News

My campaign to produce Shakespeare's Sonnets: A Graphic Novel Adaptation needs your help! Please sign up at https://www.patreon.com/fisherking for access to exclusive content and the opportunity to be a part of the magic!

I'm also producing a podcast discussing the sonnets, available on
industrial curiosity, itunes, spotify, stitcher, tunein and youtube!
For those who prefer reading to listening, the first 25 sonnets have been compiled into a book that is available now on Amazon and the Google Play store.

Saturday, November 30, 2024

44

as i begin this post, gd's having another coughing fit. earlier, it got so bad that she was crying, and thought she was literally dying, so i made some frantic phone calls to make sure we'd be able to go to the emergency ward while mr smear tried to help...

... it was hard to get him to go to bed, because he was going through an emotional rollercoaster and needed to be convinced that his mommy would be okay :(

yesterday:

after taking mr smear to school, gd and i did some shopping. i picked him up, we came home to switch backpacks, and then i took him to the comic store on levontin (dying lake) to browse. very cool stuff, hopefully they'll be able to miraculously get hold of some calvin & hobbes for us.

we took the light rail back home, and the rest of the afternoon was pretty chilled.

we finished the day with pretty decent homemade pizza and howl's moving castle. after putting mr smear to bed i installed shadowrun: hong kong, but not remembering much of shadowrun returns i decided to continue my restart of that instead.

today:

i woke up this morning before anyone else, and returned to shadowrun returns while simultaneously fielding birthday phone calls, and that's pretty much my morning up until downtime. mr smear's new friend (!) called him and invited him over, so i walked him over, expecting to drop him off and come home. instead, his friend's mother awkwardly invited me in, and while we talked her husband arrived, and we ended up having a really good time while our kids played :)

it was difficult to get mr smear out of there, both the kids were making it difficult which was cool, and then we came home to the drama.

*sigh*

at least we had a break between the coughing fits and bedtime for mr smear to shower and watch the rest of howl's moving castle.

also cool was that in spite of the yom kippur incident, mr smear's other new friend wants to see him and we've been invited to his family for next friday night.

now i'm just praying that gd will be able to get some sleep and that i'll be able to as well.

Friday, November 29, 2024

loaded

i can't believe it's the weekend, but it couldn't come soon enough. i spent most of the week feeling utterly shit, but so far this evening's been better.

...

 the morning started off relatively peacefully, and i got mr smear to school in pretty good spirits. then i came home, picked up my bag, and accompanied gd to the clinic, because she's in a bad way and had lost all hearing in one ear. we were there for a while, and she saw a doctor (who was assisted by the horrible doctor she'd first seen, but who was playing nice), and while that was happening a recruiter phoned me and i couldn't take the call.

i'm not particularly stressed about that, while i'm not thrilled about what we're doing i don't feel like i'm in a bad place and in a rush to get out. i'm kinda treating this as an exploration for now.

anyway, gd's got antibiotics and severe instructions to never use q-tips again, and i at least managed to sort out the authorization request for her next nerve block. it was only after arriving at the office that i realized that in all the morning's excitement, i'd completely forgotten that i needed to go past the pain clinic to get a new recommendation for her cannabis license :/

the work day was a slow starter, but after two days of research i started putting together an actual strategy. then everyone decided to go to tamir for lunch on the spur of the moment, so i grabbed my little bottle of vinegar and joined them.

good falafel, lots of food. i was amused that the coworker who's leaving - today was supposed to be his last day, but the bosses convinced him to stay on another month - tried my salt & vinegar chips and was surprised to find that he quite enjoyed them :)

i got a little bit done before walking home to pick mr smear up and take him to his jiujitsu class, which was a good opportunity to chat with my mom. tomorrow's the last day on one of her contracts, and while i'm sad that she's stressed about the lower income, i'm glad she won't be working for such a disrespectful employer any longer.

apparently mr smear handled his bully well today. i really hope he's told us the truth.

i barely got any work done during his class, partially because i was chatting with another dad, and partially because i was observing him being decidedly uncooperative. not cool.

we had a good talk on the bus ride home, i got a little more work done, and then i had a really constructive meeting with gco, sailor and co. to discuss running an impact fund. after putting mr smear to bed, i played some crying suns (normal difficulty, i was killed by a sector boss), and took care of a bunch of random things, and tried to do something constructive with some personal projects, and now it's midnight and i'm probably going to turn in soon.

i'm really getting into count zero now.

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

another day, another wtf

mr smear this morning:

1. thank god he asked gd before sending a message telling his new friend off because "it's rude to message people at 7.30am" 🤦

2. on the way to school: "dad, it's when you hit puberty that you're supposed to hate your parents, right?" 

"looks like you got a headstart" 

"yeah, i really don't like my teachers"

this isn't the first time i've suspected him of being a high-functioning autistic, but the past couple of days there've been a bunch of things about his behavior and his statements that really make me wonder... for example, on sunday his therapist told me that he was very uncomfortable with her drawing of a martian apocalypse being fiery because there's no oxygen on mars...

that said, he's very calvin (from calvin & hobbes) in a lot of ways.

...

i spent a good chunk of my morning at the clinic, literally for nothing. i had a nice half hour at home between that and heading to the office, and then our CEO called me in for a one-on-one and we talked about how i'm feeling about the pivot and what it means.
i'm still not excited by what we're planning on doing. just disappointed; not in the company or our product, but in our failure to find our place in the market. between that and the weather being miserable and me not having slept well last night, i had a hard time getting anything done today and not falling asleep at my desk.

...

the people responsible for taking over gd's cannabis license are being awfully pedantic and petty, so after a couple of phone calls i managed to get the pain clinic receptionist to agree to let me come in tomorrow to ask the doctor to rewrite his recommendation. we're getting down to the wire...

...

gd was feeling too sick to take mr smear to mma today, so i did that. on the bus ride there i learned that he'd had another not-good day at school, and we've had a number of follow-up chats that i *hope* have landed. who knows? maybe we'll have the same conversation tomorrow as well :/

at least he got his head right for the class. i think that's the first mma class i've seen him in in which his teacher didn't shout at him once, he got to work, he made an effort, and he kept up a positive attitude. he enjoyed the class, he did pretty well in some things, and i was really impressed.

i'd been walking around in my rain boots for nothing the whole day, except the way home when it finally rained. mr smear loves being out in the rain, which is fun to see :)

the evening went smoothly, we talked a lot about anti-bully strategy, and i had some positive interactions with recruiters. i'm not sure now if i'm going to go to bed, or try to do something constructive. it probably doesn't matter...

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

pivot

 fuuuuuuuuck. in addition to everything else that's been going on, our bosses announced this morning that we're beginning an "exploration" before pivoting. or possibly being absorbed by a different company. i spent half the day trying to come up with viable things for us to do, the other half despondent because i'm not interested in the direction we're headed, and i'm not keen on job hunting, and i'm surprisingly emotional not about the great work we've done that's going in the bin - that's part of the risk of working in a startup - but about four weeks of horrible work in particular that i've been detesting that's going in the bin.

what a shit-show.

i started contacting recruiters this evening.

at least mr smear had an "okay" day today. gd and i were both feeling a lot of feels this morning (on top of her being sick), and because i didn't have energy to argue with her i encouraged her to send her concerns to the therapist directly instead.

i had a long chat with dod before i started work, and he's still unemployed and really struggling. i feel bad because i want to get something off the ground anyway and he could really help me, but with everything else going on i've had zero bandwidth for anything.

i'm really tired. do i ever mention being tired?

Monday, November 25, 2024

circling the drain

jesus h. f. christ.

today's report from the teacher, after a morning with a "doesn't-give-a-fuck" nine year old, described multiple instances of mr smear being verbally abusive and violent with kids in his class, and ripping up another kid's drawing, the same kid he threw a rock at a year and a half ago. and, when looking that up, i discovered that this isn't the first time he's torn up his artwork, either. he remembers the rock incident, he doesn't remember the torn artwork.

this is literally in-fucking-sane.

gd and i confronted him and made it abundantly clear to him that in addition to his behavior being unacceptable and gross and disappointing, it's also going to directly affect his chances of leaving the school. it was at that point that he finally seemed sufficiently contrite (and apparently embarrassed) that we left him alone for a while.

once he'd calmed down, i had a talk with him, and gd joined in, about how he can't change what he's done but he can change how he behaves tomorrow. in fits and starts, the rest of the afternoon went better, but goddamn i'm not sure if we're getting through to him at all.

yesterday:

yesterday was cold and wet. gd was sick. i went to our parental guidance meeting alone, and i feel it was constructive - in part because i think the therapist is beginning to understand the scope of the issues. i went to the office for an hour or two, then caught the bus to pick mr smear up from school and take him to his therapy session. i sat and worked in the shitty aroma coffee shop, then picked him up and we caught a bus back home.

i worked hard yesterday, for zero results.

today:

today was very cold, and threatened to be a lot wetter than it was.

i woke up early from a strangely comforting dream including badger and hyperviper. up until then i think i slept pretty well. oh, and i'm making slow progress through count zero, but it's really been off-and-on.

the walk to school this morning could have been worse, considering how things had been before we left. i replaced the water filter, which became somewhat dramatic and required a call for technical support, and did some other minor chores, and then tried to continue my ticket.

i worked hard today, for almost zero results.

it looks like the "product" we're using is broken somehow, so i've created an issue and hopefully i'll get something useful in return.

i picked mr smear up from school, took him to his hebrew lesson, and sat down outside a different coffee shop because they had a toilet and didn't have a bad attitude. so much for being "my new place".

at least i got something constructive (something else) done while i was there.

the afternoon was mostly overshadowed by the bad report, i'm not sure how much real work i managed to get through but i was making an effort while simultaneously making sure that mr smear was doing what he was supposed to...

i haven't not been emotionally drained in more than a week. i'm tired.

Saturday, November 23, 2024

oranges and clementines

 well, we did it. we got up on time, left on time, and arrived at kfar neter on time for the picking of the fruits. overall it was a great experience, the weather was gorgeous, and we spent an hour milling around, picking fruit, and occasionally, very briefly, chatting to class parents we like. we left just as everyone starting gathering and drinking, not only because gd and i were feeling awkward about mingling with the parents socially but also because mr smear was ready to go too.

the drive there was cool, but the drive back was tense, primarily because at some point i missed a turn and waze got thoroughly stuck, and i ended up having to drive almost all the way back to ra'anana before i could turn the car around, and between gd's initial panic (which, in her defense, she got over pretty quickly) and plenty of people driving dangerously around us, i was in a bit of a mood.

the rest of the afternoon was mostly peaceful, minus a blowout over mr smear having been antisocial with his new friend yesterday, and while gd started feeling proper sick (after a couple of days just being snotty and headache-y) i was just extremely tired. although, before i forget, i was surprisingly wired before we left. i hope i'm not coming down with anything.

we all watched the princess bride together, with mr smear enjoying it thoroughly in spite of himself (he was quite the reflection of fred savage throughout), and we started watching men in black: international at dinner, and he asked me to read the magic pudding to him at bedtime. otherwise, i played a fair bit of crying suns and did a lot of dishes.

the freshly-squeezed freshly-picked clementine juice is amazing.

...

my lower back's still hurting.

...

i've been thinking a lot today about the "sanctioning", in particular about mr smear's behavior leading up to the bully's father threatening him with it. mr smear had been effectively trying to "sanction" the bully, and we'd been actively trying to get him to stop doing it. now i'm wondering if i'm gaslighting myself by turning the "conversation" (the imaginary conversation i'm having in my head) upside down.

jesus christ, parenting is hard.

Friday, November 22, 2024

pinching

my sciatica's been acting up again. and i'm tired. it's been real. and tomorrow morning we have to be up early for a class outing to pick oranges and clementines...

yesterday:

gd started feeling really sick with a sinus thing, so i took mr smear to jiujitsu. which worked out, because halfway through things got dramatic and i had to give him a proper coach's talk.

the work day wasn't fun, nor particularly productive. and my manager did something that bothered me, and between that and two of our stars bailing on us i'm beginning to feel some empathy for the guy who's in his last week.

today:

my mom's examination went well, and she's got the all-clear from her doctor. i really hope she watches the movies anyway.

...

i added the following to my bloons: adventure time review today after getting all of the achievements: 

FINAL FINAL UPDATE: At 500+ hours, I realize I have a problem. I've unlocked all the achievements, a third of my characters are at level 10, and I'm still performing the ritual of the daily quests, but at this point I don't know why I'm still doing it. Every day I'm offended anew that I'm still getting character resources that I no longer need, which, considering the grind to get even a single character to level 10, is simply unfair.

I wonder if I'll be strong enough one day to just quit.

...

i've spent most of the day just feeling burned out and playing lots of crying suns. while mr smear was at school gd and i did some shopping, in the afternoon mr smear arranged a playdate with his new friend, some of which was cool, and some of which made us concerned that he's going to push another kid away by doing stuff he thinks is funny but that others don't.

we'll see, i guess.

while that was happening, our friends came over for coffee and we had a heavy talk about the bullying situation. i hope that wasn't a mistake. i don't think it was, but it certainly didn't make for a good vibe and their reaction was a little less supportive than i was expecting.

we finished watching the third men in black a short while ago, it's even better than i remembered.

...

mr smear has been having nightmares about chucky. he's having trouble going to sleep because he's thinking about chucky. i've no idea how he discovered chucky, but we now suspect that he saw that gd was watching it on her netflix account :/

Thursday, November 21, 2024

the (slip) knot

 "i push my fingers into my eyes..."

i need to breathe out this rage, slow my fight response, and get ready to face the day. last night on my way home i was plagued with fantasies about how to deal with mr smear's bully and his parents, some of which involved things that would most certainly get me imprisoned. eventually, i settled on composing a farewell to the class parents and publishing it as an open letter, which i guess is becoming a thing for me, but after gd and i just talked about i think the best way forward is to post it privately to the parents' group, give it to the school team, and then if any of them decides to share it then the blowout will be on them, not us.

there were things in the letter that i put together that gd hadn't even realized was going on, and she's been angry enough without those details.

i'm torn between rage at the situation, at the bully parents, and the bullies, and a deep pride in my son and how he's been handling all this. and gratitude and admiration for his friend, who has been no less than an angel in disguise.

...

tuesday:

the past couple of days have been intense, and it's been difficult to Get Stuff Done. tuesday was all about managing gd's anxiety before her dental appointment, which ultimately turned out to be a planning session for the series of upcoming treatments. honestly, the receptionist explained the plan to me no less than three times, and even wrote down a summary in illegible handwriting, and i still haven't a clue what's going on. what i do know is that we were able to separate the costs into two phases, and each phase can be made in installments, so it's an enormous cost but we can get through it.

after the dentist, we went to hummus ashkara and "opened a table". it was a really good experience.

yesterday:

tuesday and yesterday's workdays were hard. and long. and full of discomfort. my manager and i had a talk, and while he understood the concern i raised about our team culture (a couple of us had had a pretty serious disagreement on sunday evening, things were mostly respectful but still uncomfortable), he made a good point that in some things i need to remember: "when in rome..."

then yesterday, one of the "big boys" in the team announced that he's leaving, hot on the heels of the other one, apparently because he disliked the bosses' choice of manager promotion. what's really got me gobsmacked is that he doesn't have anywhere to go, no specific plans, he just decided he was done and that's it. during a time when the hi-tech job market is a complete shit-show.

the man's got balls, i'll give him that. and the loss of the two of them is definitely going to hurt.

...

after a nice dinner completing the second men in black film and getting mr smear into bed, i sat down and churned out the letter. then i played some crying suns until my eyes started to shut, and then i read a few paragraphs of count zero before turning in for the night.

today so far:

i guess - i'm afraid to type it - i've been sleeping relatively well lately, when i've been able to. we had a pretty good morning, but after dropping mr smear off at school and getting home i read the letter to gd and that's what set off all the feelings again. but the letter's done, and i've posted this now, so i'm feeling calmer and i'm ready to do a mold sweep and airconditioner clean and then head back to the office.

...

my mom's in the hospital already, i really hope her day goes smoothly.

Monday, November 18, 2024

enter the wet season

what. a. day.

i dropped mr smear off at school with the usual pep talk, and it began raining just as soon as we said goodbye, as it almost always does when it rains. fortunately it was brief, and i had an umbrella, and i made it home pretty dry.

gd and i moved everything out the way for the delivery. the poor guy who wanted our old machine was upset that we couldn't wait, and i was upset that he couldn't make the arrangements in the (unreasonable) amount of time he'd been given. so that was a sad experience for all parties.

the delivery guys eventually arrived, and boy, did they charge us. but, to their credit, they handled everything from A to Z and left us with a combo washing machine/dryer ready for its first run. so far, so good 🤞

shortly after a bit of a breakthrough - i've been doing annoying work this sprint so far, and with all the distractions it's been harder to do the shitty things than usual - i picked mr smear up from school and took him to his math tutor. it began pouring down on our way there, and it was a joy to see him tooling around and enjoying the rain while we waited.

my usual coffee spot was washed out, so i went to a bakery and sat inside, warm and cozy, free wifi, nursing a really good latte that was significantly cheaper than the other place. i've think i've found my new place.

by the time i was ready to pick mr smear up, it had been bucketing down for a while and i struggled to get there without getting my feet wet.

it was wellington boot weather, and we were in our sneakers.

i made it just on time, mostly not soaked, but when crossing the next road with him we both stepped right into a deep puddle :(

the afternoon was a cross between me eating and snacking, trying to get work done, and being entertained by mr smear doing his keyboard practice.

and then his homeroom teacher called me.

...

it was such an emotional call that i had a hard time not crying on at least three occasions. it turns out the woman i wrote to yesterday wasn't the right address at all, but she did forward those messages to her and that saved a lot of time. it was a massively affirming to hear her confide that mr smear's class is a known problem case, and that the school's experience with the problem parents is the same as ours.

we don't have to prove anything to anyone.

it was also hugely affirming to hear that up until these past two weeks, during which mr smear has been making a concerted effort to improve his record, she'd been worried that he had an undiagnosed learning difficulty; but now, two weeks into him actively participating, it's clear to her as well that his only issue has ever been a motivational one.

i'm so freaking proud of my boy.

i asked her for her help in understanding the process of moving him to a different school, and while she's not happy that we want him / he wants to move to a different class in the interim, she's on the same page and is willing to do what she can. i think i made it pretty clear to her how appreciated she is personally, even while i expressed how little faith we have in the school as a whole.

...

i barely got any work done after that.

...

after dinner and most of the second men in black movie, but before mr smear went to sleep, my mom called to inform me that she's going to be hospitalized on thursday while they do some testing, it looks like the cholesterol problem she's been maintaining is starting to get worse.

her diet's been better than western standard, but still quite far from plant-based, and i really, really hope i can help her shift it further towards healthy. i sent her links to food choices and what the health, and i'm praying that she actually gives them a chance.

...

our conversation was interrupted by a rocket attack, which caught us out completely - mr smear and i only arrived at the shelter just as we heard the unusually loud explosions. we had a full shelter and it was raining, which was oddly cozy.

...

i'm tired, but overall i feel pretty good about how today went. tomorrow's the day gd's been afraid her - she has her dental appointment in the evening - so i'm praying that everything goes smoothly 🙏

eating (us up inside)

 yesterday:

after a night filled with anxiety and running through conversations and arguments in my head - i had to get up on multiple occasions to just try and calm the storm, but for the most part i couldn't sleep no matter how exhausted i was - i woke up yesterday morning and immediately got to work contacting his homeroom teacher and their "integration teacher" (whatever that title means).

i ended up writing a small wall of text during the day, both to the "integration teacher" and mr smear's therapist, because they didn't have time to actually talk, and i think i conveyed pretty much everything. i have a meeting scheduled with his homeroom teacher this afternoon, hopefully it'll be constructive.

at the same time, i spent a fair amount of time yesterday trying to arrange for someone to pick up our old washing machine, but it ultimately turned out to be too complicated. there really needs to be a service for this sort of thing.

work itself was a long day trying to understand the mysterious failures we saw on thursday, but which have presented themselves entirely differently. it's been driving us all nuts.

...

ultimately, when i got home and interrogated mr smear i learned that he'd had himself a pretty good day. that was a huge relief. and i believe it's in large part due to the idea of him working to get out of the school, and the conversations we've been having in which we've made it abundantly clear that we understand what he's going through and that we're on his side.

...

last night we finished re-watching spider-man: no way home, and we disconnected and wiped down the washing machine. i expect this morning is going to be complicated, i'm relieved that it's a monday and that i'm working from home for it.

...

in other anxiety news, gd's been diving down a despair spiral worrying about tomorrow's dental work. it's really hard to confront someone else's demons and *feel* supportive and not confrontational at the same time. i've made it clear that with all her hypnotherapy training, i expect her to *immediately* prioritize either finding a way to treat herself, or finding a therapist, to deal specifically with a stress response issue she's been suffering from since childhood that really messes with her - it's a big part of the reason she's been struggling to eat for the last couple of weeks and it's really scary.

...

speaking of unintentional weight loss, i'm still struggling with intentional weight loss, along with accumulated financial losses. it doesn't help that our friday evening plans were cancelled last-minute leading to us eating an expensive meal in a restaurant right after we just dropped a couple of thousands shekels on a new washer/dryer and before a day of car rental, and that left our freezer with three tubs of delicious vegan ice-cream in it. it doesn't help that mr smear left saturday's birthday party early after we bought two large bags of marshmallows and two slabs of dark chocolate,

we're being as careful as we can be to ration these desserts. as careful as we can be.

Saturday, November 16, 2024

taxi driver

 i'm angry. as in, boiling over. like, raging.

mr smear went to a birthday party, and by his report things were awkward, but fine. i wasn't there because i was giving sailor a ride to the airport, but gd told me that a couple of other parents noticed that things weren't right; one of them told her that they'd ask their daughter for more information, the other that her son often comes home and reports that he tried to help mr smear, but couldn't.

so the "cherem", or "sanction", that his antagonist's bitch father threatened me about wasn't just a threat for a moment, but rather a long-term threat. which explains the laser tag incident, and why mr smear has been reluctant to go outside during breaks.

i get it now. and i'm furious. i really, really want to slap the shit out of both the parents and the child.

...

not only did i take sailor to the airport, but also mr smear's friend and her dad to the hospital - hairline fracture after falling off the monkey bars :(

otherwise, it's been a quiet afternoon and mr smear's been cool, both having accepted his punishment from earlierand in generally cooperating.

...

please god let us get mr smear into the art school 🙏

queues

thursday:

i've been meaning to post this since thursday evening, now i'm confident i've forgotten some interesting things... most of the day was spent managing a couple of rabbitmq queues, i really didn't get much done otherwise, and i was very happy to get out of the office and into the weekend.

of course, i'm on-call today :P

yesterday:

gd and i went looking for a tumbledryer. we were standing there on the showroom floor, struggling to figure out how we could make it work, both physically and financially, because there's no way to put it on top of our washing machine (which travels) and no space anywhere else in the apartment, when the floor manager asked if he couldn't interest us in a combo washer/dryer.

which costs the same as a dryer, and takes up the same amount of space. i don't know how we never encountered a combo machine before, but holy shit it would have saved us so much headache and money and apartment space if we had! so it's being delivered on monday, and hopefully we'll find someone to take our current machine off our hands before then.

we did some grocery shopping, and ran into my previous team lead / department head on the way, which was cool.

we came home to drop everything off, then went to pick up mr smear and his friend. the afternoon was them playing their games, me playing crying suns (i've been doing a lot of that, lately), and then downtime / naptime for everyone once his friend left.

we were supposed to go with sailor to friends for dinner, but they literally cancelled at the last minute. so we ended up going to a vegan restaurant in neve tzedek, and the experience was mostly great.

i say mostly, because mr smear choked on a kebab and gd had to perform the heimlich manoever on him. let's just say that it was an emotional, scary experience for everyone.

it was also somewhat corrective, for me. i was thinking about my parenting a lot over the course of the past week, and i had a chance to put what i've learned into practice, and it helped.

we came back home, sailor hung around for a while to chat, and then we all said goodnight.

today so far:

i had some trouble sleeping, and got up pretty early. then everyone else followed suit, and we began the day watching the tyson vs paul fights. i mean, we watched taylor vs serrano, which was an absolutely infuriating insult to everyone. then we watched tyson vs paul.

now, i know that it was extremely unlikely that tyson would win, but i hoped for it anyway. and the fact that he went all eight rounds? the man is 58, that in itself is amazing. i found the way they ended the fight quite heartwarming, and some of mike's post-fight interview was hilarious.

now i've taken care of a huge pile of dishes, and we just had an explosion with mr smear being uncooperative about logging off his game, and on that sour note, i'm off to take sailor to the airport.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

flaming walnuts

missed from yesterday: the walnut story. mr smear *hates* walnuts, but if he hasn't had pancakes (with ground flaxseed) then it's the next best source of omega-3. the other day he had the bright idea of putting chocolate syrup on the walnut, which was wildly successful. yesterday, when i offered him walnuts with chocolate syrup, he said no, and asked me to put a single drop of the jalapeno hot sauce on one of them for him to try.

let me be clear: mr smear experimenting with food is new, and absolutely thrilling for me. so i carefully put a single drop on a walnut, and he loved it! so he asked me to pour the hot sauce on all the walnuts. liberally.

and he ate the shit out of it 🤯

today:

it was a pretty calm morning. i left for work early so that i could have a chat with astute and discuss the politics surrounding the war. it was supposed to be half an hour, but an additional hour flew past before i realized that i needed to go back to my office.

an electrician came to our apartment while i was on that call, and was unable to get mr smear's bedroom light to behave badly. of course. so he tightened things up and hopefully it'll be fine now. that cost a whole lot of money we didn't need to spend... i didn't even try to get our landlords to pay the bill (but i did make sure they knew about it).

it was an odd sort of workday, punctuated by a mission to tamir for falafel and salt 'n vinegar chips, and again for vegan bourekas.

i got home with barely enough time to shower before joining a webinar with bijan kian, which was very interesting.

i'm tired, and i'm probably going to bed shortly.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

testing

 the biggest news of the day was my mother meeting with representatives of the jewish agency to go through her documents again. unfortunately, it wasn't the final meeting, but it does look like she's made good progress and i'm very pleased that she spoke some hard truths to the reps that needed to be said.

hopefully she'll be sorted within the next couple of months. that would be nice. her story's going on four years already.

...

today got an angry start, part of it gd and mr smear (he's still a slow starter), part of it gd and one of our frying pans. so, after accompanying mr smear to school, gd and i went shopping. we picked up two frying pans, and a couple more soft blankets for our couch because winter's coming, and a couple of organizers to try and sort out our living room nightmare of piles of books and drawn-on pages and documents all over the place.

no vegan marshmallows for the birthday party mr smear's going to on saturday.

...

on my way to work i was suddenly overcome by some heavy memories of me being too hard on a much younger mr smear. it doesn't help that i thought i was doing right by him, i know now how messed up my behavior was and i'm sure that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

...

work today was all about writing and running tests. it was mostly good, minus a rocket attack and needing to fart while we were all waiting in the stairwell, and a bit of a fight with my boss which i definitely could have handled better.

i'm not sure if it helped that i was proved right by the end of it :P

i headed to the supermarket on my way home to see if i could find vegan marshmallows, and i'm getting the feeling they're off the shelves everywhere all of a sudden. i hunted through the entire mall until i eventually got to a candy store that had, while not the marshmallows i was looking for, a pretty good alternative from haribo. i'm not 100% sure if it's vegan, but at least it doesn't have fish, dairy or eggs in it...

they also had a giant bag of katjes that says "vegan" on it. so i bought that as well ^_^

i picked up a few umbrellas on the way to the bus stop, and the rest of the evening's been pretty good so far. putting mr smear to bed was a little bumpy, but we didn't escalate and i'm feeling pretty good about how the day went.

Monday, November 11, 2024

doing, and not doing

 i slept pretty well last night, but not enough. after taking mr smear to school, i continued on to the post office to pick up the palm rest sticker for my dell laptop. it was a beautiful morning, and i would have appreciated it had gd and i not been fighting over whether mr smear had lice or not 😣

anyway, we got through it quickly, at least.

i applied some more spackle on a spot i'd missed yesterday, and made some good progress with the silicone tube in spite of the fact that it's designed for one of those gun thingies and now the skin on my hand's peeling as a consequence :P

i called the number of the organization that's supposed to take over gd's cannabis licensing, which was just like a canadian government organization: a whole bunch of telephone menus, only to be directed to their website instead. anyway, i uploaded everything and i hope it's good enough.

i discovered that the sticker i'd bought was the wrong one, the ali express format confused me and i ended up purchasing a similar-but-different product. fortunately, i managed to cut out what i needed and it fits pretty well, and i don't really care if it's incomplete - it does the job.

work-wise, i think it's safe to say that i got practically nothing of value done this morning. i was quite hungry and i snacked a lot. i did do quite a bit while waiting for mr smear's hebrew lesson - oh! he drew a pretty cool pixel art hand today, we're quite proud ^_^

we're also extremely proud, and literally amazed, that he figured out part of wolfmother - pyramid by himself on the keyboard, entirely from memory because we haven't heard any wolfmother in aaaaaages 🤯

i did a fair amount of work in the afternoon, kinda making up for the slow morning, and then received a suspicious-looking message that i had a package waiting for me at a postal point in dizengoff center that i'd never heard of. i tried calling, but the number wasn't connected, and the message had come with a warning that they'd only hold the package for two business days, so on the off-chance that it was real (no way i was clicking on the url-shortened link) i decided to head down and see what was going on.

it was raining. i noped the fuck back home and waited until things looked dryer, getting some more work done in the meanwhile.

when it was dark already, i tried again. i made it there without a hitch (although something in the bus made my skin crawl), and i found the postal store. i explained my issues to the woman at the desk, who promptly disappeared. i struggled to find my package, and ask for assistance. the only person working at that point was a sharp-faced woman who assured me she'd help me in just a minute. then two teenagers came in, and she turned to them.

i asked her why i wasn't being helped. she told me, "they're kids". i was utterly dumbstruck for a moment, then tried to get her to explain why they get priority, but zero fucks were given on her side and on mine, i had to keep it together to not lose my goddamned mind. it was a while after i left the store before i started to cool off.

jesus.

anyway, i picked up a new pixel art sketch book (just a nice sketch book with squares) for mr smear now that he understands what i was trying to achieve the last time (when gd tried to inspire him with some examples, and he decided her drawings were cooler than his so he refused to use it), so that's cool.

i tried to come home but it was raining again, i then spent twenty minutes or so hunting for an umbrella that didn't suck and also didn't cost too much money. i ended up leaving without finding one, and fortunately made it home during a break in the clouds.

we watched about half of pixels during dinner, some of which is awkward, but most of it is hilarious, especially for a nine year-old...

and now it's bedtime. i'm a bit disappointed that mr smear didn't want to continue reading the magic pudding tonight, and then gd wasn't interested in it either :/

norms

 why am i awake so late? i've been soooo tired lately...

getting mr smear to school was fine, and i actually put a layer of spackle over where i cleared the peeling crud off mr smear's walls, as well as put in the first line of polyfill around the cupboard in our passageway.

so that was good.

gd and i arrived a bit late for our parental guidance session because the bus we were waiting for disappeared. it felt like a good sessions.

getting gd onto a bus to get to the dentist for another first aid meeting - she's been so scared to crack her other tooth that she's lost 2kg in just a week, which is distressing - took so long that i ended up quite late for work.

it was a pretty productive day, i guess, and my cousin's kid has just moved into an office on our floor and that's both cool and awkward at the same time :P

i left late, and was really pressured for time because i had to go to a lecture at mr smear's school that i was dreading. mr smear informed me that he had not, in fact, had another perfect day, but in retrospect it doesn't seem like such a big deal. then again, i've only heard his side of the story...

the lecture was about setting norms for tech use across the school, and i initially presumed that the school would be interfering with parents' choices. this immediately put me on the defensive because i don't trust anyone with those sorts of intentions to also be operating in an evidence-based manner. by the end of it, though, i was convinced not only that this initiative is well-informed, but that they have an approach that really does make sense.

assuming the prinicipal doesn't screw it up.

gd and i watched some pantheon, which was brilliant, and i've played some crying suns, and i'm now pretty sure that i'm ready for bed.

...

i've been battling with a mosquito for the last hour or two, it's infuriating.

Saturday, November 09, 2024

quiet

 it was a very quiet day, aside from gd and mr smear being visited by friends. oh, and a false alarm of a "hostile aircraft intrusion" that sent us all running to the shelter.

i guess it was nice to catch up with the neighbors.

the rollercoaster intensified

 thursday:

thursday started off well, and i'm pleased to say that mr smear received another glowing report in the afternoon about how well he behaved!

confirmed: it's not that he can't cooperate and get the job done. it's that he lacks the proper motivation. you don't need to medicate a child and potentially handicap them into order to get them to comply. speaking of which, i think chatgpt was lying to me when it said it would process the PDF i uploaded and get back to me, but in the meanwhile, i got it to translate chapter by chapter and compiled it myself.

so i just checked in with the PDF production:

omg, chatgpt is even worse than a real human! 🤣

work was alright, it was harder to implement my boss's feedback than i'd anticipated but i'd made good headway by the time i left. along the way, we had a frontend emergency in production and it was really nice to be able to figure it out and fix it quickly.

i was disappointed to learn that the art school we want to enroll mr smear in is in such high demand that it works on a lottery system, so even if he does everything perfectly he might still not be able to get in...

yesterday:

waking up to news of the pogrom in amsterdam. and the horrific online shit-show that followed. of course the jihadists can justify it. of course. of course the police didn't intervene. of course.

our enemies have always liked to compare us to vermin. we're the one "protected group" that the woke don't care to protect.

just a head's up though: when us "rats" start fleeing, it means your ship is sinking.

gd's been taking things really, really hard.

otherwise, it was a quiet day, continuously punctuated by that anxiety.

i woke up from the following dream: i left my bag on a train after a post-lecture lecture in which everyone around me couldn't see me, only gd in a swimsuit instead.

panicked about losing my computer, i tried to understand what to do while whoever had it easily unlocked it and was messing with my company. i got a call from a threatening encoded voice but it didn't say anything helpful, i called my boss, and he told me he'd been receiving the same calls. 

i tried to brush my teeth in an outside sink but this homeless-looking mime wanted toothpaste. he did something weird with the toothpaste and i got angry with him, as in a almost clocked him, and gd got between us to stop me from getting into trouble.

all of a sudden he stopped his performance and took me to show me that he'd somehow managed to retrieve my computer. i helplessly and humbly expressed my gratitude, and asked him, incredulously, "how?!"

he took me to a secret spot on the hill about the square, dug up and opened a container, introducing me to a giant flea that he appeared to regard as a pet.

we had some drama when picking up mr smear from school because we thought he'd lost his pencil case - that would be the second time in a few months, and it's a really expensive thing to replace - but it was a huge relief to discover that his teacher had found it and put it in his locker...

we did some cleaning in the afternoon. at some point, mr smear cut up a mango by himself for the very first time. also, i soaked some dried pineapple (unsweetend) in lemon juice and it was a surprisingly good experience.

sailor came over for dinner. it was an enjoyable evening, we ate too much and it was great, and we even had coffee afterwards, in part because i didn't want to fall asleep too early, again.

but i totally fell asleep too early, again. not even the caffeine could stop it.

today so far:

we all slept in this morning, and it's a beautiful, beautiful day so far. mr smear's still snotty and coughing, i think we're going to take it pretty easy on ourselves after such an insane week.

Thursday, November 07, 2024

more rollercoaster

 i think i slept well last night. i'm already beginning to nod off now, but i wanna post this and drink a cup of chamomile before hitting the hay.

...

the US election took up the majority of my brain-space this morning:

omg i never thought i'd feel so relieved to hear a US election result, and especially to see trump returning to the white house. america, you and the free world just dodged, not a bullet, but an RPG.

i expect all the UN ambassadors from their anti-west totalitarian regimes must be feeling deeply disappointed right now. i don't know how much trump will get done over the next four years, but at least this gives us a window to take down the ayatollahs and make peace in the middle east an actual possibility.

assuming *we* don't manage to screw this up, of course. best of luck to us all 🫡

i was a little distracted still by the election noise when i got to work, but i managed to find my groove. a couple of new companies have moved in to our floor, so it's much brighter and more welcoming.

...

everything was fine until lunch. on my way to joining my coworkers, i received a call from mr smear's class assistant - he was having a very scary asthma attack, and he'd apparently told her he didn't have his pump. in retrospect, i think he misunderstood the questions, but i told her it was in his bag and immediately alerted gd that she'd need to hurry to the school.

then another panicked call - she couldn't figure out which pump to use.

so i called gd, also panicking, and she told me, and i called back and told her. also, i told her it should take a few minutes to work.

more panic, because it didn't working. at this point i was sitting at the table, staring into the distance, praying for my son and thinking about a guy a couple of years ahead of me in school, one of my youth movement councillors, who just suddenly died in his sleep one night from an asthma attack.

fortunately, i got a call soon afterwards informing me that it did seem to be working, and that his coughing fit was calming down, and he was able to breathe between coughs.

holy shit, that was terrifying. truly terrifying.

...

i was still unsettled an hour later, when i went to go and make myself a cup of turkish coffee. i poured the boiling water into the glass, and heard a *crack*. some of the coffee was seeping onto the counter. nystire has a thing about cups cracking due to temperature differences, so, relieved that it hadn't been worse, i took a step back and pulled out my phone to take a photo for him

just as i did that, the glass exploded. i was fortunately just out of range, so aside from the shock i only had to worry about cleaning up the mess (how did the coffee get under the counter ledge??), find a safe way to dispose of all the shards, and then making myself a much safer mug of instant coffee.

...

i was - understandably, i think - restless for the remainder of the work day. at least i feel like i got a couple of important things done.

at some point in the afternoon i received another report from mr smear's teacher: apparently, he's understood the mission. today was a really good day for him, asthma attack notwithstanding, and he was cooperative and worked well!

i did some quick shopping on the way home, mainly for toilet paper but gd's really scared about her other fragile tooth cracking so i picked her up some soya yoghurts and desserts. puddings. or, in our family's parlance, pudignes.

anyhoo, i came home, hugged my son tightly (to his chagrine, he was playing minecraft online), and overall the evening went smoothly. and gd made her delicious new cottage pie recipe (mushrooms and leaks and beans), and we watched some x-men, and then it was bedtime for mr smear.

i, on the other hand, spent the last couple of hours doing another run of kaycee's mod, and then working on using notebooklm and chatgpt to produce a useful summary booklet for anatomy of an epidemic and translate it into hebrew. i don't understand why the translation of the 12 pages would take hours, but that's what i was told so i'm hanging in. i also discovered that you can (now) prompt notebooklm when generating an audio discussion, and that's really powerful!

Wednesday, November 06, 2024

personal wars trump big wars

yesterday:

rollercoaster continued. mr smear stayed home because of his cough again, and a ridiculous amount of the day was dedicated to gd's private response to the rabbi she'd yelled at the evening before.

it's amazing how much more anxiety we've been experiencing from the open letter i wrote and its fallout, than that for the new round of iranian threats.

by the time she finally sent it, it was pretty powerful. the response she got back did an excellent job of not addressing it and playing off our feelings as "an ideological disagreement", but the important thing (in my opinion, at any rate) is that she said what needed to be said.

aside from that, i don't recall much. we took mr smear to the doctor and got him some extra medication, and in the evening i accompanied them to the eye doctor, which ultimately i didn't need to. he's got a new prescription, and apparently it makes quite the difference.

oh! i actually managed to get to the minimum requirements on the ticket i was working on, which considering everything else, and the fact that it wasn't trivial stuff at all, feels quite miraculous.

someone from gd's conversion class got whatsapp hacked, and their hacker tried to take me too. what a freaking nightmare! she was so grateful that we called to check on her, i hope she's got her account back by now.

today(-ish):

i took mr smear to school, and while he wasn't happy about something (i "distracted" him while he was trying to count) and he really didn't feel that he needed to go, by the time we arrived he was in better spirits and we were cool.

i continued on the post office, arriving just in time to pick up gd's heavy shoes in addition to the 3D glasses i ordered.

the work day started off alright, but then i received a call from gd and learned she'd just cracked a tooth (in a particularly nasty way) that her dentist had warned her about, but that we couldn't afford to do anything about.

well, i guess we're going to have to find a way to afford it now.

she went off to first aid, and i was very excited to hear afterwards that she'd managed to get sorted with an actual appointment with a receptionist who couldn't speak a word of english! that's pretty big, so we were both rather proud of her ^_^

...

during the morning i received a disheartening message from mr smear's teacher that he'd been completely uncooperative the entire morning.

after a big lunch, i walked to the school (i don't know why i didn't take a bus), picked up mr smear and walked through to the dental clinic. on the way, i told him about the art school that we want to register him for, and explained to him that if he doesn't "turn the ship around" and be on his best behavior for the next two months, then his current school's report may well prevent us from being able to move him to the next school.

i'm pretty sure that it's true, and i'm also pretty confident that if anything's going to motivate him, this will do it.

so that's the carrot. the stick is no screen time until i get a good report from his teacher.

...

we waited for gd for a while, and it turned out to be a really good thing that i'd taken my boss's advice and joined her - she needed imaging done, pronto. so we all caught a bus to ichilov, picked a floor (there're three imaging centers in the building), and were surprised by how quick and painless it was.

someone i was on the community council with reached out to me to thank me for the open letter, which she said cited the exact reasons she gave up on them. the responses have all been very validating, and i haven't got the expression "shul capture" out of my head since i heard it on sunday.

we walked home, picking up a couple of onion bagels along the way, and mr smear dived in to his homework (including hebrew reading, which we were informed today can't be comics) while i did a little more work.

mr smear and i put his duvet in the duvet cover this evening. after wishing him a good night, i spent some time doing nothing until i was ready to pass out early.

...

and then woke up a couple of hours ago, restless and with a sore neck and shoulder, and i eventually got up to write this and try to entertain myself until i'm sleepy again. i've been watching a lot of youtube videos - we're praying that trump takes the US election, and we're waiting for iran's "imminent" attack - but i haven't been able to get into any games lately (although i did play through act's ii and iii of inscryption again last week). and i guess my reading streak is broken. maybe i'll try to get that going again.

Sunday, November 03, 2024

exploding feelings

 holy shit.

today has been non-stop drama.

at least getting mr smear to school wasn't dramatic, so that's good.

but everything else?

...

it's been a day full of conversations and complications, some collaborative and some antogonistic, with members of group a telling a completely different story to members of group b, with our friend "called before the council" in an emergency meeting for an hour and a half of being interrogated and "nailed". and then, just as i began eating dinner, the rabbi i'd "named and shamed" called.

it was a tough conversation, and he asked me questions that i couldn't answer on the spot, but that after the call i realized i do have the answers to. i understand him feeling betrayed, but i know he won't appreciate just how much he's betrayed us. i agreed to remove his name from my open letter, but he tried to get me to remove my post entirely and that i refused.

in the middle of the call, gd came in, furious, needing to get something off her chest. what happened next, in the midst of me trying to be diplomatic with someone i know has done what he's done, was utterly mortifying to me, and if i had been watching it happen to someone else on a tv show i would've been cringing super hard and also laughing my ass off: she *yelled* at him, and said exactly how she felt, and threatened to shut him down for pushing interfaith islamic relations into the community while the muslim community in cape town is militantly antisemitic. it was mortifying, but also thrilling and cathartic at the same time. it's the kinda thing that both upsets me and makes me fiercely proud of her, even as i'm trying to encourage her to play smart, not hard.

i really do feel bad for hurting them personally, but before and after the call i spoke to a couple of different people who've confirmed that the real stuff we talked about was me being gaslighted. i'm going to go with the strategy i laid out to gd: i'm going to assume that's he's being honest, and that he wants to fix things. if things gets fixed - which they're now under real external pressure to do - then good. and if they don't, then he's hoisting himself on his own petard.

as much as i've betrayed my personal relationships in this matter, i feel a greater obligation to the community at large. and, as i told him directly, the leaders of the community are not serving the community.

it still feels awful, though. my anxiety and my mind are all over the place trying to make sense of how things are playing out, what was legitimate and what wasn't, and how things need to proceed.

...

i barely got any work done today, both because the work itself was messy, and because i was perpetually on edge and distracted. at least i managed to pick up gd's repaired shoes on the way home.

Saturday, November 02, 2024

not as planned

yesterday evening:

we took a cab to tahoma's, and were absolutely blown away by the quality and attention to detail of their halloween decorations. they turned their little apartment into a legitimate haunted house, and it was so effective that mr smear - who's obsessed with making creepy and gory things and tries really hard to be scary himself - refused to even look at the rooms because they scared the shit out of him.

smh.

some of the evening before the party actually got started was awkward, but mostly it was cool and we met some really nice people. one guy convinced me to explain the word "trolling" to him, and by the second sentence i began to suspect he was trolling me but he was so convincing i just carried right on, and i was quite impressed with myself for describing it as clearly as i did :P

there was a hilarious moment when a guy was translating mr smear's english for his five year-old, and asked mr smear what he was dressed as. "a killer clown!", mr smear said with pride. "a scary clown," the man translated for his child. mr smear was shocked. 

"i said a KILLER clown!"

"i know what you said."

"a KILLER clown!"

"i KNOW what you said!"

at that point we were all in hysterics, and i took mr smear aside to explain what was happening 🤣

as more grownups arrived, we caught a ride home, made kiddush and ate insanely delicious challah and broccoli schitznel sandwiches. by the time mr smear climbed into bed it was probably around 11.30pm.

today:

i think i slept pretty well, but i woke up very early with enough anxiety to realize that i needed to get up and start writing an open letter. i wrote and i wrote until my family got up - not too late, either - and after running through it a couple of times with gd, i pulled the trigger and posted it publicly on facebook with my email address attached. in it, i called out the pro-palestinian rabbi and his wife by name, and after a lot of introduction that includes both a summarized history of the conflict and a brief history of our experiences with the congregation, i made the following statements:

  • Stop listening to people who rely on your political ignorance to propagate malicious disinformation that is designed to harm you.
  • Stop listening to anyone who tells you that you don’t have the right to live in the only land you’ve ever been indigenous to, the land in which you have historically been its indigenous people for thousands of years.
  • Stop listening to anyone who tells you that there’s an occupation, or that there are “disputed territories”.
  • Stop listening to anyone who tells you about the plight of the Palestinians in a way that suggests it’s anyone’s fault but the league of Arab nations and the UN.
  • Stop listening to anyone who tells you that violence against Israel, or Jews in general, is justifiable.
  • Stop listening to anyone who tells you that this is Netanyahu’s war.
  • Stop listening to anyone who tells you that believing that Jews should live in the only land they’ve ever called home, the only land that promises them protection, the only land they’re free to be Jewish, is wrong.

my anxiety immediately switched from that of feeling frustrated and ashamed for not having said anything, to that of having said something so undiplomatic and confrontational that there's absolutely no going back. it was validating to receive messages of appreciation from members of the community, including gd's fellow graduates, and also from old schoolmates who've been involved in the battle but unable to affect change.

i don't know what's going to happen next - although i was disappointed that the executive blocked me on facebook and messaged me to make it clear that we could no longer talk - but i feel like i've discharged my duty, and if i have to have uncomfortable conversations i will do so. as much as we owe to the executive and the rabbis, and as grateful as we will always be for them helping gd with her conversion and us come home, our loyalties are first and foremost to the community as a whole.

we've put our own oxygen masks on, and played nice and diplomatic until they were secure. now it's time to help others.

...

while scrolling down my whatsapp messages i realized that swordschool had sent me an important message some time in june, and i hadn't responded 😱

so i called him up, and we synced for at least an hour. it's very comforting having someone like that in my corner. in addition to discussing his new dice mechanics and desolation jones, amongst a thousand other things, i was shocked and saddened to learn that before the tragic incidents he'd been through just prior to us reconnecting a few years back, he'd been through an even more tragic family disaster... i feel awful for him, and also exceedingly grateful for what i have.

...

in the afternoon i met up with sailor and we did a couple of rounds of coffees (well, first macha tea and then coffee) and a lunch (he ate, between my nerves and the confusing menu i was fine). he accompanied me home, and remained with gd while i took mr smear out for a walk. it was fine, at first, but he was in such a good mood that he vigorously skipped for a couple of blocks - with me skipping along right behind him - and ended up having a full-blown coughing fit / asthma attack. so i gave him his pump, and we slowly walked home around the circle.

aside from my reacting to a barista milk alternative (that i was told wasn't barista, but then later informed was) and the occasional open letter-related intrusion, we had a pretty good evening.

after all the anxiety and everything, i'm exhausted, and i feel like i skipped a day of weekend. i did a whole bunch of dishes, wrote all this, and now... i think i'm going to drink this new cup of tea and hit the hay.

...

oh! on-call. i forgot i was on-call today. and then i realized that the reason i was getting confusing alerts that made me forget what day it was is that with all the scheduling changes for the holidays, i've ended up with four days of on-call in a row :/

Friday, November 01, 2024

post-halloween halloween

 we're leaving soon for tahoma's, he and his husband are throwing a halloween party and their friends with kids are invited earlier while they're still setting up. mr smear's skeletal make-up is looking good in spite of gd's past fifteen minutes of cursing to the contrary, and i haven't figured out what i'm going as yet...

i just spent the late afternoon - after napping and playing through some of inscryption's act 3 again - bringing down the mountain of dishes that had accumulated, and for the last while i've been on the verge of an anxiety attack because i can't stop thinking about the propagandists who've infiltrated the community and the damage the more "progressive" rabbis have done over the course of many years.

lhearning

i slept well, but not nearly enough. and i had some weird dreams.

it was a super-slow wakeup, after dropping mr smear off at school i didn't even stop at home before accompanying gd to the cobbler to get some of her shoes repaired. we caught a bus to dizengoff center, missed our stop, and arrived at the music store with half an hour to kill before they opened.

we took a walk up to dizengoff "square", where got a fine cup of coffee. we could have done without witnessing a dog owner just letting their little yapper go off at a bigger dog with the bigger dog's owner having to work hard to keep him calm...

we talked to the woman who originally sold us the keyboard, and she told us to speak to the guy in the dj section. that guys was super helpful, and instead of selling us a midi controller he advised us to go home and do some research first. now that i have a better idea of how instruments (specifically midi instruments) work, i'm particularly grateful for his advice: we're going to learn cubase first, and then we're going to experiment with cheap controllers, and then we're going to buy a good one. maybe.

we picked up some makeup for this evening's halloween party at tahoma's, which took a lot longer than it should have, then returned home, getting off the bus a little early because gd couldn't bear sitting behind a guy cleaning his disgustingly long and dirty fingernails with his teeth. i was grossed out too, but i found gd's reaction absolutely hilarious 🤣

we stopped to pick up a bottle of wine for the evening on the way home, and then i went to the school to pick up mr smear. he was talking to a friend, and i overheard him "making an exception" and showing his friend the passcode for his phone 🤦‍♂️

so we had to have a "conversation" and change his passcode.

we searched through his locker for the book he's lost, and it looks like we're going to have to order a new copy.

fuck.

anyway, the afternoon's been pretty chill so far, not counting a long chat with the head of the jewish community council. most of the discussion was about the pro-palestinians who have infiltrated and taken over, and in spite of my sharply-increased anxiety at the thought of it i've agreed to meet with some of the community leaders to strategize, but also with the terrorist sympathizers directly.

i don't really want to, but i do feel obligated.

dum, dum dum dum, dum dum dum...

 i gave clickolding a try, and it crashed every time it hit dialog, so i uninstalled it and requested a refund. i was pleased to see that i'd received the refund before i went to bed.

today:

mr smear had pancakes for breakfast, so that he wouldn't have to eat walnuts.

i took him to school, then continued on to our pharmacy to pick up a couple of prescriptions. the pharmacy was completely empty, and there was no one ahead of me in the queue, so i only had to wait for ten minutes. they had one of the items i was looking for, but not the other.

i walked down to the mall pharmacy, where i waited another ten minutes or so (thankfully, i had my "kindle" with me for both waits), and picked up that prescription, although the pharmacist was concerned that the doc had prescribed it differently to what she's used to. that caused stress, but when i looked it up when i got home i discovered that there's a range of "configurations".

the work day started off pretty relaxed, and i was saying to a coworker that it's the first time in many years that i've been back from a ny sort of vacation for an entire week and i'm still feeling relaxed! at noon we all went off for a farewell feast at a nearby restaurant. sadly, i burned off some of my tastebuds on the delicious onion soup, but the pad thai was still exquisite.

i ate far too much.

the next few hours were hellish, because my tummy had decided it was time to move and it was relentless. in addition to that, gd and mr smear and i had a few dramatic phone calls because he'd had an incident at school, and it wasn't clear if he'd kicked the other kid back or not. i was relieved to hear that he had.

we also learned that some of the kids employ a nasty tactic of hitting mr smear and then claiming that they've just consumed dairy, and we've explained to him that aside from that not being likely, it's also not a big enough concern for him to not defend himself :/

eventually that calmed down, and i finished the week on a constructive note.

after dinner, mr smear wanted to show me something on the keyboard, and he did it really well. then i reminded him that we'd discussed him trying to figure out the tetris music on his own, and - holy shit - he got it! i can't describe how excited i am, and he was excited himself, that he figured out how to play the tune by ear and by feel ^_^

i was disappointed - and embarassed - to discover that the keyboard we bought can't connect to a computer. i'm going to speak to the store tomorrow and see if we can arrange a trade or something...

after we got him into bed, i had a quick chat with my sister, mostly about her status between jobs.

i've spent the past couple of hours doing lots of not much, and i'm considering heading to bed now and reading a bit. i'll be surprised if i last more than a minute or two :P