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.