stormy

 something in my shoulder just went. it's very uncomfortable. also, it appears that it's cold enough outside that so much moisture has condensed on our windows that my hands seemingly-instantly went super dry. we're still struggling with mold - and wetness over our fridge - and this morning gd alerted me to a growing leak from a poorly-maintained pipe in our bathroom so we have a plumber coming in early tomorrow.

a detective got back to me this afternoon about yesterday's incident, to ask if i was willing to testify in court and to explain how easy it would be for the driver to get off on a technicality. i realized that i'd lost my temper the moment i registered that i was yelling expletives at a policeman... he seemed to be understanding, though, but the telephone booths in our building haven't got a bit of sound-dampening so i know that our whole floor heard me :$

otherwise the work day went pretty well. my boss is now referring to apples as "vegan croissants".

i came home early intending to take gd and mr smear to the parent-teacher meeting, but the storm broke just before we were due to leave and i said nuh-uh. so instead i helped mr smear with his reading comprehension practice, which was quite positive until he decided to try running out the clock, a strategy that solidly backfired on him.

oh, and mr smear drew a very disturbing, very gory series of sketches at school today. it doesn't look like there's any malicious intent, he claims he wasn't feeling anything in particular and just wants to freak people out. we explained that it's not appropriate at all to show that stuff to anyone other than us or his therapist. fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

bath-and-bedtime was going well until he got into a mood, and as soon as he began regulating his emotions i somehow made it worse by praising him. that triggered a downward spiral into a shitty bedtime.

now i've had some chill-time, and i might well go for some more. or go to bed. or somehow find the will to figure out how to reconfigure my email service because after everything i went through to get my code working, my emails are now being dropped due to an updated policy by my service provider.

the kick

 i'm still kicking myself. last night i continued with the node 20 upgrade (phase one of the community manager project update), and i think i finally got to bed around 2am with zero progress, loads of frustrating research and trial-and-error under my belt, and a very vague idea of what to try in the morning.

in the morning, in spite of a bit of "the usual" early-morning stress (although i managed to bring some calm to the situation), i managed to put in an hour or two and get to a point where things were starting to make sense.

and then, the bombshell: almost everything i'd been doing had been due to the fact that i updated everything to work with node 20 lambdas and layers, but forgot to actually update the node runtime.

holy shit.

once i figured that out, things are really making sense. i'm not sure what i've actually learned from the experience, though. it guess it's just time i'll never get back...

...

i made two trips to the hardware store today, one after dropping mr smear off at school and one after picking him up. in theory, i should be ready to put up the curtain rail in the shower.

i wasn't going to work from home today, but this morning i accompanied gd to an evaluation appointment. it went well. on the way home, though, i almost got run over by an angry and entitled taxi driver - there's a good chance he wasn't angry before he encountered me - and i lost a fair amount of time filing a police report online. twice. along the way, i realized that my driver's license had expired ages ago, so i renewed it.

other than that, it was a difficult work-from-home day. the work wasn't the problem, though, just me having a very hard time focusing. on anything, really.

in the evening i joined a webinar with a prominent jewish south african professor/judge who explained the implications of the icj ruling. while i read it right the first time, there was an interesting nuance as to the possible reasons behind there being no mention of a ceasefire in the order, in that it might only be because a ceasefire requires two sides and hamas isn't expected to care about the icj. another thing was about the ugandan judge's argument that this war doesn't fall under their jurisdiction, and it looks like hers might be the most faithful to the protocol.

the general feeling i got from the rest of the speakers was a common cognitive dissonance about being proudly south african in spite of the egregious betrayals by the government and the south african people, and the ridiculous hope that there could possibly be a positive outcome from the upcoming election.

south africa's fucked. well and truly fucked.

...

met our new neighbors in the bomb shelter during today's rocket attack. it's been mostly quiet the last couple of weeks, i hope we're nearing the end of it.

...

i cut my thumb doing the dishes this evening and even though it didn't bleed and is only barely visible, it hurts rather a lot.

...

bedtime was surpising. mr smear was rude to me, i refused to read to him and started saying goodnight. he started trying to send me away, but then let me give him the nightly blessing (a rhyme i made up when he was a baby) and wished me a good night in return. that's a broken pattern right there, i'm still shaking my head but being grateful.

it's okay

 i think. i think things are okay. or maybe they're not, but i'm okay. one way or the other, it's okay.

the weekend was mostly quiet. on friday night the storm took out the electricity on the blocks around us, but fortunately we were fine. i spent a good chunk of yesterday (and this morning, and i'll probably dive in again in a minute) working on the community manager project and my phone control project.

in the afternoon the skies cleared for a bit, and mr smear was fighting to not go outside. he was being thoroughly contrary, and we couldn't have planned it better - gd asked me if i was taking him on the bike, and i said no, so he insisted that we take the bike.

i didn't want to rollerblade in case my bearings got wet, so i jogged along with him and we had a great time. then my mom reminded me that it was a cousin's batmitzvah in toronto, so we returned home and got online for what turned out to be an impressive execution and a touching speech.

between troubleshooting the phone control project and loads of dishes, i ended up getting to bed very late.

today wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. at least was able to take mr smear to his mma class - that made a big difference - and i had some success at work.

gd and i watched freaks and geeks - the episode i'd been thinking since we began the re-watch, with the peanut allergy - and now it's... something time.

mr smear's still got a bad cough, and my ear's blocked.

winding down

just watched the icj ruling. the live chat on the icj ruling: i'm absolutely fascinated by how many south africans and pro-palestinians have completely misunderstood what the judges are saying. aside from instructing us to take harsher measures against any idiots who make genocidal statements, they're telling us to continue operating as we have been, and have even called out hamas both for not following international law (not that they'll care) and for continuing to hold civilian hostages.

i'm relieved that some semblance of sanity still reigns.

what the fuck is up with the watermelon?!!?

...

tuesday:

i don't remember much about the day itself, but i remember coming home exhausted, straight into a bullshit fight with mr smear. he was rude to both gd and myself, and ultimately ended up eating alone and putting himself to bed early in spite of our attempts to fix things.

wednesday:

the day started sensitively, but i managed to have a productive conversation and get us off to a good start.

work was all about implementing PR feedback. some of it was actually fun. the evening went much better than the day before.

yesterday:

a really nice start to the morning, even if gd hurt herself again (not as bad as the last time, hopefully she'll recover quickly). 

i had one job to do on wednesday (upgrade a react admin project), and i managed to get it right just i needed to leave. i ate too much delicious curry for lunch.

after accompanying mr smear to his mma class, i had a half-hour chat with a journalist who might be interested in an aspect of our immigration story.

over dinner we finished watching the new wonka movie, it's pretty cool and a great excuse to go back to the original charlie and the chocolate factory.

falling asleep at mr smear's bedtime and on the couch, though getting through another episode of freaks and geeks with gd. a part of me is in a hurry because i've convinced her to give futurama a try afterwards, but mostly of me is happy to drag out the rewatch because it's so freaking enjoyable.

bloons adventure time to bed.

today so far:

as i started writing this, my son was next to me dancing madly to spiderheck music (that's two weeks of not picking at his lips or his fingers, this has been great value for money so far), and i've just finished another once-over of mold spray, leaving the windows open for a little and hoping it doesn't resume raining just yet.

aside from taking mr smear to school and picking him up afterwards, i've had no energy for anything other than freaks and geeks and bloons adventure time. we're two thirds of the way through the former, and omg the writing is amazing and gd and i spent a lot of time hiding our faces in cringe.

as i finish writing this, i've just closed the windows and i feel (i hope) i did a good enough job to keep us for the weekend.

the middle

i've been really struggling to get shit done. between the war's news and politics, the weather / mold situation*, parenting** and the daily grind***, i feel like i've got a huge backlog of tasks even if i don't really and i don't feel like i'm getting much done.

* we keep finding little surprises, even if overall the situation is much improved.

** mr smear's doing great in some respects, but not all respects. it's a process.

*** okay, that's not fair. i'm just tired and worn out from endless things to do, but at least the work's going well and i'm quite happy at the moment.

...

 sunday:

gd was okay enough to pick mr smear up from work, but not take him to mma. i got so into my work that i didn't leave the office until gd called to ask where i was...

yesterday:

it was threatening to rain in the evening, so i decided to use my remote-work day and stay home. but then i remembered that i'd booked a blood donation in our office building. and in any event i had to take mr smear to his jiujitsu class in the evening.

the blood-drawing went smoothly, but i took the thingy off as instructed and it started bleeding and swelling... fortunately, i registered it quickly enough and went back to the nurse, and by bathtime it was fine.

speaking of bathtime, i think i know how to do the curtain rail myself. fuck the handyman who didn't get back to me after whining about how complicated a job it is. as soon as it's dry weather i'll go get some hacksaw help from the hardware store and git 'er done.

fortunately, we didn't get rained on, but i was feeling surprisingly shit after the donation. like, for hours...

...

on sunday evening i sat down and put together a summary of disturbing points exposed via our aliyah process, which will hopefully find its way into the hands of a relevant journalist. my mother went to the department of home affairs yesterday afternoon to try (once again, it's been three years now) to get a copy of her marriage certificate. she was then directed to the archivist, where they're going to have to dig because the copy isn't filed on the correct date. or maybe it was never filed - my mom  *just* called me to tell me that that's actually a possibility. she seems to have upset the woman she was talking to by responding with "you mean i spent all that money on getting divorced for nothing?" 😂

...

mr smear's bully situation has been resuming over the past couple of weeks, but i talked to his teacher yesterday and it sounds like he's following the strategy we've been describing for years and it's paying off - it's clear to everyone that the little shit he's been dealing with since he arrived is at fault, and his shitty condescending parents have been called in for a talk.

good.

we're also repeating the mantra of "ignore him. get away from him. but you're allowed to hit him as long as you're not throwing the first punch."

the last kiss

thursday:

on thursday morning i took mr smear to school. while waiting for the school crossing guards he turned around to kiss me goodbye, but when he turned back he found that all the kids were watching him and he covered his head with his jacket as he crossed the road. i checked in with him later when i picked him up from school, and being seen kissing me was indeed the source of the embarrassment. i was wondering if this would be the last kiss i get, but his proposed solution? next time we put the jacket over our heads so nobody sees 🤣

(i explained to him that that would make it worse, and proposed we come up with a secret code for "i love you" instead)

thursday's work was challenging. in the morning i learned that my boss has the same network problem i had on wednesday, and he has the same provider, so it may well be an issue on their end. although it's very strange that i don't have the issue with my mobile phone, when that's the same provider too.

thursday ended badly: due to the mold situation, showertime should have been bathtime and we all messed up.

friday:

friday morning was me fighting with mold again, and trying to find a shower curtain rail. then i tried to relax before heading out to pick up mr smear and meet with the mongoose, but our morning got turned around by someone-who-isn't-me's bad planning. and then someone-who-isn't-me wasn't able to join us for lunch as a consequence, so that kinda sucked. but the good news is that gd seems to be recovering very effectively from tuesday's nerve block, she's attributing that to our new furniture.

mr smear and i bussed through to the hummusia and were just in time for us all to be seated. the mongoose's daughter is so bid already! and so freaking cute!

we had a delicious lunch, and we all ate too much. then we all walked back to his place, where mr smear played unusually nicely (he doesn't like babies), and the mongoose introduced him to spiderheck.

after days of talk about what mr smear was going to do with the minecraft tokens he "earned" by not picking at his lips (or fingers), now we were purchasing a game that's at least a few weeks of bribery. i set the terms and conditions and he agreed, and he continued to agree when i asked gd to step in and act as witness.

that was a brilliant idea, because a few hours after that he'd decided he didn't like the deal any more.

them's the breaks, kid.

today:

our shabbat started out pleasantly enough, and i was happy to sit down and play spiderheck with him; it was all fun and games until he hit a level that he found frustrating, and bailed without letting me have my turn. and then we were right back into the thursday night cycle.

it took a while for things to calm down, and it took a lot from our end to keep the consequences natural and give him a chance to work it all out. it was a big relief when he finally did, though, and the rest of the morning was chilled.

around 1.30pm we headed out on wheels after oiling his bike, and we went through park hayarkon to the port for ice cream. it was a good ride, a beautiful day, the ice cream was delicious, and the only fly in the soup was an incident that mr smear didn't seem to notice - some girl tried to cut us off in the queue, i called her on it, and she then lied about having been there the whole time.

what a stupid thing to make shit feelings about.

both the rides there and back were great, with mr smear thoroughly enjoying some excellent speed moments. and a dog-petting moment while i picked up a coffee. and bumping into pg's parents and one of my coworkers (positive) and mr smear's 2nd grade teacher (not so positive).

so all was good, and we were about a block away from our apartment when mr smear lost control and slammed into a parked car. he was very sore, and in the initial minutes i was actually quite worried that he might've torn a ligament (he can be very dramatic), but i got him home and into a hot bath and he's been just fine since.

he's still speaking about the ride enthusiastically, so here's hoping his first fall doesn't color the next one... interestingly enough, he said something funny before we left: he initially told me he didn't want to go, because he never likes leaving (his words, not mine), but afterwards he told us that it hadn't been smart to say no because he enjoys riding the bike.

this seems good. and it seems like progress, too.

the evening was pretty relaxed, i did dishes while mr smear played more spiderheck, we finished watching the incredibles 2 (which we'd started a few nights ago), after which mr smear asked me to please ask the producers if they could make a third one. so i laughed, and searched youtube, and found number 3's trailer that was just released a day ago.

aaaaaand then just realized that it's not a real thing :(

...

we have new neighbors next door, one of whom has a rather nasty, persistent cough. we're also hearing rather a lot of bed-banging-into-the-wall sounds lately (not sure from which direction), to go with the frequent jackal howls. and today we had to close windows because we were getting cigarette smoke in our living room.

good grief.

the sting

 yesterday:

our first non-rainy day in a week.

i woke up with a literal pain in the neck, something that felt like a cross betweem a rash and nerve pain, and couldn't get back to sleep. i still have no idea what happened.

my fingers have been hurting, i think it's severely dry skin.

we had another mold scare yesterday. between my efforts last night and this morning, and our bi-weekly (every two weeks) cleaner this afternoon, it feels like we're treading water, but we're not doing better than that.

yesterday's workday was solid, it felt very productive.

gd had another nerve block last night, it was very rough for her and between hearing her cries, and getting her home, and getting mr smear showered and settled and into bed, i was completely drained and exhausted.

today:

i worked from home, and it was rough. mostly because of the hundred and one distractions*, but also because it took ages for me to understand what my opening question to my coworker needed to be and then ages struggling to reach the starting point. it was only because i had to connect via my mobile hotspot when i took mr smear to his mma class that i learned that the struggle was due to a misconfiguration in my home network, but i haven't the foggiest idea of where or what that misconfiguration could be.

* one of which being the finalization of the latest comic pages!

mr smear's mma class was good, except that a parent brought in an obviously sick child and now i'm praying that being openly coughed on didn't "stick".

money situation: i was freaking out monday because i thought i'd miscalculated and messed things up, and the more i've checked the more certain i've become that we're fine. now (as in, a minute ago) i just learned that they've collected transactions in a way that their default view makes very difficult to parse, but if i switch the sort order makes perfect sense. and all is good ( ˘ ^˘ )=3

i'm tired. mr smear and i watched more our universe and star trek prodigy over dinner, both great. and we had a really interesting conversation at bedtime about right and wrong vs legal and illegal.

maintenance

 the mold situation seems to be at a stalemate for the moment. it seems like we always need our airconditioning to be one in the wrong ways to dehumidify, which is frustrating.

speaking of frustrating, we had a shitty morning this morning, but for a change it was gd and not mr smear. at least mr smear got off to a good start in spite of the noise around him.

related, we've been having an issue with mr smear picking at his lips. we've told him how bad it is and what the risks are, and we've tried threatening negative reinforcement, but i didn't feel like that was going to be a successful strategy so i turned to bribing him. his face lit up at the idea that i'll buy him minecraft tokens if he'll let his lips heal.

last night after posting, i crashed. and with all the chores that needed doing this morning, i didn't catch up. fortunately, the workday went well in spite of that, even if it did feel really long.

i freaked out about money this morning when i looked at my bank account, but now that i've looked again i think they're just showing the numbers in a really dumb way. and my "personal banker" is a buffoon. just like the other ones before him, so i've no idea if he knows what i'm asking him when he answers. and it's really not clear if we actually have money for rent this month or not.

the ra'anana attack today was shocking, but i'm not going to lie: i've been nervous about ramming attacks for weeks... every time i wait to cross a busy intersection i half expect to be run over...

this is just awful. and the hostage situation is awful. and our soldiers still in danger is awful. and our political shenanigans are awful. and the anc literally selling south africa to the devil is awful.

...

my neck's been griefing me since the weekend. 

...

we had a pleasant evening, watching our universe over a good dinner, and since bedtime (we resumed the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy) it's continued to be pretty chilled. i feel like i should be doing stuff. or maybe not. 

allergist

it rained again last night, and i'm now convinced that the fridge's power cool setting was to blame for the "leak".

 this morning almost got off to a rough start, but i reminded gd that mr smear is 100% responsible for the outcome and he handled himself well. gd and i immediately went to the clinic to arrange for an authorization, then we pick up a kiwi from the grocer across the road and continued on to the allergy clinic for the skin prick test.

the process took a long time, but it ended with very interesting results: it looks like all the food allergies gd thinks she has aren't regular allergies! we're not quite sure what the ramifications are yet, so she's booked for a "challenge" mid-february and we're going to start getting a clearer picture of things.

on that note, i headed off to the office with a kiwi for breakfast. i partially fixed something that had been annoying me before lunch, then joined the team for lunch at ha'shnizel shel tamir. i only had falafel and fries, but i ended up feeling like i'd eaten too much and everyone else's portions were just ridiculous. in retrospect, i did eat quite a bit of greasy home-made pita before we left the office...

on the way back to the office i spoke with gd and she was complaining about her legs hurting, so i worked for another half an hour then left to pick up mr smear and take him to mma. it was a good class, but i was passing out for the first half and then thoroughly disrupted by a whole bunch of little kids for the second, so i really didn't get much work done.

we managed to get home just before it rained again. aside from doing lots of dishes and managing to get mr smear to do some math homework (when he wasn't writing rude words into the text fields), i did work a little bit before dinner, but not sufficient to be satisfying.

then i passed out (again) while reading / being read to by mr smear. then i crawled onto the couch to play a bit of bloons adventure time and get into work mode, but i soon realized that our building's internet had gone down (again). so now i'm using my phone as a hotspot, posting this and then deciding whether to actually work or to crash again...

achievement unlocked

 whew! big weekend. the biggest part of the weekend was taking advantage of the break in the rain to go riding with mr smear to the pump track in ramat gan: he rode his bike for over 6km there and back, and went twice around the "five sense" track, and even handled the idiot family (who stopped on the track and then closed in on him when he yelled to let him through) like a proper israeli ("mah yesh lachem?!")

all-in-all it was a great ride, he was sore by the time we got home but he got extra-special treats to show appreciation not just for his physical achievement, but for the mental fortitude he demonstrated the entire way. i'm seriously proud of how he handled himself today ^_^

...

thursday:

the first day of the ICJ hearing, making me as ashamed to be a south african and i am proud to be an ex-south african. here's a theory about what's behind south africa's accusation.

here's my take on it: for months, ignorant and brainwashed idiots (and smart people, too) all over the world have been calling our attempts to defend ourselves against genocide: "genocide". when, ironically, we're doing everything in our power to *not* harm innocents, which would be far easier and safer for us (we could have literally flattened gaza in a couple of days if that had been our intention).

because nobody can police stupidity on the internet, these ridiculous assertions have run wild and there's been no real platform for defending against them.

i have a feeling that we should be grateful to the criminally negligent and morally bankrupt south african government for taking us to the ICJ. it looks like all eyes will be on the proceedings and it'll give us an opportunity to defend ourselves in an actual court, as opposed to the court of public opinion.

i really appreciated tal becker's statements to the ICJ from yesterday.

...

work was good this week, i think. a little slower than i'd like, but overall good. i left the office after telling a coworker it was time to introduce him to our postman team, and then discovering that we'd reached our team limit and couldn't sign him in.

you're like a jehovah's witness that's come to my door, and then when i let them in they're like "oh, sorry, i guess you're going to hell after all" 😂

...

i came home to find a mess in our building entrance - it looked like someone's dog had peed a massive volume at the bottom of the stairs. after one of our neighbors made the effort to clean it up, we realized that it had been a bottle of olive oil that we hadn't realized was missing: the delivery guy had broken the bottle and tried to "hide" the evidence.

yesterday:

stressing about what appeared to be a leak above our fridge that i identified on thursday.

a lot of time on the phone trying to complain about the olive oil incident, breakfast bagel, shoe shopping, a bus to dizengoff to pick up gd's new glasses but having to rush immediately to the school to pick mr smear up in the middle of a downpour. and mr smear wasn't even at the school, his umbrella had broken and he'd gone off with a friend of his (fortunately his friend's dad called to let me know).

back to the center, picking up three cool shirts while waiting for gd, eating a big and delicious lunch from our favorite vegan food stall, then making our way home for a quiet afternoon (minor exception: cleaning our bedroom fan).

i was very tired by mr smear's bedtime, and i kept passing out while he read to me :P

something seemed off about the fridge, and about the leak above it. i eventually went to bed with a bad feeling about it.

today:

i dived in to research the fridge / leak story, and i'm now pretty much convinced that there's no leak, but that our fridge's "power cool" mode is the cause. i don't know if we didn't have the problem before, or didn't identify the problem before, or didn't have it on that setting before ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i sorted out the caption guide for the next graphic novel page, and when i realized how late it was i went to go and check on mr smear... i was pleasantly surprised to find him sitting up in his bed and reading his kindle 😍

the bike ride took a few hours, and we both needed to rest when we got home. i had a nice bath, and i've spent most of the evening reading or watching random things. now it's bedtime, and i have a feeling i'm going to be going to sleep myself soon.

a (re)new(ed) hope?

for months, ignorant and brainwashed idiots (and smart people, too) all over the world have been calling our attempts to defend ourselves against genocide: "genocide". when, ironically, we're doing everything in our power to *not* harm innocents, which would be far easier and safer for us (we could have literally flattened gaza in a couple of days if that had been our intention).

because nobody can police stupidity on the internet, these ridiculous assertions have run wild and there's been no real platform for defending against them.

i have a feeling that we should be grateful to the criminally negligent and morally bankrupt south african government for taking us to the ICJ. it looks like all eyes will be on the proceedings and it'll give us an opportunity to defend ourselves in an actual court, as opposed to the court of public opinion.

...

this morning was really rough. mr smear continued with the awefulness of the past couple of days, crossing a line with his rudeness and trying to punish us for telling him what to do.

on the way to school - and considering the mood he was in i honestly don't know how i managed to get him talking - i asked him what it is that makes him think we're bad parents. he informed me that it's because we make rules he doesn't like. so i asked him what good parents would do, and he confirmed that they'd let him do whatever he wanted. then i asked him how he knows this, and he didn't want to think about it.

so, with that minor success but still heavy shitty feeling, i came home and gd and i had a go at cleaning the cupboard in his bedroom. it was an awful experience. i don't know if i got spores in my eyes, or bleach, but either things got rough. and i lost a good pair of socks, and had to shower and switch clothes before i left for work.

at least i managed to make the forex orders today.

the first order of business today was ordering a car and setting up a chair evaluation - a couple of my teammates joined me and we got the job done; i'm excited about the chair i'm going with and i'm pleased that it's only half the budget.

the work day itself was productive.

at around 6.30pm everyone in the office scrambled to get home before the weather turned - apparently their was a storm warning from the municipality. i'd taken an umbrella and worn my rainboots to work, so i was okay, and i even managed to pick up a couple of groceries and run an errand for gd along the way.

when i got home, we had a family meeting. it was less a family meeting, and more me telling mr smear how things are going to proceed, but he had a very important role to play and he played it surprisingly well: he didn't argue, he assured me that he understood, and by and large it felt like all three of us were clear and in agreement.

god knows what tomorrow will bring, but it gave me hope regardless.

dinner was nice (we watched carpet cleaning ASMR videos), mr smear's shower/bedtime went smoothly. i started falling asleep while reading to him, then crashed on the couch, then (around 10.30/11pm, i think?) jumped in the shower and got stuck into bloons adventure time. for a while.

i think i'm almost ready for bed.

heavy days

 it would take me another hour and a half to get back to bed last night. and when i woke up, it was almost* straight into a drama situation with mr smear. i managed to de-escalate things about halfway to the school, and gd reported that after she picked him up from school and they'd had a chat that things were fine.

they were fine until showertime. then... not so fine.

it's a really shit feeling.

* i'd set his airconditioner to "dry", and when we went to wake him up his room was cold and wet. jesus, fuck. getting him out of bed wasn't unpleasant, but everything fell apart soon afterwards.

on top of that, i spent the hours between school drop-off and heading off to work dealing with mold. the cupboard i was afraid of turned out to be mostly fine, but i was very unhappy with gd putting her foot down on throwing out really good luggage that i still believe we could have rescued.

"happy wife, happy life". fuck.

regardless, we're not done, but we got a lot done, but the next few days are expected to be heavy on the rain. this shit is heavy.

the work day went alright, i think. it was busy, and i may have been a bit slow towards the evening but i eventually got the point of the feedback and i hope that the latest version of my PR is final.

it wasn't good that i got caught falling asleep during our sprint planning - i was dreaming of french fries or something when my boss' voice pulled me out - but i do feel like i contributed meaningfully.

i ran into urchin on the way home, and she was headed for the train so i joined her. it was nice to catch up.

we watched the kim kelly is my friend episode. holy shit, i'd forgotten how intense and uncomfortable it is.

it's been a week or two that bloons adventure time has been my crutch again.

worse? or better?

 the battle of the mold continues. we continue to find horrifying things - this morning we discovered that our bedside tables / drawers were covered. WTAF?!?!

we can only deal with this insane shit one aspect at a time, we seem to be making progress but it's hard... it's demoralizing, and it's exhausting, and it's difficult to ignore the creeping paranoia. gd and i are both taking this stuff very hard, but we're trying to be stoic and pragmatic and learn all the lessons so we never have to deal with this again.

...

mr smear returned to mma today, it wasn't easy to get him there but between myself this morning and gd this afternoon we managed. horseman sent me a link to this clip of huberman and goggins discussing the function of the anterior cingulate cortex (citation needed) yesterday, and minutes ago i read an excellent article entitled "stop telling kids what to do with their lives".

i feel like we're doing what we should be doing: guiding mr smear (sometimes forcing him) to do things that will help him develop in a healthy way and open doors for him, while at the same time impressing upon him the importance of finding his own way in life. hopefully a way that'll make him and others happy.

...

work was surprisingly good today, in spite of it being a "remote day" in which my boss sat with the three of us who'd arrived and playing a disney soundtrack playlist for most of the afternoon. at least his mood/taste improved a bit towards the evening. i wasn't happy about my current task having taken as long as it did, but it involved a lot of learning and a lot of unexpected challenges, and it was great being able to present a solution that we're all happy with.

and when my boss asked me for a last-minute modification that i thought was going to be a big deal, it was a big relief to find myself clearing it before home-time.

...

i knew that going to bed early might be a problem. i must have slept for about an hour or so, and have now spent the last hour or two in a bit of a stupor, physically uncomfortable, and anxious (mostly about the mold situation).

the lack of circulation

 today began unpleasantly, starting with me spending most of the night being harassed by nightmares. mr smear was in his usual uncooperative mood and did something that triggered a Very Bad Morning (he tried to swat gd away and - apparently accidentally - smacked her in the face). the walk to school somehow improved things, and then unimproved them. fortunately by the afternoon things were okay again.

then i got back to the battle of the mold, having discovered some behind his bed last night when reading to him. it was a massive undertaking and we kept finding more, and we sent photos to the landlords who spoke to the building manager who arranged for an expert to come in.

i spoke to the expert after he'd seen the situation, and then to a coworker, and Today We Learned. apparently the mold is due to a lack of air circulation in our apartment, compounded by the temperature differential and our limited use of airconditioning which would otherwise serve as dehumidification.

so we've got a whole lot more cleaning to do, and then we have to start changing how we deal with the elements, and apparently it's all just "the cost of doing business" in tel aviv.

i'm very excited for mr smear to return to mma (hopefully tomorrow), and a bit disappointed that my coworker and i didn't go test out office chairs today.

the workday went pretty well, otherwise, although i lost track of time and ended up rushing home to help gd with the dishes only to arrive and find out she was managing the dinner prep without me. so i chatted with mr smear, then we all ate together (finishing another re-watch of the incredibles), then it was the tooth brushing and showering ritual, then i read to him (more hitchhiker's guide), then gd and i watched the halloween episode of freaks and geeks, then i did a whole bunch of dishes and contemplated life, adulting, and the weirs.

cycle success part ii

 mr smear was all about chatgpt today - i tried on multiple occasions to explain what an LLM is, but he doesn't really care. he's decided he wants to inform his therapist that if he ever needs to speak to someone, he should consider chatgpt.

good grief.

the big event of the day: i managed to drag mr smear away from his AI experience, i put on my blades* and helmet and we grabbed the new pump and we headed out with the intention of going to the park.

* after clearing the pads of mold. i kept finding more mold today, almost everywhere i looked. it's very hard not to feel defeated, and it's exhausting constantly having to wipe down new surfaces and items.

we didn't get anywhere near the park, but we didn't need to. a little over a month ago i took mr smear out and he pretty much got the hang of riding a bike downhill. today, he very quickly got back into the downhill thing again (in spite of an altercation with the imagined owner of a parked bike, it took patience to explain to him that it was actually mr smear's fault for hitting the bike and not the owner's for parking it where he did).

his second attempt at the downhill was even better! and then i informed him that he was about to level up, as we were going onto a flat path and that it's harder than going downhill. his first attempt was... unsuccessful. a very upset mr smear decided that he was done with bikes (again), and was going home. i told him he could go home, but that he had to at least ride back the way he'd come (about thirty / forty meters).

something clicked for him on the way back, he managed to get himself pedalling in spite of his insistence upon doing it his way (the hard way, really), and then he decided he wanted to give it one more go. he proceeded to demonstrate that he's now consistently capable of riding his bike, alone and with zero assistance, from a stationary position and without any assistance from gravity.

i'm very proud, very relieved, and very excited both at his progression and at the noticeable spike in confidence. i've explained to him that if he's consistently riding his bike and convinces me that he understands the "rules of the road", i'll be happy to "upgrade" him to rollerblades like his old man, just like he's been asking me for ^_^

we came home, and after another round of chatgpt we all sat down to watch mutant mayhem together. i'm a bit sad that i missed a chunk of it because i felt asleep, but we're going to watch it again for sure anyway. it's AMAZING.

during the course of the day we'd seen a video reviewing a bunch of open world games that are coming out this year, and were very excited about trying out the europa demo.

it's *gorgeous*.

finally, mr cat has completed the work on page 33 and is moving on to page 34. i realized today that this means that i actually need to start putting together the crowdfunding campaign to publish/market/launch the comic. this is great, but also scary. i'm wondering if chatgpt can give me a boost because i've tried crowdfunding before and the experience was... let's just say it's not really my forte.

satrimineg

hah! i totally forgot to mention last week's new favorite word! i challenged her to read the word "streaming" written in hebrew, and on her third attempt she exclaimed "oh! satrimineg!" and we've been repeating it regularly ever since 😂

so mr smear is sitting on the couch behind me right now, or standing next to me, streaming a minecraft build to my twitch account. i spent a fair amount of time today figuring out how to set things up in a way that made some kind of sense because a friend of his wanted to come over and do a build with him, but he forgot to invite the friend :P

instead, we joined gd on her mission to the piercer, who returned her jewellery and moved her septum piercing to an ear. she then tried to convince him to convince me to put my regular earring back, but he was very tactful and professional and followed my lead.

my body's nobody's body but mine...

gd decided she needed a hummus fix, so we walked all the way through to kaspi on king george. it's a bit... messy... but we managed to grab a table and we gorged ourselves on too much delicious hummus. and then grab a bus home, arriving just as a massive stormfront appeared to be approaching (i don't think it actually rained, though).

i was exhausted when we got home, and i was heading straight for a nap when i registered that there appeared to be mold on the bass guitar case and amplifier under my desk.

fuck.

so mr smear watched invader zim: enter the florpus while i struggled to get the area basically clean, and by the time it was okay enough for me to leave the rest for tomorrow i was done. but i couldn't touch anything in the house without showering first, so i had to do that, and then - i - was - done.

i eventually started coming round to mr smear clamoring for me to give haminations a chance / evaluation. it's brilliant, but i really don't feel that it's appropriate for kids.

aaaaaanyway. i'm very glad it's shabbat.

whew

tues/wed nights i barely slept, and i wasn't feeling "all there" for tuesday/wednesday, and i was only "mostly there" yesterday; on tuesday i actually had to rush home with a massive headache after hours of tummy troubles, wednesday i was okay but perpetually wondering when i'd fall aprt, and fortunately by yesterday i was mostly good (if still slightly out of it).

work-wise: wednesday was very successful, yesterday was very frustrating but ended with a small but palpable win. and i really, really like my teammates. we're a hilarious group of misfits having lots of fun together.

on a related note, one of my coworkers served in a position where he handled the other side of the polygraph story (not mine, but in general). we shared and cross-referenced stories, and i have a better idea now of what i *should* have done and what to do if i ever decide a job is worth going through it again. anyway, the experience was to some degree cathartic.

this week we learned about shibboleths. fascinating things.

and gd just asked me a question which led to a mini-revelation: possive contractions in hebrew, like "his brother"? instead of an apostrophe to denote the missing letters, we use a yod. amazing.

on tuesday morning i accompanied gd to the hospital for her allergist appointment. aside from having to defer the skin prick test, we learned that cannabis allergies *is* a known thing, and that it has to do with the amount of pollen one might be exposed to. we also managed to get her an MRI appointment for last night, which was amazing but stressful because we needed to get the authorizations sorted out.

the good news is that we managed to get it done, and gd had her MRI last night. we didn't expect it to take more than an hour and a half of waiting room time, though, so we arrived at the mongoose's 40th birthday party quite a bit later than expected. fortunately, gd had taken extra antihistamines and we were outside on a roof, so pleasant-but-awkward conversations notwithstanding she was able to enjoy the evening without needing to return to the hospital.

and mr smear was very happy to play with the switch the mongoose set him up with... of course he was.

we had a bit of an issue with the taxi home, but it worked out fine and we got mr smear into bed before midnight.

...

this morning wasn't easy for any of us. in a couple of hours mr smear is planning on bringing a friend of his home and they want to record a minecraft build, so i'm going to have to figure out how to get that set up...

oh, and we have mold coming through the walls, not from the windows. hopefully the landlords are going to start the process of taking care of this.

oh, and our mini-dryer arrived. it's more mini than we thought, hopefully it'll work as advertised.

positive start

 well, aside from some tummy troubles in the evening, i'm beginning to suspect that my body's reacting negatively to our office snacks or something... an incident of flatulence while waiting at the train was so embarrassing that i went straight through to the other side, a sort of "through the looking glass" of shame.

it turns out the constant hum on the platform isn't loud enough to hide a fart.

anyway, work today was difficult but i left the office with a solid success; and that was on top of convincing my boss to write up a design doc for a decision that we've all lost hours debating.

mr smear is absolutely loving his kindle, and it's a joy to see him so excited about reading!

i've spent the evening doing two things: transferring media to the old macbook with ubuntu, which is a far better server than my windows machine, and reading lots of news. i'm pleased to see that the "reasonableness" fiasco has come to an end, and while i'm deeply concerned about a bunch of things that are happening i feel like overall we're moving in a good direction.

and if i'm wrong, fuck it. it's this or certain doom, not much choice there.

once upon a new year's bleary

 the last day of 2023 was alright. i don't think there was any drama yesterday, and work was fine* until home-time when i suddenly started feeling not-great. i felt okay again by the time i got home.

* although i had trouble dealing with a "face-picker" in a meeting. he just wouldn't stop, and i don't know how much my face betrayed my disgust...

after my family went to bed, i spent my new year's upgrading my phone control project, and i was awake for the midnight rocket attack (fortunately not directly in our area, but the explosions were crazy loud).

i finally climbed into bed around 1.30am with a partial success (the critical bits). i'm now trying to complete the mission before jumping on the dishes before heading off to work.

...

2023: never again.

may 2024 be a complete 180 degree turn to good things, may we get all our hostages back, thoroughly destroy hamas, and finally bring peace to our region.