pre-work work

 okay, i seem to have gotten a relatively good night's sleep, even though i could have used a heck of a lot more. i drank coffee and read some more watchmen (i'm nearing the end), said good bye to mr smear, and then dived right in to fighting with the municipality and the car rental company, which so far seems like an expensive, losing battle.

then i climbed over the balcony divider and discovered that our end of the blockage from last night is rock-solid.

then i paid the electricity bill.

then i had a tiff with my wife over my enthusiasm for the news that the EU has voted to deport illegals and terrorists. then she left for her first sewing lesson in about a year 🤞

now i've had breakfast, and i've posted this, and i'm about to switch machines and hopefully finish up the work i've been trying to push since wednesday 🙄

asshole accumulation

today - post posting - continued with four assholes. i called the jewish agency to find out something for my mother, and was stuck with their hold muzak while running around the supermarket looking for a product that they didn't stock. as i gave up and arrived at the self-checkout, an agent answered and promptly refused to answer my general question because my mother wasn't with me. while i was being pissed off about that, the checkout assistant came over and insisted on interrupting my call to tell me about a special on one of the items i was purchasing, to which i responded sharply "i really don't care" but i really wanted to scream it. the answer i got from the agent was basically that the people in cape town are continuing to waste my mother's time. i tried to reset emotionally, but almost got run over by an irresponsible cyclist as i stepped onto a crosswalk (he was coming up behind me, and decided to go around in front of me instead of behind me. or slow down a moment, as i had right of way. a few seconds later the crosswalk was blocked by an impatient taxi driver while it was still green for me to cross, and he got angry with me for indicating that he was doing something wrong.

later, i'd learn that half the kids in mr smear's class are sick with covid so tonight's lag b'omer bonfire isn't happening, so that was all for nought...

working from the office wasn't unpleasant, though i was very frustrated by the coffee machine situation. not only do people move the pipes between the dairy and non-dairy milks without cleaning them, and leave milk pouring onto the grid our cups are supposed to go on, but there's no decaf coffee anywhere.

my work day was... well, it was successful in the sense that i eventually managed to run the tests i needed to run (and that i arguably should have run weeks ago). it was unsuccessful in that i uncovered even more of a hot mess beneath the surface than i already thought there was. i worked a longer day than usual, and my last findings before stopping for the night stressed me out. i've sent an update to my manager so that he's not surprised, and i'm overall feeling pretty shit about it.

...

anyways. i came home for lunch, primarily because krybabie's widow (what a weird thing to type, even years later) had come over to pick up some stuff my mother brought with her. it was nice to see her, and it seems like she and the kids are doing quite well.

it turns out she recently met up with some old mutual friends, and that they have pictures of teenage me at summer camp, so i've just awkwardly reached out to them to ask if they'd do me a favor and send me a few of them... i don't have much from before i made aliyah, a handful of photos from my party days is just about everything.

...

mr smear once again came home without having done what i asked him, and i gave him the twenty minutes it took for me to get home from the office to rectify the situation. i spent some of the walk home wracking my brains trying to think of an appropriate and effective punishment if he didn't, and i was deeply grateful that he managed to get his assignment off one of his friends and i didn't have to come up with a solution to the problem 😅

dinner was great, as was the evening in general, but he started coughing just at bedtime and i'm hoping he's not doing the covid thing himself. i actually suspect that that's what my last week was about, and that perhaps mr smear was patient zero when we sent him back to school a couple of weeks ago because he only had symptoms when getting out of bed.

...

i don't have energy or bandwidth to be functional tonight. i'm really enjoying starship troopers and slay the spire 2, one (or both) of them will suffice.

the twelve tasks of tuesday

sleep journal entry: technically a decaf coffee around 3pm. i still struggled with post-nasal drip and coughing for a lot of the night, but towards the morning i was able to sleep properly for a bit. now everything's starting to come out again...

earlier i had a dream in which i, along with a squad of sorts, entered deep into a terrorist's nest. one imbecile made enough noise to call attention to us, another (a kid i detested in primary school) did something even more dumb and suddenly we had to fight our way out. the battle was vicious and bloody (and involved shooting a lot of people in the eyes), and then i awoke.

...

i didn't get a lot of hours in yesterday, but i did end up with enough of a handle on the situation to be confident in how i move forward. the theme (or tantrum) of the day was due to ownership insanity - the devops who had seemed receptive to my initial proposal pushed back with the argument that there are two sources of truth, both valid even if contradictory, and that's on top of the situation in which there's no leadership coming from management and nobody knows what the situation should be.

it feels like the twelve tasks of asterix.

we weren't sure if we were picking mr smear up or not (he ended up going to his friend's place), but just before school ended his teacher called me for a long conversation - which needs a follow-up face-to-face meeting - with the fantastic starting point that they found all of mr smear's books! all but one, so my mother and i took a meandering walk through fascinating architecture to the bus, found the right book store, bought a copy of the missing book, sat down for a coffee, then walked home.

i didn't get much work done in the hour or so i was at home.

a potential impactful talk with my mom on the bus about my urban kibbutz idea.

one of the guys from my second team was looking through old stuff yesterday and sent me a picture of the gift i presented them during my farewell - it was such a fun memory!

mr smear met up with us at the mall after hanging out with his friend, we bought him a headband (his hair's been in his eyes) and he dutifully made sure it wasn't from adidas (i can't believe they're still operating in israel), then he sat down to eat his school lunch (?!) while my mom and i found a surprisingly good dollar store and picked up a bunch of things we'd been looking for.

mr smear wrote his name clearly in his new math book, dinner was great, and the evening was pleasant (including learning that the UAE has pulled out of OPEC).

i actually got a couple of practical things done before playing a bit of slay the spire 2, before hitting the hay.

hopping from one foot to the other

 i think i slept alright last night, or at least better than the preceding nights. i woke up mid-dream, so i needed a few minutes to shake it off, and the day began with some mixed emotions over riddles and mr smear's breakfast habits.

i accompanied mr smear to school - i'd still rather be foolish than sorry (better silly than sorry?) - and continued on to the sleep clinic at the hospital. my appointment started on time at 7.30, and i walked out of there an hour later feeling pretty confident that the doctor had performed a thorough investigation into every relevant aspect of my potential narcolepsy (and potential rls, and possible anemia) and i felt very well understood.

i left with a recommendation to take iron supplements, keep a sleep journal, and exercise more.

by the time i closed in on the clinic, it was too close to my daily so i picked up a cup of coffee from "our" bakery, and tried to find a quiet spot for my meeting. unfortunately, something was blocking traffic and i ended up hiding out in a random building's parking muting constantly because multiple directions of cars were all honking furiously.

and, of course, our usual ten-minute meeting took half an hour.

from there i crossed the road and entered the clinic, where i was informed that i could only make the appointment by phone, so i dutifully informed the lady that i'd spent half an hour on the phone yesterday to be told it was an in-person only thing. so she said that it was probably an in-hospital thing only and not an in-clinic thing only, but that in any event the referring doctor had already requested permission and she had a response in hand: denied.

floored, i read the response and learned that they won't let gd do the recommended examination unless she's done a course of iron supplements too. i booked her a repeat visit to the same doctor, and the earliest appointment i could get was for july.

i left the clinic quite demoralized.

bus routes from the clinic are lacking, so i fast-walked home and arrived five minutes late for my quarterly roadmap meeting with my mentor. it was interesting, and while i was disappointed with myself for not achieving my goals, he was disappointed with me for being unnecessarily hard on myself considering what i've been through these past few months.

so that was encouraging, i guess.

i scarfed down a quick break, anxious that i hadn't yet called the plumber and clueless as to when would be an appropriate time for him to come over, when he called and asked me to take a video for him to assess. a few minutes later, his brother called to say he was on the way. i couldn't have planned the timing any better!

within two minutes the smell trap was installed, which was completely anti-climactic. the idea that there wasn't a smell trap installed before was and is blowing my mind!

gd, who had been struggling all morning* somehow had the presence of mind to ask him to check our hot-water cylinder, and we did, and it looks alright. then he left, and was just out of the building when gd had another bright idea, and we called him back to check under the kitchen sink.

* she suffered so much this morning that she was finally willing to try avoiding gluten to see if it would help.

he obliged. within two minutes, he'd found the source of the leak, and it wasn't the sink. we realized that there was a long gap at the back of the countertop, and water was splashing down the back of the cabinet 🤦‍♂️

(apparently, he'd warned me about this when we moved in. i don't recall this at all.)

between him and gd, and the special silicon we'd already bought to fix up the shower, the gap was sealed quickly and cleanly and i was able to grab my bag and head to the office.

what a day, so far!

[plugs in and turns on the fan for the first time this summer]

i got some work done, and then had to head out (again) to pick mr smear up from school. i managed to get there much faster than before by walking to the light rail, and that made it clear to me that the way back needed to be the same after losing a ridiculous amount of time to the bus ride yesterday. i got there early enough to catch up on instagram messages, and he came out pretty quickly for once, and i took him straight back to the office with me.

my desk-neighbor's dog was in the office. on the one hand? awesome! mr smear and him got along great ^_^

on the other? i've been feeling things (or imagining feeling things) since we got in, and i'm super-paranoid about fleas since the other night.

gods help me.

i barely had five minutes to work before everyone had to join a meeting about formalizing AI management, and mr smear came in with me and sat quietly in the corner reading. after an hour we adjourned to the main kitchen for happy hour, and there was delicious vegan ice cream! so that went well (mr smear has a penchant for coming to my work for good happy hours!).

i grabbed a beer and got some work done while mr smear put together a cool animation using flipaclip, then realized how late it had become and we packed up and walked home. walking across the bridge over the train tracks i pointed out an oncoming train, and the train driver tooted the horn and waved to mr smear, which was pretty cool! or, it was a pretty cool sentiment, at least, because mr smear didn't notice at all 🤣

i put in some more work while mr smear did or pretended to do his homework - i don't know if it's going to be complete by the weekend, and his weekend screen time depends on it - and then (finally) forced myself to file some of the stacks of papers that have been piling up.

over dinner, we watched the pilot macgyver episode, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all ^_^

(except for the kissing bits, which we all felt were inappropriate. but i kept dropping recently-learned trivia that made it even better)

it's been a pretty peaceful evening, and i think i'm going to be ready for bed soon. just one more cup of tea.

...

trendslop and mediocrity.

compressed

 today was weird. i don't know if it's related to me getting more sleep than usual, but i felt buzzed.

after seeing mr smear off to school, gd and i had a conversation about whether he really needed a new round of therapy or not. i checked in with his teacher, who assured me that he's participating a lot more in class, and communicating much better, even though academically he's not doing so well*. all things considered, i think the incidents from the beginning of the year can be attributed to him adjusting, i really don't believe anything's nearly as urgent as the school team thought.

* did i really need to tell her that if she lets me know where he's struggling, i can try to help him?

i lost my temper a little bit with the support agent who called to request further proof that the stove isn't working properly. as in, in addition to a photo of a quarter of an element clearly not heating up.

gd found my watch strap, but now we've lost the watch charger. she found the adapter for mr smear's keyboard, though! in addition to getting back into his music "homework", just before bedtime he was reading an illustrated harry potter book (the fifth one) and came running into the office to try playing the sheet music in one of the illustrations - and it was pretty good ^_^

i decided to start my work day by going past the hardware store (i picked up a shower head holder, but the other two items on the list were a no-go), arranged for a technician to install an internet point in our bedroom on thursday, then sat down* at a coffee shop for about an hour of work.

* i sat down after a disappointing service experience, being ignored for a while before i could order. then i sat down next to the coffee cup lid and sugar stand, which was close enough to smell the other patrons (one of whom i described to gd as "smelling like a heavy, sick fishy down-there infection", but fortunately out of line of sight of the large homeless guy who charged in demanding that someone buy him a coffee)

i downloaded gd's id thingy (sefach), then had it printed at the art supply store (all-round, it was cheaper than going to the ministry of the interior), then returned home to work a bit.

i snacked and ate too much today. surprisingly, my weight's been pretty stable lately, hovering around 77kg.

i wrestled both with and against my AI copilot today, and spent a lot of time thinking about the AI vampire article i read this morning.

i lost a half hour this afternoon to mr smear's allergy appointment being brought forward a week without anyone contacting me. and then, when i tried calling the clinic to resolve the issue, someone kept lifting the phone and putting it back down again 😡

i discovered that yesterday, when mr smear was in his room with the door closed, he'd been using the browser on his phone which gd has accidentally left unlocked :/

okay, look - it's not alright, but his reaction IS funny 😂

i took a bus to the clinic, had a funny altercation with the security guard (poor guy was only trying to help, but in a clumsy way), and managed to get gd's prescription and authorization sorted out relatively quickly before returning home.

more work, more of the same.

speaking to my mother after she received the email i forwarded her from yad l'olim, understandably and justifiably furious because they're continuing to mess her around, but making out like it's her own fault.

a "family talk" with mr smear, generally going well (explaining to him that integrity is doing the right thing when nobody is looking).

a very nice dinner.

chatting again with my mom, then reading more of the colour of magic to mr smear (he really enjoyed the gods playing dice with rincewind and twoflower), then showering (with the new showerhead holder), and now... getting ready for bed, i guess?

what a day, what a week

 biphasic sleep ftw. i woke up feeling much better than i have in weeks.

the day began with big drama - a couple of weeks ago my mother's aliyah application was again complicated by a new document requirement she's never heard of. she managed to get everything done, and submitted all her documents, and they've just done it again.

i've sent another email to yad l'olim, posted more online, and i'm once again hunting for someone to platform this insane story...

from that drama, to seeing gd off to her blood tests, to a fourth day at work dealing with an overly-complicated data migration.

in addition to generally feeling better about the world (a bit of sleep will do that, i primarily occupied myself with my favorite thing - making things better.i also seem to be doing a decent job of convincing everyone to look at the giant turd we've all inherited as a fascinating adventure in black box land.

it was a long, long day, but with lots of positive stuff. our weekly status with my director went alright. i pitched a wild idea, and two people appreciated their versions of what they thought i was proposing (one of them fully understood), and both options are viable so 🤷‍♂️

i finished up a big piece of work just in time to have a drink with my client team, and then i came home to re-arrange mr smear's bedroom (now he can enjoy the best view in the house), have a great dinner, get mr smear into bed, and now, after writing a letter to a south african jewish publication and catching up on random stuff (windrose looks amazing), and now this post...

i'm just about ready for bed. i almost forgot i'm driving north for a wedding tomorrow (and taking mr smear to his friend in south tel aviv on shabbat) and i was prematurely celebrating my first properly calm weekend in what feels like months.

three for three

 we're in week three of our new apartment, and i'm starting this post in hour three of trying to sleep but tossing and turning in pain and discomfort. my two-week-plus old mattress is causing me suffering, and my lack of sleep is interfering with everything.

and we don't have a couch i can escape to.

...

grocery shopping, electricity shutoff anxiety (fortunately for gd, they started late and finished early)

misrad hapnim, a 10 minute wait (and failed attempts to use their "self-service" machine) for a one minute print job

phone calls there and back: clinic, municipality

client office experience: 100% of the time in a telephone booth, receiving praise from team lead for handling the previous day's deployment like a professional (i thanked her, awkwardly)

miraculously perfect timing for supporting my team between phone calls, because most of the day-long rollout meeting wasn't interesting to me:

receiving a receipt showing that the municipality owes me (so hopefully we'll get our deposit back soon), the representative recommending a pre-approved "forgery" in order to honor a reasonable request from our new landlord, my new mattress is ready for testing but i have to physically get there during their uncomfortable opening hours, the grocery store confirming that they charge differently to what's posted on the website (i'd used a voucher, it got weird)

discussing the past two weeks' organizational weirdness with my religious mentor, and his stunned silence followed by a heart-felt WTF 😂 half an hour writing an email to update my ("my" my) team after scheduling a one-on-one with my client

a bus to my office, pleasantries and small talk, followed by a class on docker that i didn't need to be in

forgery: doc editing and printing issues

on the way home, receiving a rejection response from the local comic publishing house. zero constructive feedback.

arriving home, completing the forgery (same pen and everything), submitting the request

celebrating a letter from yad l'olim with a double-shot of rum and reading its translation to my mother

a delicious dinner, overeating (probably compensating for nothing but healthy snacking all day)

more of the colour of magic at bedtime

trying not to wake myself up before crashing (but it was all for nought regardless)

...

the world is shifting. it's not subtle (even if you're trying to look beyond the hype), and it's fast.

• anthropic’s 7 billionaire founders just pledged 80% of their wealth (because they know what’s coming)
• openclaw: 160,000 developers are building something openai & google can't stop. where do you stand?

plans vs reality

 on the plus side, it looks like the code i delivered was good enough. my bulgarian teammate pushed the updates last night, and by this morning everything was (theoretically) ready for me to step in, merge his code and deal with the fallout.

only i didn't know how to deal with the fallout, so it was mid-afternoon by the time i was able to pull the trigger, feeling mildly confident that i knew what to do if things went south and that there were others on board who could step in if need be.

the intensity of the afternoon was high. overall, it was "an experience". i was only ready to merge the final changes (for the day, in preparation for the big migration starting tomorrow) just before dinner time.

everything seems to have gone well 🤞

...

mr smear decided this morning that he was going to get out of going to school because it was dusty, and he's asthmatic. i mean, he wasn't entirely wrong that he shouldn't have to leave the house in those conditions, but after a couple of arguments we handed him a mask and booted him out, and apparently his day went well.

i mean, his teacher hasn't sent me an update yet.

gd and i caught a cab to the clinic, where for the most part i just sat and waited. once we were done, i bussed home and prepared to go to the office, although i caught myself in time (unlike last week) and decided to start setting up my home office instead.

so here i am, in a corner, with a window behind my monitor (not much of a view, but it's the principle of the thing).

over lunch, i finally took care of a couple of bills, and i thought i was done when our previous landlords reminded me that i hadn't taken care of the municipality bill yet. d'oh!

...

one step at a time. one foot in front of the other.

overload

 well, i made a thing: short-fuse at the ball (originally titled "prosthetic cinderella"). it's far from perfect (and required a bit of interference with gimp), but i'm nonetheless very pleased with the result ^_^

i did it more as an experiment with notebooklm than anything else, but i'm very happy to be able to share the story in a fun way!

...

i'm still feeling overwhelmed with the move, there's still a fair amount of admin to get through, and at the same time i'm fighting with social security about unemployment, and dealing with a painfully incompatible mattress, and the temporary fix for the balcony door really does seem to be rather temporary, and gd and i have to go to the ministry of the interior in person while she's really struggling with stomach issues, and i have to take care of the authorization for mr smear's next allergy test, and our apartment is still in a state of chaos and gd's pressuring me (gently?) to build the furniture so she can put things away...

mr smear apologized again to his friend today and apparently things are fine. i hope they are. i hope he's learned from this, though i'm very pleased that he knew to try and fix things without us having to intervene... but he's a bit concerned that he's turning into his parents :P

work today was bizarre. it's become very clear that nobody knows what's going on when it comes to architecture and data flows, but everything i've been told has been said to me with authority. i explained to my client team's lead that it seems to be better if i just don't take anyone's word for anything and do my own research...

halfway through the day i took the train (and walked) to my employer's office, where i was presented with a cute lego representation of myself. i spent half an hour first talking to a lawyer about my mother's aliyah case (he blew my mind asking if she was a messianic jew, and suggesting that from the sounds of things the jewish agency might actually be playing games), and then having an argument with someone from social security (apparently, i was about to be paid more than i thought for january and she stopped it, which is good because it could have caused me real trouble).

then we settled in for a workshop creating an AI agent, which was quite interesting in spite of my fatigue, and a birthday celebration for which i got my own vegan cinnamon cake and vegan cream.

[goddammit, the neighbors' super cute dog is on their balcony barking non-stop]

i didn't have time to go to the mattress store, so i returned home for dinner. after reading some more of the colour of magic to mr smear, and "completing" the comic, and posting this... i'm just about ready to try sleeping again. hopefully i'll manage tonight.

post-birthday different-kind-of-special

 dinner last night was nice - gd's first home-cooked meal in about a week. a little slower to cook with the borrowed plates, but it didn't bother me or mr smear.

the rest of the evening was all about getting into bed as quickly as possible, the shower was amazing, and i crashed pretty much immediately after.

in the middle of the night, i awoke from a sequence of nightmares: nightmares of being trapped trying to get home from work in a cavernous escape room (that was part of the office on a bond-like villain's mountain fortress), then of living at the docks and catching mr smear skipping school to hide amongst cargo loading equipment to play on his phone.

so that was me getting up at 3.45am with my nervous system on fire, raging at the afterimage of my dream son fucking up his imaginary life.

i did get back to sleep, a bit, but then i spent most of the rest of my time until alarm o'clock uncomfortable, and ultimately woke up with a stiff neck and the dizziness that often accompanies it. i mean, i might just be sick - gd's feeling similar today, in addition to the stuff that's been messing with her for months already - but still.

i think she might have been right on friday, that i shouldn't have let the mattress guy convince me to give it another week or two.

at least gd's happy with her side of the bed.

over coffee, i started putting together an article about producing comics with AI, but then i spent a large chunk of the morning sorting out address changes. and struggling - not for the first time - with the fact that we have money in our bank account but are unable to use our credit cards because we can't pay them off whenever we want.

not right now, but i think we need to consider finding ourselves a new bank.

on the way to the office i called social security, who informed me that the unemployment office hadn't updated them as they're reported. at the office, i remembered that nobody goes to the office on sundays, and according to the cleaning staff there was some kind of power outage as well. on my way back from the office i called the unemployment office, who after a very long time informed me that social security was lying. so then i called social security again, and the agent told me that the unemployment office was lying, and then i got really upset. eventually i got through to a manager, who "helped" me by directing me to the website to request that they look into it 🤦‍♂️

all the while in pain and dizzy.

i spent the rest of the day - until now - fixing the first iteration of my changes and learning how to test them. and eating and snacking a lot; i guess after yesterday's exercise (on top of the past week's) my body really needed more calories.

aside from pain and dizziness, my only real distractions were the electric hob installation (hooray!) and getting mr smear and his friend to come home on his way to the comic library to return the books (today was the deadline), and on their way from here i managed to catch them heading to bat yam by mistake in time for them to turn around.

parenting in 2026 is hard. navigating screen time, inappropriate content, lack of exposure to nature…

… but holy shit, being able to see where my kid is on a map, and know that i need to intervene so that he doesn’t end up in a different city by accident? priceless.

it's dark, the two of them should be making their way back soon, god knows how i'm going to get his friend home 🤷‍♂️

...

i have to say, slowly but surely our new home's starting to make sense. and it's huge compared to our last one, or at least it's much, much longer, because i've discovered over the past day or two that it's more sensible to call gd on whatsapp than to try to yell to each other, or get up from whatever i'm doing :P

fiero

this move has possibly been the most prolonged intense physical and mental exertion i’ve endured since officer’s course.

[redacted: a photo of me in full fiero mode holding a toilet seat over my head ("why's dad making a war cry?!") taken by gd, who had to be convinced to come back and support me after being thoroughly disturbed by what i was putting my body through. as well as by me accidentally lifting the entire bowl slightly off the floor in a moment of lost composure.]

i just won a tough jiujitsu match against two manky old toilet seat screws that were jammed right up into the holes by an incredibly sadistic or incompetent worker and i may need a few days to recover.

...

gods i'm tired. and sore. and parched. [goes to get some water]

i couldn't sleep last night, i spent most of the night "eating movies" [translated from the hebrew] about the damage, and the costs to fix the damage, and a million things that all need to be taken care of.

by 4am i was out of bed and on a ladder, slowly and methodically dusting all the surfaces of the kitchen. and discovering and cleaning chunks of revolting sticky grime on the top of the cupboards. it took over two hours to get everything clean enough for gd to be able to get mr smear ready for school.

then i dove in to a whole lot of admin, but at the same time posted about the ridiculous new obstacle that's been set in front of my mom's aliyah application. i've spent a lot of the day receiving advice and commiseration from strangers on the internet.

speaking of internet, we have fibre in our apartment now. gd oversaw the installation, and as long as the bomb shelter's door isn't closed we have decent wifi access from all corners. we should probably find a solution for when the door's closed, though.

apparently, begging for the technician to install the hob to be scheduled earlier worked, and he's coming on sunday instead of monday. in the meanwhile, our friends upstairs have loaned us a couple of small plates.

...

the window guy said he'd be here around 10-11am, so i marked my calendar for 2-4pm. he arrived just after 1.30pm.

he kind of fixed the broken cupboard. i'm not satisfied, but the doors are working. i didn't hide the damage from the landlord, but i didn't highlight it either, and he seems okay with it.

he fixed some of the bomb shelter window, but not the sealing strip which was gd's primary concern, and which he somehow convinced her hasn't been necessary since the 90s.

he totally fixed the broken, rotting board under the kitchen sink.

he fixed the kitchen window and balcony door, so they can both now be opened and closed. i say "fixed", but it's more like "patched". good enough for now.

apparently gd *really* pissed him off by insisting on compulsively checking for leaks, when he hadn't touched anything to do with the plumbing, and i'm still giggling at the thought of it. 'cause he was pissed before he arrived, which i'm assuming was a combination of having done a lot more work than he quoted for last night, and making an embarrassing mess, and having to clean up said mess.

that said, by the time he came to pick up his cash he seemed to be in a much better mood.

...

my work day was weird. it's certainly not what i'm getting paid for, but as long as it's short term i'm fine with it. i got reassigned to unblock my "customer" team by doing QA for their latest updates, and

a) it was an extremely long, complicated manual process.

b) i was falling on my nose from before i arrived at work today, and i had to have a lot of coffee to compensate. the lot of coffee wasn't as effective as i'd hoped.

c) i had a mojito at happy hour. half an hour later i got a little work done, and then had to bail before i passed out at my desk.

...

our neighbor's eldest came downstairs to take mr smear to get his first ever house key cut. now i need to find out about smart tags for android phones...

...

[yawns]

[gets more water]

i figured out how to update my cibus card on wolt, put up shower curtains, reported the courier for leaving the food without so much as knocking on the door, and we ate a huge hummus meal (for the second time this week) with both mr smear and gd enjoying the potato kubeh just as much as i did. then i went around the apartment replacing toilet seats.

i'm not 100% convinced that the seats i got are good, but they're definitely better than what we had.

[suddenly realizes he was supposed to take the old toilets seats out the building, they've been sitting outside the front door for hours]

[washes hands on return, hands are so messed up that washing them hurts]

once that was taken care of, and mr smear had been put to bed, i climbed in the shower and between the shower curtains, the shower head holder, the hot water and the good water pressure, i had a proper, decent, pleasant shower for the first time in... a very, very long time.

though i did feel a bit faint a couple of times.

now everyone's in bed, i've posted this, and i think i'm about ready to bundle up and get some rest.

the drain

 yesterday:

you know what's a surprisingly good feeling? when i arrive to pick up mr smear after 7.5 hours with his friend and he's clearly bummed out that their time is over.

the return home with was really fun.

it was an easy evening, i read some the colour of magic (we've restarted it, i hope he's ready for it this time) at bedtime and then the evening went into a bunch of random stuff, not least of which being writing up my earlier LLM experience into an article.

today:

i struggled to sleep last night.

the morning started off pretty well, and when mr smear left gd and i launched into removing the paintings from the walls and getting the screws / fisher plugs out. and realizing that *i* was guilty of mixing posidriv and phillips screws throughout the apartment :$

i took care of a bunch of other small things, and then left for the bank to organize a bank guarantee.

...

it's 2026 already. we have ai, robots, and a new evolution of CRISPR, but there i found myself, walking out of the bank after TWO HOURS signing arbitrary pieces of paper to acquire a document allowing me to promise my own money to someone else 😒

and then, OMFG.  just as i got on the bus to get to the office, i received an sms from the bank saying that my chequebook is available for pickup 😡

...

the bank experience really drained me. i got to the office, drank a coffee, and got back to working on my language detection model. i did that for an hour, then had lunch with the other dev who was working from the office, and then he left. i got some more work done before the only other person in the office, who was on the complete other side of it, lost his temper with someone on the phone. i tried not to eavesdrop, ending up suspecting that he'd been yelling at his kids :P

the work itself went sideways. first, when after two days of investment into testing this model, and some apparently good guesswork about some of the bigger languages (french and german, amongst others), i discovered that the model couldn't distinguish between english and russian. at that point, the mapping no longer mattered and i stopped what i was doing to investigate the existing solution.

that was when i learned that the elasticsearch language detection model isn't very reliable either, and that my client has a fair amount of garbage detections in its dataset. i also learned that i have a real advantage in evaluating language detections models because i'm familiar enough with quite a few very different languages.

so the model i've been evaluating is out, though i have infrastructure available to evaluate others (if i can find any reliable ones with labels), and i've established that there's no point in training our own model on our production data. i'm probably going to have to find out how n-gram language detection stacks up...

i left early myself and caught a bus home, authorizing mr smear to go with his friend to the comics library and on to his place. that made it easier for gd and i to go to the new apartment to sign the contract.

we were there for quite a while, it's looking considerably better, and this guy's really giving good vibes as a landlord. i didn't realize how hard it would be for him to grip a pen (he's very handicapped), and there were clauses that neither of us could figure out who should do what with...

we left with a key so gd and i can get started, cleaning it up and moving small things, and taking pre-inspection photos and organizing whatever fixes he missed.

i dropped my bag off at home, then walked to the square to wait for mr smear. he didn't need me to do that.

when we got home he dropped a bombshell - he and his friend watched the first episode of rick & morty today 🤦‍♂️

i fired off a message to his friend's dad - he's never seen the series - explaining that i understand that we'll never have full control, but that i'd appreciate it if his son understands that it's wrong and that he shouldn't share it with mr smear... he responded quickly and warmly, i hope we align.

mr smear has long hebrew homework due tuesday, so after a brief debrief on the rick & morty episode we got through a chunk of it and then had dinner, and then got through the shower/bedtime rituals (showering without a shower curtain again), and after getting mr smear into bed* i got caught up in getting gd's ipad upgraded, which led to some yak shaving in an attempt to free up enough space, which eventually led to an understanding that it's not possible to update the ipad software and apple's successfully coercing us to either abandon it or trade it in.

i fucking HATE apple.

* it took him forever to go to sleep, though

i'm absolutely exhausted, i think i need to go to bed. i hope i actually get some sleep tonight.

liminality

 mr smear told us earlier that today was the first day he remembers enjoying school.

...

a mostly sane wake-up, dishes, ping pong (i'm just more than halfway through), and after mr smear left for school it was dealing with pension / insurance stuff, and beginning a response to my boss/client who finally replied to my first update with a whole list of questions.

i arrived at work a minute late for my first meeting (this is becoming a thing, i have to be more careful in the mornings), and it was another long, very busy day. some of it productive, but not visibly so, by me having conversations with the stakeholders that triggered some very serious "debates" between them. i'm going to have to be very attentive and careful to not step on anyone's toes... which is literally a part of the job description.

i joined a few people on a lunch mission, which ended up being to a shuwarma place - fortunately, they had a plate full of side-dishes on the menu which was vegan and delicious. on the way out everyone was shocked to discover i'm vegan, which triggered some very serious discussions. the woman who came with us - a mother of two - literally cried when i told her what mr smear had had to contend with in his previous school regarding his dairy allergies and bullying.

we had to stop talking about nutrition and food safety over lunch because the guy in the team i'm embedded in started losing his appetite :P

...

i left a bit early to meet gd and mr smear at our friends' neighbor's apartment to take a look. we were there for a while, the disabled landlord seems genuinely decent and the apartment looks great, but he's putting us under enormous pressure to take it from february 1st, ostensibly because he has another potential tenant and he's giving us a chance as a favor to our friends.

it's a little further away from where we want to be than we are already, but it's on a corner with bus stops that work for us. and it's closer to another street we're happy shopping on, and the park. it's potentially a lot noisier than where we are, but the windows seem built for it. and winter. it's a big space with one more room than we're used to, but there's a poorly-conceived wall that divides what would otherwise be a wonderful open-plan kitchen and living area. there are multiple bathrooms, though each one has minor problems. not serious ones. it has an in-apartment bomb shelter. it's a little more expensive than our current apartment, but it's still very reasonable.

mr smear's very enthusiastic about it, and i made gd try and find faults but she's generally feeling positive about it. i walked out feeling very pressured, which i really don't like.

on the one hand, i don't want to make a decision under pressure - real or artificial - and this is a big decision. aside from the risks you take with any move to a new apartment, this is potentially burning two months' rent if we don't find someone to replace us. but at the same time, there's no guarantee we'll get a better deal than this if we don't take it. in fact, based on the past couple of days of looking, i'd be very surprised if we find something else even close to this good for us.

but there's no oracle we can consult, no human being on the planet who can guess whether we should take it or pass. there's no right or wrong answer.

i rushed through some of the dishes when we got home, then headed out to meet tahoma, and we went to rainbow for their sensational burgers. afterwards we took a long stroll looking for a dessert, and then i took my leave to get home in time to handle mr smear's toenails and put him to bed.

between discussing things with tahoma, and discussing them with my mother, i got most of the way home still very much undecided about what to do.

but then, just before i arrived home, i realized something important: if we don't take this apartment, there's a very good chance we'll have to use a real estate agent. and real estate agents - even though it's illegal - take an additional month's rent from the tenant as fees. which means that us taking this apartment is effectively only a loss of a single month (more than we would have lost anyway), and there's still a chance to reclaim some of that loss if we can find a replacement tenant quickly.

so now we have a plan. a scary plan, but a plan.

...

i read a bit of the beginning of sophocles i to mr smear at bedtime. he's into bits of it, but i don't think he's really ready.

waiting for news...

 today was a weird day. mr smear woke up from a nightmare in the early morning, and his yelling woke me up from my own nightmare, from which i didn't get back to sleep.

one achievement was getting mr smear to agree to post his cartoon from yesterday, and after frustratedly trying a bunch of apps i ended up using gimp to crop it correctly. at least i had gimp.

it took a while, but i managed to get an answer regarding my unemployment, and i've put in a request to the employment office to submit my status to social security like they were supposed to...

i don't remember why i ended up having to rush to get to the office (my employer's office, not my client's), but i arrived *just* in time for a call with an insurance agent. after that, i found a desk and got to work.

it was a very quiet morning, but i did have a chat with a coworker who i learned is on contract with the company i was interviewing with when i signed my contract, which was interesting.

i went to sumsum for lunch, which was an opportunity to have a proper sync with my mom about mr smear's situation and warm up in the sun.

in the afternoon, we had the third session for our AI workflow course, and i was a lot more focused than the previous one. we ended a bit early, which gave me time to get home in time for my phone appointment with mr smear's doctor, who's apparently written me the referrals i asked for.

apparently mr smear had a good day, meaning he didn't get into big trouble.

...

after a long, long time using brave, i've finally reinstalled chrome and copied everything back over. there's so much good about brave, especially the vertical tabs, but i've finally lost patience with not having address history, and the syncing doesn't work as well...

...

aside from a fight with gd over musical tastes (it's a long, decade-old story), the evening was smooth, dinner was good and - oh, yeah. mr smear only went to bed around 9pm because he still had a whole lot of studying to do for his greek history test tomorrow.

oh! mr smear spoke to me in hebrew this evening, entirely of his own volition.

now i'm watching revolution updates from tousi tv and being devastated to have learned tonight that cory doctorow is jewish and has fallen hook, line and sinker for the palestinian genocide lie, and we're praying that we don't need to enter the bomb shelters tonight (or at all) because gd can't breathe down there...

the persian people have to win this. their bravery is incredible.

recovery day (1)

 i dreamed a lot last night, so i'm confident i slept. i accompanied mr smear to school (we remembered to take the bus), and then i made my way to the employment agency. "for adults" 🤔

the man who ushered us in spewed a stream of instructions at us, which led to confusion when we got to the ticket machines and they weren't finished booting up yet. then i followed the instructions and waited at the counter indicated on my ticket, but when the clerk showed up she was immediately pissed off with me and sent me to the waiting area. and as soon as i was seated, she called my number.

she didn't speak any english, which wouldn't have been a big deal had i not used an expression i'd translated from english. and she certainly didn't have any detectable sense of humor.

anyway.

after that, i returned home, where i found a delivery notice from the post office indicating that a package had arrived more than two weeks ago, which meant there was a good chance it had been returned to sender. again. i angrily rushed over to the post office, notice in hand, and confronted the manager... who assured me that she's also very frustrated with the delayed notices, and that there's nobody she can talk to about it.

good grief.

the good news is that they hadn't returned it yet, so i finally picked up our math fluxx and mystery fluxx ^_^

(and rain gear for mr smear)

i barely had time to get those back to the apartment before i had to leave again, and with a brief interlude discussing pre-dawn philosophy with horseman i arrived at the coffee shop to meet with the other firees. it was a good couple of hours spent discussing all sorts of things, but mostly supporting each other, and chatting about how to manage (or not manage) a business and what kinds of things we might be interested in building.

at least skippity joined us this time.

i made my way home chatting with swordschool, and we dived into the weeds of a book he wants to publish and i'm trying to help him edit. it's interesting stuff, and it might play into another side project i've been thinking about.

once mr smear got home, it was all about homework until i received a message from the unhinged, once again claiming that her darling innocent angel had been verbally abused by my son.

i immediately took him to task, and put the fear of god in him, and he told us the details and appeared to be suitably contrite regarding his behavior. but i didn't want to respond to the unhinged without some council, so i asked their teacher to call me.

while i waited (and in-between helping gd prepare dinner), i chatted with someone who wanted our windows machine for much less than i'm asking, leading me to re-evaluate my offer and raise the asking price again, but also format the machine.

when the teacher called me, i was pleasantly surprised, both because she's not usually so easy to get hold of and also because she was aware of the incident and supportive. and then, in addition to that, she informed me that mr smear really has been making an effort, that his behavior's no worse than any of the other kids, and that today he entirely voluntarily participated in her science class.

so while he's being punished for handling the unhinged's daughter really badly, we're also very busy praising him for everything else :P

when i finally responded, just as had been recommended, she responded with a flood of her usual disrespectful bile. i took a screenshot and sent it to the teacher so that she knows what's up, and successfully held myself back from responding.

we had a long and entertaining chat with my mom and sister after dinner, then put mr smear to bed (relatively smoothly), and i'm now trying to decide whether to try to be functional or not. i have lots of interesting stuff to read (swordschool homework), but i also have a very busy day tomorrow supporting the window fix and the air-conditioner cleaning, and the floor cleaning in between with gd only able to yell at me for doing a poor job because she's still recovering from yesterday's nerve block...

the cut

goddamn.

yesterday.

i got some shit done on my way to the office yesterday, not least of which being sorting out a pain clinic appointment for gd in the hopes to start getting the ball rolling with her cannabis license renewal.

i arrived at work in good spirits, but hadn't even managed to grab a coffee before being called in to a meeting with my boss and our HR woman. i didn't take it well - they listed their claims, and i told them that the claims are clearly nonsense - and i had some very awkward non-conversations (being "discrete") on my way out.

i feel the betrayal keenly. i would have felt a lot more like this was an understandable play on their part if it wasn't for two things: first, that a week ago they told me they weren't happy with me, but instead of firing me they moved me to a different team - a team that wanted me, and that i had a good chance of success in. second, they surprise-fired me along with five other people, about half of whom the decision makes zero sense.

i've received some concerned phone calls, not just concern for me and the others, but concern for all those who're left behind. you don't fire obviously competent people who lots of people have worked with and leaned on without sparking a panic. nothing about this play makes sense.

so obviously i'm not in a good place right now, the anxiety from the past week or so has now shifted to a new, differently-terrifying one. they're doing something ugly, dirty and counter-productive, and i'm walking away with a black mark on my resume in the form of an eight-month stint.

one for which i've made enormous sacrifices of my physical and mental well-being.

i don't regret doing what i believed in, and i'm proud to be walking away with my integrity. i'm also kinda glad that it's happened exactly as it has, in a way that anyone in the organization with half a brain can see through, can see that it isn't right and it isn't deserved.

now to find a new job. i'm praying that the guys who made me the competing offer are ready to make it again... i have a meeting with them next week 🤞

...

mr smear went to a friend's place yesterday (obviously just a pretense for extensive and inappropriate screen-time), and i went to pick him up (and pace and ponder while waiting) and take him to the mall to look for a belated birthday gift for his friend. i told him basically what was happening, and a bit later he needed some consoling because he literally interpreted it as "we're going to have to start eating worms" 🤦

we didn't find anything amazing, and then he very wisely said that he didn't want to get his friend anything that he might politely accept but be disappointed with, so we caught a bus home and he said he'd ask his friend what kinds of things he might want.

last night was dinner (half a dinner for me, the anxiety diet*) and a lot of phone calls. and eventually a chat with my mom, who made a very good suggestion that i write down what i'm going to say in the hearing. i now have a pretty solid statement prepared, and i think i'm just going to tidy it up, and then send it to my boss and the HR woman right before reading it to their faces.

* i was down to 77 kilograms this morning!

last night, gd and i started rewatching thursday. and passed out about a third of the way through. [i checked: good guess]

today:

the highlights of this morning were an hour long conversation with horseman, and taking gd to an ultrasound appointment.

horseman told me something very surprising about why he won't work with kids under fourteen, and it seems wrong but it also explains a lot of the frustration we experience with mr smear: at his age (and all ages before this age), he's very good at continuing the flow of a conversation and sounding like he's understanding. but he's not understanding. so we get all frustrated and angry with him but he's just playing along and not fully comprehending what he's doing wrong...

gd and i bussed through to south tel aviv, eventually finding the place and arriving with half an hour to spare. which was fortunate, because it took just over half an hour waiting on hold for the clinic staff to get authorization...

having had a successful adventure, we came home to do the dishes, and then gd made us really good toasted sandwiches and we completed watching thursday. still good.

the rest of the afternoon / evening (shit, it's getting dark really early already) has been mostly syncing with mr smear over his day and helping him with his math homework (algebra!). somewhat successfully :)

contemplation

yesterday:

mr smear went to school by himself again, which makes us a bit nervous but i guess it's no different from him coming back home by himself... parenting is weird.

i had a chat with urchin, who's just been laid off along with a bunch of her coworkers due to a change in management. amazing timing, right before the holidays. she's apparently interested in some of our open positions, which would be cool.

yesterday was long. lots of context switching, lots of issues that were supposed to be resolved the day before but weren't. lots of planning with my coworkers (mostly productive and positive). one emotional outburst about procedure that got me called in to a room by the rnd manager to tell me i'd made a bad vibe... i just apologize to her and the guy in question, and i've got a lesson to learn.

on my way into our apartment i picked up a second notice* for the two fluxx games i ordered a while back, which was apparently sent three weeks ago. it took so long to be delivered that they've returned the package, which is really unfair :(

* a first notice was never sent, neither were any emails or sms messages...

i came home just in time for dinner, just in time to see gd almost collapse from the sudden onset of something. i rushed myself and mr smear through dinner while she rested, wished them both a good night, and then headed out to the british ze german's shiva house.

it's always weird and sad walking past my mother and my old apartment.

the next couple of hours weren't unpleasant, the story of my friend's sister's passing notwithstanding. ru55 and the irish ze german were there too, and i alternated between conversation flow and just sitting and listening. ru55 gave me a ride home, i brushed my teeth and showered, and then sat down to do some more testing for our contractor.

it didn't take long to get stuck and stop the testing. and then suddenly there were noises coming from mr smear's room, where gd was attending to him and his suddenly sore throat. when i went in to commiserate he sent me away, but a bit later called out to me, really upset that he'd forgotten to call my mom to say good night 🥹

and then, in the middle of the night, gd decided that we urgently needed to do online grocery shopping :/

today:

i slept alright, but i've been feeling a bit on/off today. mr smear's leg seems to have healed, so we left him to his devices (ha ha) and headed to the pharmacy*, did some grocery shopping and picked up a pokémon puzzle for tomorrow.

* we left the first one in a huff because someone was drilling and there was dust everywhere while a bunch of sick and elderly people were waiting

i did some more work with the contractor, and then the new cleaning lady arrived. she insisted on wearing her shoes in the apartment, which gd eventually conceded and which i'm too nervous to discuss with her later when i get home from my voluntary exile at our favorite coffee shop. i somehow got dragged into a political discussion with her, which included a very awkward "we're not going to agree or understand each other" moment, but also her thanking me profusely for oversharing with a stranger.

i've spent the past few hours slowly drinking coffees, eating a sandwich, and trying not to fall asleep in the comfy armchair while slowly reading some more blindsight.

and spending a fair amount of time just staring into space. i guess i have a lot of processing to do.

breath

yesterday:

early up, and dropped off mr smear at school. then i made my way to the clinic to pick up some meds for gd, which resulted in an uncomfortable exchange with the pharmacists because their labelling is - and they admit it freely - extremely confusing. if i see on my prescription "take 1 tablet x 1 day x 28 days", i presume that means "one tablet daily for a month", and i expect to be given 28 tablets accordingly. but in this case, gd was given ten tablets with those instructions, and apparently the intention is "ten tablets, once per day as need for 28 days. that's just dumb.

i picked up my bag and i went to the office. i walked in to a bizarre discussion because one of my coworkers *luckily* checking on a machine just before it crashed, and so for the first time we actually have data indicating the root cause. we also learned that ubuntu AMIs don't have swap memory configured by default, which is very surprising (read: shocking) even though it does kind of make sense once we considered the different kinds of volumes that could be attached (or not).

the morning was full of meetings and distractions, and the entire afternoon was spent in an on-site company culture exercise. which has inspired me to put together a presentation for our founders on gaming and gamification.

while that was going on, mr smear's school day ended and he went with a bunch of kids in his class to the survivalist activity. that meant me repeatedly, nervously refreshing his family link location and worrying how things were going. and hour or so into the event, he sent me a flurry of messages begging me to come and pick him up.

on the one hand, he did his usual thing and shut down when he decided the activities weren't for him. also, he lowered his hat to cover his eyes and protect him from social contact and then pulled out his phone and began making animations because i forgot to lock down the flipaclip app... on the other hand, he did go in good spirits and gave it a chance, and apparently is getting on nicely with the kids from his class.

unlike our last happy hour vegan sushi experience, i watched like a hawk and the moment i saw people tucking into the vegan platters i grabbed a plate and made sure mr smear had a good selection. he enjoyed it, and so did i ^_^

(i also taught one of my new coworkers how to use chopsticks)

mr smear and i met up with gd at the school for the parent's class introduction. there was some drama - it looks like there were real issues with the previous year's teacher and the parents got him fired - but overall it feels like this is a completely different calibre of parent and so far the teacher is really solid.

mr smear had been waiting for us the whole time, and was rewarded with 1-on-1 attention with her afterwards. we clarified some things, we talked about his arts tracks (music vs film), and she informed us that he and the girl from tuesday had spoken and that mr smear had been really big about it. later on he informed us that so had she, so that's pretty amazing.

while we were talking, firefighter and his wife bumped into us, and i was startled to learn that both their daughters are in the school, one ahead of mr smear and one behind. so that's pretty cool!

we got home very late, forced mr smear to share his lunch with us (he didn't want any, but all he'd eaten since breakfast - aside from the sushi - was a large tub of allegedly-vegan gummy strips), and got him ready for and into bed.

and then we were done, too.

today so far:

i guess i slept alright? certainly an improvement. i accompanied mr smear to the school, and it was a very quiet morning. as i said goodbye and left the premises, i felt, for the first time, that this is real. it's happening. mr smear, against all odds, is officially in the school of arts and he's off to a good start. this is a moment we've barely dared to fantastize about, and here we are. after every hardship he's and we've been through.

it's kind of like those moments after gd's aliya was finally authorized, just being in tel aviv after years of fantasizing about being here and feeling safely at home.

mr smear's whole life, in a moment, just turned around on a dime, changed direction, and the universe has gifted him with a rare opportunity to be in a place that we believe is best for him and his future. and we're going to do everything in our power to support him on this journey, whatever the cost.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,

שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

...

i took a slow walk (and talk, with gd and my mom) to the clinic to sort out authorization for gd's next nerve block and make an acupuncture appointment for her, then came home and got a tiny amount of work done, and then napped, and it's been a restful, peaceful morning so far. now mr smear's on his way home (i'm following on the map) and we'll go out and do some chores and then... chill? or maybe put together that presentation.

better

 today was better. it started rough, with a lot of time on hold with our medical insurance, and then we all went for a walk to track down the sleep lab at the hospital (the old lady at the information desk initially sent us to the wrong floor, a not-very-hospital floor) and i booked the earliest appointment available (april).

oh, and i picked up a copy of claudia ira davimes' the joy of being wrong, which is off to a promising start.

we then walked down the road to our bank branch, where it took about fifteen minutes for them to tell me they couldn't help me (i got a call in the afternoon and i'm satisfied with one of the savings "products" they offer) but gd picking me up an coffee slushy took the sting out. on the way home we picked up a bunch of things, including a lemon juicer like we have at the office which i'm way more excited about than i should be.

most of the afternoon was me installing and being sad that counter-strike doesn't run on macs, playing slay the spire, reading watchmen, and deciding that we were out of bookmarks and needed to fix that. and that if i was fixing that, i should make an attempt to figure out how to get organized with a gaming machine. so i hopped on a bus with mr smear, and the first store we arrived at was closed. then we hopped on another bus, and while waiting for my turn at the computer store i examined the bookmarks at the book store and was disappointed (to say the least). the guy at the computer store gave me a good quote and then advised me to try facebook marketplace first.

we went to the anime store, but while they didn't stock bookmarks, they did have a bucket of various trading cards so we chose a few one piece cards which will now serve us just as well. and then we got another quote from another computer store, and mr smear obsessed over all the anime figures, and then we walked home, having pretty good conversations along the way.

dinner was great, we introduced mr smear to ren & stimpy and watched another episode of the simpsons. gd's neck's been spasming all day, but i read a bit to mr smear at bedtime and the rest of the evening has been a mix of slay the spire and a new round of tool reaction videos.

omg i just realized it's 00.30 already and i'm working today. i had a couple of anxious moments today because i had to assist a couple of coworkers, and also had a chat with an applicant i used to serve with, but overall i guess it was a pretty good day off.

off a low base

 well, to be fair today was easier. but i felt completely exhausted, and disorganized, and my brain seems to be seeping down my spinal column and into my butt.

i started the day with a walk to the post office to pick up my new phone covers - the three of them cost less than gd's failed one, and they're all awesome. so i'm proudly sporting the hunter license:

(ugh, those nails 🤮)

on my way home i stopped by a mor clinic. it was uncomfortable that i couldn't even get a number for the receptionist because i didn't have an appointment. when a receptionist did become available, she informed me that they can't help me with what i'm looking for. when i asked if there was anyone i could speak to about gd's cannabis story, she shrugged and complained that she, too, has difficulty getting human assistance and she works there.

i came home, completed the deployment i'd triggered on my way out, picked up my gear and walked mr smear and gd to the clinic (he was supposed to get blood tests done, but we hadn't realized he'd needed an appointment). i bussed to the office, where my future team was already waiting for me, and we spent the following few hours strategizing and getting some work done.

two jumpy dogs + a bunch of jumpy kids = distraction.

i spent the remainder of the day being set upon by various coworkers, constantly context-switching and generally feeling worn out and slow. i did get some good stuff done, a few good things, actually, but at least twice i got told off by my boss about not having taken a holiday.

i definitely need to take a holiday. it would be nice to not literally be the only person holding the devops fort right now.

at 7pm i told gd i'd be leaving in ten minutes, and ten minutes later it was 7.30pm, so i don't know what the hell happened... i came home, joined my family for dinner (accompanied by a shot of rum) and some of the fifth harry potter movie, was shown some of my son's amazing artwork (his "realistic" minecraft characters), and after showers and toothbrushing (i'm being very cautious about brushing as softly as i can) i read a little more of the neverending story.

sometimes mr smear isn't in the mood, but tonight he was upset when i stopped reading.

it took me a little time to decompress enough to write this, now i'm not sure if i'm ready to crash yet.