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 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.