dum, dum dum dum, dum dum dum...

 i gave clickolding a try, and it crashed every time it hit dialog, so i uninstalled it and requested a refund. i was pleased to see that i'd received the refund before i went to bed.

today:

mr smear had pancakes for breakfast, so that he wouldn't have to eat walnuts.

i took him to school, then continued on to our pharmacy to pick up a couple of prescriptions. the pharmacy was completely empty, and there was no one ahead of me in the queue, so i only had to wait for ten minutes. they had one of the items i was looking for, but not the other.

i walked down to the mall pharmacy, where i waited another ten minutes or so (thankfully, i had my "kindle" with me for both waits), and picked up that prescription, although the pharmacist was concerned that the doc had prescribed it differently to what she's used to. that caused stress, but when i looked it up when i got home i discovered that there's a range of "configurations".

the work day started off pretty relaxed, and i was saying to a coworker that it's the first time in many years that i've been back from a ny sort of vacation for an entire week and i'm still feeling relaxed! at noon we all went off for a farewell feast at a nearby restaurant. sadly, i burned off some of my tastebuds on the delicious onion soup, but the pad thai was still exquisite.

i ate far too much.

the next few hours were hellish, because my tummy had decided it was time to move and it was relentless. in addition to that, gd and mr smear and i had a few dramatic phone calls because he'd had an incident at school, and it wasn't clear if he'd kicked the other kid back or not. i was relieved to hear that he had.

we also learned that some of the kids employ a nasty tactic of hitting mr smear and then claiming that they've just consumed dairy, and we've explained to him that aside from that not being likely, it's also not a big enough concern for him to not defend himself :/

eventually that calmed down, and i finished the week on a constructive note.

after dinner, mr smear wanted to show me something on the keyboard, and he did it really well. then i reminded him that we'd discussed him trying to figure out the tetris music on his own, and - holy shit - he got it! i can't describe how excited i am, and he was excited himself, that he figured out how to play the tune by ear and by feel ^_^

i was disappointed - and embarassed - to discover that the keyboard we bought can't connect to a computer. i'm going to speak to the store tomorrow and see if we can arrange a trade or something...

after we got him into bed, i had a quick chat with my sister, mostly about her status between jobs.

i've spent the past couple of hours doing lots of not much, and i'm considering heading to bed now and reading a bit. i'll be surprised if i last more than a minute or two :P

stuck in the middle with you

 it was a pretty good morning. mr smear spent some time impressing us with the keyboard before i walked him to school, gd and i had a chilled morning together, and then i caught the bus to the office.

the day began with an all-hands, and we learned that the company isn't quite where its board wants it to be. i asked how much runway we have, and i've been assured that we're good. the "higher ups" are going to try to figure out new markets we should target, and a few of us got into quite a heated debate about the possibilities we're seeing from the ground.

ironically, this situation has made it clear that our project manager's vision is out of touch, but it's anyone's guess as to how we're going to tweak our approach going forwards.

overall, it was a decent day in the office, although i was quite tired for a stretch of the day and i was snacky for most of it.

the walk home was intense and full of feelings, because the roads were gridlocked with people behaving badly. i'm wondering if we shouldn't be doing the london thing, and making it impossible for private cars to enter the city center...

i got home just in time for dinner, and we had a bit of a scene because mr smear hates walnuts. he finally relented and tried to eat them with gd's home-made pesto pasta, and that definitely helped, but what really helped was his own suggestion: "do we have chocolate sauce?"

we do have chocolate sauce, we were surprised to discover, and it apparently only expires in about a decade's time. i tested it, it was great, he put it on the walnuts, and he enjoyed them. hell, he even agreed to put it on some dried mango and he enjoyed that, at least until he'd had too much chewiness because a couple of his teeth are apparently loose.

winning!

after dinner, and getting mr smear (all of us, really) ready for bed, and both him and gd going to sleep (well, he's coughing a lot, he coughs a lot at night), i'm now trying to decide whether i'm going to spend the next little while studying the storage stuff from the other day, or giving clickolding a try.

i think i'll give clickolding a try.