stealth mode off

 i slept fitfully last night. in the middle of the night, i got up to pee and found mr smear with his light on again, scared. i managed to handle this without a fight (in spite of his initial irritation that i was telling him stuff he already knew...), and i offered him a way of dealing with his fears that amused him. he then took it a step further into what was disturbing for me, so i informed him that he could do whatever he wanted in his imagination quietly, and left him to it.

it worked.

i woke up this morning to a surprise: my company's out of stealth mode! much quicker than planned - it turned out our hand was forced - but the attention is very exciting nonetheless. i've spent a lot more time on linkedin today than usual.

gd and mr smear both needed to go to the clinic this morning, both for issues with their big toes 🤔

on our way in i ran into the man who was the dean of computer science during my first degree, a man who had an enormous influence on my career - i think he felt a bit awkward, but he took my number 🤷‍♂️

we got some emergency appointments sorted out, and then headed to the pharmacy together. i paid a quick visit to the pain clinic to get gd another emergency appointment, then returned home for breakfast before heading out to the sleep lab.

i had time for a cup of coffee and to fix a coworker's PR before heading in. i feel oddly proud of myself for not commenting on the fact that their television was hung really skew, i think watching so many episodes of monk may have had an effect :P

on the way out i made another appointment for gd (standing up for her women's rights along the way), then hopped on a bus to work. on the bus, i chatted with my mom who informed me about my niece and her boyfriend and why my sister's been referring to them as dumb and dumber 🤦

work was pretty cool today, in addition to the out-of-stealth excitement. lots of little moments, and one big moment getting the biggest piece of the puzzle i've been working on locked in. and making plans with my lead.

i came home on a wired vibe, and the hebrew reading with mr smear was going great until it didn't... in spite of the unpleasantness, we pushed through and he apparently learned a lesson.

dinner was great, and we had a pleasant good-night chat with my mom which turned hilarious when i asked my sister (who's still staying with her) if she thinks it's possible that the reason she hasn't suffered any pain from her dental surgery is that she's gotten so much work done on her face 😈

we managed to get mr smear into bed peacefully, i reviewed my bloodwork results (nothing decisive, but i may be slightly anaemic and it looks like i have antibodies for mononucleosis), spent a good while rescuing gd's phone from her bad-user negligence, and now that i've posted this i'm starting to feel like i might be ready to go to bed soon.

it's been a pretty productive day.

bad language

i slept a bit better last night, but still tossed and turned a lot.

mr smear was off school today for shushan purim, and i left for my blood tests, which got off on the wrong foot because i couldn't register my arrival, and i waited impatiently for very slow people before finally getting to counter and discovering that i'd been using mr smear's card instead of my own :/

fortunately the wait for the blood test wasn't long. the drawing itself was a bit unpleasant, not terrible but not good - the guy left the needle loose and it was mostly hovering around a 90° angle. then i went to the pharmacy, where i learned that one of gd's prescriptions was incorrectly entered into the system, and then back to the receptionists to find out that the message i'd received regarding mr smear's therapy authorization was meaningless.

anyway.

i got home, and gd and i confronted mr smear about his hebrew teacher's report. we were shocked to discover that mr smear hasn't accepted his new reality at all, and that he's still been holding on to the idea that he doesn't need to learn hebrew, that he's going to give up being jewish and go live in america.

what followed was a long and brutal affair, but eventually we seem to have gotten him to understand that a) we have nowhere else to go and b) you can't give up being jewish and c) without hebrew and good school grades in general he's not going anywhere, least of all america.

good grief.

work today was alright, it began with a chat with lipgirl about south african violence (i didn't know she'd worked as a stewardess and had naively walked from a hotel to a mall in johannesburg), then a fight with file.pizza as an alternative to scp (but it refused to begin downloading on multiple attempts), then a very pleasant walk on another beautiful morning to the hardware store to pick up a modern flash drive.

the rest of the work day (and another hour or so after mr smear went to bed) was spent getting a very important part of our installation working. i think i'm about halfway through at this point.

i picked mr smear up after his therapy session and brought him to the office, where he mostly did his homework (reading hebrew comics and a few pages of maths). he also made a funny comic which uses the word "motherfucker", and as always it's very hard to admonish a child for bad language while you're actively laughing both at how he's used it and at how pleased with himself he is for straddling the boundaries.

good grief.

we ran into one of his classmates' dad on the light rail home, and amongst other things we talked about the allergy drama and he was supportive.

dinner was good, delicious in dungeon is still going strong.

i'm tired now. i didn't take the alpha lipoic acid and tomorrow i'm picking up my "home sleep lab" kit on my way to work. i think i'm going to hit the hay soon.

light-headed

 this has been a *really* hard week. i've been feeling shit, and i've been getting really nervous about my mom arriving soon, because after the last two visits i *really* don't want any of us to be sick.

now it's thursday night, mr smear is in bed, and i'm trying to remember what happened.

i also should point out that i've been having trouble with keeping up with the world politically, and i've been kind of taking a mental health break. not properly, and not enough, but kind of.

diet-wise, i've been all over the place this week. but i have been rollerblading a lot, and the days i've failed i've made up for it, i think.

i've really been having trouble sleeping.

monday:

for months i've been unable to work from home with my home network, and it's been very frustrating. after a few hours on calls with tech support - especially the shift manager - along with a helpful hint from my boss, we finally figured out the source of the problem and i can work from my home network!

(it turned out my router had "dns rebind protection" enabled my default)

the climbing wall session in the evening was pretty good. as much as he's getting stronger and better, he's also beginning to get it through his head that "this is happening". 

tuesday:

i had an early breakfast, and arrived at work early to donate blood. they weren't set up yet, so the morning was weirdly shifted. and the nurse who took my blood was fascinated by my being vegan, so i ended up giving advice on both veganism and her son's career progress :P

one isn't supposed to exert oneself physically after donating blood, but our sprint meetings ran a bit late and i had to run to catch the train (i barely made it before the doors closed). i found ze germans without too much trouble, and we had a great lunch while talking about some of my ideas. they seem pretty enthusiastic. i have homework to do.

in the afternoon i had a long, difficult conversation with mr smear's teacher. it wasn't all bad, and it felt constructive, but i'm left praying that she's his teacher next year as well...

wednesday:

resolving an issue with stripe payments, that turned out to not be a real issue but just a UX fail. i'm super impressed by their tech support, both in how professional and helpful, and in little things like enabling me to verify that their call wasn't a scam, and the agent agreeing to forward the recording of our conversation to their product team.

we've had a contractor working with us for the past month, and yesterday was his last day in the office. he's very sweet, and it was an emotional sendoff. with whiskey, after the wework "crème brûlée" happy hour.

today:

today started off alright. i woke up from a bizarre dream where i was in a meeting with elon musk and suggested using the "right hand rule" to employ magnetic force to help launch rockets. mr smear went to school with a pretty good vibe and gd went to her sewing class. i did dishes and listened to podcasts and youtube videos until about 10am, then took the bus to work.

first order of business: a bit of a fight with my coworkers. by the end of it, none of us were sure who was in the right or who was in the wrong but we were clearly all uncomfortable with ourselves and our behavior. the rest of the day was quite positive. and we went out for lunch together and it was really good (i remembered to take my vinegar bottle).

by the afternoon we'd all agreed on what i was doing and that i was going about it in the right way, but there was a significant amount of bashing my head into walls until i achieved a minor success and launched myself home.

i picked up mr smear, put on my blades, and we went to the climbing wall. it was a pretty good experience overall.

bedtime, not so much - mr smear needs to see a doctor for the hole he's managed to scratch in his leg. he's lost all privileges until it heals because he hasn't been able to get over his compulsive scratching, and he's properly damaging himself.

...

i'm VERY happy we're entering the weekend right now.

the middle

i've been really struggling to get shit done. between the war's news and politics, the weather / mold situation*, parenting** and the daily grind***, i feel like i've got a huge backlog of tasks even if i don't really and i don't feel like i'm getting much done.

* we keep finding little surprises, even if overall the situation is much improved.

** mr smear's doing great in some respects, but not all respects. it's a process.

*** okay, that's not fair. i'm just tired and worn out from endless things to do, but at least the work's going well and i'm quite happy at the moment.

...

 sunday:

gd was okay enough to pick mr smear up from work, but not take him to mma. i got so into my work that i didn't leave the office until gd called to ask where i was...

yesterday:

it was threatening to rain in the evening, so i decided to use my remote-work day and stay home. but then i remembered that i'd booked a blood donation in our office building. and in any event i had to take mr smear to his jiujitsu class in the evening.

the blood-drawing went smoothly, but i took the thingy off as instructed and it started bleeding and swelling... fortunately, i registered it quickly enough and went back to the nurse, and by bathtime it was fine.

speaking of bathtime, i think i know how to do the curtain rail myself. fuck the handyman who didn't get back to me after whining about how complicated a job it is. as soon as it's dry weather i'll go get some hacksaw help from the hardware store and git 'er done.

fortunately, we didn't get rained on, but i was feeling surprisingly shit after the donation. like, for hours...

...

on sunday evening i sat down and put together a summary of disturbing points exposed via our aliyah process, which will hopefully find its way into the hands of a relevant journalist. my mother went to the department of home affairs yesterday afternoon to try (once again, it's been three years now) to get a copy of her marriage certificate. she was then directed to the archivist, where they're going to have to dig because the copy isn't filed on the correct date. or maybe it was never filed - my mom  *just* called me to tell me that that's actually a possibility. she seems to have upset the woman she was talking to by responding with "you mean i spent all that money on getting divorced for nothing?" 😂

...

mr smear's bully situation has been resuming over the past couple of weeks, but i talked to his teacher yesterday and it sounds like he's following the strategy we've been describing for years and it's paying off - it's clear to everyone that the little shit he's been dealing with since he arrived is at fault, and his shitty condescending parents have been called in for a talk.

good.

we're also repeating the mantra of "ignore him. get away from him. but you're allowed to hit him as long as you're not throwing the first punch."

the rush - part iv

[... continued]
i tried to rest, introducing myself to siri and being rather impressed. i uploaded to soundcloud for the first time, then rushed off to meet vfmp and his boyfriend for the monkland street festival. we had a nice walk but i couldn't avoid the sun even with my sunscreen, my big floppy hat and my jumping from shade to shade. it was waaaay too hot.

vfmp and i headed to shaïka for good wraps and to trade bad father stories; we talked about blood donations and i think he's provided me more than enough fuel for a poetic rant. i then took a long trip to meet with someone before her performance in an attempt to sort out a connection, we shared ten minutes together that were totally off-topic and for a reason i'd rather not go into i ended up returning home without staying for so much as a minute. that was totally unprofessional and uncool of me.

i went back home, feeling remarkably shitty about what had happened, and waited for gd to come home to discuss it with her. i was expecting the worst, but while things definitely weren't great they were far better than i'd hoped for and i'm extremely grateful for that.

we enjoyed a peaceful evening, punctuated by an attempt to do something cool for the als ice bucket challenge which resulted in an amusing fail video instead.

just before heading to see the teenage mutant ninja turtles reboot gd started hurting and then my nerve started pinching, so we arrived at the theatre in less than the best of circumstances. the movie was fun, really fun, aside from a bit of shaky-cam-itis and a couple of weird plot decisions. i have to say that the credits, both opening and closing, were awesome and a lot of the shots were just incredible!
ignoring about half an hour of gd's back giving her trouble we had a really good time.

---yesterday:

going to bed at 2.30am after learning about smashwords' greatness: they really are fantastic! they are without a doubt the future of publishing ^_^

...

i woke up to some poetic inspiration, and i'm ridiculously pleased with myself about what came out of it. gd gave me a lesson in humility along with a painful french lesson, after which we enjoyed a blissfully relaxed sunday morning. we arrived at midi 6 famished, and their soy latte to go with my "herbivore" was precisely what i needed ^_^

i finally figured out how to get a naked domain to redirect - that really should be simpler - and we finished watching cheatin' before i hurried out to godmother's for coffee. it was a gorgeous afternoon, the raspberries were delicious and the fact that fudgee-o double stuf cookies are vegan just made a fantastic day even better. also, yang's finally taken a step in the right direction regarding his education, so that's a thing.

i took my slightly pinched nerve and tender jaw (discovered earlier) to my apartment to pick up a set of keys, two folding chairs and the mezuzot off my doors. i need to put them up here, and i need to acquire another one.

i needed the nap that i took when i got home, but i woke up to go shopping feeling like i was still dreaming and had overdone the sun and not napped nearly enough. microwave dinner, posting, and transforming into a being of pure discomfort were the order of the evening... i guess my day couldn't have been too good :P

gd was watching fringe: we need to hunt down whoever's responsible for mastering these shows and slap some sense into them. you shouldn't have to keep turning the volume up to hear speech and down to prevent hearing loss during action sequences.

---today:

i woke from long dream sequences to a morning of k's choice and more posting. i rushed out, soooo tired and still trying to avoid excess coffee. i made it until 11.15, at which point big junior showed up to delegate a documentation task. fortunately, that's the kind of thing i'm really comfortable doing with my brain off so i completed that quickly enough and returned to my grand plans.

i may have sweated a little when i realized that i was reorganizing the team's wiki docs without authorization :P

my junk food mission to the supermarket next door was successful - they have israeli vegan munchies! nice one :)

the shitty part of the day was my wasting other people's time with non-problems - i had the dumb, i thought my virtual machine's hard drive was taking up 80gb and we spent far too long trying to resize a disk that was actually only 20gb :$

i left feeling incredibly tired and slow. the experience with the laser hair clinic was surprisingly pleasant; the technician was cool, she totally got my intentions, the pain wasn't as bad* and the terrible smell of burning hair didn't last as long.

* it apparently eases the less hair you have

on my way home, i found that siri doesn't work without an internet connection. that's just silly. siri. silly. siri.

i spent the evening almost resting, watching safety not guaranteed with gd and then the first part of the battlestar galactica mini-series when she went to bed. omg, i can't believe it's still so incredibly good, and just how much more powerful it is when you know what's coming!

...

this last post brought to you by a thoroughly irresponsible disregard for my need to sleep. but my chapbook has a nice cover now (thanks, pixlr!) and i'm fairly certain i'm gonna crash in a couple of minutes.