sat/sun

yesterday:

a quiet day, and i was still really tired. i managed to get a fair amount of work done on a new podcast episode, including at our local vegan cafe while mr smear dived into his new book. we watched inu-oh from start to finish and it was both disappointing and inappropriate for mr smear. the artwork was magnificent, the story itself was interesting, the music... the music was difficult to listen to, but the idea was good... but there was something fundamentally lacking.

we also started watching legend of the drunken master, which was apparently less inappropriate. but the movie starts with a bunch of disturbing stuff we didn't remember.

godsdammit.

i wanted to take mr smear cycling, but he was having none of it. he negotiated cycling next week - we recorded him agreeing - and instead walking to the climbing wall. it was a mostly good walk, although there was minor unpleasantness along the way and we arrived just as the wall was been closed due to an unexpected personal issue :(

today:

it was a pretty good start to the week, i got a bunch of paperwork filed even if i do have more to go, and i rollerbladed to the office, discovering a neat bike path that goes through midtown. it was a pretty good work day, even though i needed to snack a lot and there wasn't anything available, and i'm happy with how the first iteration of the tool i've been working on is shaping up.

getting my rollerblades on outside the building was unpleasant, but getting home was pleasant.

my only disappointment today is with mr smear not doing his homework again, which means it's going to start piling on... ugh.

test nerves

yesterday was a pretty relaxed day. i continued working really hard on the tool, i'm almost done and it's looking good.

halfway through the day i got a phone call: mr smear had a bit of an anxiety attack when the test was put in front of him :(

but i also got a really nice message from his teacher informing me that he was generally behaving well and cooperating :)

falafel for lunch with the team and one of my coworkers' very pregnant wife, i brought the vinegar but the chips were for the table (i should have ordered my own).

happy hour shenanigans: the boss ordered a vegan ice cream for me, but it was only a thin layer over non-vegan ice cream. he was pissed off, but i just had great whiskey instead.

...

i actually slept alright on the mattress topper last night, but we were all particularly tired this morning as we'd lost an hour due to the time change. i dropped mr smear off at school, picked up the last of the post-hospitalization laundry and a disappointing bagel, then headed out to nes tziona on a mission for new rollerblades.

firstly, i really appreciated the owner letting me ride around to get a feel for the different models. i ended up taking the first offered, the very pricey ones, but only because both of the cheaper models i tried hurt me in different ways. i think these ones are good - the tempish wenox top 100. and the sale experience was worth travelling two or three hours by bus.

while i was there, my mom called me in hysterics because our xth-cousin yth-removed (we say sixth, but i've no idea how we're related) got the job she was praying for by eating pasta every day >D

i've spent most of the afternoon napping or snacking, although i did have a good chat with horseman. mr smear's friend just left after an intense gaming session, and i'm now drinking a green tea and hoping that tonight will be a good (internal) clock reset.

i don't know if gd's overly sensitive, or sufficiently sensitive, but this is the fourth bag of flour she's thrown out and i can't smell anything wrong with it. anyway, happy wife happy life...

mr smear hadn't done any of his homework yesterday, so he's completing it right now - rushing to get it done before sunset so that he doesn't lose shabbat privileges :P

topper of the morning

tuesday:

mr smear not wanting to get out of bed, massive drama getting him out of bed but then gd figuring out why - he was upset by some girls who'd pointed and laughed at his eye on his last day at school.

a good start to the work on the really interesting tool i've been tasked with building. a building "whiskey tasting" event followed by an all-hands with better whiskey.

excitedly picking up the mattress topper on the way home.

the fight over fighting and spillover/leftovers from february's events, with me taking a walk and us eventually "agreeing to disagree".

watching the first half of the first episode of twin peaks. terrible acting, but very interesting nonetheless.

sleeping on the mattress topper: not bad, not as comfortable as the couch, but i did sleep.

yesterday:

a good start to the day, and a very focused day working on the tool. finishing the day constructing a monitor arm, trying to pick up laundry on the way home but getting there too late, and successfully getting mr smear through math test prep.

a pleasant evening, finishing the first episode of twin peaks, crashing.

waking up in pain in the middle of the night to move to the couch :(

the break

 i dont think i had enough coffee today, because i suddenly crashed a little while ago and needed another cup. i'm used to two strong coffees at the office (after my initial morning coffee), and today i had a black tea and an instant coffee instead. so i'm now making up the deficit with another instant and hoping it tides me over until i get home tonight.

i say "i", because i had to cancel the babysitter and i'm going to nystire's alone... gd did me a favor and picked up a bottle of wine when she was out, but miscalculated how far the liquor store was and ended up hurthing herself in her rush to pick mr smear up (late).

  .-'---`-.
,'          `.
|             \
|              \
\           _  \
,\  _    ,'-,/-)\
( * \ \,' ,' ,'-)
 `._,)     -',-')
   \/         ''/
    )        / /
   /       ,'-'

workwise was weird. after a 45 minute meeting arguing over YAML vs JSON, i began building a test app in the language i thought i was supposed to be evaluating. then, an hour before i was supposed to sync with my boss, he asked how it compares to the other language... godsdammit. anyway, the rest of the afternoon has been startlingly unproductive and i'm feeling a bit shit.

i should have gone to pick up the mattress topper earlier.

...

last minute pre-publish edit: my coworker got back to me, and i'm now glad i didn't waste time on the other language because it wouldn't have made any sense.

it's raining tacos

 well, our sunday is monday, but still. i had a good workday yesterday, and the only issue with mr smear is him not doing is homework (and fighting about brushing his teeth in the morning, gods help us).

we got a surprise invitation to nystire's wife's birthday party tonight, and we miraculously managed to secure a babysitter. if we both manage to get there, i think it's going to be the most spontaneous thing we've done in about ten years :P

mr smear was singing it's raining tacos over the weekend, and it's got stuck in my head. i prefer it the way he sings it, though.

the weekend was mostly good, though i took mr smear out for a walk that was also mostly good, but had some rough parts. and then we were "urgently recalled" because he needed to take his meds on schedule and we were far from home with no public transport :/

yesterday was a good work day. i got a whole lot done that i'm happy with. i'm a bit anxious about potential on-call duties, though i'm sure it'll be better than my previous experiences.

i completed the video for signs in the dead of night yesterday, i'm very happy with it.

after a long chat with vfmp last night, i didn't get much sleep but it was at least good sleep. our mattress topper is ready, now i just need to pick it up.

...

this article on the origins of the bible is really intriguing.

a good friday

 firstly, starting off the day seeing a video about elements of purim having pagan origins, and then looking it up and finding all sorts of weird stuff (eg. this). so that got stuck in my head today.

i spent some time updating drivers on my windows machine while waiting for my family to be ready, which took a long time. we eventually set out to the furniture store, where i explained the problem and fully expected to be dragging us through a huge ordeal involving selling our current bed and buying two new ones, but i was stopped short.

"do you know what a mattress topper is?"

no, no i did not. and now i do. and i've tested one out, and i've ordered it, and i was so relieved to be presented with such a great (and inexpensive) solution that i was on the verge of tears.

so that was a good start to the day.

we then walked up and down the street until we found the place we bought our couch, and ordered two additional cushions for it.

then we bussed to dizengoff center and picked up mr smear's new prescription, as well as really good food for breakfast (and later lunch) - i had really good vegan cholent, it was glorious.

we missed the bus home, so we strolled up dizengoff and picked up coffees and had a variety of tel aviv / purim experiences before getting to the dominator store - mr smear has been asking to go there for months - and then we hopped on a bus back home.

i've played a lot more bloons adventure time than i should have, but i did claim the martian throne when it was already claimed at a stupidly high level. i even napped in the middle.

it's been a quiet afternoon, listening to good music and doing dishes while mr smear plays spider-man, and putting a little bit of effort into sprucing up an old poem of mine inspired by godspeed you! black emperor. now i'm enjoying a glass of whiskey and gathering thoughts.

thursday

 yesterday was pretty intense, but ultimately (including some effort after mr smear had gone to bed) saw me entering the weekend having cleared my desk in preparation for next week's operation. in the late afternoon we had a very serious all-hands where everyone got things off their chests, which ended with a round of rather nice desserts.

which reminds me, the fries i ordered as an excuse for salt and vinegar were rather disappointing. 

mr smear had had a good day, but it didn't end very well. last night was hard.

i watched the season finale of unchained. i say "i" because gd was next to me, but passed out for half of it. it's an excellent season, from start to finish.

...

i slept on the couch again last night. consistently much better. now we're off to re-negotiate with the furniture store...

i unfriended/blocked vfmp's brother this morning over his continued anti-israel posts.

"It isn't even Friday."

canada's seeming like a lost cause these days, i don't believe they realize just what they're signing up for.

almost-weekend stress

 it's going to be an intense day today. on my way out my boss and i synced on how out-of-sync we were, so today i'm going to do what i can to achieve all the stretch goals before the weekend so that i can start something new on sunday and help him feel ready for his parental leave.

my scalp's already feeling much better after three days of shampooing, but i'm going to pick up the treatment on my way to work today anyway.

mr smear's definitely on the mend. hopefully he'll be back at school soon.

i slept on the couch last night. i slept well. i'm now confident that most of my sleep disruptions over the past years have been due to sleeping on the wrong beds. like, i'm actually feeling functional today.

holy shit: yesterday i suggested to a coworker that maybe one day someone will figure out how to remove herpes using CRISPR. this morning i opened my browser to look for something and this article on removing HIV with CRISPR popped up out of nowhere.

(my) back

the dryness in the hospital split the skin on my thumb again. it really hurts.

the full-day-of-youtube hospital experience wasn't good for anyone, but we did have some good moments and on monday evening mr smear did some great drawings and we read a bit more diary of a wimpy kid in hebrew. it's blowing my mind how mr smear can't remember simple things we tell him or whether or not he's brushed his teeth, but he remembers most of the books he's read verbatim and consistently helps me with or corrects my translations.

monday was hard. working on a chair in a hospital with a single screen was hard, dealing with mr smear dealing with youtube / other people like doctors and nurses / well-meaning purim revellers etc. was hard. not being able to go anywhere because he was in quarantine and attached to a drip was hard.

monday night was pretty much a repeat of sunday night. lots of sleep interruptions, but the actual sleep on their fold-out bed was pretty good.

yesterday morning was okay, a lot of the same from monday but mr smear's eye was looking much better. while gd got settled in and the doctors determined whether or not he was ready to go home, i went to the office.

the first hour or two in the office were considerably more constructive. lunch (a hummus run with my boss and a mostly full house at the table) was good. what followed was a mix of going to a three-minute dermatologist consultation - he doesn't think i have psoriasis, and believes everyone in israel should be shampooing daily - speed-walking back to the hospital ward to grab the toothbrushes gd forgot when they vacated, crashing in front of my desk while trying to avoid having more coffee, and a late evening struggling to debug something but finally walking out with a sense of accomplishment.

dinner in front of gravity falls last night - the last of the "special" days before getting back into a routine - and then a really hard night realizing that the last three sleepless months are at least partially, if not mostly, due to me being uncomfortable on our new mattress. i shifted to the couch in the middle of the night and slept much better.

now it's cleanup time, including dishes and grocery shopping online and taking laundry to the laundromat, before heading to work.

hospitalization

 an hour or two being bounced between offices until we gave up and went to the clinic, where they took pity on a miserable-looking mr smear and sent us up to the nurse who gave us the referral.

we did the ER thing from about 11am until around 9pm, it took half the day to get the PCR results from thursday and for a professor of infectious diseases to come and take a look at him: the diagnoses did end up being herpes, and he hadn't been responding well to the meds we were giving him, so we took him through for another eye examination before he was hospitalized for a couple of days' infusion.

i was already very sore and tired by then. around noon i'd had to rush home and back for medication, in the evening i rushed home and back for a t-shirt and underwear for mr smear and to pick up dinner for all of us, which gd really didn't enjoy, and for most of the day we were either walking around or sitting on uncomfortable chairs.

once we got him settled, i went home to shower and brush my teeth and pick up a couple more things and returned to relieve gd and let her go home.

it's been seven years since our last hospitalization, and it's much easier this time around. if it wasn't for a night full of alarms for IV occlusions waking me up during REM sleep it might've been the most comfortable night's sleep i've had in years.

i was a wreck after being woken up this morning, but i'm feeling okay now. and mr smear is happy because he's hooked into a bed with a screen that lets him watch youtube...

... gd just arrived, it's coffee and breakfast time.

continuation

 how does a saturday spent playing video games, watching movies and reading comics end with us feeling more exhausted than when it began?

while a lot of the day was nice (reading american splendor: our movie year, being mr smear's wingman in word factori, watching half of inu-oh, urchin's visit), it was constantly punctured by his suffering and it was capped off with him fighting with us about brushing his teeth.

*sigh*

gd and i managed to watch two more episodes of unchained before crashing, it's really, really good.

i'm the only one who got up "on time" this morning, i took out the trash and picked up some coffee and sat down to try and figure out how to get mr smear's PCR results, take care of a few little items, and watch some of the war on children. i've only managed to get through about twenty minutes of it, but so far it's all worrying stuff we're already aware of.

mr smear got up with an eye much more swollen, so we're now trying to get a referral to return the ER and it's proving really hard.

...

oh, and with everything else going on i just realized that neither of the recommended babysitters i reached out to responded to me, so between that and the eye situation we're going to have to cancel our tickets to watch my friend's documentary the shoshani riddle on tuesday :(

outbreak

 thursday:

i don't remember if it was wednesday or thursday, but there were hours of work spent hunting down bugs that were introduced by copilot. copilot certainly helped me get the code written faster, but that's the first time i've had to deal with a real bug hunt for a mistake i would never have made had i written it all myself...

early in the afternoon, gd took mr smear to the clinic to get his eye checked out - he'd been suffering from an outbreak for a day or two, we initially thought it was just a scratch and by wednesday evening it was starting to look worrying. the doctor wasn't sure, but she thought it might be herpes and i immediately became anxious - i've been nervous about herpes keratitis since my officer's course teammate developed it.

i sent off some photos for an online consultation with a dermatologist, and in retrospect it's pretty amazing how quickly one got back to me. by 4.30 i was on my way to meeting gd and mr smear at the hospital with a referral for the children's ER in hand.

it took about an hour before we got to see the triage nurse. after another hour in the waiting area with the kid with a scary cough who refused to wear his mask and a row of vending machines with exactly zero products appropriate for children, i approached the receptionist and asked how long the average wait was post-triage - one hour? two hours? she was immediately offended that i would ask such a vulgar question, and of course it would be less than an hour...

... mr smear's number finally got called another hour after that. the doctor examined him, and then sent us to an opthalmologist in a different building, where we waited again, but fortunately not for too long.

after the opthalmologist, we returned to the ER as instructed. after another half an hour of waiting, i approached the counter and asked if we'd been forgotten: "no, we're still waiting for the opthalmologist to enter the summary". holy shit, we could have waited until the next morning for that, and gd was starting to freak out because she wanted to get out of there in time to pick up whatever medication would be prescribed.

so they contacted the opthalmologist, who eventually did what he had to do, while i sat entertaining mr smear with random jokes from the internet and gd paced up and down. then we went around in circles between the doctors and nurses while they tried to figure out what to do about the four or five different possible diagnoses they'd come up with, and took a couple of samples.

it was just about 11pm when we finally left, all three of us completely exhausted.

yesterday:

we all needed to sleep in a little bit yesterday. mr smear woke up complaining that it was getting worse, and we were all in a shitty mood and totally over the day before it began. we (slowly) got moving and went to the clinic, where we were fortunate to find his paediatrician in her rooms. once we'd all figured out how we were proceeding, gd went to the pharmacy and mr smear and i went to get breakfast bagels.

i'd been talking to the guy at the counter for a minute when i turned around to find mr smear furiously rubbing his eye with the edge of his glasses, and while i want to say "it took everything i could not to freak out", the truth is i absolutely freaked out.

holy @#!$.

i rushed him off to gd, who thankfully had something to wipe his glasses and his face with, but it's been twenty four hours and i'm still not really over the horror.

i returned alone to apologize and pick up the bagels, then met up with them to eat breakfast. then pick up a treat for mr smear - the 14th diary of a wimpy kid book, the 13th wasn't available [though i just picked it up on kindle for him] - and then come home to try and get some rest.

by sundown i managed to put out the article i'd been fiddling with over the course of the week, so that was a relief.

today:

we're still trying to get some rest. we're just breathing into the day one moment at a time.

mr cat sent me the first draft of the dedication for the comics, and it's looking great, so today i'm going to try to get him the margin notes i promised i'd send "in a bit" yesterday :P

located

 my mother did manage to find the song! i'm not just impressed by her getting her hands on the books, and relieved that one of the books was the right one, but i'm also proud of her for reading through both of them well enough to find what i was looking for ^_^

it's called "אני מחכה לאחי החייל" and i've no idea who wrote it, but i definitely got the first verse right. i also didn't expect it to hit me right in the feels, i tried reading it to gd this morning, but at some point just couldn't speak through the sobs.

אני מחכה לאחי החייל

יש לי אח גדול,

בן עשרים אולי,

הוא יכול לעשות הכל,

וקוראים לו שי.

אחי שי הוא חייל,

הנה הוא פה בתמונה.

שי הוא חייל גיבור

ושומר על המדינה.

אם שי הולך למלחמה -

אמא נורא דואגת;

אבא שומע רדיו כל שעה

וכולם יושבים בשקט.

והנה בא מכתב

משי שלנו - הטוב;

"אני בריא וחזק

להתראות בקרוב-בקרוב".

אלוהים, לך אני מתפלל -

לגמור את המלחמה ודי.

תן שלום לישראל.

שיבוא מהר הבייתה שי.

...

tuesday:

i'm struggling to recall tuesday. i vaguely remember that there were at least a couple of points of interest, but i'm at a loss right now.

one thing i do remember, though, is that at bathtime i explained to mr smear how our ears downsample and we only hear about a third of what's said to us, and that we complete what we hear with context and expectations. with the implication being that we literally can't hear what other people are saying when we're upset.

yesterday:

yesterday started off scary: i woke up fine at 5am to go to the toilet, but on my way back to bed my back began to spasm. with some help from gd i miraculously managed to stave off the full spasm and by the time i got to the office i was more or less okay. i'm still nervous about it, though.

also, it looks like i might well have psoriasis.

it was a busy morning. gd and mr smear were both upset because gd, tired and in pain, spends forty five minutes every morning preparing breakfast and lunch and mr smear doesn't want to eat what she puts in front of him. the conversation that we'd had the night before came in handy: i asked mr smear if he could make himself calm enough to hear what we were saying, and he said "no". so i stopped trying, and on the way to school we managed to talk everything out.

this morning went much better.

i spoke to my mom, who informed me that uncle hate has shuffled off his mortal coil and that she was asked not to fly to montreal right now, which i guess is a bit of a relief. i sent my aunt and her kids condolences, glad that gd's supportive of me playing nice in spite of how they treated us.

i managed to get an authorization sorted out at the clinic, then picked up my favorite onion bagel, then went through to one of the clinics at the hospital to find out if and when gd had an appointment, and went on a side-quest to explain to management that their signage is insufficient. they were shocked, disbelieving, and i'm not 100% convinced they're going to do anything about it.

the work day went well, it was long but had some good moments.

the south african foreign ministry appears to be serious in threatening south africans who've served in the idf. assholes.

in the evening i watched another episode of unchained with gd, then tried to write an article i'm been stewing over for days, then crashing.

today:

mr smear was good today, breakfast went well. gd's on a mission to gather her thoughts about our cape town community, i'm going to help her put out an article (on whatever medium) in her own voice because she's really upset about how woke jews around the world are behaving when they have no clue what's going on over here.

a better day

 the bug from the sunday continued to drive me crazy until the early afternoon, when my boss told me to just do what the AWS representative advised. i didn't think it was the right thing to do, and i expressed my opinions, but i began implementing it as instructed.

just one last test.

fortunately, my tests were pretty solid and i finally had some real data to work with - and i discovered that the "fix" suggested by the professional would have opened a massive security hole! while i struggled to wrap my head around what was actually happening, i managed to find a solution that appears to be not only viable, but correct, and i'm now waiting to see the proof in the puddingproduction environment.

i was more shocked by how backwards the AWS implementation is than relieved that i've found a solution...

...

on sunday night, i scratched my head a bit, and a bit of my head came off. last night a dermatologist called me back and advised that i go see someone in person. gd (and dr google) think i may have developed psoriasis. i hope it's not psoriasis :(

mr smear had a much better day yesterday. the day started off awkwardly because we were both invited to talk with the school councillor; mr smear was in trouble for skipping classes on sunday (when we were having a tough morning), and i was in trouble for not warning his teacher that he was having a tough morning. gd managed to get him to his hebrew tutor and through his homework.

so: winning.

on sunday morning, i managed to install the ceiling attachment points for the shower curtain rail, but i accidentally pushed one of the screws through the ceiling and needed to wait 24 hours for the "putty" i used to fix it to dry. yesterday, when it was ready, i finally set about putting up the curtain rail... only to discover that in the month or two since i bought the damned thing and haven't been able to put it up, some of the parts went missing.

#$@!.

so now we have to wait for a handyman to swing by and see if he can help us out.

gd's really having a hard time psychologically, primarily with the war and the international response to it, on top of her daily struggle with pain which seems to have gotten worse since she's been coughing so much in the weeks we've been dealing with covid.

my mom managed to track down a couple of copies of the hebrew workbooks we had when i was a kid! it's been so long that apparently on one or two teachers even remembered the name (מדרגות or madregot), and i'm hoping that the song i still have stuck in my head is in one of them.

יש לי אח גדול

בן עשרים אולי

הוא יכול לעשות הכל

וקוראים לו שי

שי חייל והוא גיבור

אמא נורא דואגת

right, it's time to get moving.

not really

 i didn't sleep well. again. i'm tired. apparently i need to learn to sleep on my back.

and then mr smear woke up inexplicably in fight mode. things got bad, and he crossed a few red lines. so we all had a shitty start to our day.

in the evening, i came home to find him still in fight mode, but less, and over dinner i think i managed to get through to him a little. the rest of the evening was mostly positive. he was very excited to be introduced to the idea of eating with chopsticks.

the morning's work was a bit stressful, but with a bit of help i got the job done. then three of us went off to the schnitzel place, where to accompany my usual falafel and chips i picked up a bottle of vinegar. i regret nothing.

in the afternoon i started working on a bizarre bug that seems impossible to reproduce and that doesn't make any sense. i left the office a bit late, irritated by the potential problem and hoping that somehow i'll wake up with some kind of direction...

quiet

 it was a peaceful shabbat. after so many hours invested in bloons adventure time, i decided to pick up the three characters that unlock all the levels and i regret nothing. while mr smear playing human fall flat, gd and i started watching unchained last night, and we watched another episode today, and it's really good so far.

my favorite parts of the day were

1. getting sandwiches at our local vegan cafe with mr smear reading a book at a different table while we just enjoyed being there and doing nothing

2. mr smear and me putting together the free warhammer figure that he received yesterday

3. getting the original dedication pages to the illustrator and putting out the latest pages, only a month and a half after receiving them

4. mr smear and me playing rain world, first taking turns and then vs in the arena mode

i've spent most of the last few hours watching random youtube videos, overall not the greatest use of my time. now i'm regretting starting a macos update on my work computer because it's taking much longer to get to some kind of checkpoint than i was expecting...

...

my back's been hurting me a lot the past few days. i hope i manage to sleep better tonight.

define success?

 today's tom nash report is both encouraging and discouraging. it seems militarily sound, but what about the hostages? we leave them there for another month? that's just insane. though no less insane that any of the events that have brought us to this point.

i'm very glad i'm not in a position where i need to make these kinds of decisions.

...

as evidence by my last post, i didn't sleep very well last night. getting up this morning was hard. i'm grateful that mr smear eventually got himself sorted out because i had zero energy available to deal with the usual morning stuff.

gd and i began the day watching the secrets, which i just realized i've seen twice before. i recalled the scene that i'd been uncomfortable seeing while sitting in a movie theatre with my mother (not as bad as i remembered), and i recalled the ending, but everything else was like a nice surprise seeing old friends :)

during a break (one of the main reasons i like seeing movies at home... i know, imma gettin' old and cranky) i managed to bend the shower curtain rails and it looks like i did a good job. i'd planned on putting them up, too, but i was too tired by the time we eventually got back from our errands so i'll try again on sunday.

we picked up mr smear, dropped his school bag off at home, then jumped on a bus to dizengoff center. we got most of the new lens prescription story taken care of (we just have to go back early next week), we managed to pick up an inoffensive purim costume he's excited about (a non-threatening knight's helm and a sword and shield), i got some cool anime stickers for my work computer, and we had a really good lunch from our favorite vegan food stall.

i napped on contact with our couch, then later got mr smear through a page of hebrew reading, spent a good chunk of the afternoon / evening doing not much (doomscrolling, watching random things on youtube, and purchasing a volume of american splendor), and now i've done all the dishes and posted this and we're about to say kiddush.

thursday

 the day started pretty well. on the way to dropping mr smear off at school i recounted a story about a bunch of my officer's course platoon laughing in the bathroom, and i'm praying that i wrote down what initially triggered that laughter and that i'm able to find it. [was it this? that can't have been it, surely?]

the work day was very relaxed, my boss and coworker returned from their trip and had lots of stories to share. my yemenite coworker unwittingly putting loads of carolina reaper hot sauce on his food right after i started calming down from my own intense experience with it.

a video chat with our community rep and gd, and offering to meet with the rest of the leadership and the offending parties. just offering set off my anxiety, and i'm now writing this after getting up in the middle of the night - an hour or more ago - and tossing and turning while imagining addressing them.

the CEO forgetting me when ordering sweets for our "happy hour" and feeling really bad about it.

my nostrils hurting - both of them - because i can't clean them properly while working on repairing the tear. my stomach doing a number on me all day.

dropping my gear off at home after work and walking to mr smear's best friend's for a sushi night, which was both social and delicious. eventually getting home with a very full belly and getting mr smear into bed around 10.30pm...

upgrade

 the looney tunes show episode 25, muh-muh-muh-murder, is literally jaw-droppingly shocking. and not even slightly funny. holy fuck, i was horrified, and not in the least because everything about it was completely inappropriate for an eight year old.

wtaf.

mr smear and i both simultaneously agreed that we're done with that series.

...

yesterday:

another work from home day, gd was (and still is) feeling terrible and needed me to handle some things. also, i started off the day (again) at the clinic, this time to see a doctor about the tear inside my nostril. the doctor wasn't particularly phased about it, though, and i've been using a cream which seems to be helping.

gd finished watching walk on water, and although i wasn't really paying attention i did see the ending; i totally didn't expect it to trigger a catch in my throat.

the work day wasn't hard, but it was a struggle nonetheless as i really didn't know what i was doing, nor supposed to be doing. having said that, i did learn quite a bit and established a good starting point for today's labor.

today:

another difficult night. they've been difficult for a long time.

today i returned to the office for the first time in two weeks. we got to put the protocol i established to the test, and so far it's looking pretty solid. i got really good support from my coworkers in that and the confusing task from yesterday, and i'm pretty sure i've plugged an important potential security hole.

my nose is still hurting, but less.

we have new office chairs! and they're good chairs. even though i've been at home for two weeks, sitting down on my new chair was a physical relief.

it was a pretty good day, but i (we) got hit with a shitty feeling just before dinner when i checked my messages and learned that our community in cape town is under attack from within, jews who are very angry with the leadership for not taking an anti-israel stance.

i can't not think of the jews during the holocaust who voluntarily collaborated with the nazis.

...

mr smear and i have been having some really good conversations the past couple of days. however things play out, i'm a lot more optimistic about how he's coping.

dethpicable / the hole

yesterday:

morning compassion for gd after hearing a comparison between daffy duck and her brother, then an afternoon go-fuck-yourself over homework, leaving us with a pretty deep sense of betrayal. the evening was kind of okay, though.

gd finishing mivtza savta, i'm very glad she enjoyed it!

a long workday being walked through a complicated process and formalizing a protocol to upgrade a blockchain node, seemingly successful.

a fun game night with vfmp, we discovered sudoku moyo on yucata while trying to install magic the gathering arena (i didn't know it was on mobile!)

today:

gd's alarm pulling me out of a nightmare in which i'd rescued some girl from a couple of guys who'd used some kind of drug that had made them zombie-like, and they chased me up a flight of stairs. when the alarm went off i'd just realized that my attempts to kick them down the stairs were utterly futile and i woke up with a deep sense of despair.

this morning we authorized mr smear's evaluation for attention issues.

this morning i gave our landlady a stern talking to when i realized she'd managed to misinterpret the plumber's very specific and clear explanation of the work he did last week and the need to do the bigger work. smh

it was a good morning until i discovered that the upgrade yesterday had broken something in monitoring, and it was really hard figuring out what because i've been spoiled by good observability tools from my previous employer.

gd watched zero motivation this morning, and i'm very pleased to report that she enjoyed that too :)

gd's still really struggling to breathe, and so i picked up mr smear, had a good chat with him, dropped him off at his tutor and went to the coffee shop to work over a cup of coffee for half an hour.

the only coughing fit i had today was at the coffee shop, surrounded by other people.

i picked mr smear up - he received good praise from his tutor - rushed him home, and eventually managed to figure out what the problem was. overall, it was a successful day, and mr smear was happy to do his math (prodigy) homework after learning that he didn't have to do additional hebrew after his lesson :P

discovering the hole in my nostril wall before bathtime. like, a proper hole. i need to go to the clinic tomorrow :(

gd upset about me "over-sharing". even if i disagree with her i get where she's coming from.

mr smear's in bed, and i've written this, and we're about to settle in and start watching walk on water.

clearer

 a bit clearer, at least, but still suffering coughing fits and frequently blocked sinuses.

this morning had some rough edges, but it was okay, and we discovered professor kliq (there are two accounts [1] and [2]).

around noon we took the bike and my blades and rode to the pump track, meeting cm and his kids there (i kept my distance). it was a loooong slog to get there, as mr smear was struggling more than usual, and about halfway back i realized that mr smear's bike was stuck in a high gear. brought it down from sixth to third, absolute gamechanger, but he was already exhausted.

we both enjoyed a really nice rest stop, sitting on the grass at park hayarkon listening to a busker playing along to relaxing songs.

we stopped off for ice lollies on the way home, then jumped in the bath when we arrived, then chilled for a while, then wrestled a bit of a dent in one of the couch cushions, then investigated dnd character creation, and then watched the the float episode of the looney tunes show.

holy crap, that was an amazing episode! mr smear was so cut up about daffy duck being so utterly repulsive and detestibly mean to porky pig, that it served as a perfect platform to tie in with all the lessons we've been trying to teach him over the course of the past week. that being good parents is making sure that he doesn't end up a daffy duck, and that we'll know we're doing well if he's got a good heart, and is capable of following his dreams and dealing with whatever life throws at him.

it was truly a huge relief being able to have a calm, comforting conversation like that. now for the bedtime battle.

off

 i took yesterday off. i wasn't planning on it, but i needed it. i'm still not used to taking sick days, even if i now officially have covid. having said that, gd and i both did RATs yesterday and hers came out negative.

*shrug*

yesterday:

the wake up was not good. mr smear messed around until i carried him out his room, then insisted on claiming that he didn't know how he got from his bed to the corridor, and neither of us believed him. maybe he was telling the truth. either way, not a good vibe to start the day.

at some point on wednesday one of our main water pipes developed a tiny hole, and we began our day with unexplained flooding around the washing machine. we assumed it was the washing machine, and resolved to take care of it as soon as we returned from dropping off mr smear and taking care of some stuff at the clinic. on the way out of the building there was a distinctly unpleasant smell in the stairwell.

about an hour later, as we arrived at the entrance to our building, we noticed the source of the bad smell - our building's sewerage tank had clogged up and was leaking. i then wondered if the cause of our flooding wasn't the washing machine per se, but rather that the pipes were backed up all the way down.

then gd opened the (literal) water closet for the first time since we moved in, and we found ourselves looking into an absolutely revolting portrait of landlords' neglect. panicking, i tried to put insulation tape over the hole using chopsticks so as not to scratch myself on the mildewed rust, but the pipe was completely inaccessible.

it would take another three hours for the plumber to arrive, and the hunt to figure out how to turn the water off at the mains was more complicated than it should have been.

i interpreted each and every syllable out of the plumber's mouth from the moment he set eyes on the closet as "ka-ching!". he needed an assistant to patch the hole for the weekend, and he was nervous about it. we were (and are) exceedingly grateful that he'd arrived in time for us not to be stuck without water for a whole weekend.

i was feeling much better physically than i had in a week, but i was still struggling very much with the runny nose and coughing.

as the plumber left, i rushed out to pick mr smear up from school. i happened to see our neighbors - the ones with the neurotic dogs who left our building a couple of months ago - wheeling a stroller ahead, and i didn't want to get close but was happy to be able to send them our congratulations :)

mr smear came running to me when i arrived, and unfortunately our joyful reunion was marred by the fact that his teeth accidentally met my shoulder and it really hurt him. otherwise, we had a pleasant walk home.

the afternoon, just like every afternoon this week, involved long, drawn-out discussions and arguments about mr smear's homework. once he gets himself over the "i don't wanna", he does just fine, but getting him over the "i don't wanna" is really hard.

today:

woke up still not good in the nose and throat and chest departments. mr smear's wakeup went much better. after dropping him off at school, i came back for gd and we headed to the clinic to see if there was a nurse on duty who could help her out - we were worried she'd developed bronchitis again.

the clinic took a long time, but it looks like gd's (relatively) okay and we hopped over to the pharmacy to pick up meds. that took a long time too.

we picked up a breakfast bagel and a sandwich along the way, then came home and settled in to watch some of mivtza savta, which i'm very glad that gd is enjoying so far. then we went to pick up mr smear, and came home for a very relaxed day. at least until homework time, where we repeated the now-daily dance, but there wasn't a lot to do and he eventually did it well.

the sun has set, and i'm about to do the dishes. i really hope that i'll be clearer tomorrow.

...

today i completed all the free-to-play levels in bloons adventure time. i took the opportunity to sync my phone with my copy on steam, and ended up writing a review. that led to me looking up how many hours i've played, and it turns out that after an entire month averaging 2.5 hours a day, i'm on about 75 hours. and this is my second time playing, because i got pretty far in 2018/2019 when i first discovered the game.

huh.