reversal

 WELL. we went to our friends for dinner last night, and aside from enjoying a really nice evening with them - and eating too much delicious food - we were all completely taken by surprise when mr smear and their daughter forgot their rivalry and just had a really good time together!

today was mostly relaxed, we played rayman: legends (we've restarted from scratch, and we're generally playing pretty well together), and we watched the second installment of pirates of the caribbean. so that was a great start to a saturday.

in the afternoon we all went out to play table tennis, which would have been nice except for a) mr smear throwing a wobbly on the way that generated a lot of unhappiness and b) the apparently-biting flies (both gd and mr smear complained about them) and wasps around the table.

so after all the drama in getting there, and the minor success in mr smear deciding he wanted to play, we ended up getting out of there without much playtime.

i had a good chat with horseman, though it's tough hearing how much he's been struggling (he's been suffering from chronic pain, he's in montreal where the only effective care is private, and he's had to quit his counselling job and has limited benefits that are running out).

in the evening, i put on my blades, mr smear got on his bike, we picked up our friend's daughter on hers and we went to the climbing wall together, for the last time on the three-month membership we bought. the kids were cool, and the evening was largely successful (her father and brother joined us after a while).

after a few walls mr smear decided he was done, but not after doing something that i had to punish him for. minor, but still. towards the end, i struck a bargain with him that i instantly regretted the moment i heard it coming out of my mouth - two more "goes" to drop the punishment.

gosdsdammit, i'm the one who's being trying to reinforce the idea that punishments are not transactional. fuck, fuck, fuck. afterwards, i explained to him that i'd made a mistake and that that won't be happening again...

the ride home was alright, and the rest of the evening was alright. now it's our bedtime, we have a big day tomorrow - first day of school, and ari's pain clinic appointment, at the same hour. whoo!

it's okay

 the morning went alright. we hit the mall early, and after some consulting with the parents' group i think we got the right thing - an actual tanach for mr smear. and then a bunch of stuff at the pharmacy and grocery store.

and then a bread and a bagel and a... pretzel thingy at the bakery.

we came home, dropped everything off, then turned around and caught a bus to south tel aviv. we got to the store without incident, and picked up our couch cushions. the ones we paid for almost half a year ago. along the way i tried to explain the time value of money to mr smear. and that it's not exactly stealing, but kind of stealing, when you promise goods in return for money and delay the delivery for an unreasonably long time.

on the way home, we stopped at a coffee shop for coffee and apple juice. we all had a good time, right until we didn't - so that kinda sucked - but by the time we left we were alright again. the walk to the bus took infinity time because of the light rail construction, so we ended up at a light rail station and used that to get home instead.

i quite like the light rail.

the afternoon has been spent relaxing, with a good chunk of it devoted to an exciting rewatch of the first pirates of the caribbean movie. so that was awesome. now we're all chilling until it's time to go to our friends - or frenemies, in mr smear and their daughter's case :P

in the middle of the night

 it's 4am. i've spent half the night tossing and turning, mostly responding to a message from a friend about whether or not canada is dangerous for jews. i don't know how dangerous it is right now if you don't openly identify, but i do know that gd and i both know people who've gone off the rails on pro-hamas / antisemitic propaganda, we have friends and family who either don't feel it's safe, or have cut off communication. did we make the right decision to stay? we didn't really have many options. financially, we definitely wouldn't have managed... 

also, i've been physically uncomfortable and restless. so i got up a while ago, and have been doomscrolling social media.

now i've responded to that message, and am left just feeling sleepless and sad.

*sigh*

ugh.

i rollerbladed to work this morning, after a relaxed start to the day. i arrived at the office and realized i'd forgotten my wrist pads, and sandles. so that's where my head was at, at the beginning of the day.

fortunately, the security guard let me roll into the building.

i don't recall how many "i hate my life"s came out of me today, but let's just say that me and frontend dev are not vibing right now. and it didn't help that for about three hours - between lunch and "happy hour" - i was repeatedly disturbed by sudden and aggressive needs to go to the toilet every few minutes. wtf? i was trying so hard to solve a real life puzzle (which i didn't really manage to solve by the end of the day), by the time i left the office i was done in multiple ways.

i got home, showered, and played rayman: legends with mr smear until dinner. then we continued watching x-men, and then it was bedtime, and then it was pay bills time, and now it's i-don't-know-what-i'm-doing-or-want-to-do-but-i-feel-shitty time.

tomorrow's the last opportunity to sort out school shopping for mr smear. tomorrow evening i have an exciting call scheduled with sailor. right now, though?

ugh.

progress

 yesterday:

another clinic visit in the morning on the way to work. buying a laffa for lunch but being served a pita instead, "paying" them to not have to go back inside. meetings in the morning and struggling not to fall asleep in the afternoon.

a good evening, but issues with mr smear around and after bedtime, making for a long, shit feeling until my own.

today:

a somewhat decent night's sleep, weird but forgotten dreams.

on the way to work, i dropped off the shoes gd's returning at the post office. the post office experience was okay, but the people were weird. especially the older woman who kept bashing into some guy's scooter (even immediately after apologizing for doing it), and the woman who was in a hurry because she'd left her baby somewhere bothered me.

i walked and talked with my mom on the way to the bicycle repair shop, not sure if the bike would even be there. almost there, the call cut off, and i couldn't call back - i only understood later that my ear had hit the airplane mode button :/

i arrived at the shop and asked about the bike. the good news? the bike was there, and the bike was repaired! the bad news? once there, i *had* to pick it up and i had to carry it all the way home. by the time i got home i was seriously sweating, and not only that but i was running late to a meeting...

... i managed to get to azrieli center in time for the meeting, and parked myself in the food court. this was fine at first. the first guy i spoke to was pretty professional. after five/ten minutes he realized he was in over his head and brought in a dev.

the dev joined the call wearing a wife-beater and with one arm holding a cigarette out the window next to his desk 😂

we spent the next forty five minutes finding the first bug, but the next one was on them and we eventually called it and agreed to meet again. by that stage the end-of-summer-holidays crowds had filled the food court and the rest of the mall, it was loud and unpleasant, and getting out to the street was anxiety-inducing.

i arrived at work just as everyone was planning on going out to eat. i'd brought lunch from home, but i joined them anyway - i recently read somewhere that nobody ever remembers when you worked through lunch, but they remember when you impacted them socially, so i've been making a point of not skipping lunches / happy hours.

i didn't want to eat, but i hadn't had my usual second coffee and i stumbled upon a fruit shake place selling vegan coffee shakes made with dates and bananas, and that sounded really good. unfortunately, i didn't think to ask about the price until the shake was already ready, and i was shocked to discover it was more than the cost of a meal. it wasn't just me, my coworkers were shocked too.

it was delicious, to be fair, but i won't be doing that again.

the rest of the work day was... not bad, but difficult. i've been struggling with frontend shenanigans for two days, and it's been very frustrating. every time i've gotten one thing working, another's fallen apart.

in the middle of it all, i had my second bi-weekly (every two weeks) meeting with my boss. i was expecting to discuss how things have been, considering that the last meeting was quite negative, but i guess things are fine because we chatted awkwardly about family and argued gently about traditional weddings - i've never been to a wedding with groomsmen.

anyway, there was a visceral moment this evening, around 5pm, when i suddenly, luckily - nay, miraculously - got everything working the way i wanted it. i spent most of the next hour tidying things up for a code review, and then walked home.

the evening has been mostly positive.

skull storm

i've just completed the skull storm challenge. it was the last holdout achievement for me. i have been on edge the entire run, with a wacky deck that had just as much chance - no, more chance - of crashing and burning than of getting through three rounds of grizzlies and everything else leshy had to throw at me.

pictures for illustration:

an eclectic insect deck with an insect/hive totem - first time i've ever played that

me drawing my unkillable, fired-up mantis god copy (the bad copy without the annoying sigil) in the starting hand of the final battle.

what a trip!

for months i've been playing almost daily, pausing only to play through hex for the first time, and for months i've been unable to wrap my head around just how utterly, absurdly brilliant this game is / all the daniel mullins games are.

i just posted a thank you in the discord to everyone whose comments pulled me back in when i got frustrated, and whose suggestions helped me think a bit differently ✌️ 🙏 🤯 

back to front

 yeah, it wasn't a great night's sleep, but it was definitely an improvement. so that's good.

i started the day with a walk to the hospital, after discovering that gd and i had completely missed her appointment we waited months to be able to make. by months. the appointment was mid-may.

mid-may.

goddamn.

anyway, i managed to secure one for only a couple of weeks' time, and i managed to sort out some more stuff at the clinic along the way home.

...

mr smear's drawing is incredible. he drew a knight on a horse, waving a flag, in motion, yesterday, and today he doodled (on a computer with a mouse) detailed images of among us characters that completely blew us away.

...

i spent most of my work day involved in frontend fuckery. i've managed to get the results i wanted, under very particular circumstances, and the underlying code is ugly and i have no idea what it's actually doing.

it's kinda embarrassing.

i went over all the extracurricular activities the school is offering, misread how much it would cost, got both gd and mr smear excited about them, and then realized we couldn't afford it. i'm struggling to wrap my head around how the arts and music programmes cost between the same amounts as the school fees and double the school fees, and that's on top of the school fees.

where are the other parents getting all this money?

anyway, gd took mr smear to his hebrew tutor, and i took him to his jiujitsu class. for the most part, his day went well and mine was pretty successful. and gd's doing well enough emotionally that she's actually been able to read for the first time in ages. so that's good.

it was fun chatting with a cousin my mom was visiting while putting mr smear to bed. afterwards, we continued reading the goblet of fire but i had to stop because the book's version of events at the quidditch world cup were far too much like what's actually happening with us and hamas/hezbollah.

holy shit.

quiet

 the workday was... frontend. i spent the morning figuring out and successfully replicating echarts' tooltip rendering, only to discover that they've recently added a method that completely obviated the need for doing so. otherwise, it was a constructive day but psychologically costly, as in it cost me more snacking than i'm happy to admit to keep me keeping on.

i was reminded of the interview i bombed a couple of years ago, when i said i was "full stack" but not so good with making things look nice, and they tested me as a frontend. in my current role, i'm the most frontend guy in the team and it's clear how much more comfortable i am with the html/css/javascript ick.

i called the furniture store, who we ordered cushions from about half a year ago. apparently they've been in their warehouse for a while, and they haven't retrieved them yet. not one piece of information in that sentence makes any sense to me.

anyway, the day was alright, and the evening was pretty pleasant. i've spent the past few hours trying to wear myself out with games (inscryption and bloons) and youtube videos, and i'm not quite sure i'm ready to sleep yet... i mean, i'm pretty tired, but my back's hurting and i'm worried it's going to end up being more of the same from last night :/

compulsions

 i'm really not sleeping well. friday night was a bit better, but still rough, and last night was pretty horrible. i did have some really weird dreams, though, when i finally did pass out a few hours ago. in one of them i was being harrassed by an "undercover" black man when i saw his red-haired manager plant something in his bag. that ended with me physically attacking the manager, but although i was beating him up we had that weird dream-thing going on where my attacks were doing a lot less damage than they would have in real life.

there was another dream, too, but the moment i described the first one that one melted away... something about a sandwich named "jamothy" and a vegan tuna wrap named "vuna vovegood".

yesterday was all over the place. firstly, i got up with a bee in my bonnet about obtaining the missing inscryption achievements (666 damage and deleting the captive file). that didn't take very long (thank god i tried the stim mage tactic, because the ouroboros one was extremely tedious), but even after obtaining them i continued playing through the end of the game again because i was enjoying the deck i built.

the afternoon was mostly spent relaxing and napping.

i had a talk with my mother about our argument the other day, i hope what i said landed.

in the evening, mr smear and i walked to the climbing wall. the walk there was nice in itself, but there were a lot more kids than usual so mr smear had to queue to get on walls, and by the third one he got emotional. i tried to talk to him after he calmed down a little, but he said some really hurtful things and i needed to walk them off.

we met outside, and started on our way back, and i was trying to find a way to tell him how he made me feel without making him feel the same. it looks like i succeeded, but that opened up a proper fight over him going to the summer school and after school programmes, and i sat him down on a bench and talked (okay, there was some yelling) him through what we, as his parents, saw and went through.

suddenly, the look on his face changed and he apologized for what he'd said, and we both took some breaths and had a very grown-up conversation about it all. that continued into the walk home, and the rest of the evening went well.

this morning was going well until he thought i was teasing him about his accent (i wasn't), and we had a whole different shit-show. eventually resolved, but not without me stress-sweating. and it turns out the new anti-persperant that gd insisted on me buying doesn't work well for me, and she subsequently insisted on me getting rid of it :/

...

anyway, i've just arrived at work and am about to begin my day. everyone's nervous because we stopped a massive missile attack aimed at tel aviv, and i just cannot figure out why we're supposed to be more worried today than yesterday, before we stopped it. or the past two weeks, when they've been threatening it. or the past eleven months, when they've been attacking us non-stop.

if it was up to me, i would've dropped flyers on quatar and tehran weeks ago, waited a few days, and then bombed the shit out of them.

slowdown

i slept a bit better, but still not great.

today began busily. we started off on a mission to get mr smear's gear for the new school year, and neither i nor the poor kid at the stationery store could make heads or tails of some of the items on the list. mr smear and i had a really good conversation on our way into the mall, and if he remembers any of it i think he's going to have a much better year.

mr smear got really excited about vine leaves and cauliflower schnitzel, so we splurged. it was outrageously expensive, but i kinda wanna encourage him anyways.

after getting home and eating a bit, we all took his bike to the repair shop. it was a long, long walk in the heat, which hasn't been this oppressive since my mother left... i had an unpleasant and weird moment with a woman who arrived after us, but cut in front of us. if i'm honest with myself, i shouldn't have been waiting so politely for someone to get to me. anyway, we left them the bike and my phone number, not a clue when they'll get back to me.

on the way home we stopped for lemonade and to get mr smear a half-pita of falafel, which he thoroughly enjoyed. gd says he's entering his "eating" phase. if that's true, i'm good with that.

the afternoon was spent very lazily. we tried watching my dinner with andre, which i found somewhat interesting before i passed out and which gd walked out on pretty quickly. i invited mr smear to join me as i played through the ending of inscryption, and we both enjoyed that. we ended up watching quite a few videos about it, and i'm now playing through act ii again just to get an achievement i missed, and there's a final kaycee's mod achievement that i missed as well...

in the evening, i tricked mr smear into watching some of fantasia with us, which he enjoyed a lot more than he thought he would.

we just finished a late kiddush / dinner, and everyone's getting ready to go to bed.

the feelings

tuesday:

my boss didn't like my approach. we argued about it for a bit, after which he decided to put the work on hold while he thought about it. it's frustrating, but the fact that i've seen that one of my coworkers is working on fixing an underlying issue, the discovery of which was through my efforts and which i've been saying needs to be taken care of, is at least a little comforting.

our new sprint began, and almost all of my work is frontend. i'm strangely okay with that.

on tuesday evening i took mr smear with me when i went to the school to pick up his books for the next year. the summer holidays are almost over...

after putting him to bed, gd told me she'd been feeling really sad. i didn't know what to do with that information.

yesterday:

yesterday morning was going alright until gd said something that triggered a fight, a fight about how she's been dealing (or not dealing) with the past 11 months of war and trauma, but really a fight about how and when she communicates (or doesn't) with me about it.

so the day started off really shitty for both of us, but by the time i got to my office building i'd managed to transform my anger into something more constructive and we both found ourselves in a better place.

the work day was alright, which was a big deal considering how not alright it's been for week or two prior. everything was okay, everything was put on the table during the retrospective and the vibe was less tense in general.

when i got home, gd and i had a talk. a lot of the time, i say things and she says things and we talk past each other, but last night we not only heard each other, but i managed to put things to her in a way that she clearly heard, and not only did she immediately feel better about things but she's been doing a lot better over the course of today.

and even that is more than either of us expected.

i passed out on the couch immediately after putting mr smear to bed. nothing knocks me out faster than reading to him.

today:

around midnight, i was able to drag myself off the couch and get into bed. doing that, however, woke me up just enough to be too conscious of the stiffness around my hips to be able to get back to sleep, but i was also too tired to get up. even for a little bit. that went on for a few hours, and although i occasionally had the strength to get up and move around it would wear out within minutes and i'd need to lie down and suffer again.

i don't know how long it was before i finally fell asleep, but i'm guessing three of four hours of that.

my alarm clock woke me up at 7am, and i rushed everyone else up, grabbed a cup of coffee in a takeaway cup and walked to the post office. i arrived there just past eight, picked up gd's shoes, then walked back. it was hot, and i was pretty sweaty by the time i got home.

i didn't even take my shoes off, just gulped down a cup of water in the entrance and then we all went to the bus stop with gd's sewing machine to head down to the sewing machine repair shop. it was a long ride, with some very... interesting... people, and gd regretfully informed me that i need to start wearing deodorant 💀

we arrived at the shop just after 9am, and we were out of there in about ten minutes. i took a bus to work and they took a bus home.

the work day was - socially - good. all good. the work itself was difficult, parts of it quite unpleasant, really, and it was really hard to focus on it. but i eventually got it 98% completed, and my boss agrees that if i can't finish it within the first couple of hours on sunday then it'll be good enough as is.

i had a long chat with our cape town community director, and it was a huge relief to hear that by and large they've shifted (ideologically) to a stronger (and right) position vis-a-vis the war and zionism. gd still has reservations, but i'm glad that they didn't cater to the pro-palestinian nonsense.

i ate too much cake during our happy hour.

on the way home, i contacted urchin who informed me that she's finally signed a contract with a new employer! we're really excited for her, she's been miserable for ages and the new gig (on paper, at least) sounds way better in every respect :)

the evening was mostly good, although we had to stop watching harry potter during the scene in which bellatrix interrogates hermione because gd couldn't handle it. our national PTSD with the hostage situation is very real.

before and after putting mr smear to bed, my mother and i had a really heavy argument about her and aliyah and a lot of it was really unpleasant. at the very end, i feel like she at least heard me, but i don't know what good that'll do.

if she chooses to stay in south africa, or at least not prepare to make aliyah before the universe forces it on her, the most likely outcome is that we'll all be in big trouble. but she's a big girl and only she can make that call.

overload

 today wasn't easy. it started with financial stress, and borrowing money from my mother again. that's really not a good feeling. gd and i had a serious talk about strategy from her end, which i feel was constructive, and an argument about shopping brought out a story from her childhood she's never shared with me before, something that's pretty useful to know.

i worked from home today, and mr smear was being difficult. i had a call with last week's coworker of the week, and the tone seemed pretty positive.

my work day was 95% battling to understand why my tests were flaking out, which was a quintessentially frustrating experience. especially considering that even the source of the flakiness was flaky.

in the afternoon i took mr smear to his jiujitsu class, but he was the only kid there. i convinced him to help out his teacher with promotional material, and they made what from the side appear to be really funny videos. if the videos don't come out as funny, i personally got to witness absolute hilarity in their production :)

i'm concerned about mr smear's neck - he really doesn't understand how important it is to keep his neck stiff when standing on his head. or use his arms to carry his weight. i really hope he doesn't end up with a neck like his parents'...

while mr smear's behavior while we were out was good, it regressed as soon as we got home. gd informed me that it's been days of that - i'd thought everything was going smoothly - and we had a couple of tense "conversations" before he appeared to remember his place. the rest of the evening went pretty smoothly as far as he was concerned.

another coworker called me just as mr smear was going to bed, and he confirmed that the theory i'd come up with only minutes before made sense, and pointed me towards the source. i think he was quite surprised that i came up with a solution as quickly as i did, and once he understood what i was getting at he seemed enthusiastic. hopefully my boss will feel the same tomorrow.

earlier i completed a survey from the school, it looks like they're making a play for controlling the kids' screentime and access to mobile devices. i don't trust their judgement in the slightest.

gd and i watched the first bit of the director's cut of donnie darko before she crashed, and although it's been a couple of decades i was amazed by how familiar i felt with the characters and scenes!

after gd went to bed, i had a quick chat with my mom and then fired up inscryption. i meant to play until i was ready to pass out, but it's almost 1am and i've just completed act iii for the second time. only this time, i unlocked loads more stuff, built a ridiculously overpowered and fun deck, and encountered some puzzles and scenes i'd completely missed the first time around. i'm really happy i decided to play through again.

otherworldly

 today was a weird day. i was on-call, but fortunately the only thing i needed to deal with could wait until i was back in the office... mr smear and i accompanied gd to the dermatologist, deep in the heart of bnei brak. on the bus there we discussed - for mr smear's benefit - the differences and similarities between the ultra-orthodox and us, and he was fascinated.

we arrived half an hour earlier than the scheduled appointment time, and just as the electricity in the building began to flicker, which messed up the queue system. we walked a bit to find a store where i could get a coffee and gd and mr smear could get something cold to drink, and the two of them picked up parve (but not vegan) potato burekas which they both agreed was absolutely delicious.

fortunately, due to my not wanting to burn my tongue i took the lid off my coffee before tasting it, so i had the opportunity to see that they'd put milk in it and take it back for a replacement.

we ended up waiting quite a while for the doctor, but once we saw him he was absolutely worth the wait. he was patient, and thorough, and explained his thinking while actually doing something to help gd. apparently, what she's managed to develop is a "nail-shaped corn" driving straight into her foot. he performed the conservative treatment, and we're all hoping it's good enough and that she won't end up needing surgery.

getting back to tel aviv took forever, partially because the first bus skipped our stop, and partially because of the ridiculous traffic through bnei brak...

i was hungry by 2pm when i finally got into the office, but i had some challah and a couple of tiny pieces of mr smear's breakfast wraps, and a banana, and aside from that and a couple of energy bars i was very good about not snacking today.

i had a big dinner to make up for it, but all healthy stuff :) i registered yesterday that over the past week i've been getting flabbier again - not heavier, but definitely more "meaty" than i'd like :/

the work day felt marginally successful, and i walked home in time for dinner. we continued watching the seventh harry potter movie, and then it was mr smear's bedtime, and then i sat down for some more inscryption time.

i discovered the bone lord in act iii, which i hadn't heard of before, and i beat the mycologists in a way that scored me an *amazing* card even though i hadn't read how that mechanism works (i just got lucky).

oh, and i've started doing an exercise that i saw online today, seems like it might actually be good for my hip / waist issues.

making memories

 phew.

last night i told mr smear we'd go out early this morning and head to the beach. he wasn't too enthusiastic then, but in the morning he absolutely refused to go to the beach. i managed to talk him down, compromising on the beach itself but not on going for a ride.

we enjoyed a fun ride down to the beach. when we got there, mr smear didn't follow my instructions to use the stair guide for bikes and dropped his bike, obliterating his front brake.

so that kind of sucked. but at least the rear brake was still good.

then, as we got to the bottom of the stairs, on a beautiful, perfect-beach-weather morning, with relatively few beachgoers and fantastic conditions, he said: "dad, i wanna go to the beach."

godsdammit.

we didn't have beach gear, because we'd gorram agreed not to the go to beach.

anyway. we rode down the promenade for a bit, then he decided he was ready to turn back. on the way, we stopped to get him a fanta, and then a fruit shake. we ended up sitting on a bench for quiet a while, just chatting and enjoying being where we were.

it was pretty cool.

eventually we decided it was time to go home, and by then it had gotten a lot hotter. by the time we got home, we were sweaty, and ready for some a/c, and three hours had gone by.

it was a good morning.

after showering, we enjoyed a big breakfast (neither of us had eaten, he hadn't been interested when i offered), and then settled in to watch gremlins 2, which we'd agreed to hold off on until it was daytime so he wouldn't be scared. he made it through about half the movie before decided to nope on out, primarily because it was too gory (all the slime :P).

he and gd then watched the aristocats, which they enjoyed. i didn't see much of it because i was passed out on the couch for the most part.

the rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur, but then we had some drama: mr smear had agreed to go out again, and we'd reminded him for about two hours beforehand that it was happening, and then the time came to go and he was not interested in going. it took a combination of convincing and coercing to finally get him out the door, but although the first minute or two were quiet and uncomfortable he suddenly opened up and started talking about the games he remembers from the ps3 back in south africa. that led to a conversation about nostalgia, and about how our moments together now will be something i already know i'll have nostalgia for, and about rebelliousness and teenage hormones and how no matter what he feels we'll always have his back.

we ended up taking a rather long walk through the park, and we both enjoyed it. it was a very good end to a very good day. we got him in time for a second shower, a delicious dinner and the first part of the seventh harry potter movie, and a pleasant bedtime.

and then some more inscryption, act iii. i just discovered the mycologists for the first time 🤯

*sighs deeply*

i think i'm in a better place today than i've been for a while. hopefully that translates to a better work week. regardless, today was a day full of stuff i'm grateful for.

friday

 i'm tired. probably going to bed soon. it was a... a day. not bad, really, but there's still a bad aftertaste from the week left in my mouth. i guess i need to make an effort to get my head into a better space, not just to enjoy the weekend but to try to start the new week on the right foot...

the three of us started the day at the mall, which was a predominantly unsuccessful attempt at getting gd sorted with footwear that doesn't hurt her, but i did pick up a couple of minecraft comics in hebrew for mr smear.

then we came home and played inscryption together on the playstation. then gd decided she wanted to go for an ice-cream, but mr smear didn't want to come with, so we left him here to roblox and we enjoyed a nice walk (and shared a small ice-cream, and then i picked up a falafel for a late lunch).

the late afternoon / evening was nice.

we finished rewatching the half-blood prince, and as amazed as mr smear was that something made so long ago could be so good, dumbledore's death caused him to break down in tears. but then he was fine...

after getting him into bed, i really wanted to complete inscryption's act ii properly, and i did. so that was good.

grinding down the week

yesterday:

work yesterday was hard, i was keenly conscious of my interactions with my coworkers and boss and generally feeling shit. not as shit as tuesday night, which i was anxious for most of, but still pretty shit.

i spent most of my work day generating test data and testing postgres support for and performance with jsonb columns. the results were... inconsistent. and i learned a lot about the limitations. jsonb in a postgres database can be incredibly powerful, but the table designer has to pay careful attention to the possible operations to make it work and ours... didn't.

last night i was in a zoom call where a group of us was briefed (unofficially) by an idf spokesperson. it was generally interesting, but of particular interest was him repeatedly expressing an (informed) opinion that really doesn't fit with how our government's been operating*, but is very much in line with what a whole lot of us believe.

* ie. listening to our ignorant western allies even though we have a much better idea of what we're up against and what's at stake

today:

still with the shit feeling around the office, but a bit more positive. socially the day was me just being (relatively) under the radar, but while i definitely got a lot done, it was a miserable experience. as far as i can tell i'm handling this in the best way we could under the circumstances, but the solution isn't sparking much joy. and it still needs much more serious testing. so that's what i'll be doing on sunday.

when i'm not taking gd into the heart of bnei brak for an emergency dermatologist appointment that i managed to organize for her this morning. i may have yelled a little bit.

mr smear and i had time to play some a virus named tom between my getting out the shower and dinner time, and that was quite a fun experience. he apparently had a pretty good day today, particularly at mma where the jiujitsu instructor wasn't feeling well so the kids had a class that was basically sports games and socializing.

that's fine by us.

...

i looked into dental insurance again this morning, it's not a thing. i'm in real pain (last year's filling "fix" damaged a nerve that radiates deep into my jaw) and gd's apparently got two teeth threatening to crack. we literally cannot afford to do anything about either right now.

the snap

 this morning started alright, but went downhill fast from the moment i looked at our upcoming expenses. i know where they come from, and i know why they're necessary, and it doesn't help me breathe any easier.

i went past the hospital to start organizing insurance authorization for gd, and then past an office depot where i picked her up a small book of plastic sleeves.

the work day seemed to start off alright, but by lunchtime we had some drama about what my ticket is all about, and i struggled to communicate with my boss. the afternoon was a mixed bag of agreements and disagreements, and then in the evening my boss and i had a one-on-one which went... not badly, but not great either.

i think we covered all the things in a constructive way, but one thing that he said to me has really made me feel shit and i've been down in the dumps all evening: i said something to my coworker the other night that was taken completely the wrong way, and i can't fault him for taking it that way even though it's absolutely not what i intended.

fuck.

ironically, after all the arguments of the day, my boss finally sat down and looked at what i was doing, and finally understood what i'd been trying to explain to him.

*sigh*

anyway, it looks like my approach might work, but i have some big testing to do tomorrow.

i wallowed all the way home, had a not-unpleasant evening (or, at least, nothing further unpleasant happened), mr smear (who seems to have had a good day) is now in bed, most of the dishes are done, and i'm feeling utterly done for the day.

oh, and gd found her headphones this afternoon.

oh, and both gd and i need root canals and crowns, apparently, and we can't afford the dental work.

oh, and along with everything else we're in a really stressful situation regarding the war. or not-war. i feel like we missed an enormous opportunity to outright attack iran today, specifically because it was tisha b'av and they were threatening to attack us. i believe that strategically the worst thing we can do, and it's what we're doing, is listen to our allies telling us not to escalate. the west is making a big mistake, and every day we don't take them down is another day closer to doomsday.

...

gd's progressing really well with her sewing, at least. hopefully she'll be able to start selling stuff soon.

coiled, uncoiled

 gd went to the dentist today to get a mold impression done, i stayed home and fought with mr smear about reading two pages from his hebrew translation of a miles moralis comic (hebrew homework). by fought, i mean i asked him to do it, tried to encourage him, and he stormed off and spent most of the morning in his bedroom, reading his kindle. eventually he came out, and did other stuff, and we were fine until gd came home.

she convinced him to do the reading pretty quickly, and he did the reading, pretty quickly. apparently he hadn't felt confident that he could do it (no nikud, or vowels). now he's confident that he can.

otherwise, the morning was intense and unpleasant. it started alright, with me reviewing my coworker's changes (he found a third way, and i feel it was a good compromise). but then my boss asked how things were going, which led to a phone call, which led to two upset people. he's upset because i've (apparently) been doing the wrong thing, i'm upset because what i was being asked to do didn't really come across very clearly.

so the rest of the day was spent focused, rushed, and stressed. BUT. towards the end of the day, i managed to figure something out that turned everything around; not only making things better in terms of me closing the ticket, but finding a better way to do things than they've been done until now.

i'm becoming a believer in postgres' JSON columns. if you know how to use them, they're incredibly powerful!

in the early afternoon i took mr smear to his hebrew tutor, who's just moved to a move convenient place, the only downside being that the coffee shop i sat at only had barista soy milk and that did a number on my stomache for the rest of the day :/

afterwards gd took mr smear to mma, where he had a really good class and is apparently socializing well with the other kids.

when they got home, gd had lost her headphones and that (for a number of reasons) triggered a bit of a fight. but we soon root-caused it and that revealed a couple of things that had been lurking... anyway, we're all good now.

i took mr smear for a walk to get dinner, realizing as we stepped out that it's tisha b'av which is a fast day. fortunately, we found something good, and we both enjoyed the food and the walks there and back together. the evening / bedtime was smooth and pleasant.

it's been a good evening / night so far. i finished the hex, which is short, but intense and amazing. absolutely brilliant, ingenius, and very, very evil. i don't really care much for doing All The Things (getting all the achievements and endings), but i've skimmed through a guide after completing it myself and it's an interesting read :)

my eyes are shutting, i'm going to try get some sleep.

obsession

the day started early for all of us. we made a good start on cleaning the big windows, and i accompanied gd and mr smear to the nearby swimming pool, which is pleasantly close and very nice indeed.

on the bus to work, i struggled with my bluetooth headphones, and almost lost my watch in the process. i still haven't got them quite right :/

the first order of the day was pushing the testing improvement, which worked well and went down well with the team.

most of the day was a difficult day, primarily because i'm working on something new (for me) and very complex. it was hard because of what i was doing, and because i was struggling to stay focused in the face of the tedium, and because my mind was distracting itself with thoughts of the hex.

i *am* obsessed with the hex.

but that's not all, i'm also obsessed with making sure our testing tools work for us*, and as much as i value my coworker's complementary competences, i don't feel that the direction he was planning on going on was going was the right one, and we ended up spending almost two hours arguing back and forth, both trying to compromise constructively...

* this is purely for selfish reasons, because in almost all my previous companies i'm the one who ended up having to deal with... suboptimal... implementations.

it was getting dark by the time i left the office. i came home just in time for dinner, which was delicious, while we watched the beginning of tad, the lost explorer and the emerald tablet, which is quite fun.

...

i'm exhausted.

restful

 i got some more sleep, then woke up to a quiet morning. including resting a little more, and reading some naruto, and playing more the hex.

i've played a lot of it today, it's really gotten in my head. it's... well, it's a daniel mullins game. it's real art, real subversion of expectations, and loads of fun.

mr smear had a video "playdate" with our old neighbor's kid, and then two of them ended up playing roblox together for a while and it seemed like they were having a really good time.

in the late afternoon, we all took a walk (the weather's been quite pleasant), ending up at vaniglia for really nice ice cream.

...

i've spent a lot of the past couple of days feeling grateful that we're here in tel aviv. that we had the privilege of being able to go into the debt we needed to in order to fight the canadian and israeli authorities and escape south africa. i've been remembering how trapped and scared we were, and i remember visualizing just being here.

we're very, very lucky to live in a place like this. even with the war going on. very, very lucky.

the hex

 i don't know what i was expecting, but in my head the hex is a murder-mystery game and gd might have enjoyed it with me. but it's daniel mullins, and a whole bucket of wtf, and it's too off-beat for gd but i'm definitely enjoying it.

i think?

i think.

it's 3.30am now, i woke up restless an hour or two ago and eventually got up and played it some more.

friday night dinner was good, and we're slowly re-watching x-men, and i don't know what happened but i began passing out at the table, shifted straight to the couch, and got up a few hours later to go to bed. now i'm tired, my brain's spinning on ugly disinformation social media posts i responded to during the day, and my neck hurts.

whoooo.

overflow

 i boiled over this morning, i'm doing what i can to take this afternoon as easy as possible.

the day began pretty simply, we got up, had coffee, i played through bloons: adventure time quests and caught up on stuff. then we woke mr smear up, fed him, and we left for the shuk. on the way to the bus, we ran into our old neighbor and his now six-month old son, and we had a good chat. i mean, the subject matter was tough, but it was nice talking to him.

the bad feelings began on the bus. not because the driver was driving recklessly (and throwing us about) - though that didn't help - but because there was a bunch of young people and nobody would give up their seats for the old people who climbed in.

and then it was a fight to get off the bus because of all the idiots blocking the doors, and it took a little while to start calming down. but by then we were in the shuk itself, and we were realizing that we weren't going to find what we were looking for, and then all the people around us were doing what mall people (yes, same thing) do, and then that started stressing me out...

then we walked down king george, but first we encountered an old rollerblading friend and i completely blanked on his name and got super weird and uncomfortable. we walked down to dizengoff center, where the security guard insisted on shaking my hand before letting us in.

*shakes head*

king george was unusually empty - obviously because lots of people are scared or scared away - but the mall was pretty full.

first a pit stop, then finding food, all through mall people. that part was good, and the tourist group doing a headphone party activity was amusing.

we hit the sports store and found gd a swimming cap, then took mr smear into the toysrus to see if there was anything he wanted for his birthday. this time i was the one who became overwhelmed, and progressively desperate for a cold drink and coffee. eventually, on the point of losing it, i rushed everyone out, very grateful for gd being in full support mode.

we got some cool drinks, then crossed the road to ozen hashlishi and sat down. i approached the baristas, who informed me that... that their coffee machine had broken down. the big man i'd assumed was a barista was actually the technician. i looked her in the eyes, and explained that i was desperate, and would settle for a turkish coffee if they had any.

they did.

and just as she was about to start preparing it for me, the technician announced that the machine was back in working order.

*relief*

still very anxious, we sat outside and i slowly calmed down over my latte, and then we hopped on a bus home.

i still had some leftovers and a bagel from our mall breakfast, so i figured i'd give it away if we came across anyone in need. there's an older homeless woman who i've seen a lot in the area lately - the last time i saw her she was fighting with some garbage men about *her* trash can - and i asked if she was interested. she said no, but told me there was another woman walking around who would be, and so i left it on the bench and said it was for that woman.

she began yelling at me. i tried to walk away, but she picked up the package and ran over to me because "she's got enough trouble of her own, she can't be helping other homeless people".

wtaf.

*sigh*

anyway, we came home, and i rested, and the rest of the afternoon's been all about playing games: inscryption (act ii of the story mode), and i roped mr smear into playing shivers with me because he wouldn't stop going on about scary games. overall, we had a fun experience together, and while the atmosphere totally creeped him out the jump scare (which i'd warned him was coming) didn't bother him too much. i think the proprietor's corpse was a bit much for him, though, but reading about the hieroglyphs seemed to distract him sufficiently.

...

now praying for a quiet weekend.

compulsion

i finally completed inscryption. like, for real. after posting, i simply couldn't stop playing until i hit the end of the credits. i enjoyed those last two runs so immensely that i kinda wanna start the entire game all over again.

but i desperately need to go to bed.

...

what an absolute masterpiece.

getting real-er

or, at least, it feels like it.

this is not an easy time.

this morning a motorcycle accelerated for a long time on the nearby highway, and mr smear yelled and jumped off the toilet in a panic. it's even harder seeing him affected...

today was an odd sort of a day, but also fairly standard too. gd and mr smear went to the pool that they discovered on an outing with my mom before she went back to south africa, and although gd's foot started hurting so badly they had to come back in a taxi, mr smear's swimming's getting stronger and he was having a great time.

my work day was pretty good. i had a good opportunity to apologize to my coworker in front of our boss, and i seized it, and i feel that smoothed things over. lunch was excellent - i had my usual salad, but i also ordered fries with the team so i could do the salt and vinegar thing (apparently one of my coworkers has been silently wondering for months what the heck i've been keeping in the plastic bottle on my desk).

i made progress on the big ticket i'm working on.

because of gd's foot, i had to take mr smear to mma today. all in all everything went well, both in getting there and back, and in the class itself. on the way home we went past the supermarket and i picked up a bunch of stuff, and for the first time mr smear actually helped me carry things home.

after watching some harry potter (we're on the sixth film), and reading some harry potter (we're on the fourth book), i settled in to complete a new medium article for the first time in a while, and in order to do so made the changes i described to our work repo (so... that was a personal-time contribution/favor). i'm very happy with the results.

war anxiety is stabilizing at extremely-high / wtaf-is-going-on-levels. life is feeling pretty surreal right now. we're making plans to go to the shuk tomorrow, but we're also waiting for the sirens to go off at any moment...

...

so, i've just completed challenge level 12 in kaycee's mod. with an AMAZING deck + totem. an infinite bee/ant generating machine. and i have to admit - i'd read about the final final boss, but there's an angle here (at the beginning of the run) that i really didn't anticipate and i'm not sure how to process it.

divine potential

why do i have the chorus to איש קש bouncing around my head?

i slept better last night, though not great, and took a much-needed easy morning. well, that's partially true. some of the morning was spent supporting gd with her war anxieties and trauma. i initially responded in a very unconstructive way, but i managed to get my head together pretty quickly and talk her through my perspective, and it seems to have helped. my perspective being that it's my job to do my job, and to keep abreast of what's happening, and hers to take care of herself and our son. the conversation ended on a very interesting spiritual note - she's been experiencing sporadic episodes of intense spirituality lately and i'm happy to accept and support anything that keeps her sane.

then i went to work, which turned out to be a very busy, but odd sort of day.

i needed to merge something which my coworker was certain would cause him trouble, and i was certain wouldn't. i merged it, and it messed his work up completely :(

i never fully trust git's merge strategy, but i've never seen it fail to abominably as it did today.

...

i came home in time for an early dinner with the family, and then at 8pm jumped onto a call with gco, sailor and gco's partner-in-crime that has the potential to be life-changing. the call went on for a couple of hours, and i feel like everyone dropped off with a greater sense of purpose.

now i've done the dishes, showered, and am trying to decide whether to try to go to bed, or let the buzzing in my head die down a bit first.

the big nine

it got worse before it got better. it took another couple of hours before i was finally able to get some sleep. during that time i watched random shit, did bloons: adventure time quests, and played inscryption.

i had a revelation while playing inscryption - instead of investing in beating the game, i made a conscious decision to try and just enjoy playing it. i also started "cheating" - the battles only save after they're over, so if you mess up you can just bail and continue from the previous save point.

i ended up completing the 11th challenge level of kaycee's mod before crashing.

the morning started off well, although i was still struggling to formulate a plan of action for when i arrived at the office.

mr smear turned nine years old today! we managed to make it really nice, and special, and he had a really good time. except for the bit where gd took him to the mall in the hope of finding something to engage him / a birthday present, but once they got there he just wanted to come home and wait for me to take them to goodness.

i had an intense day at work, which began with me taking aside my coworker (the "lead" from yesterday) and together we cleared the air and had a productive (albeit somewhat heated) discussion. the whole thing was an enormous relief. that was followed by sprint meetings where we took those points further, and aside from a moment in which my boss repeatedly told me to stop shouting at him* i felt that even the items i wasn't happy with were at least addressed and given some thought.

* i was fired up, everyone was talking over each other, and i hadn't realized i was shouting - so that was embarassing...

the rest of the day was pretty intense, but ultimately successful.

i walked home, and we got ready, and we took the bus to king george. the bus driver was a maniac, and although getting through to the bus' service agent was a frustrating mission it was really nice that the app we're using (rav-pass) makes it easy to get all the actual bus's details and i could be sure that the bus company knows exactly who i was reporting.

our experience at goodness was excellent. the service was a bit off - though it was understandable as they were very short-staffed - and they no longer server the dish mr smear was specifically excited about, but the food and drinks we ordered were delicious and the experience overall was fantastic. not least of which being that mr smear behaved well even by an adult's standards, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself and his food, and the whole thing was just a real pleasure and felt worth the expense.

we got home reasonably early, and after showering and drawing we had a smooth bedtime. all in all, it was a grand day for mr smear ^_^

now... praying to be able to catch up on some of the sleep i missed last night. the war anxiety's still there, and it's *very* frustrating that our western allies are asking us to shoot ourselves (and our credibility) in the foot by exercising restraint, and we've already suffered more casualties up north. here's praying for a peaceful night 🙏

four

 four goddamned hours. i haven't been able to sleep. i don't think there's anything physical going on this time, but i've got a massive load of anxiety that's been making my head spin. some of it from the war, sure. i even wrote the following to sailor in response to him asking how we're doing:

you know that weird thing where people will stick with a shit situation rather than risk an unknown one? well, the unknown is literally all we have right now, a huge stinking pile of it. nobody has a clue what direction things are going in, never mind how they'll turn out, so i guess we're all just riding the abyss and praying we don't get swallowed while we're definitely already being swallowed.

someone i served with called it "warception", when you're in a war worrying about things escalating to a new war. even though we've been at war for 75 years already.

but a lot of it - according to the thoughts that have been attacking me mercilessly - to do with my coworkers' bullshit.

ugh.

i just want to rest.

the vibes

 today was not a great day. some of it was okay, but a lot of it was pretty shit.

a large part of that shit was a bunch of weird or annoying issues at work, and two probably-unintentionally obstructive coworkers. and i was working at home, so there was some unpleasantness initially because mr smear (as usual) didn't get that i couldn't be available for him the entire time.

on the other hand, mr smear did get the hang of his first minecraft command, which he was very proud of. he also - with very little encouragement - made his own breakfast.

gd came home from her sewing lesson very excited about what she's learning, so that's cool too.

in the afternoon, i took mr smear to mma. the first part of the journey was a stuff-up because they've changed the bus route and we had a much longer walk to get there. the second part of the journey was a stuff-up because mr smear got angry with me for something (i'm trying to teach him road safety, it's hard), and then didn't like the fact that his direct rudeness got an immediate and unpleasant reaction.

the unpleasantness became really intense, including a fight with a thornbush that i'd never noticed before, and i got him to sit down and try to calm down and change the mood before we went downstairs to the gym itself. 

we were kinda doing better by the time we entered the gym (although he did respond to "how're you?" with "not good"), and once he was on the mats and seemed okay i went out to call and update gd.

by the time i returned, i found the teacher sitting with him, and him in tears. i don't know what they said to each other, but at some point i found a way to intervene and i took him aside and gave him some support, and managed to get him to go back in.

he switched up and did well for the rest of the lesson, while i sat on my computer mixing all those shitty feelings with additional new ones from my coworkers.

ugh.

anyway, the way home was pretty good, and after his shower we sat down and talked and what i had to say went over surprisingly well. nothing different to what i've been saying before, but we both seemed to be communicating a bit better.

after making *some* (unappreciated) progress, we had an early dinner, watched some more x-men (we're still around episode six of the first original season, but this time mr smear's really into it), and then i read some more goblet of fire to him at bedtime.

i've played a couple more attempts of inscryption, which made me feel pretty shit about myself and my luck, and am now trying to figure out what the smartest way to end this annoying day could be.

...

today was / would have been ariel bibas' fifth birthday. we're waiting impatiently to see what happens with the threats of impending escalation from iran, and have invested some of the day trying to make sure that our bomb shelter's in a reasonable state. gd's really struggling with the anxiety, i'm occasionally looking at news and trying not to be more irritable / depressed / despondent.

tomorrow will be mr smear's ninth birthday.

eye gong

depression/wartime anxiety is making every little task overwhelming. gd's been having a very hard time the past few days - we all have - but her in particular. we were talking about it during the day, and i think i know what it is: being under attack is scary, but not knowing whether you're under attack is terrifying. it's a case of "the devil you know" - we tend to be more afraid of the unknown than of direct threats.

especially after ten straight months of terror and war.

it looks like a lot of the world is waking up to how they've been played by BRICS, but if social media is to be believed, places like montreal and toronto and pretty much lost. gods help us all.

...

friday:

we successfully paid a visit to the shiva house, and mr smear was relatively amazing (generally pretty good) with his little cousins. it was quite crowded, but we hung with our younger (new parent) cousins and were present.

i don't think we did anything else for the remainder of the day. i was exhausted, as i had been for a few days.

yesterday:

i spent most of the day alternating between doing not much (watching random stuff and starting to read naruto), watching the goblet of fire with mr smear*, and napping. in the evening i took mr smear to the climbing wall, and while we weren't there for very long nor did very much, we did have a good time.

* re-watching the fifth harry potter movie, and it's beyond triggering. the ministry of magic's absurd behavior EXACTLY describes what israel and the jews have been dealing with for the past ten months (far longer than that, but it's been frighteningly transparent since october 7th), it's horrifying and anxiety-inducing and wrong.

today:

i tried to look into schools in the area, but became thoroughly overwhelmed. i'm going to try again tomorrow, this time scoping it down to filtering schools by location...

my work day went really well. i got a lot done, and having completed all my tasks on time i started taking over others' tasks, and overall made my boss and coworkers happy.

we went out for a fancy lunch to say farewell to our marketing consultant; it wasn't vegan-friendly, but they made a plan and the experience was surprisingly good. especially their focaccia with jalapeño jam.

mr smear appears to be doing well back in mma. i'm very pleased.

i did eat way too much pasta over the course of the day, though. so i skipped dinner, replacing it with a walk to the supermarket for a couple of emergency supplies (and things that can't be obtained online) and text chatting with a help line that proved pretty unhelpful.

counter counter

 yesterday was a day.

i went into work expecting it to be a shit one, but i joined my boss on his coffee mission and told him how i was feeling - both about my current task and about my distraction from it the day before - and he suggested a way forward that worked for both of us.

so the first part of my day was working on other tickets - ones i most certainly derived more satisfaction out of - and pushed the problem task to the end of the day.

war: everyone's expecting the worst. nobody has a clue whether things are about to get better, or worse, so we don't even know what we're preparing for, which is a brilliant source of anxiety.

i had a chat with some friends of the mongoose's, a couple that includes a teacher and whose kids are all special needs, and they suggested a way forward that i'm going to look into over the weekend.

gd took mr smear to his first mma class since april, and apparently it went very well. well, mostly - there're some english speakers in the class and he spent more time talking than working... i'll take it :P

by the end of the day - and post-"happy hour" where i'd gotten tasa+'s vegan oreo cookie and nut and lotus cream (essentially peanut butter) pie - i found myself staring incomprehensibly as rows and rows of log text, finding it impossible to keep my eyes open or my brain on. it felt like my eyeballs were melting out of their sockets. i was miserably embedded in the shit task that still wasn't making any sense.

at the end of my rope, i retried something that i'd given a go a couple of days ago - upgrading envoy. only this time, instead of upgrading to the latest version, i updated to the one before, and resigned myself to breaking configuration changes shit.

but there wasn't any shit. it upgraded nicely, and then everything magically started working.

beautifully.

all this time, it wasn't something we were doing wrong.

so that's the mixed-but-mostly-good feeling i had when i left the office, strapped on my rollerblades, and came home.

it was a very pleasant evening, we continued watching the goblet of fire movie over dinner, i finished reading the prisoner of azkaban to mr smear at bedtime (what a startlingly different experience!), and then i passed out on the couch next to gd while listening to the chamber of secrets.

...

then i got up a couple of hours ago after a lot of time restless, and i've been playing inscryption until now. and now... back to bed? we've got stuff to do today, although arguably the most important is going to the shiva house together.

counter

 i just made a mistake and looked at my tiktok inbox while decided to wake up, and encountered the account of someone i know personally who's built their identity around serving as a mouthpiece for anti-israel propaganda. we've been at war and under attack for ten months now, and this asshat is fighting for the people who want him and his kind dead.

...

yesterday... wasn't great, overall. it had some good moments, though.

the day started with a surprise credit card charge from ha'avoda - i voted in their primaries a couple of years ago - and i spent an angry part of the morning trying to communicate with them to get my money back (and to get them to lose my data), but finding it impossible.

i did, however, continue playing inscryption. and, with my son as my witness, i finally beat the eighth challenge level!

on the way to work, i took the vacuum cleaner i bought just over a couple of weeks ago to try and return it. the guy i approached informed me that it has passed the 14 day deadline for returns, and i asked if there was noone we could speak to. the guy next to him got irritated and grabbed the box, inspected it, and told him "it's practically friday already, just give him the refund and put it away" 😂

work was rough. i wasted a couple of hours on something i shouldn't have been working on, and ran into a bunch of problems, not least being that i hadn't realized that i could test one thing one way, another thing another, but not both at the same time so all of my test results were meaningless.

i kind of lost my temper.

just as i was venting my frustrations to my boss and one of my coworkers, someone i studied with walked past, tapped me on the shoulder and threw me off completely!

i overheard an argument between two of my coworkers, and jumped in with some actual experience - only to find myself arguing with a wall of ignorance. i know the intentions aren't bad, but i let my infuriatingly-stubborn (and wrong) coworker push all of my buttons. no matter what, i shouldn't have lost my cool with him (not for the first time) and  i'm embarrassed about it. i'm going to need to practice keeping a level head.

it was our consultant's last day of his second contract, and he asked me to lay tefilin. we eventually found an unused meeting room, and in addition to a not-unpleasant experience we had a conversation that turned to surprisingly well-received criticism about modern orthodoxy.

there is hope.

what remained of the work day was short and disappointing. then i left early to get home, change for my cousin's funeral and drive through.

the funeral was very touching, and i honestly didn't expect each and every eulogy to make me cry.

kc's brother's girlfriend - who's been around for a couple of years now, and i still had to ask someone her name yesterday - was carrying one of the kids past me and the child's grandmother, with the child bawling. the grandmother - clearly joking - said "what are you doing to my grandson?!" and she took it completely seriously, it was a surreal moment and at least some of us had a good laugh about it afterwards.

after the funeral, i joined the family for an hour or so at the shiva and then made my way back to tel aviv, in time for dinner.

one of the mma instructors got back to us about the mma camp, he asked that we reconsider sending mr smear and rather take the approach of easing him back into things. gd and i agreed, and i guess the next couple of weeks will be a bit less expensive... if we're making the right choice, we're making the right choice, but at the back of my mind there's still a bit of doubt that the mma camp could have been a better one.

i played more kaycee's mod until i was ready for bed, and slept better than the night before (this time without hyper-realistic zombie dreams, or waking up with numb limbs), and now that i've posted this and done some of the daily bloons: adventure time challenges, i think i'm about ready to face the day.