who knows?

 a not-unpleasant start to the week. aside from waking up in pain halfway through the night and having to sleep on the couch again, and mr smear's ridiculous relating of rinsing toothpaste to post-nasal drip on the way to school, i had a pleasant morning, got a few things done, and left for work.

my fellow montreal coworker's wife gave birth this morning ^_^

the network issues i was dreading were resolved - for me at least - though one of my coworkers is still stuck with them. my morning was spent in mechanical turkish fashion, make a change, stare for five minutes, make a change, stare for five minutes, but eventually it seemed good enough to push. i had a good lunch with the team, but it was interrupted by a call from gd informing me that she's hurt and couldn't take mr smear to his first mma class in months...

so i had a coffee, then scrambled to pick up mr smear, take him to his class, and work from there. on the way, i saw a picture from kc's husband showing him in the hospital with their newborn third daughter! her sister just gave birth a few months ago, so these are positively exciting times for the family.

i had just enough time to get a big, urgent thing done, and it helped that i had the presence of mind to put in earphones the moment the other parents began trooping in.

mr smear was not impressed by his training partner, because he apparently hadn't been taking it seriously. i re-explained to him why he's there and that we trust his trainers, and i was inspired to take a gamble and use that conversation to lead into informing him that he's going to the pesach vacation training camp whether he likes it or not.

having buttered him up with a big bag of chips along the way, of course ;)

he took it well, which was a huge relief. we had an enjoyable ride home, and then i got some more work done until i just couldn't concentrate any more.

mr smear did his homework (?!?), and then we had some time before dinner so we got into doors: paradox that i'd picked up on epic free games (when it was free). what a great game!

we resumed watching minions: the rise of gru, then it was brush-teeth-and-bedtime. i was going to continue reading the prisoner of azkaban, but we somehow got into a riveting conversation about different cultures and ideologies and i blew his mind describing certain japanese characteristics (he was upset by their idea of obligation, which was great because i could explain to him that they'd be upset by his).

...

i'm disturbed by the new prison-tech scam. but i was already disturbed by america's modern slavery program anyway. it's really sad and disappointing.

...

the news about us (mostly) pulling out of gaza - which i heard of because my brother updated me - is probably going to garner a lot of dissenting opinions. from what i can tell so far, we're not done, just changing tactics, and it's anyone's guess what implications this is going to have regionally and globally.