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.