shape of a weekend

over the last couple of days we've become really concerned by mr smear - he's barely eating, lately, either claiming that he forgets to eat or that he's just not hungry. we don't want to make too much of a "thing" about it, but it can't be good :(

otherwise, gd's continued to be pretty sick. it's not as dramatic as the last time (a few weeks ago), but she's finding it unpleasant and gross and demoralizing.

...

the weekend is now over, after a very long and tiring week. i'm not sure what this one's going to bring, but i'm already feeling... unenthusiastic. i guess i need to find a technique to turn that around...

friday:

gd's dentist appointment didn't go as well as we'd hoped, but at least she got the filling for the cavity that was intefering with her crown being taken care of. we caught a bus, paid a visit to a pharmacy, hardware store and nature store, then walked to pick mr smear up from school.

the rest of the afternoon was spent quietly at home.

i started playing what remains of edith finch and journey. both really great so far. 

so far, i'm feeling like planescape: torment is torment in more than name. maybe now isn't the right time.

yesterday:

the day started with a few hours of doing random online things (mostly reading, but also posting a comics update for the first time in months) and reading mona lisa overdrive (i'm about halfway through, and it's finally starting to feel like it's coming together), and playing more of what remains of edith finch, while mr smear played on the playstation.

it was the mongoose's birthday, and he invited us to join him and his daughter for an outing to the zoo. that ended up turning into a stroll in the park, which turned into meeting up with his wife and going for hummus, and ultimately it was a very pleasant few hours that saw us getting a very real amount of exercise and fresh air, with only a few mild complaints from mr smear about wanting to go on his phone.

i spoke to the mongoose about a couple of ideas that have been bouncing around my skull: he put forward some solid arguments as to why my property disruption idea can't work as i've envisioned it. it's a sad feeling to discover big blindspots...

on our way home, we picked up a couple of tiny tubs of ice cream and mr smear expressed the sentiment that it was unfair that gd couldn't join us, and that he should leave her half. i agreed whole-heartedly in principle, though only half-heartedly in practice - it's *really* good ice cream :P

shower / dinner / bedtime: the first two were pretty smooth, but bedtime was, as usual, problematic. his fear of the dark.

...

i must have spent at least half an hour with him, trying to comfort and boost him but having a couple of fights along the way, but ultimately i got him to understand that i'm trying to help him out of love and that he's going to have to face this stuff - he might not find my specific advice useful, but that just means he's got to figure it out for himself. he finally rolled over without a shit feeling between us, and whatever he did appears to have been successful.

hopefully tonight will be easier.

dental and rocket drama

[in case i miss a few, i'm typing this on my dell, and for some reason the keys aren't always registering] 

yesterday:

i left for work early to preemptively make up for gd's dentist appointment. i was pissed off about the code review issues - the clear conflict of interest - but i was determined to find a reasonable solution so i rewrote my changes on top of my coworker's branch, and opened a PR for him.

i don't feel like he appreciated that as much as he should have, but whatever.

for my second task of the day, it took a while for me to understand what i was meant to be doing but by the time we stopped for lunch i'd at least made some progress. lunch was good (gd's vegan cottage pie leftovers), and i left earlier than the estimate i'd asked the transport app for in the morning.

amazing how suddenly there was no way to get there on time.

fortunately, i registered that a bus that was supposed to have passed already was so packed that it was delayed, so i managed to squeeze myself in and arrived at the dental clinic just in time to help mr smear out the taxi and upstairs.

i had absolutely no bandwidth for work while we waited, and we were there for two hours. it was really good that i was there, though, because i had the list of things that gd kept forgetting to tell the dentist and we managed to get her on the same page regarding how much gd's been suffering and how urgent this treatment is.

also, i came up with an idea for a hairdresser business that gd could manage and we're both quite excited by the possibilities!

the ride back to work, during rush hour, took another hour. i arrived in the office just in time to help my coworker out with merging my changes and his, and then everybody else started leaving so i left too, doing a little grocery shopping along the way.

i was completely done by the time i got home. after dinner and getting mr smear into bed, i turned in myself.

today:

and woke up to the siren at 4.45am. gd hurt herself jumping out of bed, and between her and mr smear's bound foot we couldn't make it to the shelter, and simply stood outside our front door in the stairwell for five very cold, very uncomfortable minutes. recently a building collapsed after being struck, so after we got back inside i was haunted by the idea of us being crushed to death...

i stayed with mr smear for about an hour because he always struggles to get back to sleep, so i ended up with a very sore back myself.

winning.

at least by the time he woke up for his return to school his foot was feeling much better, so we unbound it and he was fine the entire walk to school. then i returned home to pick up gd, we went to the clinic to find out what was happening with her psychologist authorization, then caught a bus to the dentist.

on the way i had a great idea for gamifying property listings, so i wrote it up before coming to lebowski for a coffee and to post this.

i'm sore, i'm tired, and i'm praying that gd's session is going well and that the rest of the day and weekend will be at least relatively smooth.

aaaand GO!

 today began with mr smear limping out of his bedroom with a very sore ankle. that resulted in me leaving the office around noon* to take him to the clinic, but our clinic was closed already at 1.30pm and the closest one available (fortunately pretty close) was only opening at 3pm. so i got a little work done in the interrim.

* on the way to the office i went to the clinic to submit a form for gd, but only she could submit it. i had to talk her through the process, and i'm still impressed at both of us for getting through it. the office experience itself was a mess**.

** i was nervous about how things would be with my boss, but things seemed fine. then we had a big meeting (all four of us devs and him) and it was really frustrating because nobody would let anybody else speak, but by the end i felt like some semblance of sanity had finally been restored. now i'm pissed off about code reviews and forming a theory about how and why PRs need to be prioritized.

the clinic we went to is in a building that's under massive construction, and mr smear was hobbling along using one of gd's walking sticks. it was a long hobble from the taxi to the elevator, and then we had to navigate stairs down to the reception, and then go see a doctor, and then go all the way back to the elevator to get x-rays done.

mr smear let a couple of deadly ones go in the waiting room, i was mortified. and one of them was exceptionally loud, too. everyone else was being very polite, while i died a little inside.

the x-rays were quick, and we then headed back down to the doctor, who informed us that it doesn't look like there's a break but that there's something worrying he wants a specialist to take a look at. he then sent us to the nurses' offices to get mr smear's foot bound.

a couple of us waited for half an hour (mr smear and i had a nice chat with another ex-saffer) before being told that we needed to take a number. we then had to wait another half an hour until they called our two numbers in quick succession, and by the time mr smear managed to get to the door they refused to open it.

i - was - fuming.

when they finally called the next number, five minutes later, i had to put on a mask of patience so as not to interfere with mr smear's treatment, and that was hard.

anyway.

on the way out i ordered a taxi, and while we waited i pitifully tried to be helpful to some old ladies who were trying to hail a cab. the weather was pretty unpleasant, and it's simply not possible to hail a cab without an app these days; that's really unfair for older people... i'm now trying to get in touch with the app's product team to convince them to make it possible to order a cab for someone else when you've already got one on its way to take you.

i got mr smear into the apartment, then almost immediately turned around to walk to the pharmacy to pick up some emergency supplies.

the first thing that irritated me was trying to dispose of used medical containers: i was directed to the pharmacists, and the pharmacist i spoke to insisted that they don't handle that and that i should just throw it away, which is ridiculous and clearly wrong. then, after gathering the stuff i needed, i found myself standing in a long queue, with only one cashier and two out of the three self-service kiosks out of order.

i don't know if i waited in the queue for five minutes, or ten, but as i got to second-in-line a random woman with a coughing kid signed to me that she was next :/

whatever. i just wanted to get out of there.

just then, the second cashier arrived (she'd been putting prices on things), and hurriedly scanned my items. i was a bit taken aback by how expensive it was, but by then i just wanted to go and i tried to make sense of the numbers... but while packing, we realized she'd mistook something someone else had left on the counter for mine and scanned it. so then i had to wait another three minutes while she reversed the charge...

the final candle lighting for chanukah was mostly smooth - mr smear was pushing my buttons a little, but he'd been otherwise really well-behaved for most of the day - and dinner was delicious, showertime was complicated (mr smear can't get his foot wet), we finished re-reading the magic pudding and, as i said good night to him, we agreed that it's a brilliant book highly deserving of a modern reboot.

today was a Very Long Day, and my brain hurts. god knows what tomorrow will bring, but we're finally meeting with gd's dentist in the afternoon so here's wishing us luck 🤞