the shoot

 another relatively unstressed morning

mr smear's understanding of how a cannot works vs his excitement when i explained a rifle's firing mechanism (after seeing a kid on the street playing with a belt of empty shells)

coming home to a haircut tweak

half an hour on the phone with credit card companies discovering that gd's card was compromised over a month ago and we didn't know it had been blocked (for internet purchases)

the baguette and vegan cheese and photo shoot morning, one of my yemenite coworkers' enthusiasm for the haircut (before telling his story of flying off a slide and miraculously not dying) and the photographer repeatedly exclaiming how "photogenic" i am. my boss' very sweet but timid dog, i don't approve of how he treats her even if i can see it's not malicious.

a mixed-bag work day, one of the highlights being helping my boss after he helped me and telling him "see? i'm not the only one whining today" :P

and another being getting a script working before leaving the office, in spite of the fact that python's datetime arithmetic is broken by design.

another highlight of the day in general was a surprise (and surprised) report that mr smear not only didn't argue about doing hebrew reading, but he dived into the spiderman comic i bought him and read far more than he's been asked to ^_^

a sync with urchin on the way home, who's shady potential new employer refused to countersign her contract until her starting date. wtf is wrong people?!

resolving a production issue, eating a delicious curry dinner gd tried out, and then jumping into the second middle east webinar. it was generally very interesting, and i was surprised at how real it's getting as multiple opposition groups make sincere pleas for assistance in toppling their regimes. they very much want to be allied to israel, and it feels like these are honest attempts to continue what the arab spring promised.

i ate better today, but although i could have used the exercise i realized that until my sinus / allergies thing is over it doesn't make sense to go rollerblading.

all the noise

too many things, too many messages and alerts, too many distractions

yesterday:

 a more peaceful start to the day

buying and carrying home a full length mirror in the heat

gd's dentist appointment interrupting the haircut

a difficult day vis-a-vis not snacking

work: building something somewhat tricky in react admin, making some progress

picking up mr smear for his tutor and trying to get stuff done while waiting

high levels of PM 2.5 might explain my last few days of allergies

the haircut / the fix in a garbage bag - it's not what gd wanted, but she didn't have much to work with after the last guy took off way too much

gd running off to first aid for her tooth

finding out "i" broke things yesterday (in dev, fortunately, and the quotation marks are because my boss did the actual merge, and i got a dressing-down from one of my coworkers), fixing them pretty quickly though. i was annoyed because it's the second time i've been hit by this same thing, where two dependencies that are version locked suddenly stop playing nicely together, only this time the fixed version of the affected package hasn't actually been released yet.

mr smear's "play therapy" weirdness - i don't know what they're supposed to be doing, but twice when i went to the kitchen he followed me in and asked what i was up to.

mostly good good-night (minus one flipped bird)

today:

just waking up now, still feeling cloudy but it's been a few nights of relatively good sleep

fat

 yep, i can now confidently call myself overweight and, inspired by gd's success story, i'm officially making an effort to lose a good chunk of it.

it wasn't a good start for that, though. it turned out to be a rather heavy eating day...

yesterday's walk was pleasant. nothing special. the evening went pretty smoothly.

this morning was a total shit show. gd lost her temper at mr smear doing the exact same shit he's done almost every day for years, and that led to a) what may or may not be some progress in terms of his responses and b) the understanding that it's just not feasible to parent without some element of fear.

gd felt bad about it in spite of the great results.

my favorite part of the morning was just after mr smear finally brushed his teeth: he grabbed a dubbelzout and claimed that he needed it to calm down 😂

i'm a little calmer about our finances after reviewing everything again this morning - still not great, but not as bad as i originally thought. and we do seem to be whittling away at our aliyah debt, so that's nice.

i'm still having sinus issues, but things seem to be getting better. work was pretty good, though nobody on my team could be convinced to try the salted liquorice :P

i went past the mall on the way home, first stop being a struggle to dispose of a used nose spray - nobody had a clue where the disposal unit was and it took a while to find it. then i went to the sports store to pick up the new wrist and knee pads i ordered. i tried paying with a gift voucher, and was upset to learn that the 500 shekels it said i had on the app was, in fact, about 8 shekels. then i did a quick grocery run and came home, fortunately the evening was calm.

tomorrow:

gd's apparently up for giving me a haircut before headshot tuesday rolls around. i hope she is / can handle it.

weak

 yeah, this week was definitely more actually coming down with something than allergies, although i think allergies are a part of it.

yesterday:

i was completely broken yesterday, but still needed to go on a shopping mission and take mr smear to the school to pick up a book he needed for homework.

the mall was FULL of mall people. it's not usually that bad, but between them and how i was feeling and the supermarket not having everything on our list, it was very unpleasant. and then i forgot some important things, and that made the morning longer.

in the afternoon, we had our usual fight getting mr smear started with his homework, and then the usual breezing through the homework once he accepted his fate. it's so tiring...

one great thing, though - i bought him two books, conditionally, and one of them is a hebrew translation of spiderman comics. this is the first time we've seen him voluntarily read a hebrew book, and that's huge.

one awful thing: i messed up with calculating our finances, and last month was a lot heavier than i expected (－‸ლ)

today:

a mostly quiet day. gd and i left mr smear alone for a couple of hours for the first time ever, while we went for coffee and a liquorice taste-test with friends. it went well :)

most of the afternoon has been spent doing very little, very quietly.

now to try and herd him outside for some fresh air.

s'not

 godsdammit, mr smear and i are definitely sick with a sinus / nose / throat / chest thing. AGAIN. it's been non-stop struggle since the last round of covid. this thing started at the beginning of the week and i was sure it was allergies, but now i'm convinced it's not.

i took mr smear to school this morning, but we turned around once we got there due to the nose thing. so the day started with me sitting between gd and mr smear, gd retranslating the text i worked on last night into french, and mr smear doing his hebrew homework.

it was another battle - as always - to get him to accept the fact that he was going to do it at all, a lot more effort than was actually needed to just do the thing. after all the nonsense, he breezed through it.

...

the work day was long, but i feel good about how it went. i bought the first volume of one piece on kindle - it's not a great reading experience, sadly - and i canceled my subscription to midjourney in favor of trying out GPT-4o. it looks insanely powerful.

...

i'm disappointed to have seen a moroccan ex co-worker doing the "free palestine" thing.

...

i'm falling apart.

sad - hopeful - sad

monday:

it was supposed to be a half day, but ended up being more like three quarters because one of my coworkers and i were stuck investigating sunday's mystery. we managed to narrow down where the mystery is occuring, but it's still a mystery. at least we could put a plaster over it in the meantime and our boss has prioritized root-causing it.

it was a quiet afternoon, mostly just listening to galgalatz and contemplating the hostages, the victims, the fallen soldiers...

... and experiencing a flood of political discussion in a group of apparent "movers and shakers" that gco instroduced me to.

the switch to independence day was somber. we ordered burgers (delicious, but i really shouldn't have eaten all the fries), and then i took mr smear for a walk.

it's hard to say "chag sameach" right now, and it feels like most of us are feeling that. but i'm overflowing with gratitude and hope nonetheless.

we went for a walk down to what's now known as "hostage square", and saw thousands of people packed tightly in support of our hostages and their families. then we walked through a huge park filled with kids doing that annoying foam thing that they always do, safe and laughing and living their best lives.

the streets are slightly more somber than they should be, but we're here. we're not going anywhere. we made it out of egypt, we made it through the desert, we made it through short exiles, and we made it through thousands of years of exile. we made it through inquisitions, we made it through pogroms, we made it through the holocaust, we made it through 76 years (and counting) of intense wars against enemies who have never stopped seeking to destroy us.

we'll make it through this tragedy, this pogrom, this war, this torture, and we'll make it through whatever else the world has in store for us. there is no part of this story that is anything less than miraculous, and if we stick together and work hard, there's no reason for the future to be any less so.

🇮🇱 am yisrael chai . עם ישראל חי 🇮🇱

mr smear and i also picked up vegan donuts on the way home for yesterday's breakfast:

yesterday:

we managed a good start to the day, and left more or less on time for ze germans' barbeque. it was a really fun day, and good to spend time with the whole bunch (including mmf), but there were some highlights: mr smear trying to learn how to operate the grill from one of the older kids, enjoying the swimming pool and figuring out flippers, and ru55's eldest catching him vaping weed and deciding that his dad's a criminal (fortunately they resolved that by bedtime, but goddamn his kids are smart and had loads of good arguments).

we got home early enough to have a pretty easy evening.

today:

i've been sturggling with allergies rather badly today.

the morning started off well enough, but the conversation i was having with mr smear on the way to school took a bad turn and we said goodbye on shaky terms. then i came home, did grocery shopping and fretted about finances, and was busy with banking when mr smear's teacher called and asked us to pick him up (he apparently wasn't feeling well, but we smell bullshit). at least gd was able to handle that.

they weren't back by the time i was ready to go to the office, but when i saw i caught them by surprise on my way out i mean that i saw them a way off, hid behind a bush, and scared them so badly that gd proper screamed and mr smear lost his footing. i mean, they do that shit to me all the time, so it's fully deserved, but it also appeared to make mr smear's day much brighter :P

the work day was long, but ended well. i ate too much, though (falafel for happy hour) and i had a hard time (as usual) keeping my eyes open during our meetings.

i got home in time for the first in a series of talks about the state of the middle east by people from all over: it was a lot longer than i anticipated (two hours), and some of it was hard to get through (in particular, a lecture in arabic via an interpreter), but there were some fascinating things said (assuming that what was said was true) and overall it was an intriguing experience.

i spent the rest of the evening (until recently) translating a video about adi kaploun into english for it to be shown in canada; gd agreed to try translating it into québécois french but i'm not sure if she can stomache it...

rest and remembrance

 ha! i forgot to mention wednesday night's meeting with dod and a friend of his, which was very interesting and extremely productive.

friday:

after mr smear (finally!) completed his homework, we had a short break before we all hopped on the last bus before shabbat to meet up with our cousin. we lit the candles and said kiddush in her hotel room, even though the sun hadn't set yet, and then ventured out to the clock tower in search of a good place to eat. we ended up sitting down at urbano, which was much pricier than i anticipated but the service and food were fantastic. mr smear enjoyed his meal, too, and was generally extremely well-behaved (having his kindle on him helped).

afterwards, we walked our cousin back to her hotel and then took a taxi home, and got mr smear into bed. i quickly showered, and made the mistake of laying down on the couch... after a lot, busy day with more than 18K steps after a very long week, i crashed and i crashed hard. it was about 3am or so when gd woke me up trying to put a blanket over me, that i realized that i had enough energy to shuffle myself into bed.

yesterday:

nobody did anything. it was a day of rest, napping, reading comics, and playing video games.

it was a good day. i got nothing productive done (aside from the dishes, which took a few rounds).

oh! i guess i did do *something* productive. i've signed up for a lecture series on the current situation in the middle east, which was inspired by a post about the emir of kuwait dissolving their parliament in order to prevent the country's democracy from being exploited by bad actors. i've been talking about this for years, and while i'm not sure i agree with the direction i do feel like it's a wake-up call for the rest of us "democratic" nations.

today:

wake-up was relatively peaceful, if hard to do. i dropped mr smear off at school, picked up medicine for gd from the pharmacy, did the last of the dishes and headed to work.

the work day was hard, but there were some successes.

before noon urchin informed me that she was in the area, so we sat down for half an hour with a coffee and celebrated the fact that she's just received a job offer she's excited about after she's been trying to leave her current abusive employer for ages.

i was on-call today, and some of the on-call duties sucked. we have a proper mystery on our hands, with a complaining (but cooperative) client.

i eventually called it a day, picked up some antihystamines* from the pharmacy and came home to an early dinner before the remembrance day siren and ceremonies began. the stories were fresher and rawer than usual. additionally, the speeches by representatives of the jewish agency and government representatives have lit a fire under me to put together an accusatory video in a day or two to try and raise awareness for how hypocritical these organizations and agencies have become.

* apparently the antihystamines i've been taking *do* cause drowsiness, and i've been taking them in the mornings. no, shit.

...

gd's been having a lot of trouble with her foot this past week, i'm pleased to report that today she's finally doing much better!

on a different note, i *completely* forgot about mother's day today (we don't celebrate it in israel, not on the same date and not in the same way). whoops...

friday afternoon homework experience

 well, i'm sitting here [as i start writing this post] helping mr smear with his hebrew homework, after yet another fight about doing the homework, which we only won because i threatened to eat the last ice lollie; once he agreed to sit down, he then protested again but on the grounds that he doesn't want to be in israel... gd and i sat down and (once again) explained why canada and south africa aren't options (the dangers of global antisemitism, and why canada would be worse for him, because he'd be going through all of the same stuff but in french), and now we're moving through the homework pretty smoothly.

good grief.

this morning i woke up at 3.30am, dragged myself out of bed and made a cup of coffee and walked to the car and drove to the airport to pick up our cousin, and arrived only a handful of minutes before she walked out from customs. it's so good to see her again!

we dropped her luggage off at her hotel, then i dropped her off at our place, returned the car, and caught a bus home. everyone was awake and hungry, so we walked to our favorite coffee shop for coffee and breakfast. then i hopped on a bus headed to dizengoff center, called my mom to check in, took her advice and hopped off the bus, and walked to the weizman center instead to pick up a SIM card for a fraction of the price that they're selling them at the airport.

i did a grocery shopping, stopped on the way home for an amazing breakfast bagel, and then returned to crash on the couch. later, after unboxing the care package for my mom (a few packets of salted liquorice and some books, including the one with the song/poem i was looking for ^_^).

i walked her to the train station, organized a ravkav card for her, then we took the light rail straight to her hotel. i said goodbye, jumped on the next one back, and have since eaten and been helping with the homework [at this point we're almost done].

i'm really impressed by today's light rail experience!

yesterday:

the work day was intense. it started with a fight about whether to use jsonb in a postgres database, this time with me on team "yes". i managed to get that done fairly quickly, and i was really happy with it by the time it was merged, but the next part gave me trouble until i eventually went home for the weekend with an unsatisfied feeling.

in the middle of the day, i went to pick mr smear up from the school. i had just enough time to eat too much lunch along the way.

wednesday:

mr smear's school trip (for which we postponed his allergy test): a video was sent on the parents' group of the kids all chanting "shame", and i found out later that the bus driver's license had expired. the kids had a good time in the nature reserve and on its sand dunes; i needed an hour and a half off work to pick mr smear up afterwards, only he decided to head to his friend's place and i made the whole trip for nothing (although we're grateful he's socializing, so that takes priority). after work i picked him up on my way home.

...

my roastie seems to be healing nicely now. my sinuses / allergies / whatever are still a problem. gd's foot's even worse now.

we're still almost done with the homework.

company

 i managed to convince mr smear to let me resume the prisoner of azkaban last night, and he refused to let me stop reading before the end of the chapter ("the boggart in the wardrobe"). it's amazing how different and how much better the book is...

i rewarded myself for doing lots of dishes by putting on the director's cut of bladerunner, but fell asleep pretty quickly.

today:

my knee's doing much better, but i'm definitely not ready to return to rollerblading. so it worked out perfectly that this evening we had a company barbeque at our CEO's, which was really nice. although i ate too much, and i definitely drank too much, and the latter makes me particularly grateful to one of my coworkers for giving me a lift home.

the work day was positive. i didn't get to work on what i needed to work on, although my boss sat with me this morning and we did manage to resolve the frustrating stuff from yesterday afternoon. halfway through the day i took a bus home, scarfed down a large bowl of the potato/cashew leftovers, and picked mr smear up from school.

now i'm waiting a bit for my scab to dry after my shower, and then i'll most likely be heading to bed.

the siren

today was holocaust memorial day.

never forget.

it's scary seeing that so much of the world has learned nothing. may we be inspired to find ways to bring light to the darkness of the disinformation age. may the memory of the millions who perished be for a blessing.

...

sunday:

saturday night was another rough one.

omg it finally happened: mr smear was embarrassed to say goodbye in front of other kids, so we had to walk back a few meters so no one would see.

we've now agreed that a double fist-bump means "a kiss and i love you"

work-wise yesterday was pretty successful, but it was tough because i had to figure out really complicated group queries in postgres and our ORM proved utterly useless.

the evening was nice. the only rough part was continuing to read diary of a wimpy kid to mr smear and having to stop because greg is just so insanely horrible, just like daffy duck. i explained to mr smear that while i won't stop him from reading it (he's read through 14 of those miserable books so far), i very much disapprove and i'm concerned about its influence on him.

today:

i slept a bit better last night. i woke up with what seems like a cold, or really bad allergies, but i don't *feel* sick. the first part of the day went well, getting mr smear to school, productively working from home, picking up mr smear and taking him to his hebrew tutor (gd's foot's really messed up), doing some quick shopping on the way home, and then diving into a really shit afternoon because our tooling's broken and i just couldn't figure it out.

the siren caught gd and i by surprise today, it was hard not to freak out.

now i've done some of the dishes, and i'm about to drag mr smear out for a quick mission to find nutritional yeast. brewer's yeast is okay, but it's really not the same in either nutrition or enjoyable flavor...

winding down or winding up?

 we've just watched the shoshani riddle, which is amazing. i know its director from our rollerblading group, and watching his journey - and his incredible discovery - was fantastic. i'm a bit sad that we only had hebrew subtitles, so we're in for a re-watch as soon as english ones are available.

...

most of today was quiet, i did a lot of resting (i have a lot of catching up to do for the three nights of sleep i missed this last week) and i read through the bulletproof coffin collected edition. what an intriguing and fun read!

...

the end of the afternoon turned sour, mr smear railing against going out (as usual, and as usual after agreeing) becoming a continuation of last week's fight with gd. it was a very frustrating experience for both of us, but i feel like we got out of it in a relatively healthy way and we both have some homework to do.

i took him out for a walk, and we had what felt like a breakthrough which was rewarded (for both of us) with ice cream. then we stumbled across a large, mounted world map in good condition, and a hebrew-english dictionary that looks a lot better than the one we have.

...

i've just managed to get through a lot of the dishes, and i'm now getting ready for bed. my knee's definitely healing, but the fresh scab keeps cracking (the roastie's on the front) and i still have to sleep cautiously...

...

i'm nervous about reading the news. i was also nervously deliberating about whether to purchase a contentious graphic novel about the palestinians, but i think i need to put the money down to be able to share a review from an israeli perspective (which i wasn't able to find).

endings

 thursday was a big day. after another difficult night, i dropped mr smear off at school, picked up gd and accompanied her to the clinic to get her foot checked out, then to the hospital to defer mr smear's allergy test, and then i limped on to work.

it felt like a productive work day, and i was very pleased to end the day with a satisfying PR merge. in the middle of it, gd and i had our final guidance session with mr smear's therapist, which was very positive, and we're now awaiting further instructions.

the streets around azrieli were shut down in both directions by the protestors - i still don't get whose attention they're trying to get, because there doesn't appear to be anyone on the other side to negotiate a hostage deal with - and so i limped all the way home, taking a more exploratory route.

last night was difficult again, but considerably less so.

i dropped mr smear off at school this morning, then came home to watch most of the topol's fiddler on the roof with gd. then we picked mr smear up from school - we found him sitting on a chair near the entrance on his phone :( - and walked to our favorite coffee shop for sandwiches.

gco and i have kind of reconnected again, and i think he might be connected enough to be able to give me a boost regarding my mother's aliyah and south african aliyah in general. oh! and my mother finally has an aliyah interview appointment, only four years down the line.

i ran into someone i served with at the coffee shop, and it was pleasant but awkward.

after we got home, i suffered on the couch for a while - my knee's healing, but the muscles around my hips and butt are really sore and due to the knee i can't stretch properly - then eventually hopped into a hot bath which seems to have helped a bit. the rest of the afternoon has been... whatevs.

now looking forward to a quiet weekend.

...

we've just had a conversation with mr smear about holocaust remembrance day which is coming up. what a disturbing time to be dealing with this stuff... i'm legitimately nervous about what's going to happen when the sirens sound.

borken

last night was a long night - i barely slept i was in so much pain and discomfort - and today was a long day. mr smear and i got through some of his homework, i almost got into a fight with a reckless driver on the way to dropping him off at school, i was basically functional for the first half of the day. but by the afternoon i was starting to fall apart, and i developed a headache so bad that i had to leave the office early and come home to rest.

i'm now pretty thoroughly convinced the headache was caused by my neck. it's been okay for the last couple of hours, and very soon i'm going to try to get some sleep in spite of the fact that my knee roastie is only just beginning to "gel" over. that's because gd put some gauze on it this morning, and removing the gauze removed the fresh layer of scabbing :/

the evening was - aside from the headache - mostly pleasant, although mr smear's having difficulties both academically and socially and we needed, again, to have "the conversation". it looks like we're going to be repeating "the conversation" a lot, and i'm going to be doing a lot of "practising patience"...

we just finished rewatching the end of season 3 of the boys, believing that season 4 was out. fuck.

bigger miracles

 it's the middle of the night, and i'm sitting at my computer nursing a cup of tea and a skinned and bruised knee. also a lot of emotions.

1. getting mr smear out of bed this morning was difficult. it was just as difficult to get him to sleep last night - the direct result of the mgmt - kids video - and gd and i were frustrated because we were trying to watch the boys. mistakenly thinking he was asleep, about ten minutes into an episode where (obviously) lots of extremely inappropriate things had been said / yelled, one of the characters said "fuck!" and his voice rang out "I HEARD THAT!"

*facepalm*

[stops writing to grab a piece of cake our elderly neighbor dropped off this afternoon]

anyway, at least i realized that mr smear was legitimately deeply asleep for the first twenty minutes this morning, as i didn't lose patience :P (i have a test, i move his lips and sing and he giggles the moment he actually starts waking up)

2. it was another difficult night, this time i started on the couch and moved through to the bed. i don't know what's what anymore.

[this is surprisingly good cake]

3. it was a rushed morning, but pretty good. i dropped mr smear off at school, helped gd with online groceries, and then hopped on a bus to my mom's bank. my reason for being there was a ridiculous bug that makes it impossible for their international clients to do anything, but the lady i encountered was helpful and everything was sorted out quickly.

4. work was work. some of it interesting, some of it frustrating.

5. i picked up some emergency groceries on the way home, and came back to everyone in good spirits. that lasted until we realized that mr smear hadn't done his homework, and then he refused to do his homework, and then we were doing A Thing.

5a. i'm actually feeling particularly proud of myself for how i handled The Thing. i turned his aggression on its head, which both frustrated him and entertained him simultaneously.

5b. gd lost her temper, and there were lots of feelings over dinner. but we somehow managed, together, to get through to him and by bedtime we were doing well, and he appears to have a newfound appreciation for who we are and what we're trying to achieve. hopefully this sticks a bit.

6. after putting him to bed, i debated whether to go rollerblading, and eventually decided that that was a good idea. i tried a new route to the meeting point, and i think it was easier. which is good, because although we only did 20km tonight (i mean, it's still a lot) the route was predominantly uphills and downhills, and by the time we were done i wasn't sure if i'd make it home without a taxi, and i'm still not sure if i'll be able to sit or stand tomorrow.

my bum hurts.

but more than my bum hurting, my knee hurts. on our first downhill i hit a deep crack in the asphalt that i hadn't anticipated, and i now have a video recording from one of the others of a pretty painful (but extremely lucky) wipeout. i landed face-down, my pads took most of the damage, and i honestly have no idea how my chest and belly are practically unscathed. i have some minor cuts and abrasions on my hands and arms, but the worst scrape is on my left knee, because my pad slid down on impact and exposed it.

fortunately, one of the crew had a spray that calmed the pain down enough that i could continue the route, but after getting home and showering gd put peroxide on it before bandaging it up and that HURT.

so i've now spent the past hour and a half recovering and snacking, and now i'm getting ready to go to bed.

i think it's been a good day.