steps

 surprisingly, i went to bed pretty soon after posting and i slept relatively well. and we all survived getting up before dawn, and mr smear and i caught the bus on time.

bussing through bnei brak in the early morning was an anthropological experience full of teachable moments.

the surgeon inspected mr smear's toes, and made it abundantly clear what terrible parents we are for making him responsible for his own toenails. it was a relief to hear her say that they weren't bad enough (yet) to justify surgery, and that she wouldn't want to perform the surgery even if they were because that would require putting him under general anaesthetic.  she gave us a prescription, along with a list of instructions, and hopefully in the coming weeks we'll see some improvement 🤞

we walked to the light rail and i took him to school, then returned home for breakfast (and lots of responding to emails and messages) before leaving with gd on a shopping mission.

first stop: printing out her cannabis license and picking up acrylic markers for mr smear.

second stop: the shoe hunt. we went through a bunch of stores, on the way purchasing waterproof timberland shoes for myself*, and eventually ordered boots from katalina.

* expensive, but it's a much more professional-looking option than my humongous wellies, which i'll save for the more dramatic days

having (effectively) completed our mission, we walked to one of our favorite hummusiot and enjoyed a really nice lunch. and then - because for once gd was feeling up for it - we walked home, past a stationary store where we picking up a new school sketchbook for mr smear (he's filled the last one already).

i rested and read a little, and then took off again to go to the dentist, missing the bus and needing to hail a taxi. i arrived on time, but the dentist was super late... and then he had trouble with the scanning machine...

but the great news is that i didn't need to do an imprint! instead, there's a new optical scanning device. it's a lot less intrusive than an imprint, and when he eventually (half an hour later) managed to log into it i was blown away by how cleverly it's designed.

i came home, already having exceeded 20000 steps for the day. mr smear was very excitedly drawing deadpool with his new markers. the evening went smoothly (although gd's struggling with stomach issues due to some medication she's on), in spite of the fact that gd made me responsible for the post-soak toe treatment which freaked us all out.

i read the final chapter of the neverending story to mr smear. the entire chapter, so he ended up going to sleep really late, but it was totally worth it. what an insanely intellectual and entertaining story!

i didn't cry.

(i almost cried. i choked up a bit. but i didn't cry)

...

today was a good day. gd and i essentially got to go on a "date" this morning, i got a fair amount of stuff done and mr smear had a good day. additionally, i treated myself to a copy of blue prince, and i'm going to give that a go now before i go to bed.

otherworldly

 today was a weird day. i was on-call, but fortunately the only thing i needed to deal with could wait until i was back in the office... mr smear and i accompanied gd to the dermatologist, deep in the heart of bnei brak. on the bus there we discussed - for mr smear's benefit - the differences and similarities between the ultra-orthodox and us, and he was fascinated.

we arrived half an hour earlier than the scheduled appointment time, and just as the electricity in the building began to flicker, which messed up the queue system. we walked a bit to find a store where i could get a coffee and gd and mr smear could get something cold to drink, and the two of them picked up parve (but not vegan) potato burekas which they both agreed was absolutely delicious.

fortunately, due to my not wanting to burn my tongue i took the lid off my coffee before tasting it, so i had the opportunity to see that they'd put milk in it and take it back for a replacement.

we ended up waiting quite a while for the doctor, but once we saw him he was absolutely worth the wait. he was patient, and thorough, and explained his thinking while actually doing something to help gd. apparently, what she's managed to develop is a "nail-shaped corn" driving straight into her foot. he performed the conservative treatment, and we're all hoping it's good enough and that she won't end up needing surgery.

getting back to tel aviv took forever, partially because the first bus skipped our stop, and partially because of the ridiculous traffic through bnei brak...

i was hungry by 2pm when i finally got into the office, but i had some challah and a couple of tiny pieces of mr smear's breakfast wraps, and a banana, and aside from that and a couple of energy bars i was very good about not snacking today.

i had a big dinner to make up for it, but all healthy stuff :) i registered yesterday that over the past week i've been getting flabbier again - not heavier, but definitely more "meaty" than i'd like :/

the work day felt marginally successful, and i walked home in time for dinner. we continued watching the seventh harry potter movie, and then it was mr smear's bedtime, and then i sat down for some more inscryption time.

i discovered the bone lord in act iii, which i hadn't heard of before, and i beat the mycologists in a way that scored me an *amazing* card even though i hadn't read how that mechanism works (i just got lucky).

oh, and i've started doing an exercise that i saw online today, seems like it might actually be good for my hip / waist issues.