractions. i received an amusing email from one of the companies i'm applying to inform me that they'd like me to meet a potential vp r&d, and if it's the guy i bumped into last week that would be hilarious!

in the afternoon we went off to dizengoff center to look at all the toy and robot and action figure shops, bumping in a guy i went to high school with. we ended up in the lego store, where i realized in-store that the budget i'd summoned into my head from nothing just made no sense, so after more than a little discomfort i explained how the budget would work to mr smear and he was beyond cool about it - we actually had to explain to him that he didn't have to worry, he could spend up to that amount and enjoy it.

i wouldn't have picked what he picked, but he walked out of their with his gifts and a giant smile on his face, and his excitement hasn't slowed down since - he obviously picked well, and it was great seeing him so happy :)

i got in about forty five minutes of work before we all left for the hospital for gd's nerve block, we arrived just on time and then sat in the waiting room for an hour or so, i worked on my laptop while mr smear watched some minecraft channel on youtube. then gd went in, and i took mr smear to the food court to eat dinner, picking up dessert along the way. he ate well, thoroughly enjoyed his dessert (a panda chocolate/coconut bar), we did a very fast emergency grocery shopping and then returned to the pain clinic just in time to see gd go in for the procedure.

it felt like a long time, but she came out doing alright. in shock, but alright, in spite of the nurse's concerns because it's unusual to do both sides simultaneously. we very cautiously brought her home, we had a really funny arab taxi driver who sang happy birthday to mr smear, and then we slowly got ourselves organized and ready for bed.

i'm tired, but i don't want to go to sleep just yet. so here i am, typing up my day and then figuring out whether to mess about or crash.

it was a big day.

climbing

 mr smear hit the top of the wall. twice. this is doing great stuff for his confidence. i just couldn't get him to do the other one, but he did make it quite far up and at some point i knew i had to just let it go.

we got home, showered, had dinner, and put him to bed as a seven year-old for the last time. thoroughly exhausted, i went to bed too.

it's now going on 1am, and i've just woken up with a tornado of thoughts in my head. not least of which, that we didn't think to make him a card! oh, no!

mid-weekend

the coughing thing still hasn't gone away :(

yesterday:

yesterday was basically grocery shopping and visiting the shiva house. when we got home we watched alice in wonderland, which we did very much enjoy, what an amazing cast!

in the evening (before kiddush) we finally figured out the problem with playing among us together - we'd been in different regions the whole time! that was silly. so anyway, we had enough time to play one game together, i knew that mr smear was the imposter and he knew that i knew, so he killed me pretty quickly and i'm still a bit sore about it.

i had an online appointment with a dermatologist that i'd requested on thursday, both callbacks were at times i couldn't take them and then they cancelled the call entirely. i'm still dealing with whatever-the-fuck this is and it's upsetting. at least it doesn't appear to be spreading, but that's only a partial consolation.

today:

most of the day so far was spent watching david blaine ascension, some of that time was mr smear getting into shapez. shapez is amazing, but i'm irritated that it offered me 60% off after playing the demo but doesn't actually give me a discount :/

we played some more among us together, which was quite fun, and i'm now planning the big outing to iclimb for the day.

...

it's hard not to be anxious about all the things that are going on, especially work-wise. i've been feeling generally overwhelmed for weeks already. i have stuff to do, and i'm not getting any of it done. just putting one foot in front of the other and praying.

not so much with the sleeping

 i was a psychological hot mess last night, more about the need to consult with a dermatologist than anything else.

today was all over the place. mr smear made me a lovely little paper "wristwatch" with a tiny background image, i convinced him to do a hand making a peace sign in spite of the fact that he wasn't confident about it at all (we compromised, he did a silhouette).

i had a weird workday, while i eventually pushed something important (around dinner time) it felt like a burned day. my boss is being cool, but we have an all-hands on tuesday and he's booked me for a meeting a few hours before then, and we've just been informed that there are new hires coming in and the girl who's been doing our marketing just got let go: if that's not me getting a pink slip on tuesday, i'm going to be very surprised.

at least this morning's technical interview went well. so i've got two follow-ups scheduled next week, and a bunch of recruiters i need to get back to... it'll be fine.

i hope.

i'm sure.

i hope.

*sighs and shakes his head*

i took a bus and then another bus to get to the new cemetery in herzeliya, which involved a good ten-minute walk in the oppressive heat through fields - nothing much has changed in the almost-twenty years since i left for tel aviv.

the new cemetery is weird. apparently, there's a problem with burial space in israel so they've begun stacking bodies. so our cousin was buried at the bottom, his wife will be buried on top of him, and at least three other people will go on top of them. that's - freaking - weird. and i don't think they seal the graves very well, the cemetery smelled... i think it smelled like decomposition, a bit. it wasn't overbearing but it was definitely present.

anyway, the funeral itself was very touching. the eulogies were beautiful and his favorite songs were played and as soon as the rabbi was done, a couple of bottles of whiskey were brought out. it was a tearful celebration for a very special man.

...

mr smear went to bed very late. and very scared. i tried to comfort him and made it worse, then spent a while trying to fix it. fuck.

i'm not sure if i'm tired or not. i'm definitely anxious.

the mess

 yesterday:

first, the bank: my mom's bank (and probably most of the banks) are operating out of the 90s. very little about their systems and their approach to security of said systems makes any sense in a post-millennium context. anyway, we managed to sort things out eventually.

after work, i picked up our soundbar (which has apparently been fixed, we'll find out soon enough) and then returned home to switch it out for my son, who i took to the climbing wall.

the climbing wall experience was excellent - he's almost up to the top, and he's really enjoying himself. he did things that he didn't think was possible, and i'm super proud of him!

the post-climbing wall experience was the opposite of excellent, as we ended up having a mostly very bad time due to some bad behavior and some misunderstandings. by the time we got home we'd pretty much cleared everything up, but that whole thing was hard on both of us. i've was extremely relieved to have been able to patch things up in time for a positive good night.

i'm very grateful that we both went to sleep in a good space.

today:

this morning started off really badly. apparently the universe thinks i've been bored, because i woke up with a surprising and surprisingly unpleasant skin issue and it looks like i need to take it to a dermatologist. i then had to navigate a very complicated morning that involved getting a medical insurance authorization that i didn't actually need and getting mr smear to an appointment, both on my way to work after handling some urgent admin / interviewing stuff.

no stress... although monday's interview appears to have gone well. and then i ran into an old friend / ex-manager / ex-classmate on my way to work, and there's a good chance he'll be starting to work there soon as well. that could be cool.

on the way out from dropping mr smear off at his appointment, his therapist said something to me that made it clear that we're not getting any money back from our medical insurance. we like her and we think she's doing a good job, but we literally can't afford her :(

...

our cousin who's 99th birthday we celebrated a month ago passed away this morning. i'm very sad for his family, but relieved for him.

...

i rushed out of the office and managed to arrive just in time for an appointment that would only begin half an hour later... we must have been there for an hour and a half, eventually discovering that mr smear has needed glasses for years, that it's probably our fault that he didn't get a prescription before, and that his vision has suffered as a result.

fuck.

we did a quick grocery shopping on the way home, during which i realized why i keep getting bad soy milks - the brand we've been buying doesn't use preservatives :/

we got home, showered quickly, ate quickly, and then i left for a couple of beers with an old army friend. that was nice.

my cough's still going, turns out my mom's had bronchitis, i'll wager me as well. between that and the skin thing i'm praying i'll be able to sleep tonight.