opposite of blues / pre-procedure

i managed to sleep on my mattress topper the whole night last night. mr smear was pretty cool this morning. we left on time to get him to the school's annual race in memory of the kid who was run over and killed four and a half years ago on yom kippur.

on the way there, we hopped on a bus that was absolutely packed, and after getting to the middle and finding a place to stand i realized that i needed to go back to the driver to scan mr smear's card. i squeezed all the way there, and as i raised my hand to scan the card i bumped against a railing and the card flew out of my hands, seemingly in slow motion, right across the driver and into the space between his console and the windscreen.

good lord.

he stopped at the next stop, and made an incredible effort to retrieve the card... and he did, and it still seems miraculous. very grateful and embarrassed, i took the card and tried to swipe it. that was the point at which he informed me that the machine was broken.

...

i got him to his class just on time, put sunscreen on him for the first time in forever, and then walked around, feeling offended that there wasn't any coffee for the parents. but then i realized that there weren't a lot of other parents hanging around, so i found his homeroom teacher and she informed me that not only was i free to go, but encouraged to do so too, and that the kids would be bussed back to the school after the race.

win!!!

i was so busy saying goodbye to mr smear while returning his bus card to its right place, that by the time i was too far away to turn back i realized that i had no idea what i'd done with it (i just checked now, it's where it should be).

i came home, and struggled a bit to get into my work (i had a number of tasks on my plate and plenty of opportunities for distraction). i started to find my feet a little while before heading out to pick up mr smear and take him to his hebrew tutor, and we had time for a good chat on the way. and i filed a report to the municipality concerning the infestation of mosquitoes that were feasting on us.

i found a nice little bakery/coffee shop close by, and enjoyed an excitingly productive cup of coffee. then i picked him up, receiving a good report on his progress, and we picked up a couple of groceries on the way home, including a special pesach treat.

"dad? can we have that when we get home? you know, to celebrate buying it?"

genius.

so we did, although i'm the only one who ended up really enjoying it :P (it was far too sweet for gd, and mr smear decided he wasn't into them after his third one)

the remainder of the afternoon can be summarized as a series of successes, with lots of intensity in between. by the time i signed off, i had just enough time to play a game of bloons adventure time, do the dishes, and play some lego harry potter with mr smear before dinner. i honestly don't even know which year we're playing right now :P

we've just had a brief but intense electric storm, which i wasn't expecting. last night there was a crazy storm in cape town, my mom showed us the back gate of her building falling off :S

mr smear went to bed much later than he should have, and the same for me. i barely had it in me to brush my teeth and shower, and now i'm sitting with a cup of cinnamon tea, which i may or may not finish before going to bed.

...

tomorrow gd's undergoing another nerve block. not a moment too soon, as she's been really struggling since yesterday. this next week's going to be... i hope it's going to be okay.