a change in the weather

 i woke up still in a dream-state this morning, i moved from the bed to the couch (under layers of blankets) and half-slept for a while longer, listening, amazed, to mr smear actually getting up and getting ready without a fight, and then - to his amazement - being able to read without anyone bothering him because he'd done all the things we always have to bother him about.

to be clear, this is exactly what we explain to him almost every day...

i started reading hakim's odyssey, and so far it's really good. it's politically problematic, though. no matter how this one man's story goes or ends, it doesn't change the fact that the majority of refugees are not interested in living under western conditions...

i did some onboarding for my client - monday's going to be complicated, because i'll be onboarding with both my employer and my client on the same day - and i helped gd with dishes while she rearranged our wardrobes and did a triage of our old clothing.

i took my computer and found a coffee shop near mr smear's school, where i worked* for half an hour before going to meet him and hunt down his history book. he was right, it wasn't in his locker, and we found a history that he thinks is his friends, and apparently his friend might have his, and i don't know what's going on but at least for now he's sorted.

* i instructed the LLM copilot, in a more structured way than usual.

i gave him permission to join his friends on a library mission, and on the way to meet them he took me by surprise by asking me how my day went. after updating him, i asked him how his hebrew class went and if he had had to hand it in, and he responded that he hadn't, and that that meant that we didn't need to have such a horrible night last night. when i explained that it wasn't a waste because the homework was done (never mind the importance of him learning to be cooperative and following rules), and that none of us enjoyed the experience... he argued that in his opinion, i *did* seem to be enjoying myself 🤦

gods help us all.

anyway, the vibes were mellow, and i saw the kids off at their station, then returned home to get some more work done.

when i got home, however, there was a nationwide network outage. while i waited, i ate lunch and fired up inscryption for the first time in a while. after finishing eating, i realized that without any network access i had no way of working, or communicating with mr smear, so i headed off to the library.

i was about halfway to the library when i realized that without network access, i wouldn't be able to work from there either :P

fortunately, the network was back online by the time i got there, i could pay for something to drink with my phone and use my mobile hotspot to make some more progress on my project. an hour later, i verified that mr smear was on his way home (without him knowing i was in the same building :P) and then i packed up and returned home too.

homework today was different; his matific exercises have moved into trigonometry territory, so instead of trying to figure out all the things at once, i taught him pythagoras' theorem and we watched a youtube history (puppet history) on how weird the dude was (not exactly age-appropriate, but fine).

dinner was nice, the evening was uneventful. after chatting with our kibbutz cousin (i've been meaning to call her back for two days now), i jumped back into inscryption and a short while ago completed the first act again.

i'm not sure if i'm ready for bed or not, but i need to watch more about what's going on in iran. maybe things are going to (finally) change...

tempest

 i'm still in shock. whatever else happened today was entirely overshadowed by mr smear terrorizing the household from the moment he finished school until 11.15pm.

he took an hour and a half to get home, which is a thing he's been doing for a while, and it's now clear that he's doing it in an attempt to get out of homework.

he had actual homework to do today (technically yesterday, but he claimed to have forgotten what it was), due tomorrow, and after three hours of him FAing i told him - with gd's support for the very first time, which indicates just how over his behavior she finally is - that he wasn't eating dinner or going to bed until the homework was done.

lessons learned this evening: he really doesn't give a shit until there's a threat of violence, or violence. punishment doesn't bother him. and in addition to that, he has zero respect for anybody, least of all himself.

here's the weirdest part of it all, though: the evening was a complete nightmare, but any time that he did decide to focus and do what we demanded of him - actually try to answer the questions - the mood shifted completely as he understood the material and what was expected of him. even when he needed my help, our interactions were calm and positive, as if nothing horrific had taken place minutes earlier.

in my estimation, the actual time spent doing homework was probably between half an hour to an hour.

but the other six hours of "homework time"? just sheer bloody-mindedness and insanity.

and then gd made him dinner, and he brushed his teeth, and he went to bed peacefully as if it was just an ordinary night.

...

the early morning was alright, minus a bad vibe over something dumb on his way out, and i left on time for my new employer's end-of-year event, wearing my jacket, my new waterproof shoes and carrying my umbrella.

on the way to the light rail station, i traversed massive pools of water that even my shoes couldn't protect me from entirely. i arrived in petach tikva in serious rain, with quite a walk to the event. but i made it, everything was fine.

the event was a tad awkward as i'm the new guy and haven't yet fully onboarded, but i met a lot of nice and interesting people and mostly had a good time.

the food was good, too - even if i had to wait a considerable amount of time for the vegan plates to come out - and i was very pleased to discover that the brewery is vleishik so the only milks the barista served were plant-based alternatives :)

i left with my new co-worker who i know from two jobs back, and less than a minute after we left the building we got slammed with a sudden, heavy downpour and heavy gusts of wind. that lasted about a minute, and then everything calmed back down.

we walked to and boarded the light rail, and got to tel aviv pretty quickly. unfortunately, we discovered once we arrived that neither of us had validated tickets. that wasn't a problem for me - i just generated one from the app - but he had an issue with his rav-kav and had to ask for assistance, which resulted in him being fined. i advised him to appeal the fine - it's really unfair, neither of us saw anything on the platform that might have helped (not a machine, not a sign) - but he's so stressed about the time cost of fighting it that i ended up telling him to just let it go...

...

i finished reading the complete ballad of halo jones today. it's brilliant. with all the mr smear shenanigans, though, i didn't have much time for any of the stuff i'd meant to do :/

and now it's very late, and i'm starting to fall asleep.

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

today went much better than it could have. in spite of a bit of a rocky start - gd realized at 8am that mr smear hadn't yet left the light rail station, and when i called him he informed me that "the trains had been too full for him to get on", at which point i yelled at him so loudly that i actually hurt my throat. i feel stupid for having lost my temper, and knowing he was right to put the phone down, but at least he got on the next train.

i spent most of the following hour sending my comics samples to the publisher, then gd and i did the grocery shopping, and i ate breakfast, and then i sat down and prepared for the afternoon's in-office workshop.

gd and i arrived just on time for the meeting with the principal (and councillor, and grade supervisor, and class teacher). it was a heavy meeting, but it looks like we got them to at least understand where mr smear's coming from, and how much we're invested in his success, and from their side they made it very clear that this is a critical time for mr smear to learn how to cope and cooperate, and that we need to get him back into therapy.

i just realized as i type this that it's therapy for a very different reason than before, for which we should be grateful.

i don't know why they asked us where mr smear's name came from, but i obviously explained it well because at least one of the women got emotional :)

gd and i split up at one of the light rail stations, and i went to his previous psychologist's clinic to ask about taking him back. unfortunately, the usual receptionist wasn't there and the one who was responded very bureaucratically. so i walked further along to a coffee shop, where i composed a message to his last psychologist asking for assistance.

i tried to get something constructive done, but couldn't concentrate, so i took a walk to my new office, arriving just in time to be introduced to some people before the workshop began.

between the miserable weather and trying to make arrangements for gd to see my aunt before she leaves, i'd been regretting signing up for the workshop, but in retrospect i'm glad i did.

from there (it was running late, and when i left 15 minutes after the scheduled end of the session it was still ongoing) i fast-walked to a bus stop where i could meet gd and mr smear while coordinating with my aunt and cousin. ultimately, we made it pretty much at the intended time, and we had a great hour and a half with them :)

we quickly gave up trying to find dinner in the area, and took a taxi home (kinda rude driver, and took an extra-long route), and mr smear jumped in the shower and gd and i sorted out a grocery delivery while we waited for the food.

the rainbow burgers were amazing ("chunk" steak and perfect garnishing/sauces). we ate too many fries.

we got mr smear into bed, and then i called my sister, and we talked a loooong time about my niece's drama, and then about mr smear's drama, and i was starting to fall asleep by the time we ended the call. then i remembered i hadn't brushed my teeth, so i did that, then i called my mom to sync, and then i showered, and now i'm thinking that maybe it's close to my own bedtime.

it's been a day.

home in the rain

 well, the day didn't get worse, so that's a thing.

although gd and i did have a bit of a fight about it - not for the first time on the topic - mr smear managed to come home from his friend's place, in the dark, in the pouring rain, by bus, by himself.

when he arrived, i wasn't just proud of him for a dramatically successful first time, but for how smoothly he came in, got himself tidily (as per instructions) undressed, and straight into the hot bath gd had prepared.

i was more than happy to read more of the ocean at the end of the lane (as per his request) while he soaked. then i did the toenail therapy (i'm not sure it's helping, the nails are so freaking deep), and jumped in the bath myself, and then we sat down to dinner... by the time we were done it was really late, and he had to go straight to bed.

i've spent the subsequent hour and a half doing nothing of value. i'm going to go to bed soon, nervous about what tomorrow will bring...

stormy weather

 i woke up yesterday morning with my back still hurting - particularly, a band of pain around the middle of my trunk whenever i breathe deeply. it's still happening now, though considerably less.

gd (who'd decided her jaw pain could wait) and i enjoyed a slow morning, and then we headed south the florentin and the levinski market looking for a nice place for a coffee date. we didn't find what we were looking for, and gd became distressed about all the market people and vibes, so we cut across to cafe barzilay.

i returned to the table after ordering to find gd upset, she handed me the phone and mr smear informed me how seriously he FAed at school - both in being defiant, and then following that up by lying about having seen the principal - and it looks like he's about to FO.

at least he told us before his teacher got hold of me...

so that fucked up our weekend vibe. we have a meeting with the principal tomorrow, and we have no idea how we can defend him (or even whether we should).

so yesterday was pretty shit. i mean, he seemed reasonably contrite, and he did finally catch up with his homework, but it was pretty shit.

on the plus side, without screen time he dove into building the lego monster book of monsters kit that the mongoose had bought him, so that was cool.

dinner went smoothly, but the evening fell apart when i responded inappropriately to gd sharing her feelings (like a man, i tried to be helpful instead of just listening and nodding my head), we had a massive, exhausting fight and i woke up this morning still feeling emotionally drained.

although i spent most of today reading - including continuing to read the ocean at the end of the lane at mr smear's request, and getting him into alice in sunderland, and getting through most of the complete ballad of halo jones, and winning a blake stake balatro run, and getting back from a not-unpleasant 8km walk dropping mr smear off at a friend (which means we both got exercise and fresh air and didn't get caught in the rain) - the day's still pretty shit.

gods help this kid get his shit together. PLEASE.

looming

 getting mr smear out of bed this morning was pretty tough. but we've had worse.

my back, on the other hand, threatened all morning to lock up. thank the gods we have the massage kit, it really helped. which reminds me that we still have the TENS NMES kit unopened on the table :P

[makes a note to unbox it tomorrow]

i've been reading the complete ballad of halo jones, which is amazing, and i got through quite a bit of it this morning before attacking the piles of paper that had been accumulating on various surfaces.

i did a lot of nothing, otherwise, and i didn't feel particularly good about it. i also did a lot of unhealthy snacking today. i felt antsy a lot today.

i did sign the revised contract, though, so that's good. and i discovered a bunch of interesting meetups in tel aviv, which i hadn't realized was a thing. and i filled out an onboarding questionnaire. and i redid the color on my not-so-white (and somewhat torn) shoes again.

in the afternoon, i took a walk to the library to get some work done on my side projects, but i spent most of that time onboarding. it's awkward joining chats before officially being welcomed. it's very quiet :P

i did get a little bit of work done on my "social" media project, at least, before i headed downstairs to pick up a graphic novel they were holding for me (hakim's odyssey), then return home via the mall in an attempt to find a grey sharpie (to make the white shoes intentionally not white).

i got home a little before mr smear, and most of the rest of the afternoon went smoothly. i made some side-project progress, he got through his music and quite a lot of the math exercises before breaking down, i did a lot of dishes, and by the time we were ready for dinner i decided that we could continue watching the highlander.

after dinner, i felt like the day had fallen apart. the thing gd went to the dentist to check is getting worse, so she's getting angrier and angrier with the dentist for being useless, and mr smear began behaving less than ideally... and i think a lot of my stress was due to the fact that the rest of the day had been positive, and my plans to go on a "date" with gd tomorrow morning were falling apart, and it was just a bummer.

by the time mr smear was in bed, though, i was ready to read some more of the ocean at the end of the lane to him. it was an even more horrific chapter than the one before, and i *had* to keep going until its end, which fortunately hit the turning point in the darkest part of the misery. mr smear had some interesting conversations along the way, and i think that helped because he went to sleep pretty easily afterwards, and in a good mood.

after saying good night i hit the shower, and then played balatro - finally earning the green chip! - and i think i'm going to bed soon.

probably.

good

 my fingers hurt from cleaning the apartment today (probably mostly from getting gunk out of the wheels of the vacuum cleaner). my eyelids are drooping, it's very late after a very late night with mr smear having dinner with my aunt and a bunch of cousins in south tel aviv.

i got a call this morning informing me that the client i interviewed with wants me on board, and wants me on board much sooner than planned. this is good news, and quite a relief because i was worried that being rejected on my first client application might set a bad tone.

it'll also be a relief to be earning again earlier.

babysitting

 it was difficult getting out of bed this morning. i made it even harder by moving to the couch and covering myself with five soft blankets (we just bought another two a couple of days ago).

i seem to recall it not being the smoothest back-to-school morning, but i don't actually recall anything particularly troublesome either, so 🤷

i accompanied gd to the dentist, where there was a weird mix-up about her appointment time (it's not clear if they messed up, or if she misheard), and the secretary was being unpleasantly and aggressively defensive while i was trying to figure out what happened, and gd assures me that she's seen this same woman drive other patients mad so i guess i shouldn't take it personally...

apparently gd's situation isn't too worrying, but the dentist who examined her needed to have his finger put on the place she's worried about before he could recognize that there was anything at all, so...

we took a walk past the doggy cafe, and were both surprised to hear my name being yelled by my cousin - who's just arrived from the states with my aunt - flying past on a scooter! it's a tiny country :P

i picked up a coffee, and we continued on to her gastro scope. we arrived early, concerned that gd drinking sips of water when it's supposed to be a water fast might be a problem :/

we waited quite a while, and i spent the time working on one of my side projects. then we went through, and i hung around while gd waited for quite a while (on a less comfortable chair) until they came to get her, and sent me back outside. i waited a while (not too long) and read dev articles, then they called me in and we waited for quite a while until a doctor came to tell us they hadn't really found anything interesting.

it's information, i guess.

gd was pretty messed up after the anaesthetic, but okay, and overall her experience was considerably improved from the nightmare scope she endured in montreal at the hands of a couple of evilly cruel doctors and nurses who barely sedated her and... i guess that's her story to tell.

we came home, i ate breakfast, barely finishing before jumping onto a zoom presentation about using AI to handle entire task lifecycles. after a pretty boring hour, not only was i left unconvinced that one should do that, but i was pretty convinced that the presenter's company (which he's running, essentially) is burning through huge quantities of human capital and energy capital and that the value-for-money isn't as high as they probably think it is.

but i was reminded to reactivate my sonarqube plugin for vscode, which gave me some fun chores to do this evening.

mr smear came home, and sat down to his homework for the first time since before the holidays. it didn't go well (i later discovered he's been skipping exercises again, which blows my mind because it took us months to catch up last time and it was a big deal for both of us).

meanwhile, i napped under all the blankets until i needed to go to my dermatologist appointment. i didn't feel like going, it was cold and i was tired. but i went. the dermatologist did a full examination (and used the sun damage on my ankles to quiz his intern), and i guess the thing that was bothering me a few months ago when i made the appointment must have gone away 🤷

i walked home, chatting with my aunt and then my mom, the latter discussing apartment hunting and the fact that we should get started already.

i stopped at the bakery on the way home to chat and pick up more-expensive-than-i-expected yummo's bars, then came home to take care of mr smear's toenails and shower, and deal with his non-compliance, and have dinner, and then read another chapter of the ocean at the end of the lane.

i'd forgotten about the bathroom scene. i apologized to mr smear, to his five year old self, and to all his selves since. i don't know what i was thinking at the time, but that definitely wasn't appropriate.

...

after reporting that back to gd, i told her what i've been thinking about a lot today: things are really hard for her, and i know that i can't fully understand what she's going through, and i know that i get upset with some of her behaviors that aren't her fault, and that that's not fair. at the same time, though, i don't feel like i ever really get a break, and my life seems like a never-ending gauntlet, and i guess i need to accept that as my base-line.

all either of us can really do is just do the best we can to keep putting one foot in front of the other. i'm not sure what normal people go through, but whatever it is, i'm pretty sure we're not normal and that this isn't it.

adulting

 the interview was a bit weird.

firstly, the office is much closer to home than i expected. it's in ramat gan, not tel aviv, and i think it's the first time i've been up in a tall building in the area because the views were surprisingly spectacular.

secondly,  the moment we sat down for the interview itself my interviewers were shocked that i hadn't brought my laptop with me. i'd actually thought about bringing it with me, funnily enough, but it's such an odd thing to do i'd decided against it.

the interview itself may or may not have gone well. mainly because it took me a while to get to what they were looking for, but the conversation we had along the way was a real conversation, and interesting, so hopefully that satisfied them.

i was pleased to get a phone call from my mentor, after i emailed him a post-interview update, in which he was furious about them expecting me to bring a laptop :P [as we both agreed: it wouldn't have been unreasonable if they'd asked me to, but they didn't]

after i got home, put together a quick diagram and sent it, and spoke to my mentor, mr smear left for the comics library to go and read chainsaw man, which i'd told him i didn't want him reading. i took care of a bunch of random things, and then all of a sudden i got a call from him, on his way home, explaining that he'd put back chainsaw man after deciding it really was inappropriate because the protagonist was behaving badly and was intending to act in a way that's he felt was sexual assault.

so i'm relieved, and gd and i are both very proud of him.

he got home, i passed out on the couch, gd went to the dentist for first aid.

she came back early, having been at the dentists' office at the right time to be able to make an appointment to see one tomorrow morning (as opposed to waiting hours for first aid). so that's cool.

mr smear and i fired up oxygen not included together (i kibbitzed), and we both had a great experience!

in the evening, the three of us hopped on a bus to meet up with the mongoose and his daughter at the mall. we discovered, when we got to the lego store, that he was shopping for a late birthday present for mr smear, who ended up with the very exciting monster book of monsters!

we spent the next half hour or so struggling to find a place to eat, because everywhere we thought of was closed already. eventually, we ended up at lampur, which had excellent options for veganizing dishes, and although it was quite pricey the food was excellent and we all had a great time :)

afterwards, we all took a short stroll through the park, and then we got a ride home, and it was very late by the time mr smear finally got into bed.

now it's very late and i'm deciding whether i should be getting into bed, or playing a bit first...

...

oh! on the way out this evening we did something we haven't felt able / been inclined to do in forever - we booked tickets to a comedy show! in february. on a school night. with no intention of hiring a babysitter.

(to be fair, it's an early show)

procrastination

 ha ha. today was not about preparing for tomorrow's interview.

i mean, i *did* do some prep work, but a large chunk of the day was spent getting to the haircut, getting the haircut, and getting home, and although i napped for a lot of the haircut itself i was so tired when i returned home that i barely had it in me to shower to rinse my hair before passing out on the couch for half an hour...

and then i had to take mr smear out for some exercise and fresh air. it was a pleasant walk to the library, but the way home was mostly him complaining about being tired and sore. i'm wondering if his muscles have atrophied over the course of the past couple of weeks :/

lots of dishes, and the last channukah candlelighting, dinner (watching the original highlander movie, the common sense media reviews did not prepare us for the homosexual slurs and other colorful sexual language), and getting mr smear into bed, and reading a particularly scary chapter of the ocean at the end of the lane, and then more dishes, and then...

i dunno. i think i'm going to bed early tonight and hoping for the best.

the pause

life feels like a hurricane at the moment, so it was nice to be able to spend a day in the eye of the storm.

yesterday:

our friends (plus parents) actually tried the challah-lina reaper with me, and it was a great success. both in that nobody suffered too much, and in that i wasn't the only one to go back for more.

dinner was great, the kids had a good time together, and although gd and i are always on our guard with the parents due to the political divide, we had lots of interesting conversations with zero friction. it was a lovely evening overall.

we got home pretty late, lit the candles (with my mom), and got mr smear into bed before passing out ourselves.

today:

the early morning was slow (we all got up late), and i spent a little time checking out last call BBS which i picked up last night in the steam sale.

cm got back to me with an invitation to bring mr smear over to play with his kids. getting mr smear out the house is complicated at the best of times... but he came, willingly, and aside from a section through the park that felt too much like a hike to him, we enjoyed a pleasant walk and he kept us both entertaining by singing psychosocial's chorus with ice age's sid's lisp the whole way there.

since mr smear's finally conceded that speaking hebrew has utility, he had no issue communicating with cm's kids and the bunch of them got along well. so the kids had a fun afternoon, the few times they didn't had nothing to do with mr smear, and the adults had a fun afternoon.

eventually, we said our goodbyes and i walked mr smear to his other friend who lives close by, and then i came home, rested a bit, did some dishes until mr smear got home, when he very begrudgingly helped with the drying, and then it was chill time (balatro, it's dangerous) until dinner, and then we enjoyed dinner and the end of equilibrium, lit the candles (with my mom), and got him through bathtime / ingrown toenail treatment time / bedtime.

i spent the next couple of hours balatro-ing, showered, spent a little time last call BBS-ing, and am now about to put myself to bed. i've got a haircut scheduled for tomorrow morning, and gd's developed another dental issue (obviously she's bored) so we'll have to deal with that, but otherwise tomorrow's all about preparing for my technical interview on monday.

spicy

i type this post with burning fingers. i used gloves on the carolina reaper, so i'm pretty confident that it's the jalapeño i prepared before...

yesterday:

i woke up from a disturbing dream yesterday morning: my mom and i on a pier in a massive storm, me in the car and her standing about 20ft away. i yell "look at the horses!" and then realize we have a massive tsunami incoming, i yell at her to get in the car and she makes it just as the wave hits. and then the car is pushed right over the edge of the pier and i wake up as we're falling, trying to recall how to not get trapped in an underwater vehicle

i began the day publishing the article on git worktrees and devcontainers, then mr smear and i accompanied gd to the neurosurgeon to look at her shoulder. we had about an hour and a half to wait, which i used to finally start preparing for my client meeting.

the doctor was pleasant, and he tried to be helpful, but gd left very discouraged and feeling like he didn't hear her (although, in my opinion, he did). i hope we get to the bottom of whatever's giving her trouble sooner rather than later, but it's already becoming a process...

after that we came home, and i spent the hour i had until my meeting preparing some more.

the meeting itself seems to have gone well, and i was glad to get good feedback from my lead. having said that, i was a little surprised to learn that i'm going to have to go through a proper technical interview with them on monday - i'm a little bummed out, too, because i didn't realize i'd need to spend another couple of my "unemployment" days doing work.

at least my employer's agreed to pay me for my preparation hours, but i was kinda hoping to have a few weeks off :/

after the meeting, i ate some food in preparation for the next big item on my agenda: the eating of my first carolina reaper.

OMFG. i just asked mr smear to record a reaction video to me eating a carolina reaper, i thought it would be a fun father/son activity. i survived - i only took a couple of nibbles, that was enough pain to convince me that eating the whole thing may have incapacitated me - and now that my system's calmed down (and i can breathe not-fire again) i just learned that he somehow lost the more than five minutes recording of me struggling 🤦😭

so... that happened.

it took an hour or so for my mouth and stomach to calm down after that, and between the meeting (and its prep) and the previous days' not sleeping enough and the reaper, i was completely exhausted. all i remember from the rest of the day was passing out watching an episode of jujutsu kaisen with mr smear, and gd deciding she doesn't like dinosaurs after we watched episode 7 ("family challenge"), and going to bed right after reading some more of the ocean at the end of the lane to mr smear.

today:

lots of weird dreams. it feels like it's been a while.

after a long chat with horseman - we talked about AI and game dev, but more about internet psychosis - we all went to the mall to pick up some groceries, and then the corner market, and then mr smear played among us online with his friend while i watched educational content (ha ha - most of the stuff i watched today was trash), and then i did the dishes so that gd and i could make the challot together; we have our first challah-lina reaper incoming :D

i was reading a bit more of the department of truth when i got the sudden urge to write this, so here we are.

i'm tiiiired. and we're going out to our friends tonight. i should nap a bit.

yak shavers R us

 omg i've just realized it's 2.30am and i've spent the past almost three hours figuring out an annoying problem with git worktrees and devcontainers, and then figuring out problems with writing up my solution for stack overflow (a moderator deleted my answer because i didn't attribute the AI generated stuff properly) and problems with converting my solution to medium formatting (which involved a side quest to fix a bug in an html app that's supposed to do that).

and i still haven't pushed the publish button on my article, but i guess that's a mission for tomorrow.

...

in the meanwhile, i'm pleased (?) to report that that's two nights in a row that mr smear fell asleep while i read to him, not for any other reason than it meant that we all had an easier night.

constructive behavior and eating out

on monday night, i balatro'd for more than a bit. i went to bed late, but having understood just why it's such a big deal - it's as intricate and unhinged as inscryption, only without the story.

i mean, i love the story of inscryption as much as i love the card game(s), but they're both really intriguing once you get deep enough.

...

yesterday:

mr smear didn't have an easier night, but we realized in the morning that his workshop wasn't yesterday after all, it was today. so that was a relief.

the first thing that happened was a conversation about the previous evening's drama, and for the most part it was pleasant and constructive.

the main part of my day was preparing for a work meeting, and then the work meeting itself. and in the evening, another conversation with my lead/mentor about a different contract, where he made it clear to me that it's entirely on me to pick contracts that i want.

i still have to wrap my head around this.

in the afternoon, gd and i took mr smear to get his chest x-rayed. the x-ray was quick, but the wait was kinda long and in spite of his not feeling great mr smear and i had fun wrestling a bit :P

on the way home, we stopped at donattelo's for surprisingly good vegan pizza, and a generally good experience during the break in the rain.

we watched most of equilibrium last night, which was really fun. oh! and our taster's box of hot peppers arrived ^_^

i read another chapter of the ocean at the end of the lane to mr smear, putting myself to sleep as much as him. i almost woke up completely between saying goodnight to mr smear and brushing my teeth, but in spite of it being relatively early i did fall asleep after a short while, and i did sleep through most of the night.

today:

i woke up from a long, convoluted dream that ended with me and tahoma chanting enthusiastically at some kind of work event.

i opened the first of my sunglass lens replacements to arrive, the photochromic ones. i'm convinced they're a scam, because they seem to change tiny slightly in the sun but they don't seem to be protecting my eyes from anything.

we weren't quite sure about sending mr smear to the manga workshop until about an hour before, by which stage we'd decided he was fine to go and he still seemed to want to go - which is surprising, considering his track record of nope-ing any activity outside of the house.

while he did that (with one of his friends), i sat upstairs and spent a couple of hours working on helper scripts for one of my projects. one of my now-ex co-workers came over to say hi, which was nice, and i find it interesting that he chooses the library when he needs quiet time during the workday.

mr smear seemed to have had a good time, even if the two of them had found the workshop a bit "childish". it took some effort to drag him out of the comic library (and lose the argument about him reading chainsaw man), and we did some urgent grocery shopping on the way home (most importantly, for gloves to handle the peppers).

and stop for a quick chat with the bakery owner, who's been getting into south african documentaries and was surprised to learn that chris hani's murder was such a big deal for all of us. and to hear confirmation of what he thought were exaggerations of the load-shedding and the crime.

and stop for a quick chat with ze irish german's wife; turns out they're all the same kind of sick as we've been (with the parents seeming to just have colds, and the children being knocked out of commission entirely).

mr smear and i had lunch and watched a king's quest playthrough together, and then a short while later we all headed out again to gd's check-up, from where we walked together to the dentist so i could pick up my new mouth guard (which fits!). we wanted to try a vegan place next door for dinner, but they only had QR code menus and the QR code wasn't readable, so in frustration we gave up and continued to lebowski, where we enjoyed a really nice dining experience.

mr smear got to taste shakshouka (not amazing, but decent), and gd's shuwarma (apparently great), and although my curry wasn't as intense as i would have liked, the experience overall was solid.

we just got home, mr smear's showered and soaked his feet and i've sorted out his toes for the night, and now we're going to light the candles and get ready for bed.

the coughing chorus

 it hasn't stopped. his fever went down a bit, but it's not staying down, and his cough doesn't seem to be getting better. emotionally, he's taking a stimulant that's heightening his emotional intensity, and combined with his usual truculent (my new favorite word) default it's been a really hard day.

this morning i helped ozdoc make her radio interview shareable (thanks, facebook, for making it nigh-impossible to share audio files), and i read a bit more of the fifth percy jackson novel.

at this point, i'm so disappointed by the writing quality nosedive that i'd put the book down if i didn't want to just get through it for closure. riordan thoroughly betrays percy's character in the underworld scenes, and rips the reader out of the world with silly gags, and it's now very clear to me why percy jackson never achieved harry potter-like status in the zeitgeist.

...

i don't know what it was specifically, but something triggered me this morning regarding the ai is slowly destroying your brain video; that "folie à deux" isn't just confined to AI and to individuals, but it's the exact same mechanism that's causing mass psychosis on a global scale: it started with search filter bubbles more than two decades ago, then evolved to ad-tech driven social media driving engagement by sowing division.

this explains why flat earthers are a thing, and antivaxxers are a thing, and how the political spectrum ceased to be a spectrum and everyone decided that anyone with opposing views is extreme, insane, and evil.

...

i packed my laptop into my bag, dressed for rain, and headed out to find a quiet corner to write in. i managed to get in more than two hours of focus time, churned out an article i'm proud of, and generated a video for it using notebooklm that i'm really happy with.

on my way home - in the pouring rain - i picked up a globe for mr smear. he seems happy with it, in spite of all the country names being in hebrew...

once home, i had a quick late-lunch and then hopped on a call with my lead, who's setting me up for a meeting with a potential client. so i've got some homework to do.

the rest of the evening was a mixed bag of chilling with mr smear (watching jujutsu kaisen) and enjoying dinner, and fighting over ridiculous shit. after he went to bed gd and i had it out, and we're both feeling pretty sensitive to the fact that we're now acutely retroactively aware of all of our missteps that brought us to mr smear's more toxic behavior.

it feels pretty awful.

anyway, i've spent the past couple of hours playing around with AI and watching things while mindlessly minesweeper-ing, and i'm about to balatro for a bit before bed and hope that by some miracle mr smear's cough settles and he gets some sleep.

not least because he's supposed to go to a manga-drawing workshop tomorrow which he was really excited about...

bondi

 it's the first night of the festival of lights, but we're all heartbroken by the terror attacks on brown university yesterday and bondi beach today.

the intifada has been globalized, for anyone who might have been chanting that slogan...

...

i honestly don't recall if this was this morning's, or yesterday morning's, just-before-waking dream (i *think* it was this morning's):

vacationing up north with my wife, son and mom, fighting roddy piper in an octogon, beating him with his own hammer, in a complicated plan to stay a little longer splitting up from my mom to take a bus home, informing piper's brothers that i'd killed him and them giving me the fight money in small gold coins which kept getting lost all over the place, missing the bus but then remembering that we'd had the car ready to go

i don't know what any of that means. also, i don't think i've heard or thought of the name roddy piper in decades.

mr smear had another rough night last night, which means so did gd. but she seems to be doing a little better today, at least, whereas he's still feverish and coughing a nasty cough.

his teacher sent him get well soon wishes "and a hug", and he informed us, very seriously, that he only hugs family, and maybe a girlfriend *if* he gets a girlfriend 🤣

against my will, i headed out to two pharmacies this morning to pick up gd's forgotten meds and cough drops for mr smear, but that put me in the right place at the right time to deal with a weird message i'd gotten about mr smear's allergist appointment. and it was a good morning for a walk.

the main part of the day was spent keeping up with the bondi attack and messaging our aussie family and friends, but also reading, watching a bit of jujutsu kaisen with mr smear (until we had a blowout over his response to me offering him a banana), and putting a little bit of effort into that algorithm write-up. in the afternoon, i decided to walk to our favorite coffee shop with my kindle, and enjoyed an hour's reading with my family's coughing and hacking replaced by people and traffic noises.

it was nice.

i'm concerned that our treatment of mr smear's ingrown toenails isn't doing much good.

dinner was simple (gd wrapped onigiri leftovers in rice paper for me).

bedtime was smooth, i read some more of the ocean at the end of the lane to mr smear, and realized as i finished the chapter that he'd fallen asleep...

since then the night's been a mash-up of digital housekeeping, the news cycle, balatro... and trying to convince gd (once again) to record her thoughts.

i think i'm going to be going to bed soon.

a quiet winter's day

balatro until late again. and a fair amount of it today.

i started the day slowly, finishing the fourth percy jackson novel and leaving the following review:

a bittersweet experience, a great story but clearly rushed.

the first three books of the series set a really high bar, and i wondered how it could be that the percy jackson franchise hasn't gained as much traction as the harry potter one.

but then i read #4.

while the story itself is great, with lots of exciting and clever elements, riordan and his editors seem to have started taking their readers for granted, and a whole lot of things just seem lazy. and i find myself offended by every single incorrect usage of the word "shined" as opposed to "shone"; if those editors got paid, the publisher should demand its money back. 

**SPOILERS** 

two scenes in particular of the glaringly obvious cardinal sin of breaking the fourth wall to tell, rather than show. one of them is kelli the monologuing empousa:

“a vampire, you say?” kelli laughed. “that silly legend was based on us, you fool. we are empousai, servants of hecate.” “mmmm.” tammi edged closer to me. “dark magic formed us from animal, bronze, and ghost! we exist to feed on the blood of young men. now come, give me that kiss!”

seriously.

and then there's the telekhines receiving on-the-job sex-ed in the forges.

“now, younglings,” the instructor said, “what is the proper name of our kind?” “sea demons!” one of them barked. “no. anyone else?” “telekhines!” another monster growled.

i'm still feeling a bit gross and weak, but i'm definitely doing better. mr smear's still pretty sick, though, very feverish. it's been a rough day for him. but in spite of that, he's always ready to jump up and down in front of the screen playing minecraft...

i thought we'd watch the fellowship of the ring together (the extended edition), but after i woke up from passing out i realized that so had mr smear, and then he decided he wasn't interested in continuing :(

i spent some time finishing the draft of that algorithm i mentioned a few weeks ago, and i'm about to get up for my third round of dish duty, which is honestly the only thing that's gotten me out of my chair / off the couch today.

down/screen time

 we all slept pretty late this morning, but then gd dragged me out of bed to take mr smear to the doctor; neither of them got much sleep last night, mr smear was feverish and pukey.

the doctor's appointment was pretty straightforward - the most important part of it was her convincing gd to not try to treat problems we don't know he has, because for some reason she'd convinced herself that he had c. diff again - and the two of them went home while i walked to the pharmacy for child-friendly anti-nausea meds, then did a little shopping that included "treating myself" to a bunch of fancy teas (pukka) with my birthday discount at the nature store.

we watched tron: ares together, which was generally fun, but really suffered from some seriously lazy writing. mr smear spent most of the rest of the day resting and nursing his fever, we were a little worried earlier but he woke up ready to play a little before dinner and he seems alright now.

otherwise, i had an interesting chat with SxS earlier, and i've agreed to give him a hand with a project of his. and i've played a fair amount of balatro. oh! and i read a chapter of the department of truth today, it's pretty cool.

the challah-peño tonight came out extra spicy ^_^

now i'm holding off eating panda chocolate for dessert because mr smear can't have any. he managed most of an onigiri at dinner, and we don't want to risk any interesting stuff tonight.

half-and-half

the runny nose seems to be calming down, but i'm still battling with the cough. i was dead tired when i woke up this morning. most of it went great - mr smear got ready and ate his breakfast without a fuss, and he and i had a talk about poor writing (telling instead of showing, creating completely impossible situations) vs good writing (using the example of hawthorne's intro to the scarlet letter) - but it went awry at the very last minute when he refused to rejoin our family whatsapp group, presumably because we revoked his admin privileges after he abused them by deleting a message from gd that he didn't like :/

i don't recall too much from the early morning, but at around 10am i was just getting into doing something constructive when i got a call from mr smear to say he wasn't feeling well. so i dressed up for the rain and caught the bus, on the way arranging for his teacher to give him permission to leave. i instructed him to pick it up from the secretariat, and waited outside the school gates.

fifteen minutes went by before i lost patience and called him, and discovered that he'd (allegedly) misunderstood the instruction and had instead sat down to read on his phone while i stood in the rain.

the return home was frustratingly long. he was being very dramatic, i wasn't quite sure if he was really ill, and i was feeling a bit resentful wondering if there's some other parallel universe in which i get to use a bit of this "unpaid leave" i had plans for for myself.

to be fair, he's pretty damned sick, high fever and everything.

i spent an hour or two working on one of my side projects (in preparation for another one), and then hopped on to a couple of video calls to meet my new "lead" and our "sales" guy. those quotes are because our company works very differently from anything i'm used to, and the more i understand the better the whole deal seems ^_^

i asked if it didn't make sense to bring my start date forward, and i was told that if any of my preparation for my first day takes significant time, to bill them for my hours once i'm on board.

i'm impressed.

afterwards, i sat with mr smear and gd and we watched some youtube videos, then decided to watch the dark night. 

👌

i rushed to do as much of the dishes as possible, then headed out (in the rain) to the comics library for a very interesting evening; it's kind of like a book club, but without the usual book club nonsense. and i ended up walking out with kitaro for mr smear (recommended after i told them about our difficulty determining age-appropriate stuff for him) and the department of truth, which sounds insane.

i've just got out of the shower after spending some time discovering interesting synergies in balatro, and i'll probably be going to bed soon. for all my griping this morning, i ended up having a pretty good day.

...

i've just learned from someone who's seen south africa's list of veterans, that i'm not on it.

surprisingly, that's quite a relief.

full-time unemployment

 i want to thank balatro, and the fourth percy jackson*, and a combination of slipknot and synthknot, for helping me maintain some semblance of sanity today. i may be unemployed, but wow yesterday evening and today have been taxing.

* i think rick riordan's editor must have taken a break after the third book, and maybe they were under heavy time pressure from the publisher, because the quality of the writing definitely drops. but overall, the story itself makes it worth pushing through.

we were told to come at 6pm, but to be prepared to wait. what we didn't anticipate from that instruction was that "be prepared to wait" meant that we weren't officially booked for 6pm, and that other families would be given preference. and that's after we waited more than an hour because the teacher was running hella late.

at least gd and mr smear were in mostly good spirits, and it was pleasant watching him playing around with a bunch of other kids (including a - ewwww - *girl*). he was very proud of himself for figuring out how to make himself squint, and entertained everyone with his newfound party trick :P

the meeting itself was a mixed bag, and a bit heavy. in some ways he's really improved, but he's still got a long way to go. and we discovered that the reason he got sent to the principal's office a few weeks ago wasn't because of the face painting, but because his teacher told him to go wash it off and he left the class and immediately returned without having done so 🤦

it was quite late, and a bit wet, when we finally left. we ordered rainbow burgers, got mr smear ready for bed, ate dinner, and were done for the day..

we had quite the thunderstorm last night.

today:

i managed to sleep better last night, though still not easy. i woke up into drama, because gd had forgotten that she was supposed to be fasting for her g-scope this morning :/

mr smear bussed to school by himself in the pouring rain, which is impressive.

...

on monday i posted my child safety opinion in the group, and the unhinged responded as follows:

<totalwaste> - i'm quoting you -

"and even adults can't understand where the boundaries should be and how to set them."

i think that maybe the root of the problem in our class.

i am an adult, and contrary to what you wrote, i know very well where the boundaries are and how to apply them.

perhaps parents who have difficulty with this should seek the help of the school counselor to get tools.

i didn't respond. obviously her response bothered me, but eventually i remembered that the only appropriate thing that can be said in a situation like this: "i envy your confidence"(the quiet part: and general lack of awareness). and i'm grateful that it's clear enough to the rest of the class what we're all dealing with.

last night we learned that the principal's father has passed away. this morning the unhinged mother responded with a comment that it's not sad, because what's sad is that the principal didn't support her daughter sufficiently when she needed help.

later, that wtf made a little more sense - though it's still absurd and gross - because we understood that the unhinged was referring to her daughter's father dying. which i guess explains her overcompensation and need to be the perfect mom.

i mean, she's still an intolerably toxic PoS, but at least it's a little more understandable.

...

gd and i took a long walk, stopping at the comics library, and the pharmacy, and the stationary store, and doing a little grocery shopping, and even managing to make an appointment for mr smear's next follow-up allergy appointment along the way.

not without a battle, of course; when i asked if we could schedule it for the new year, the receptionist told me i'd have to call back in february because their calendar isn't open yet. there was an awkward back-and-forth of confused questions until i asked her if their hospital wing was closed until then, at which point we finally came to understand that while i'd meant to book for the beginning of the year, she'd thought i meant the end of the year... good grief.

anyway, it was a long walk and the bags were heavy and gd and i were still sinus-heavy and coughing, and the next couple of hours were spent reading and napping.

interrupted only by a message from mr smear's teacher... the kids had to do an assignment on the computer today, and while all the other kids worked well mr smear took the opportunity to play games instead. to make it worse, he insisted on lying about it to the teachers when confronted, even though they'd checked the browser history and knew exactly what he'd been up to.

we had a long conversation about that when he got home. gd and i are extremely disappointed, and frustrated. mr smear seemed legitimately contrite, but we honestly don't know if that means anything.

the next couple of hours were homework. the same homework he struggled with yesterday, he struggled with just as much today, and it took a loooong time and some fighting to get him to do what i've been telling him to do for a much looooooonger time, which is to write down all the goddamned steps.

eventually, around the time we usually finish dinner, he finally got through it.

oh! i didn't mention that gd had a particularly difficult day health-wise, between her stomach ulcer and her shoulder injury and her neck and her cold, so with all that other stuff going on i had to participate more than usual in the dinner prep and serving...

dinner was alright, but it was late already and we still had to get him ready for bed and do the ingrown-toenail treatment (which i have no idea if it's helping or not), and it was pretty late by the time he went to sleep.

...

i'm feeling pretty emotionally drained right now. i'm going to try and relax, and then hope for a relatively restful night 🤞

blocked

yesterday:

i was mostly pretty useless for the remainder of yesterday, although i did get one or two hours of work in on one of my side projects. mr smear did alright with his homework. i almost went to the comics library, but it was threatening to rain so i turned back.

we ate latkes last night. mr smear ate too many. it rained pretty hard last night.

i played a lot more balatro.

today:

i struggled a bit less with the blocked nose and sore throat last night, but i still struggled. it's been a little easier today, but still not easy.

i spent most of two hours working on the side project, and the frontend is mostly ready. for the current mocked-backend phase, i'm quite pleased with how it's going.

i joined a company lecture on integrating AI into R&D organizations, and found it interesting. i have a meeting with them in a couple of days, and i'm already planning on asking them why we can't bring my start date forward.

i still don't have the documents i need to claim unemployment for the month, but at least i've been paid by my previous employer...

mr smear's been home and doing homework for a while now, mostly with a good attitude but we've had some friction. and in forty five minutes we have to go to the school for the parent-teacher meeting we missed last week...

child safety

 well, the "family meeting" yesterday seemed to go alright, but we've no way of knowing how much landed. at the very least, between yesterday evening and this morning, things are feeling much better between us.

in spite of mr smear dragging out his homework for hours (even with using google's translate to help him) when it could literally have taken him a few minutes. he spent orders of magnitude more time trying to get out of writing a couple of sentences and losing more screen-time privileges.

we've reversed ourselves on the "earning" screen-time thing. if we do that, we're left with precisely nothing in terms of leverage.

...

after much drama and finally getting him into bed last night, i drowned in a flood of angry messages from the class parents - they're starting to notice the kids engaging in inappropriately sexual banter, and apparently one of the boys showed somewhat pornographic images to one of the girls.

i quietly lurked until this morning, until i'd had a chance to discuss the situation with mr smear, and then posted the following opinion:

> but neither the teacher, nor the administration, nor the parents know how to handle them

100%. And in my opinion, that's the main thing - the whole world is going crazy, the children are absorbing terrible things from all directions, and even adults can't understand where the boundaries should be and how to set them.

but first of all, we need to be aware that we don't understand exactly what's going on, and exactly where it's coming from, and that this is less relevant than cooperation in trying to protect and vaccinate our children as much as possible.

i tried to understand from my son this morning what happened, but he didn't see/perceive events as documented above. on the other hand, he came home last week and repeated phrases he heard from other children (not necessarily children from the class) and really didn't understand their meanings, and i had to have an unpleasant conversation so that he would understand why it's wrong without conveying age-inappropriate things to him

i think we should have a conversation, maybe in person, and set norms between us and try to find a way to manage the identification and treatment of events when they arise.

let's see if anyone actually wants to do anything about this.

...

right after posting, gd and i watched "get your kids off roblox" - why is the world's largest children's game banning vigilantes? and i immediately felt even better about our decision to ban roblox a few months ago, and set about generating a hebrew video presentation with notebooklm: רובלוקס: שאלה של בטיחות

i hope that lands.

(if you also didn't know about 764? you're welcome)

game theory

yup, it's a definite nose & throat thing, i'm not feeling *sick* sick (yet?), but i am feeling a bit rough...

after posting yesterday morning, we went to the 24/7 to do a little shopping and then our friends came over for the afternoon.

the good: a fantastic game of goodcritters, with us two dads teaching the three kids game theory experientally, and we opened both the math fluxx and mystery fluxx decks which are a lot of fun.

the bad: mr smear and the little brother griefing the sister, resulting in tears, and a no-good lousy shit-attitude afternoon and evening for mr smear. which then led to a pretty shit morning experience as well.

so this morning gd and i had a long discussion about what our options are, and we're now waiting for mr smear to come home so we can sit down for a "family meeting"... probably the first of many more on the topic of our familial relationships and roles...

gd and i finally sat down to watch 10 things i hate about you, which is one of my favorite shakespeare adaptations and has aged phenomenally well. i then pulled out my copy of the illstrated stratford shakespeare and read/paraphrased the induction scene to the taming of the shrew, which i *wish* had been included somehow in the movie.

and then i (finally) purchased balatro, and sunk about three hours into it. i don't understand if this is the whole game or not, but it's addictive already...

inappropriate

yesterday:

a lot of yesterday was me unconscious on the couch. i tried to be productive in the morning, but all i managed to do was note down some design points for one of my projects.

...

the biggest mission was picking up mr smear from school, taking a bus to katalina, and successfully getting mr smear to try on his new rain boots. so that's good. what wasn't good, however, was him slowly but surely whittling down my good mood and patience with an incessant series of minor uncooperative behaviors, so by the time we left the store i was starting to get angry.

we found a place for him to sit and eat (after refusing to sit on benches that had any signs of bird droppings on them), and as soon as he opened his lunchbox a creepy old man appeared and sat down next to him with a weird expression on his face. and then, when he finished the leftover pancakes and pulled out the tupperware filled with melon chunks, we discovered that gd had forgotten to include cutlery...

when we finally finished up there, and had washed some of the melon off his hands, we began to move on to our next waypoint, the comics library. but as soon as we crossed the road the alarm for his antibiotic went off, so we found a place to stop and take care of that... only gd had forgotten to pack it, meaning we had to return home immediately.

fortunately, a bus home just happened to pull up as we learned that, so we scrambled to get aboard in time.

on the bus, mr smear was entertaining me by putting on accents, and while we were laughing about south african accents i noticed a guy standing by the bus doors starting at us and smiling. i assumed he was entertained by our conversation, but the staring was starting to bother me... and then he pulled out his phone and began having a very loud, rather inappropriate conversation in a heavy saffer accent himself.

i couldn't get off the bus fast enough...

just before we got off the bus, mr smear made references to "p diddy", "baby lotion" and "dropping the soap" and aside from urgently trying to get him to stop talking, that led to me having to explain some things to him once we were on the sidewalk.

jesus. h. christ.

not only is it hard to discuss these things without going into too much detail, but it's also hard to know if he understands me when i tell him that he can't go explaining this stuff to his friends because it might cause issues with their parents - and they're the kids who are talking about these things with mr smear in the first place.

as soon as he'd taken his antibiotic, we headed out again. we separated at the mall, where i discovered that i was too late for the last-minute emergency groceries gd needed, and then i rejoined him at the library, where we discovered that on fridays it closes at the same time as school comes out.

mr smear walked home, i walked in the other direction to find a grocery store, and eventually decided to hop on a bus and try our local 24/7. the bus was full of kids, and one old man singing awfully at the top of his lungs.

i bribed mr smear with treats to meet me at the 24/7 to help me with the groceries, and the treat ended up being a bag of cream-cheese lays which i'd never realized were vegan. and he yelled with joy in the 24/7 when he saw frozen vegan dumplings, so we picked those up as well.

...

i had a long chat with SxS last night for the first time in forever, he's just unemployed himself because the company he's been operating for the past decade and a half (that i contracted to from 2016 through 2018) is in the process of imploding. at least he's not walking away entirely empty-handed, but the other founders are screwing up royally and we have a lot of shared opinions about how to - and how to not - run a company.

...

gd's dinner plans went a bit awry last night. the vegan "fish cakes" came out as latkes (they tasted pretty good, though), the dumplings were really complicated to heat up / cook and i had to get pretty seriously involved. and then we discovered, when it came time to eat them, that gd hadn't realized they were sweet potato dumplings and she doesn't like those...

highlight of the evening: mr smear and i growling along to the original slipknot songs from the synthknot compilation.

today so far:

i slept alright last night, but woke up with what feels like a throat infection. and, now that i think about it, my tiredness the past day or two might well be me being a bit ill...

so far the day's been me reading percy jackson (there's a scene in the titan's curse which totally blew me away, it really adds so much depth to the old stories), doing dishes, and watching youtube videos (like this one) making it clear that we need to stop putting AI in robots :/

schmooze

i was really tired before i left for the house party, and anticipating awkwardness and feeling very out of place. but while there were a couple of awkward moments, i met some incredible people and had some very interesting conversations.

i'm really glad i went.

...

on my way to the bus stop i ran into one of my now-ex co-workers. it was good to see him, but when i asked how he's doing his face fell. they really messed up when they fired us, they broke everyone's spirit. if you want to follow netflix's model (which you shouldn't), you don't onboard people without telling them what to expect, you give regular feedback, you don't surprise-fire, and you compensate (with extended severance) accordingly.

otherwise you're just being a shit employer building a toxic workplace that nobody wants to work in.

upgrades

 after teaching mr smear how to open hard plastic packaging and reset a modern combination lock, he left for school with the lock still on the table. i automatically ate the leftover half of his pancakes, apparently my body's still trying to make up for all the burned calories yesterday... i'm back up to 80kg again :/

i invested a bit of time tidying up my desktop and fleshing out a design for one of my side projects, and discuss (in broad terms) building a tarot deck with gd, and then headed out to draw cash, get an update about gd's scope appointment, pick up a coffee and order a tasting kit of carolina reapers (amongst other hardcore peppers), replace mr smear's watch battery, and then return home past the hardware store to pick up anti-mold stuff and usb-c chargers (now that i know).

i spent some time setting those up (rearranging things in general), then sat down to split up AI covers to add to my playlists (i've been obsessed with synthknot the past couple of days).

my new employer contacted me to set up work accounts, along with meetings to prepare for my onboarding. i mean, they could have just employed me a month earlier...

i passed out while finishing the incal, but i did finish it.

the unhinged ravings of a perverse amateur author with one of the most unlikeable protagonists i've ever encountered and a literal deus ex machina at every turn. BUT. fantastic artwork, incredibly psychedelic delirium at cosmic scale. as much as i might have been turned off by the writing, the overall experience was so good that i'm glad i didn't put it down.

i blocked youtube on the ubuntu macbook, but later caught mr smear using chatgpt thinking we wouldn't catch him...

lifting mr smear's toenails is traumatizing for the lot of us.

we've just finished eating an early dinner, i'm about to supervise mr smear's reading homework, and then i'm off to a "house party" that gco's organized...

steps

 surprisingly, i went to bed pretty soon after posting and i slept relatively well. and we all survived getting up before dawn, and mr smear and i caught the bus on time.

bussing through bnei brak in the early morning was an anthropological experience full of teachable moments.

the surgeon inspected mr smear's toes, and made it abundantly clear what terrible parents we are for making him responsible for his own toenails. it was a relief to hear her say that they weren't bad enough (yet) to justify surgery, and that she wouldn't want to perform the surgery even if they were because that would require putting him under general anaesthetic.  she gave us a prescription, along with a list of instructions, and hopefully in the coming weeks we'll see some improvement 🤞

we walked to the light rail and i took him to school, then returned home for breakfast (and lots of responding to emails and messages) before leaving with gd on a shopping mission.

first stop: printing out her cannabis license and picking up acrylic markers for mr smear.

second stop: the shoe hunt. we went through a bunch of stores, on the way purchasing waterproof timberland shoes for myself*, and eventually ordered boots from katalina.

* expensive, but it's a much more professional-looking option than my humongous wellies, which i'll save for the more dramatic days

having (effectively) completed our mission, we walked to one of our favorite hummusiot and enjoyed a really nice lunch. and then - because for once gd was feeling up for it - we walked home, past a stationary store where we picking up a new school sketchbook for mr smear (he's filled the last one already).

i rested and read a little, and then took off again to go to the dentist, missing the bus and needing to hail a taxi. i arrived on time, but the dentist was super late... and then he had trouble with the scanning machine...

but the great news is that i didn't need to do an imprint! instead, there's a new optical scanning device. it's a lot less intrusive than an imprint, and when he eventually (half an hour later) managed to log into it i was blown away by how cleverly it's designed.

i came home, already having exceeded 20000 steps for the day. mr smear was very excitedly drawing deadpool with his new markers. the evening went smoothly (although gd's struggling with stomach issues due to some medication she's on), in spite of the fact that gd made me responsible for the post-soak toe treatment which freaked us all out.

i read the final chapter of the neverending story to mr smear. the entire chapter, so he ended up going to sleep really late, but it was totally worth it. what an insanely intellectual and entertaining story!

i didn't cry.

(i almost cried. i choked up a bit. but i didn't cry)

...

today was a good day. gd and i essentially got to go on a "date" this morning, i got a fair amount of stuff done and mr smear had a good day. additionally, i treated myself to a copy of blue prince, and i'm going to give that a go now before i go to bed.

meeting

 this morning started off a bit rocky, as i explained to mr smear the "new rules" which he immediately declared unfair and "evil". by the time he got to brushing his teeth, we were deep into synthknot territory* which is an excellent mood-transformer, and by breakfast he was ready to talk. he left the apartment in relatively good spirits.

* mr smear and i have both had psychovirtual stuck in our heads all day

i spent most of my morning updating people post-contract signing, i did a little bit of post-interview digging to understand where i went wrong (i failed yesterday's phone screen because i struggled with the details of a threading issue, which sucks, but whatever), and 

[omg we just received gd's renewed cannabis license! what an enormous relief!]

then i hopped on a bus to a part of ramat aviv i never remember exists to meet one of the guys i got fired with. i had a good vegan burger experience, and we talked shop, and it was very interesting hearing the story of his career and potentially connecting on a variety of side-projects.

he gave me a ride home, where i almost immediately crashed on the couch and remained out for quite a while. then i grudgingly got up (in stages), and got in touch with swordschool to discuss our december project. so far, i don't really understand the business side of things but it's very exciting stuff.

afterwards, we all went to the school for the parent-teacher evening. i just realized that we never spoke to his homeroom teacher, which is a bit embarrassing...

on our way in, we noticed a couple of the art pieces on the walls that were definitely creepy / horror themed, so not only is mr smear not the only kid so inclined, but the art teachers are clearly not that concerned by it. the two art teachers we met with both made it very clear that mr smear's talent is rare, and that his behavior is generally okay and improving. we informed them of his backstory and the things we're concerned with, which tied in with their experiences of him, and we left with a really nice feeling that he's in good hands.

the other parents were mad because the second teacher spent half an hour with us while there was a queue forming (the meetings were supposed to be ten minutes each, and it was getting late). when one of them came in to complain, the teacher calmly told her: "you will wait, this is important". while she showed us mr smear's work compared to some of the other students', and suggested that she's going to start challenging him with some more advanced stuff.

we caught the bus home, but it was late so i took mr smear to get a laffa. we had some difficult conversations along the way, but almost all in good spirits. i almost got into a fight with a big guy who refused to move his car off the sidewalk.

i didn't get anything for myself, but i did take a couple of bites and it was excellent.

we got home, mr smear got through the bedtime sequence in reasonable time, gd went to bed early, and i'm probably going to go to bed soon because we have to be up at 5.30am, even though i'm not sure it's going to help me get much sleep...

signed

i'm typing this while lying on the couch because my legs are giving me too much trouble sitting :/

so, first things first: i've just signed a contract with the contracting agency.

there are two reasons i'm not jumping for joy right now: the first, because i simply haven't internalized the fact that i've just accepted the offer i was praying for. the second, because prior to reviewing and signing the contract, we had an incredibly unpleasant end-of-day with mr smear.

...

the day started alright, and when i arrived at the school to pick up mr smear for his doctor's appointment i ran into his teacher, so i got some information about his behavior and she helped me get him out of there fast.

mr smear got into trouble yesterday because he was drawing "yo momma" jokes, which the other kids thought were funny but which his teacher did not. and in a different "didn't think they were funny" to how i didn't think they were funny when he repeated a couple of them to me. i mean, they had potential, but they just fell kinda flat :P

we picked up a coffee and an onion bagel to share (the bagel, not the coffee) on the way, and i told mr smear about an idea i had about fifteen years ago for QR codes. then gd joined us and we headed in to his appointment, and now he's on antibiotics for a staph infection and we have an appointment with a surgeon early wednesday morning.

i took him back to the school, and arrived home just in time to head out again to get headshots done by ze irish german. in addition to the headshots, we talked a lot and amidst everything else i was intrigued to learn that i'm not the only person who gets bad side-effects from cbd oil. i also thought of a way to bring him in to the QR code thing and he seemed receptive.

i returned home a bit before mr smear arrived, and i didn't a little prep for my 5pm interview. which didn't go as well as i'd like - it seemed to be going fine, until i got caught out on a thread behavior question that i just couldn't quite wrap my head around :(

then i got a call from the agency, and there was a bit of a negotiation, and then we had dinner and i received the contract and then bedtime was horrible and then i reviewed and signed and now i'm (intellectually, at least) being immensely relieved and grateful that my prayers were answered. and i've got until mid-january before i start so that's time to really unwind, because the last few weeks have *not* been a vacation.

sabotage and self-sabotage

 i had trouble focusing today, so i took a cup of coffee and walked to a local park, there was noisy construction going on there, so i walked further to the next park, which also had noisy construction going on, but it was less intrusive.

i would have enjoyed the experience of sitting on the bench, reading percy jackson and drinking my coffee, a lot more if i hadn't been harassed by mosquitoes. i'm pretty sure i got bitten.

the afternoon was pretty calm. when mr smear came home he did his homework quite well, and i read a bit more, and then there was drama with gd's daal recipe, and we ordered dinner, and then dinner was interrupted by a call from my aunt in los angeles, and then we spoke to my mom and sister, and then we watched an episode of dinosaurs, and then...

bedtime did not go well. mainly because we discovered that mr smear - who has been ignoring us and defiantly cutting his toenails insanely short - is now sporting two ingrown toenails and a really ugly infection 💔

i made some more progress with the assessment, at this point i'm approaching twenty hours and i think that's way more than is reasonable for a job application. having said that, i'm getting some experience with a whole new system and practice with golang after more than half a year of almost exclusively writing bash scripts 🤷

...

it wasn't all bad today, but it definitely wasn't a good day. in spite of lots of birthday messages and calls, which were really nice, this might be one of my least favorite birthdays in 45 years.

a new anxiety

 it's my birthday! it started off stressful, with mr smear and i needing to take a detour on the way to school to pick up antihistamines, and the pharmacy computers took a while to come online, and then when we finally got to the light rail we hopped on in the wrong direction...

and then i had a job interview that seemed to be going alright, when all of a sudden the interviewer rudely interrupted me to say "i'm out of time, goodbye" which made for a really shit feeling...

and then, because two of my possible references simply aren't responding, i gave my now-ex-boss who just fired me as a reference, and i'm now deeply anxious that this is going to fuck up my chances to get an offer.

so... happy birthday me :/

go, me.

 omg it's way past my bedtime 🤮

after getting mr smear to sleep, i sat down and started working on the assessment. on the one hand, i'm totally confident that i've understood temporal workflows (infinitely better than gemini 3 pro) and that i'm just about done with the most important parts... but i'm stuck in the last mile bullshit of something that really shouldn't be such a big deal :(

anyway, i guess i'm technically 45 years old now. i know i'm getting older because my greatest wish for the next year is for things to be more peaceful and boring than the last :P

shhhhhhhhhh 🤫

 i'm sitting here quietly in my bedroom because my family forgot my birthday's tomorrow and they're "secretly" making me card 🤣

today was pretty cool. this morning we watched batman begins, which of course we all enjoyed, and in the early afternoon mr smear and i rode / bladed to his school to test out the route together, most of which was fun.

one thing in particular got under my skin, though:

a ten year old just told me led zeppelin's whole lotta love is elevator music and now i need to figure out if that's an offense worthy of disowning him for 😒

the evening was chill, i've suddenly found myself on a drum & bass kick for the first time ever. and over delicious ramen* dinner we finished watching young guns, which was awesome.

* we're actively praying for positive news from the consulting agency soon 🤞

and now, getting ready for mr smear's bedtime and then probably putting some effort into the assessment.

half-and-half

so i did take thursday night "off", but i don't recall whether i went to bed early or not.

[oh! i went to bed pretty late, i just remembered witnessing some kids crashing into a parked car in the middle of the night and being grateful that a bunch of other neighbors ran downstairs to handle it]

i think i slept well, though.

yesterday:

after mr smear left for school, i settled down and got in a good couple of hours work on the assessment. relatively fun stuff, and now that it's functional and feeling good (i invested most of yesterday's time in UX) i've got the toughest but most interesting part of the challenge left, figuring out the right way to organize the temporal workflows.

we waited for mr smear to get home, then left to pick up gd's replacement vape cap* which precipitated a pharmacy visit, a stop to pick up onigiri, and a visit to our favorite nature store. we barely managed to get back to our neighborhood in time to do a last round of pre-shabbat groceries, and the rest of the afternoon was downtime.

* oh! on thursday we finally received what is hopefully the last document required for gd's cannabis license, so hopefully that'll be sorted out soon. so far the experience with the new provider has been infinitely better.

i spent most of my downtime rotting my brain (although mr smear and i did watch a couple of educational youtube videos together). mr smear spent a lot of his on a video call with a friend, trying to play games online together and failing. partially because i refuse to let him play roblox any more...

yesterday's challah-peño came out brilliantly (we used significantly more jalapeño than usual), and over dinner we watched the first half of young guns. as always, mr smear's initial response on hearing just the name of the movie was "noooo!", but once it was on he was immediately into it :)

after dinner there was a fight, but although it wasn't exactly my fight i ended up getting into it with gd, and after i got mr smear into bed we had an important talk about letting go that seems to have landed...

today so far:

i started reading the third percy jackson book before passing out last night, and woke up to resume it. it's off to a fantastic start! everyone woke up in a better space this morning, hopefully today will stay calm.

hi-caf

with all the cleaning over the past couple of days, my hands are really, really dry and cracking :/

...

i'm surprised that i slept at all last night, because i was still a bit caffeinated when i woke up this morning.

mr smear got himself to school, and i tried what the original airconditioner man suggested and managed to get the flaps flapping again without further cost 😤

i spent most of my morning being productive on the assessment. i also had that introductory chat with the company i was sure i wouldn't be interested in, and after hearing what they had to say i was honestly surprised to find myself liking the idea very much.

so now i'm up to five applications on the go... but i got exciting news in the evening: the consulting agency called to ask me for my references, so 🤞

i joined my previous (previous-previous?) team for lunch, which was great, and then followed a few of them to their offices for a really good cup of coffee before my coffee-date with an ex-coworker (newly ex). i was sure that something was up, but she was just being supportive and we had a really nice conversation.

once mr smear came home, i gave up on being productive and focused on helping him through his homework (and doing dishes). not only did we get through all his homework (and well, too), but i discovered simply sing which seems cool, though i'm not in a position to be putting down another $10 per month right now for the family plan.

we watched the second episode of dinosaurs over dinner, and then got through the bedtime ritual quickly enough that there was reading and talk-to-granny time, and then i finished reading chapter 24 of the neverending story and said a calmer good night, and now... now i'm trying to decide whether i have it in me to do some more of the assignment, or take the night off.

i'm leaning towards the latter.

two hours later...

 alright, so that late coffee *did* actually work. it also helps that i've remembered that i'm expected to be using AI assistance for the assignment, and i got to a point where doing so made sense. now i feel like i deserve some proper downtime before going to bed.

procrastination

 i'm so over today. especially now, because i just had a fight with mr smear over bedtime protocol (an hour after his bedtime, forty minutes after i finished reading to him) that ended with both of us feeling shit.

but it could have been worse, i guess? we'll find out tomorrow.

...

today can be pretty well summed up by a distinct lack of motivation on my part. between yesterday's cleaning situation, and this morning's focus on the take-home assignment (which i've sunk a few hours into already), and then twenty minutes waiting by the school gate after mr smear was supposed to meet me outside, and then having to tail him to the library after he went by himself but decided to leave his phone at home*, and then overseeing his homework while helping gd out with dinner...

* okay, i'm actually really proud of that one. on the one hand, gd and i were freaking out because we didn't know if he'd even gone in the right direction. on the other hand, he felt confident enough to leave his phone behind, has actually decided that that was a good idea (!!!), and by the time i caught up with him he'd already exchanged the books and was on his way out.

[mr smear just came out to get some water, and i decided to let go (read: cave in) and hope for the best.]

at one point this morning, after completing a chunk of the project, i finally procrastination-cleaned the fans (i've been meaning to do that for days now) and then took a walk to sip a coffee and read a chapter of percy jackson. i wandered into the ridiculously overpriced neighborhood across the road, and decided it's a really awkward and unsociable area.

...

i can't decide if i should put everything down for the night, or dive back in.

professionalism

 godsdammit, today's been long. i accompanied mr smear to school because it was threatening to rain and he had to take sports shoes (tied in an inconvenient way) in addition to his rainboots (i'm not entirely sure he actually switched them for phys ed, he says he did) and an umbrella. thank god i was with him, because he started freaking out on the bus about how the shoes were tied, and whether he should be taking shoes at all, and how to validate his bus ticket when he has an umbrella in his hand 🤦

anyway, we survived the ride to school and he seems to have managed fine while there.

...

i got home, and triggered the take-home challenge along with two or three other application processes. then i spent an hour or two doing some studying for the challenge, and then the airconditioner cleaners arrived.

look. they did a great job cleaning, the airconditioners are definitely, thoroughly clean.

unfortunately, half the mold and grime they removed from the airconditioners ended up on the walls, the floor, and anything we'd accidentally left too close to them.

before they left, i showed them that the flaps aren't working properly, to which they responded that "that's just a function of time" even though the flaps were working just fine before they touched them.

and they left us with soooo muuuuuuch cleaning to do. and we found a couple more mold blooms we hadn't seen before. we're still not completely finished. i'm fucking tired. the skin on my hands is all messed up from the cleaning materials and constant hand-washing.

i wanted to go rollerblading tonight, but i haven't even got started with the solution design.

and i'm going to have to figure out how to fix those damned flaps.

...

scr called me up today, and we had a long chat about a potential partnership. it's kinda scary, but if everything falls into place it would be an incredible opportunity...

...

we took a break from cleaning to go to the dentist, where mr smear and i argued over what constitutes an "i'm hungry" snack and worked on his geography homework* while gd finally got her new tooth installed. for real this time!

* he has to learn the countries around the mediterranean, so i had him sketch a map for himself so he can practice offline. an unintended consequence of this is that i told him about italy being a boot, and he saw a boot, only not the boot 😂

after we got home, i got back into cleaning (and reading the incal) while gd made dinner and mr smear did the math homework, dinner was pleasant, and we've changed our sheets (we're using the new comforter), and mr smear is reading deadpool before bed, and i'm about to get ready for bed and then hope i have it in me to spend some time on the design.

or... procrastinate and dive into it in the morning. did i mention i'm a bit tired?

downturn

 well. i went to the offices, and i sat down and talked for half an hour. it was a pleasant conversation, i think, but it ended on a bit of a weird note and i literally couldn't figure out whether he's going to recommend me or not.

i mean, i really hope he does... i even ate additional pasta this evening...

...

during the interview, we talked about mr smear's school, and his comment (based on his son having gone there) was that it's a bit too individualistic. to which i responded that my son was a bit too individualistic before he arrived there. when i left, i spoke to gd and learned that, on track with that assessment, mr smear had got it into his head to use a marker to turn his face into a skeleton's, and was promptly sent off to the principal's office.

[gd and i giggling hysterically for a minute]

i keep imagining the principal keeping a straight face, as she asked him the following questions: in what class did you do it? what would your parents think? [there's a third question, but neither of us can remember it]

so this evening we had to explain to our son that there is a time and a place for everything... and that perhaps he might want to consider switching from film to theatre...

...

pre-dinner was rough. we had some homework tension (confusing questions about magic squares), though he did recover himself eventually and did quite well. but the downer was me receiving a phone call from the company that mr smear was with me for the interview, which i was certain i'd done really well in, to say that they were proceeding with other candidates.

that doesn't feel good at all.

bedtime was mostly good, though it was the second night in a row that mr smear made the final good night unpleasant, and now i'm processing shitty feelings and thinking about tomorrow morning, when i begin an at-home technical challenge that sounds like it might be complicated.

distraction

 yesterday:

yesterday got off to a busy start, mr smear went to school on his own (on his own by bus, which we only learned later) and we headed to bnei brak for an appointment for gd. the doctor could handle speaking in english, but gd did a great job of breaking her teeth and i was barely needed :)

we got off at the hospital stop to pick up some things on the way home, after which i spent some time preparing for an interview. the interview went well.

i chatted with my mom for a bit (mixed feelings: pride in my nephew for telling my niece what's what, sadness that she's been neglecting her older child while planning on bringing a new one into the world).

i dropped a return package off at the post office and then paid a visit to another clinic to confirm that we'd done the right thing when trying to book gd a followup appointment.

i did some post-interview "homework" (playing around with temporal), and then when it started getting dark i headed to the comic library - which i'd never heard of before - where i found mr smear engrossed in tokyo ghoul.

the library has a lot of interesting stuff, and i was pleasantly surprised to learn that residents have an all-access library membership, so we picked up a copy of the incal and two tokyo ghoul volumes and made our way home, with me investing some time in getting mr smear familiar with the landmarks along the way.

i decided to tell mr smear that i'm leaving it up to him to determine whether what he's reading is appropriate or not, and to talk to me if he encounters anything confusing or disturbing.

just before dinner i discovered that the dinosaurs tv series is on apple tv after all! so after mr smear got through his math homework, we sat down to eat and enjoy the first episode :)

it was an easy bedtime, and i fell asleep pretty easily.

today:

i slept quite a lot last night, and had a lot of strangely unremarkable dreams.

everyone's morning was smooth and positive, and i accompanied mr smear to school "just because". i came home for breakfast, and then gd and i walked to get mr smear's school logo printed on his shirts. on the way back we picked up a lentil soup, then i stopped for a coffee while gd visited the pharmacy, and then we stumbled upon a good place to buy a comforter (it's starting to get colder).

since we've been home, we've chilled, had soup for lunch, and i'm now doing a terrible job of focusing and being productive. it doesn't help that gd's watching 28 years later while i try to be functional...

...

and in an hour or so i'm off to a (hopefully) final interview for the consulting agency 🤞