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.