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...