not enough drama!

 it's late, and i was already tired a while ago, but i've spent the past couple of hours putting together messages for our current and future landlords and i'll send them in the morning.

...

last night would have been far less stressful if i hadn't seen the response from our current landlords to my earlier message, which was offensively stupid. i wish i hadn't seen it then, and i wish i hadn't read it to gd, because we were both shocked and furious. we rushed to get to our friends (soon-to-be neighbors) with the freshly baked challah-peño (it was a bit of a flop - great challah texture but unexciting taste), realized when we finally got there that we'd left the ice cream at home, so i rushed back to grab it and chatted with my mom along the way.

the evening was great, largely cathartic, dinner was excellent and i drank just enough wine for my nervous system to calm down a bit. mr smear had a great time with the kids, all was well.

we got home late, and sleepy, and everyone went to bed pretty quickly.

today:

this morning i got up early-ish, pretty much finished ping-pong (it's great) and got most of the dishes done. gd and i were both surprised when mr smear woke up and informed me that he wanted to go to the swimming pool. NOT by bike.

so i had a quick breakfast, grabbed my second coffee and off we went. it was a very nice walk there, through a park we weren't familiar with, and we spent about an hour and a half in the pool, mostly just splashing about. before we left the pool to brave the cold air between the pool area and the locker room in order to shower, mr smear told me he might be willing to go back to jiujitsu training if he doesn't have to do mma.

i'll take it.

the showers there are great. once we were done mr smear decided that he really wanted a laffa for lunch (breakfast, really), and the only place open was the shuwarma place by the port.

it was a loooong but entertaining walk to the port, and then we had two huge laffot, preceded by mr smear eating pickled carrots without complaining  (he usually hates carrots) and even about half of a really hot hot pepper.

[omg my hands are so freaking dry, my skin's cracking all over]

halfway through my laffa i had a suspicion that i may have overpayed - google pay doesn't show you the amount when it verifies - and after an only-slightly uncomfortable back-and-forth we determined that he'd charged me 200 shekels for an 80 shekel meal... at least i caught it while still there.

we both enjoyed the meal, but mr smear really shouldn't have forced himself to finish his. we had a long walk home (with a couple of minor incidents of being rained on), most of which was him complaining about a sore stomach...

gd prepared the bath before we arrived, and he warmed up and soaked for a long while. then scrapper's niece came by to pick up his bass guitar and amp, which i'm sad to say i've barely touched since he left it with me, and after sorting out mr smear's toenails scrapper called, and we both had a lot to talk about (during which time, i later realized, mr smear was sitting in his room, drawing and listening to tool on his phone). then it was dishes time, during which time we discovered a really gross mold situation that needed a lot of cleaning, and then i cleaned the area where the guitar had been sitting for ages and accidentally pulled out one of the hooks for the fibre cable.

neither mr smear nor i really needed dinner, so we ate some fruit and the three of us played pictionary for a while before he had to go to bed.

another really good saturday together, he said ^_^

now it's my turn. tomorrow's scaring me, hopefully i'll get some rest before it begins.

...

the situation in iran is horrifying. the fact that nobody's swooping in to help the persians is horrifying.