the end of an era

 today our cousin whose husband passed away last year, passed away herself. she was also very old, and no longer in command of her faculties, and we saw it coming - but it's still very sad nonetheless.

...

it was a rough day, workwise, and although i managed to sneak in a small win (and receive confirmation from our friendly consultant that my frontend efforts were on the right track) it was a long battle against a mysterious bug with what feels like very little progress.

also, a piece of danish vegan chocolate popped out of my hand and landed under me, and so my new-ish chair and shorts are stained :/

gd and mr smear had a rough patch in the afternoon, but were otherwise fine. i wasn't feeling good (i was passing out at my desk before i went for a fourth coffee), so i didn't go rollerblading this evening (at least i rollerbladed to and from work), and for the last few days i definitely haven't been doing too well as far as diet is concerned.

i read a whole chapter of the prisoner of azkaban to mr smear tonight, i think we only have one left.

i then played another run of inscryption, and was swatted down before the second boss.

ugh.

the news has been utterly atrocious these past two days, i kinda just want to bury my head in the sand and wait for it all to blow over. but by the looks of things, nothing's going to blow over, war or no war, without a massive, concerted effort to counter the efforts of the enemies of the west.

i'm going to try to get some sleep.

stretched thin

omg it's half past 1am, i've spent the past couple of hours writing a "short" summary of our immigration disaster story for mr smear's friend's dad. i was going to start writing it this morning, but i've been on-call since 9am and it's been a heck of a day.

big things from the day that were work related: i had to convince a coworker of the value of a fix and became increasingly frustrated because he apparently literally didn't understand what i was fixing or why it needed fixing. i felt he was being obstructive, but in addition to "walking it off" one of his questions inadvertantly led to me finding something legitimately wrong and fixing that, so i couldn't be too mad.

big things from the day that weren't work related:

mr smear being rude on the way home from his hebrew tutor, i dragged him aside to a shady spot in a park and managed (somehow) to get through to him. not only did he handle it well (from that point, at least) but he took his punishment (an hour without screen time) like a boss.

he also decided that he'd rather go back to mma than keep up with the wall-climbing. sad for the wall-climbing, but great for the mma. we made a deal, and *he* insisted on recording it on our phones.

we also finally plugged in the guitar hero guitars and he's done some of the tutorial a few times - he's getting better. and he's persisting, which is big. even though the buttons seem to be jamming.

something big happened in the news today, big and crazy, and i only just heard about it now. so i'm going to try to sleep, and then try to wrap my head around whatever the fuck it is in the morning.

it's not suicide, it's communication

saturday:

my mom and i went to pick up mr smear around 6pm, but i took a wrong turn and we got a lot more of a walk than we bargained for.

the airport run:

we left on time, and arrived with time to spare before the allegedly-scheduled train was due to leave the station. the fictitious train would have gotten us to the airport approximately on time, but once we were on the platform it became clear that we'd been had by the transit app.

apparently all the transit apps use google maps as a source :/

fortunately, there was an available go-to car close by! we located it without too much hassle, although we were definitely stressed and relieved that gd and mr smear were at home. we loaded the car, and got to the airport without a hitch, only a little bit later than we'd have liked. and on the way, my mother taught me about the rear-view mirror clip for when assholes behind you have their brights on.

i made a mistake and parked at the orchard, instead of the vineyard. our parking spot was really far from the terminal.

we got through the first round of security quickly, but then were stuck in the queue to the counters (five counters, two manned, one only sometimes) for at least an hour. aside from "the farts", and having numnum cat stuck in my head (to my mother's perpetual amusement), at least she wasn't alone in the experience and we had plenty of time for a face-to-face farewell conversation.

there wasn't anything to do between check-in and security, and my bedtime and car rental period was closing in, so we said our goodbyes and i made my way up to the car. it was a long way, and the pay machines were broken. i was starting to panic, but encountered a family who assured me that i could pay at the exit itself, so i headed up to the car, strapped in, and turned on the engine.

that was when my mom called, and i immediately worried that she was having trouble with security and needed me to come back. she couldn't hear me, and put the phone down before i could switch microphones. then she didn't answer when i trying to call her back, nor respond to my messages.

eventually i got hold of her, and discovered she just wanted advice on purchasing headphones before the flight.

...

the ride home was okay, i was still wired from the espresso shot i'd had when picking up mr smear :P

yesterday:

a quiet morning before mr smear woke up, shopping and relaxing

the suicide drawing scare: gd approached me, freaking out because mr smear was drawing someone shooting himself in the head. so i calmly made my way over to peek, but he immediately covered it up in an effort to hide it. "it's a surprise!"

"hey," i said, "i have to go to work in a minute, please can i see it?"

"okay, but only because you're leaving soon."

it turned out to be a soldier with his rifle on his lap, and two fingers pressed into an earpiece to communicate. so that was a conversation we didn't need to have! *phew*

a long and frustrating workday hunting for a bug (and not finding it, but at the end of the day wishful-thinking that i'd found it), with me repeating "i want to die" on a loop

taking mr smear away from rain world for a really nice table tennis outing

trying to watch jumanji, but mr smear getting scared.

finishing the truman show, mr smear definitely having taken it the right way.

going to sleep lessons: understanding/remembering that mr smear has been afraid of going to sleep, and for the first time getting through to him that even if some of his dreams are scary, they can't hurt him or become real. a little later, i found him still lying awake, but he was no longer afraid, just restless.

worrying about whether it makes sense to request that he be moved to a different class before we move him to a different school

kaycee's mod update: omg this game is insane, and insanely unfair. for the third or fourth time in a couple of days, i managed to build an incredibly powerful deck (an insect deck with an ouroboros and an insect totem with an ant spawner sigil), only to get swatted at the final level by a situation i could see no way out of. i think i'm going to take a break from this abuse for a while.

today:

waking up from long intense dreams, my old house, mosquitoes, rollerblades, a weird butcher (who was butchering elephants?), and being unable to get a younger mr smear out of a creepy area after it had taken everything to get him to come with me in the first place.

mr smear waking up a little while ago, and happy to have another positive conversation about dreams.

winning.

...

it's a work-from-home day, but my first point of business is writing up a description of our aliyah story for mr smear's friend's father. hopefully he can help somehow...

luna park ftw!

 this morning was AMAZING. i slept pretty well last night, and spent some time organizing my google drive folders now that i've switched from sync. so far, so good. then mr smear woke up (he'd moved himself to the couch in the middle of the night 'cause he couldn't sleep), and after breakfast asked to be (re-)introduced to iron maiden. happy to oblige, we both enjoyed it.

then his friend rocked up, and we headed out to the luna park. getting there was easy, finding parking was easy, getting inside was easy, and getting on the rides was easy - it was the *perfect* day and time to go! out of the couple of hours we were there, the kids got to have fun and do almost all the rides they wanted (except the 140cm minimum rides) without waiting, and they even went on the anaconda!

i "dadded" well for both the kids - mr smear got freaked out by the black mamba, and his friend by the anaconda, and i managed to get them both back on track (mr smear psychologically, his friend physically and psychologically) - and i'm feeling really good about that. i even went on the final ride myself, which was great fun ^_^

everyone had a fun morning, and i dropped mr smear off at his friend's place on the way home so now we've got the afternoon to rest up before taking my mom to the airport tonight.

we're sad she's leaving us, but happy we got some good times in in spite of being sick for a lot of her visit (as always).

the sammich

 the morning started off alright, but then we suddenly got hit with an attitude issue that was on-off until we got to the lego store (including on our mission to the shuk, which mr smear also isn't a fan of, although we did find him the white hate he's been whining for in spite of his protests and we got an iron maiden shirt made for him which he's ridiculously excited about - so i guess that was a bit of a corrective experience).

then we hit the lego store. i gave him explicit instructions to remember that it's *his* birthday present (not his mom's), that *he* has to choose what *he* wants, and that he has to be under budget (it's a big budget - we may be under financial stress, but we believe he deserves a birthday celebration just like everyone else). he was excited, and he went from section to section but couldn't decide.

then, suddenly, he cut and ran. i realized what was happening before anyone else did, and chased after him, catching him outside, hugging him tight, and explaining that he didn't need to make any decisions right then, nor even get his present from the lego store. he started calming down, and asked if he could just wear his new shirt, so i took him to a quiet store with a changing room and he came out pretty much fully recovered.

we caught the bus home, and the rest of the afternoon was nice. a/c, and after watching a couple of jonas tyroller videos, we decided to reinstall will you snail and remembered just how much fun it is!

it was generally a really nice afternoon. we had a break from doing things together - he played rain world, and watching him bouncing up and down while he played was wildly entertaining for all of us - and then i was inspired to put on the truman show. at first he didn't seem interested, but pretty soon he joined me on the couch and really got into it.

we had a wickedly delicious friday night hotdog dinner - didn't know that was a thing until tonight - and he rushed through his shower so that we could watch another half hour of the movie. it's an excellent movie, and it's really fun watching it with him.

bedtime was mostly okay but ended on a silly sour note, not the worst bedtime but still not a great end to an otherwise great day. then i sat down to some more inscryption, and it *really* made me feel shitty. two runs where i was getting everything i wanted, and got demolished anyway with zero ceremony.

i think calling the game "evil" is absolutely fair. it doesn't change my obsession/addiction, it just qualifies it a bit more...

now to plan tomorrow's luna park mission and go to bed.

steps forward

yesterday:

a really exciting meeting with gco and an extremely interesting writer/comedian, which went so well that i blabbed to one of my teammates and instantly regretted it. but, at the same time, got immediate and very enthusiastic feedback for my idea ^_^

it was mr smear's final "play therapy" session in the afternoon, so that's a bit sad, but he was cool about it.

my mom, mr smear and i took a very crowded bus to the beach to meet with the mongoose and his family, it was a beautiful evening and we all enjoyed it immensely, although his daughter was very upset by something (twice) and i strongly suspect it was me - but we don't know why. possibly my tattoos? or just me being awkward? who knows.

i hadn't intended on eating dinner when we got home, but i ended up eating rather a lot.

today:

sleeping really badly last night, waking up in the middle exhausting and with a stiff neck

picking up gd's clippers on the way to work

sorting out - or assisting gd with sorting out - luna park tickets, mr smear's friend's mom really did manage to wrangle us half-price tickets

a busy and positive day at work not taking care of my urgent task, but after hummus for lunch just wanted to close my eyes (or play inscryption :P)

dubstepping home later than planned

a good climbing wall session, both in terms of his performance and in meeting a sweet guy who wants to be a councillor/guide - mr smear was really cool with him, and he got mr smear to give a new wall (with a real incline) another go

mr smear getting into bed really late but adorably asking us to give my mom permission to read to him anyway

inscryption degradation (i feel like i lost some dignity over the second run)

bailing on sync -> google drive

planning

i'm all over the place today. i began the day trying to sort out my mother's computer, which doesn't seem to be in as much trouble as i initially thought - it's mainly a question of setting up her browser profiles properly and introducing her to the onetab extension.

then i headed to work, worked a little, then walked to the hospital to help gd with her orthopaedist appointment. after months waiting for the appointment that was recommended by doctors and nurses, he informed her that she first needs to see a dermatologist.

good grief.

on the way back to the office i stopped at tiras to pick up lunch (breakfast). it was *really* good.

the rest of the workday was pretty productive, and good vibes. things between me and our devops guy were cool, which was a big relief.

i've spent arguably too much time playing inscryption tonight - or every night - but tonight in particular my mind's jumping and i'm feeling antsy.

it's my mom's last few days here, and we're trying to figure out what we're doing going forward. it doesn't look like mr smear's going to have a birthday party, so we're talking about taking him to the luna park on saturday... we'll see.

inspiration

 yesterday:

the exhibit was very interesting. getting there was a story, i don't know if there was a GPS issue or not but my bus app was playing silly buggers and i ended up making some lucky guesses to get there on time.

on the way i bumped into a combat fitness instructor (identified by her shirt), who was happy to answer questions that i had on behalf of someone online who's trying to get into that role and asked me if i could help. so that was convenient :)

the first part of the exhibit was very, very long. and there were no seats. and as a not-journalist, i found myself both amused and frustrated by the differences in calibre of the people in the group with me. some of the things i saw were new, one piece of footage of an unsuspecting victim driving straight into the firing line of a rocket launcher was unsettling.

not as unsettling as being in the same room as the actual trowel that was used to behead a thai worker, though. the room was filled with weapons, documents and clothing, along with certificates from hamas' kids' training camps, and the more information we were exposed to the deeper and darker the picture it paints.

it was a look into the abyss of the darkest recesses of the human spirit.

eventually we moved to a screening of footage from october 7th, and although i'd braced myself, all i needed to hear was the vague description of what we were about to see and "nope" the fuck on out of there. i understand the journalists having an obligation to bear witness, but i didn't need to see it with my eyes or hear it with my ears.

just the description alone was more than enough to rattle me.

in a completely different vein, the conversations outside on the way out and home were riveting, constructive, and encouraging. i feel less alone, and i'm warmed by the enthusiasm which some of the group who "get" what we're facing embraced my vision.

it was also cool seeing gco again. and i gave a pep talk to a couple of cadets who were on duty as guards.

i was utterly bombed (poor choice of words) by the time i got back home. i passed out for a while, woke up to a small fight with mr smear about his homework - gd did a great job coming to the rescue - and then mr smear, my mom and i went out to dizengoff center and the shuk for what ended up amounting to a nice, but rather hot, walk before dinner.

inscryption, then bed.

today:

i definitely slept better. i worked from home today, and actually got stuff done in spite of my noisy family all around me. mr smear's synth practice this morning was very impressive, and on the whole mr smear was very cool today. including at the climbing wall in the evening, even though he was really unhappy about the heat. it was ridiculously hot today.

otherwise, my mom and i took him to his hebrew tutor and i ran a quick half-hour errand in the heat to the post office depot to pick up what turned out to be nothing but a single sharpie :/

ali express ftw...

anyway.

two amusing things at the wall: i made a deal with mr smear but worded it badly, and he thoroughly enjoyed following my instructions to the letter in precisely the opposite of the spirit in which they were clearly intended. i conceded graciously, we had fun, and he'd already done a lot of good climbing anyway :)

the second was a harley rider driving by taking himself very seriously. mr smear: "i love it when motorcycles sound like farts" 🤣🤣🤣

it's late, and the next few days are full of Business. i'm probably going to go to bed soon.

...

my mom and her best friend were talking today, and a thought suddenly struck me - they're both aware that they need to get out of south africa, and they're both nervous about where to go and how to manage. so why not make aliyah together, be close to their families, and provide each other with a good buffer and support while settling?

a new day

 well. first things first: i *did* win! which was great. and then i started the next round, because that's how kaycee's mod rolls. and - although i know i'm supposed to try to win with every starter deck - i picked ants again. and ended up with an unkillable insect totem, and i picked up the ouroboros again just before turning in for the night. so...

good :)

when i slept, i slept well, but i woke up in the middle of the night struggling with a sore back and one of my sinuses and panicked a little about possibly getting sick again. i got up so that i was at least not being restless and uncomfortable in bed, and pretty soon found myself nodding off again.

i woke up about an hour ago, still sore, but my sinuses seem to be alright. i don't know what everyone else is planning on doing today, but in a couple of hours i'm going to be heading out to the october 7th thing i deferred on thursday... 

...

i see this morning that we finally responded to the houthis' drone attack.

if iran is only a couple of weeks away from sufficient nuclear material, maybe we could consider doing the same to tehran? just sayin'.

gods help us all.

a moment of appreciation

 first, but not foremost, the thing that triggered me stopping my game of inscryption to post this: on my current run, i've built a really solid ant deck and acquired an ouroboros, and i have an insect totem with a beehive sigil.

my ouroboros has a corpse eater sigil, and my ant queen has an unkillable sigil, and because of my totem if my queen gets hit, the bee it produces is unkillable too. what this means is that as long as i have the ant queen and the ouroboros out, i have a perfect cycle where i sacrifice my unkillable bee and the ant queen to bring in the ouroboros, then sacrifice the unkillable bee and ouroboros to bring in the ant queen.

inscryption is a rogue-like game where every run is different. what this means is that i'm very likely to build an awesome deck exactly like this again, and i'm nervous as hell that i'm going to make a misplay and stuff this run up.

...

last night:

sadly, gd wasn't up for coming with us, but my mom and mr smear and i took a car and arrived on time, although we needed a few minutes before going upstairs to contact the previous driver who'd left his wallet in the car. he seemed very relaxed about it, whereas i'm pretty sure i would have been losing my mind...

dinner was lovely. mr smear put into practice all the things we've been talking about, he was super cool and really polite and he had a good time drawing with his similar-aged cousins!

we got home really late, and i got into bed really late because i dived into inscryption again.

today:

i slept well, until i didn't. i woke up a bit tired, restless, and with visions of inscryption floating before my eyes... but i held off playing more. instead, i started off with my usual combo of bloons: adventure time* and youtube, and only later fired up inscryption to play a bit before heading out to pick up the car for the day.

* yeah, i haven't really stopped playing that, but i'm much less rushed to complete daily quests etc.

the last thing i did before leaving was add the corpse eater sigil to ouroboros, so i left with a burning desire to see how it played.

the first part of the trip to the kibbutz was a bit stressed, for a variety of reasons, the biggest one being the tire pressure indicator lighting up and my mom and i having a hard time figuring out the pressure pipe station at an entirely self-service gas station. i ended up unsure of whether i got it right, and prayed the rest of the way there and the whole way back that we wouldn't suffer a blowout.

it was *hot* today. it was great seeing out kibbutz cousin, lunch was lovely, and i napped fitfully on the couch while everyone talked, dreaming of inscryption. of course. i'm not obsessed, you are! anyway.

later on we drove through to the swimming pool, where we not only had a great time, but mr smear tried and mostly succeeded to learn the crawl stroke! this was a huge level-up, both for him as a swimmer and for me as a parent encouraging and teaching his kid something new. so i'm still riding high on that, definitely the highlight of the day ^_^

coming home was a bit of a story - lots of protests throughout the country generating lots more traffic than usual - but we eventually got home in one piece, had a very late but very delicious portobello mushroom and seitan (and cauliflower) dinner, and it's been inscryption since.

right, back to the game 🤞

conflict management

 well, that was an experience. we managed to get to laser city early, which gave us plenty of time to walk around and look for non-existent places to sit down and drink something... eventually others started arriving, and mr smear played foosball with some other boys. it was going well, until it didn't, when he got angry with one of the slower kids for doing something wrong :(

then it was time for laser tag. when the guy running the show announced that the teams would be boys vs girls, i thought this would be good because the boys would have no reason to gang up on him, but he ended up being put on the girls team (with a couple other boys) and two thirds of the way through the first round i saw mr smear rush out and find a quiet place to cry.

that sucked.

but then i managed to convince him to try a new strategy: it's a team game, and if those idiots are going to insist on chasing him down and focusing on him, then he should consider himself "bait" and lead them straight to his teammates. he went back in, and came out with renewed enthusiasm after his teammates successfully ambushed his bullies.

that was round one, of two. in the second round he had trouble again, both with the being chased and with one of the kids straight-up cheating. once again, after a quick pep talk he returned and i watched his ranking rapidly jump from last place to fourth-to-last, and i was very proud indeed.

so there was shit, but there was some success, and overall he seemed to enjoy the laser tag itself which is a huge relief. and i'm extremely proud of him for walking back in there and not giving up.

...

on the way home, we took a detour to pick up some stuff for the weekend, but we were still missing a gift for tonight so after stopping at home and eating a quick breakfast, i headed out again. the mission was successful, but i got plenty more exercise in the heat today than i'd planned.

oh, and on the way out i suddenly realized that the mongoose and his family live right next to where the drone exploded, so i felt rather shit for not having contacted them earlier :(

the afternoon was very quiet, resting and doing dishes and playing inscryption. oh, and having a very quick chat with gd about what i saw today and agreeing that it's probably a good time for mr smear to switch schools. his class is full of problem (violent) kids and he really, really got off on the wrong foot. and he's really, really making an effort to be cool(er).

alright, it's time to head out for dinner.

a day after

 did nothing yesterday afternoon. played inscryption, played some lego harry potter with mr smear (finished year three), thought a lot about what i wrote in yesterday's post.

like, okay. so i'm depressed. now what?

i woke up this morning to the news of the drone attack in tel aviv - my mother was awake at the time, and heard it - along with a link to a video horseman sent me about curating the five people you're closest to into a network to achieve things because it's not possible to achieve big things alone in this world.

this morning is, so far, going alright. and although we only found out about it last night - and dramatically believed that the child whose mom i messaged was ignoring my text - mr smear has been invited to a laser tag birthday party and we're leaving to take him there in about fifteen minutes (well, my mom and i, gd just left for a catch-up sewing class).

long weekend started

 i think an apt description of my mental state over the past while is "spiritually exhausted". i'm just coasting from one event to the next, living from coffee cup to coffee cup and trying to maintain sanity in the face of increasingly difficult challenges. some things are great. some things are amazing, even. but years and years of perpetually living on the edge of a chasm have really worn down my nerve sheaths.

...

yesterday was a particularly intense work day. and although it end with a surprising success (i'm code complete even though i didn't get to look at my planned work until two hours before leaving) it also ended with a shit feeling about a stupid, entirely avoidable incident during the day that may have done damage to my relationship with our devops guy :(

at lunch time i walked to pick up my new knee pads, and i bought an inflatable mattress and an automatic pump. the mattress is perfect, but the pump turned out to be with a car charger which isn't apparent at all from its packaging :/

one of my coworkers came to work *clearly* sick and infectious. i really, really, *really* hope i don't get sick like everyone else in my home.

fortunately, after wasting many minutes hurting my arms trying to inflate it with a bicycle pump, gd found the old automatic pump that she'd apparently looked hard for earlier...

... f***ing troll :P

anyway, the evening was pleasant, after mr smear went to sleep we all watched another episode of unchained, and then i went to bed.

today:

mr smear and i looked into fortnite's creative mode, which i've agreed to let him play. his argument for letting him play the battle modes? "violence is already in my head, you let me watch hunter x hunter".

he's got me there :$

gd admitted being too sick to come with to the museums, but my mother refused to. in retrospect, that was a big mistake and it was hard for her to get from the bus stop to the museum in the heat. i left her and mr smear there to go to the october 7th "exhibit" at the intelligence center, but i'm still not sure what that means because halfway there gco contacted me and asked if i would prefer going on sunday or monday instead. so i agreed, hopped off the bus, and then spent the next half hour frustrated waiting for buses that weren't coming or walking a long way in the heat.

public transportation outside of tel aviv sucks.

i joined my mom and mr smear for a short walk through the museum, he'd had and continued to have a very enjoyable time (aside from not liking being "helped" by the volunteer with no sense of personal boundaries on the fourth floor).

we caught a bus home, and have spent the past hour or two resting (my mother's been passed out on the couch for most of that time).

what's in store for the rest of the day is anyone's guess.

not down with the sickness

everyone but me (so far) has been sick, so lots of being stuck at home, not doing much of anything other than coughing. i'm praying i stay okay, and we're all hoping that everyone'll be feeling good enough to do a museum tour on thursday.

yesterday:

yesterday was a work from home day, and it wasn't easy. i think i've blanked a lot of it, because i'm sure we had some parenting issues, but work-wise i was on-call and struggling to get my own tasks done while trying and failing to understand what the heck was going on with the weird mysteries we're seeing in our logs.

oh, yes. i remember: mr smear was "very sensitive" (in his own words) yesterday and pissy about just about everything. i think gd and i had a fight about something as well, probably related.

oh, and handling finances: this has not been a good couple of months :/

in the evening i took a walk to the grocery store. i had an ulterior motive - finding a replacement LED bulb - but all the stores which might have had what i was looking for were closed.

after getting mr smear into bed, we settled in to introduce my mom to unchained. i don't know at what point i passed out, but when i came to and realized i'd fallen asleep on the couch i took myself to bed.

today:

woke up this morning to an already-awake mr smear, who's inflatable mattress sprung a leak in the middle of the night. he's going to have to sleep on the couch tonight, because none of us were able to find the leak (not even under water).

the morning was going alright, and then suddenly took a shit turn with mr smear. he recovered after a while, but i took much longer to get my own head right.

work was pretty good. i ate too much throughout the day, but i got the job (for the day) done and enjoyed receiving constructive feedback, both positive and negative. we had an interesting all-hands, too: sadly, our marketing wizard (witch?) is migrating soon, but the company's in a good place and i was surprised to learn that my current project is the central item everyone's betting on.

...

during the day gd sent me a video of mr smear's piano lesson progress: he seems to be making good. yesterday, when i was home, we had a talk about how to approach it and why it needs to be done in a certain way, and he seemed to *get* it.

as always, we shall see.

...

i left the office later than planned, then remembered that we hadn't done anything about a replacement mattress. i went to store after store (gas station after gas station) trying to find it, and after about ten places spanning (according to google maps) about 7km, i feel like i'd worked off enough of the office eating to enjoy a big, delicious dinner.

it looks like i've lost a couple of kilos over the past few weeks, so that's something.

i've spent most of the evening playing inscryption, now i've written this up, and now i'm planning on trying to get some sleep.

baby rabies, coughs and game time

friday evening:

gd wasn't well enough to join us, but my mom, mr smear and i walked to the synagogue and back. it was hot, and it's not *that* far but it's definitely too far for gd even on a good day, so i guess if we're going to start going regularly we're going to be taking a taxi or something.

overall, it was a good experience, it's a nice shul and very familiar. having said that, mr smear has an issue with smaller kids and it was *really* hard to manage him in the moment. we've since sat him down and had a conversation, and we've talked about it again, and hopefully he'll calm the fuck down.

so that was friday night. otherwise, it was really nice to be able to make kiddush together for real, and not via whatsapp.

yesterday:

we had some good talks with mr smear, and we had some difficulties with mr smear. it was another "downtimey" day, reading / video games / not much. in the afternoon my mom, mr smear and i went for a walk to and through park hayarkon, then stopped at a really nice bar near basel for beers (or sprite), and then stopped for sandwiches and croissant desserts on the way home.

their cubed croissants blew my mind, and i had to get one just to try it. a croissant cube filled with pistachio and vanilla cream. it was pretty darned good.

the evening was a bit rough. mr smear needs to spend more time with kids his own age - but at the same time, he also needs a break from his schoolmates.

revelation of the day: disco elysium isn't just a great detective game, and it isn't just great eye-candy. it's a comedy, but a psycho-philosophical one deeply rooted in literature and with a deep sense of irony.

today:

first order of the day: gd gave me a haircut. i feel much, much better about it.

i rollerbladed to work, and made great progress on my current project. i took two breaks during the day: the first, to pick up a package from ali express; the second, to buy a new vacuum cleaner. now that we have the replacement, it seems like the warranty on the original is much longer than we were told...

gd's on antibiotics, my mom's started coughing too, and mr smear's cough has suddenly gotten dramatically worse. gd's given him something in the hopes it would help him sleep, but it doesn't seem to be helping and it has antihistamines in it so we're going to have to defer (again) his dairy allergy challenge that was scheduled for wednesday :/

after dinner all four of us played uno together, and it was lots of fun.

i suggested my mom watch the game changers this evening, and she did.

i played a whole lot of kaycee's mod this evening. that's a whole lot of excitement, followed by a whole lot of disappointment.

goddamn.

i'm going to bed.

the shoes!

i almost forgot about my shoes. i've been irritated by how unsafe they are to clean, so this is the before/after from this afternoon:

shabbat

today's been pretty chilled. a lot of video games, and mr smear and i just finished watching (and enjoying) battlefield earth.

gd's been struggling - there's nothing like being woken up with a coughing fit to the face - but her rapid antigen test was negative and hopefully she'll be clear to visit our kibbutz cousin tomorrow. and hopefully the rest of us will be too.

around noon my cheap watch's strap broke dramatically, so i rushed out to dizengoff center to the store i bought it at, who referred me to the mi store itself. who couldn't help me, and recommended buying new straps from ali express. so now we've got straps, new hair clippers, a dance dance revolution-style control mat and some mesh food covers on order.

i'm so glad i'm posting this now, because i just realized i ordered straps for the wrong model!

i didn't get a haircut today. i desperately need one.

we're going to try going to shul in person tonight for the first time since coming home.

infestation

tuesday:

tuesday morning, i managed to convince mr smear to join me for a walk to the post office to pick up his test synthesizer. we had a good walk, a little bit of tension when arriving at the post office and seeing that we needed to make an appointment - which turned out to be nonsense, but nobody else saw the sign pointing to their package depot either - and i was very pleased and relieved to open it and discover that it's actually pretty good (for a cheap chinese product) and mr smear's been giving it a good go!

by the time i'd gotten him set up, i realized i was going to be late for a meeting at the office, so i scrambled and made it there on time. the coworker i was scheduled to meet was late :P

my coworker made a comment about disco elysium, and he's not wrong. he stopped playing the moment he realized he was playing against his own character's self-destructive behavior.  i'm finding the game's story and mechanics fascinating, but my character is indeed the kind of person who i would avoid like the plague in real life.

yesterday:

i went past the hospital in the morning to arrange for gd's final allergy challenge (in the current round), and on the way out picked up some really nice fruit from a stall nearby. it was really expensive, but also really good, and i guess it's supporting our farmers down south so i wasn't upset.

my boss, however, wasn't happy that i'd bought my own fruit for the office and insisted on paying me back for it. no complaints here :)

gd, my mom and mr smear went to the museum in the afternoon, and due to a miscommunication i was in a shitty mood for a lot of it. but we had a chat when i got home and all was settled.

today:

the day began with bad vibes, primarily triggered by me unwittingly dumping big pieces of food into the kitchen sink's drain thinking that our drain filter was in place. and gd is definitely sick with a horrible cough.

i went to the clinic on the way to work, after it took me way too long to get all the right documents together, and hopefully the authorization for mr smear's dairy allergy challenge will arrive before the scheduled date.

i was quite unmotivated to work today. i feel like the most constructive thing i did all day was take a walk to the sarona market at lunchtime to pick up hot sauces, chutney and potato spice. oh, and pick up a pack of sharpies from the post depot on the way home.

oh! and take mr smear to the climbing wall. he did great, and there was a group of amputees climbing *well* with or without prosthetics that just blew me away.

...

 
i haven't managed to complete kaycee's mod yet. this game so far, i picked up an ouroboros and have been slowly pumping it up... but i also managed to build myself a bee and ant deck along the way, which just became ridiculous as i've also scored a totem of undying insects... PLEASE let this be the deck that gets me through!!

...

godsdammit, i just completely ruined my run because i - on autopilot - picked up an insane amount of pelts. which i realized immediately that i didn't want at all.

easy

 well, today was definitely a day.  the morning went as planned, although my doctor's appointment was a bit odd. my hand isn't healed, but it was feeling better this morning than it had in at least a week, of course. and i started telling her about my four months of post-covid snottiness, which i almost instantly regretted as it's no longer worth taking meds for. and i feel awkward now about going for a chest x-ray when i've explained to her that my chest is fine, and that i've been doing a fair amount of sport lately.

we then talked about gd's "career evaluation", which social security asked her to do, but which apparently isn't possible for anyone other than a social security representative to arrange.

the funny thing is that the meds she prescribed are mostly things i'm taking regularly for my allergies anyway.

i met my family on the way to the bus, and we took a bus down to the shuk where we met up with wp. we went to a coffee shop we're familiar with, and enjoyed a really nice hour before wp and i had to run off to our respective meetings.

i arrived ten minutes late for the "lecture", which was... ahem... eye opening. it was about the "hawk" method of training your eyes to perfect vision. which is a new take on the bates method. everything sounded pretty legitimate, but when i posted an update to let my teammates know what they'd missed i learned that the bates method has been thoroughly debunked as pseudoscience.

so that was a waste of a big chunk of my morning.

i returned home, making two awkward scenes on the bus regarding kids with their feet up (the first's feet weren't on the seats, which made telling the second whose were on the seats really uncomfortable).

breakfast, a meeting with a coworker, working hard until we all went out to take mr smear to his hebrew tutor. i worked at the coffee shop / bakery while my mom and gd talked, and then we picked mr smear up and returned home.

it was pretty hot by that stage.

the rest of the afternoon was quite a grind, but i was happy with the work once i'd pushed it. my body was all over the place, though, and by the time mr smear and i were heading out to the climbing wall i suddenly felt really bad and had to bail. so instead, the two of us watched most of battlefield earth before dinner.

i'm really glad he's enjoying it as much as i am. i'm also glad that so far there's only been one age-inappropriate moment - the psychlo with the long tongue - which i quickly explained away as "ugh, that's weird, it must be a psychlo thing". i know the movie cleaned up as 2001's "worst movie ever", but i've never really understood why. i mean, i agree that almost everything about it is ridiculous, but it's legitimately so much fun!

haters' gonna hate.

the evening was pleasant, and i've spent some time playing inscryption, and i'll probably try a little more disco elysium before i go to bed. it's a big relief that my mother's here for a number of reasons, two of which being that she's physically in less danger in tel aviv than in cape town and that she's actually able to get some rest (she works stupidly hard). it's helping me relax into my own sort of holiday, even if i'm still working.

it also helps that i'm enjoying my job.

arrival + double-time

 it doesn't feel like only a single day has passed since my last post. i played a little bit more disco elysium, then hit the hay. i woke up at 4am, left on time with a green tea in hand, reported a burst water pipe on the way to the train station, and arrived on time, but at a closed entrance.

so i missed my train, and had to walk all the way around. fortunately, the next train arrived at the airport at a reasonably close time, and i found my mom waiting comfortably.

i reloaded her transport card, and we hopped on the next train home. by the time we arrived - around 6am - the water pipe had been repaired, and gd was awake and ready to greet us with coffee. unfortunately, i'd forgotten to pick up non-barista oat milk yesterday, and it took a quick walk around to find something that looked alright, but that ended up being unpleasant :(

i took a "nap" - getting another hour and a half in - and woke up feeling pretty refreshed. mr smear was excited to wake up to his granny being home, so that was really cool :)

we all went to the mall together to sort out my mom's SIM card, then picked up some nice breads from our favorite bakery on the way home. i had a big breakfast / lunch, and around noon went to the office. when i left, mr smear was very enthusiastically engaged in a lego build that our cousin sent him for his birthday next month :)

the protests were just beginning, and they were already pretty loud.

the work day was pretty intense, but i finally left the office around 7.30pm feeling like i'd crushed it. not only did i get the stuff i've been working on code-complete, but i also helped out a couple of my coworkers along the way, and was pleased to be informed by my argumentative coworker (after we learned that the TODO that started the fight on thursday *did*, in fact, come back to bite us as i predicted) that once he'd had some time to give it some thought, he decided he didn't disagree with me after all :)

i had to walk home because everywhere between my office and my home was shut down for the protests.

we had a really nice dinner, and i've spent a good chunk of the evening doing not much. although i did just play a bit more inscryption, getting crushed in the first game (it's deeply disappointing when you believe you've built a deck with potential) but finally picking up a boon from the painting in the second.

now... to decide... whether to go to bed or not. we're up early tomorrow, after my early morning doctor's appointment we're heading downtown to spend some time with wp who's here for a few days.

slow

it's getting late, and i have to be up at 4am to go fetch my mother from the airport - we're so excited that she's visiting!

yesterday:

after a chat with horseman, i went up to our elderly neighbor's place because i suddenly remembered in the middle of the night that i promised to visit her days ago and clean forgot. turns out she needed help with her wifi and an ipad her family bought her, as the neighbors who recently left had been letting her use their network.

she can't connect to ours through all the concrete, so she asked me if i could help her get internet installed. we then discovered that already did have internet installed, and we could upgrade her connection for less money than she was already paying. eventually, we managed to get her password sorted out, and her devices connected, and she was really happy.

she then informed me that she was particularly grateful because her husband and son both passed away many years ago, and the rest of her family is too far away to help with this sort of thing... so that was heartbreaking. it was interesting to learn that her daughter's a published poet.

afterwards, she gave me a super-sharp knife for gd and i came back home, gd responded by going to visit her and i took mr smear out to run errands. i asked the mongoose for advice and he invited me to join him and his daughter at dizengoff, so mr smear and i made our way there. stopping for an emergency breakfast sandwich along the way.

our mission at the center was really fun. we all had a good time, between the robotics and the games and the comics and the figures and the toys, although we didn't end up buying anything. and mr smear got a taste of a proper synthesizer at the music store :)

we ended up having lunch with them as well, even though that wasn't the plan, and after they rushed off for toddler nap-time we made our way home for a quiet, lazy afternoon and evening.

i started playing disco elysium. i'm enjoying it, it's brilliant, but after quite a few hours i still don't really understand what the game actually is. i mean, i want to solve the mystery, of course, but i get the feeling that that's merely a superficial element...

today:

aside from a midday excursion to discover a nearby park that tahoma suggested and pick up ingredients so that gd could make tabouleh for my mother, and an evening excursion to the climbing wall, today was very much spent indoors resting and playing video games.

the climbing wall experience was excellent, and mr smear got to the top of the really high wall he's been working on for the last couple of sessions.

it's now 11pm and i've got to be up at 4am to fetch my mom from the airport, so i think i'm going to go to bed pretty soon.

probably.

carb bomb

 it's the middle of the night, i'm not sure what woke me up but it just might be the indigestion from two different pizzas.

we were celebrating. not just our anniversary, but that gd isn't - or is no longer, we'll never know - allergic to hazelnuts! it was a really long morning for her, and unfortunately she's still allergic to kiwis, but being able to stop worrying about hazelnuts is absolutely huge.

mr smear was mostly pretty cool today. he didn't care much for the "old lady" dog in the office, which is just as well because her dogsitter (it's his parents' dog) found fleas on her in the afternoon... he had a great time playing inscryption, though, and now understands why i'm so into it ^_^

gd's feet were hurting (new shoes), so i had to take him home and come back during the hottest part of the day...

i spent most of my work hours struggling with minor nonsense, but finished quite strong. so that's the week done, and i'm really hoping to be able to take this weekend slowly.

winding down / gearing up

tomorrow's going to be a big day: gd's got her allergy challenge in the morning, so mr smear and i will accompany her there before we head off to my office. where i still need to decide whether i should apologize to one of my coworkers for get upset during a ridiculous argument three of us were having about TODOs in code.

i probably should.

aside from that, i managed to get a huge and important piece of work done today - not only are my boss and coworkers apparently impressed, but it's opened some doors i wasn't anticipating so i'm quite excited to try and stuff some stretch goals into the sprint.

oh, and there was an early 4th of july celebration* in the office with crack pie, and the vegan option was truffles. insanely delicious truffles. ömg.

* oh! tomorrow's the 4th of july. happy independence day to any american readers, and happy dependence day to me and my wife!

...

i rollerbladed to work this morning, relatively comfortably. i had to pick up a package from a post office i'm not familiar with, so i left the office a bit early and skated all the way to ramat aviv. i should've stuck to the shady side of the road, even if the paving isn't as good. by the time i arrived there i was melting, and my shoulder hurt from my heavy backpack being at a bad angle, and i still had to get home afterwards.

i thought maybe it was a wet-bulb temperature thing, but it doesn't look like it had anything to do with it.

anyway, the new wrist pads i picked up seem... fine.

...

inscryption - kaycee's mod to be precise - is thoroughly insane. it's hard not to get hooked, and it honestly feels like i'm trapped in an abusive relationship. but the satisfying moments? the insane plays that make one feel like a god? holy shit, they're worth it. even if i tend to get crushed shortly after.

i mean, i still haven't beaten the game once yet. i've reached the final boss twice, been crushed once and "quit while i'm ahead" a little while ago.

...

speaking of gaming; steam's summer sale is on, and i picked up a couple of interesting-looking games very cheaply. disco elysium and the witcher 3. and i was just wondering earlier if i'm not spending too much of my personal time unproductively :P

corrective

 yesterday was great. mr smear came to the office with me; he had a great time, he was well-behaved, he spent his screentime making cool things in blockbench and playing constructive games (opus magnum, antichamber, poly bridge), and he was very happy with the salad he put together for lunch.

hopefully tomorrow will go well too.

work-wise it was a long but productive day. i was relieved in the evening when the psyops talk i thought was happening turned out to be cancelled. gd and i listened to the harry potter audiobook together while i played inscryption. and then we went to bed.

this morning has been very relaxed, and now i'm off to work.

reset and repeat

 today was an interesting day, particularly around mr smear. we had about four separate incidents, each one starting with trouble, then resolving (in all cases but one) quickly, and resulting in a "good talk" with good vibes and a productive sense of accomplishment.

gd was supposed to go to a class this morning, but is instead going tomorrow, so mr smear will be coming to the office with me. he's really excited, i'm excited but praying that everything's cool. my boss is weird about kids (even though he's a new dad), hopefully everything will be smooth.

apparently his session with his hebrew tutor went well. and this evening our climbing wall session went amazingly well. he arrived with a good attitude, and definitely levelled up! he went to bed really late though...

my hand's still messed up.

work was pretty good today. slow and steady, and ended with a surprising victory (we all thought what i was doing wouldn't work - it initially didn't work, and then magically it did. maybe golang really is okay with multiple binaries in the same module?)

i had a hard time with eating/not eating today.

numbness

inscryption is hard. and kaycee's mod is even harder. but i keep playing, i keep tasting success, i keep getting crushed.

it's now 1am, i should probably be going to bed.

...

the school year ended on a good day for mr smear, so that's good. his day ended on a not-so-good note, which was entirely my fault, and i hope i managed to smooth it over. that was bedtime, but the rest of the evening together was pretty good, and we had a pretty good time playing table tennis together after i came home from work.

work itself was good. i didn't realize i was on-call until halfway through the day - so there's that - but i made good progress on my latest project and i'm feeling alright about its timeline.

oh... and our "face-picker" sat next to me today, and once i noticed i just couldn't unsee how long his fingernails are. i really, *really* wanted to say something, but i cleverly kept my mouth shut. there's no way i could have said anything that would've come across as kind and supportive...

...

otherwise, i'm generally feeling a bit numb. i'm avoiding anything political / war-related, and my head's not right for getting anything useful done right now. maybe i should focus? or maybe i should give my soul a rest.

i should probably give myself a rest.