revolving

 i ended up getting to bed pretty late, which i largely attribute to slay the spire 2.

mr smear's early alarm woke me up, and i had difficulty getting back to sleep. i woke up feeling zombified.

my day began with stranger in a strange land. i really wasn't into it at the beginning, and some of it feels really dated, but i pushed through that to discover that it's by design - as in it's at least somewhat satirical - and that considering the decade it was published in it shows such remarkable cleverness, both in its imagination and in its incredible ability to rewrite human experience from an outsider's point of view. it's also got a really dark feel to it. slow, ponderous, heavy, like watching a film through tv snow.

i had to force myself to put the book down and start my day.

adulting is stressful, especially unnecessary adulting. if i'm paying for additional medical insurance, i shouldn't have to work harder than them to get back money that's supposedly guaranteed.

[my previous ingrowing toenail from ages back is hurting again, suddenly]

i got to work, and found myself blocked waiting for the data team. during the four hours or so that i waited for them to get back to me, i continued to suffer in an infinite AI failure loop, which i tried to utilize as a test for my skill evolution. but when one of the data guys finally got around to me, he didn't agree with my approach and demoralization struck when i realized i might have gone through all that suffering for nothing (i mean, aside from the skill improvement).

...

at this point i received a call from the paybox retention team, who wanted to know why i ditched them and what they could do to make things right. i stood on the balcony, angrily describing their lies and how they've burned any trust i might have had in them, and by the time he heard me out he miserably acknowledged that he couldn't really make things right. then i hung up and went back inside, wondering if the people working near the balcony door had heard me... because i know that they heard me talking to mr smear earlier about why i'm not getting him a spotify subscription, as somebody came up and closed the door and i was quite embarrassed...

...

as we worked through the problem, though, we ended up hitting a wall that could only be resolved with the approach i'd been taking. so that was a relief. and then we ran into another wall, and the two of us split up to investigate alternate options.

i learned something today about connecting databricks to github, i figured out an undocumented way to use both APIs in way they didn't design for and it felt VERY good to see it actually work! it took a while to explain to the data guy how it worked, at which point he agreed that it's clearly the simplest and most correct solution for our use case, and that felt especially good after thursday's talks when i was so out of my depth that i could barely understand their questions, let alone answer them.

...

i came home in fantastic spirits. mr smear argued with me about discussing summer day camp because he already knew what he wanted, at least until he saw what the make camp is offering. we were sad to hear that he and his friend who's going aren't getting along so well - apparently his friend isn't friending much better than before they made up after their fight...

i slugged a 4th coffee in preparation for the night blade, then mr smear and i put on our rollerblades and went to the park and back. firstly, he's getting the hang of tying his laces intellectually, though his fingers are struggling. secondly, it was back to square one, he was very nervous at first, but we got there eventually and the way back was fine.

we came back to find gd with a sharp knife (always scary, and she was right nervous as well) and a delicious sushi dinner, which we ended by dipping unripe apricots into wasabi soy sauce with astoundingly positive results 🤯

i said goodnight to mr smear, then headed out to join the rollerblading group. just before leaving the apartment my neck twinged, and it caused me trouble the whole time i was out. i was already sore halfway to the meetup point, which was kinda sad, and i had to split halfway because i'd been feeling faint for a while.

most of my ride was fun, though it would have been more fun if i hadn't let myself get sucked into a really ugly political argument.

i came home almost in pieces, watched a crazy update from farzad about the coming robotic revolution while eating a second dinner, showered, and now i'm just trying to settle before climbing into bed.

a day off

 according to dr google i'm at risk of developing a stroke because i used a massager on my neck. i'm not sure that's true, but i'm definitely scared off doing that again as the back of my head's been feeling a bit numb since i did it.

...

i got a relatively good night's sleep last night, minus waking up in the middle of the night with my neck / shoulder locking up and needing more than half an hour of work to be able to return to bed, but little-to-no lower back or hip discomfort.

mr smear, however, did not have a good night. he's clearly properly sick, regardless of yesterday's RAT outcome.

the three of us left him home alone as my mother and i dropped gd off at her physio appointment, then walked about florentin looking for blinds. we eventually found a place, but were rather put off by their charging approximately NIS 500 per small window, and double that per door. we have quite a few windows and doors.

as it is, i'm feeling decidedly financially unstable lately...

we met up with gd and went to meshek barzilay for a really nice lunch. speaking of financially unstable :P

we then returned home for a while - disturbing mr smear's full day of screen time - and a bit later my mom and i paid a visit to the library, where i checked out a better (though not pristine) copy of my name is asher lev. we meandered all over the place until catching a bus home, then meandered between the shops to find vegan marshmallows, then returned home for a relaxed evening.

i mean, it was relaxing for my mother and i, for gd and mr smear not so much. him because he's sick, her because in spite of a good physio session her shoulder's been locking up the whole afternoon.

my mother made - and taught gd to make - her pea soup for dinner, which was delicious ^_^

i've just put mr smear to bed, reading between his coughs, and i'm amazed to see it's 11pm already (O_o)

...

aside from contesting my parking fine, and opening an investigation into our bean bag purchase (after holding for half an hour to be told they'll call me back, after more than a week of trying to get hold of them to find out where our bean bags are), and holding for half an hour with social security to be told that i should just ignore the last message i got from them, i've been made very uncomfortable by the idea that there are authors warning other authors not to so much as quote a lyric of a song - even if it's clear that it's a quote - because that's not considered fair use. i cannot believe that's true, but if it's true, then the state of copyright law is even more awful and even less aligned with its spirit than i thought.

...

i saw a couple of disturbing things today: even "educational" tech is interfering with our kids learning, and this guy's quote is heartbreakingly powerful: "do you know how hard you have to abuse a mammal to make them not have children?"

we're in serious shit as a species right now.

the last opportunity?

 i went to bed late last night. i finished with the button a little after midnight, then climbed into bed and found myself entirely unable to sleep. i don't know why, but i was completely wired and spent the entire night miserably uncomfortable.

the 6.30am alarm was painful.

i accompanied mr smear to school - again, because i'm worried about when the war's going to resume - and we had a fun conversation about the drawing for our front door. on the way home, i stopped at the pharmacy to pick up something for gd, and had a chat with my mom about whether she'll be able to land here next week, and what we should do about her laptop (i'm thinking of giving her our windows machine).

i came home, and struggled to get started with work; primarily because in addition to exhaustion, my back and feet were really hurting. i eventually remembered our foot/back massager, though, and i have to say i'm quite grateful for it!

[turns it back on again]

i prepared a scary bit of work last week, and this morning i pulled the trigger. i nervously monitored the dashboards, but a half hour later i was convinced that a) the deployment had gone smoother than i'd hoped and b) i've discovered something quite bad (a memory leak) that's been causing disruptions, probably for years.

i also helped the team lead of my previous customer team navigate the airflow interface - that shit is hard!

in addition to working, i assisted gd with a wolt driver who couldn't figure out how to find our address on a map and was unable to follow directions. not only was he shockingly dumb and incompetent, but he had the nerve to tell me that we shouldn't be using our correct street address and should go for the (essentially) illegal one instead.

we also managed to figure out how to return a pair of shoes she bought online, and it was much easier (albeit much more expensive) than the other site.

in the afternoon i returned to the school to pick up mr smear, and managed to buy raisin brain (for the iron fortification) along the way. mr smear made me wait for a while, so i took off that same amount of screen time, but the journey home was mostly pleasant and once the timer began, he grabbed watchmen off the shelf and started getting into it.

i spent the next few hours drowning in a task that's heavy on the AI because i only vaguely understand what needs to be done. so while i'm constructing (hopefully) a mental model, i'm casting magic spells and praying they don't backfire...

and then mr smear had homework to do. fortunately, he worked through it pretty well, with only one short episode of me losing patience (he couldn't understand the problem, but wouldn't pay attention while i tried to help him), and he managed to score himself some game time before dinner.

dinner: delicious corn soup / corn on the cob combination, accompanied by the next part of ready player one. i've been avoiding spoiling the chest-burster scene from the alien movie because we're planning on watching it soon, so i was pretty bummed out by the disguise scene! at least i know mr smear won't be traumatized by it, though. he thought it was funny. (though he still hasn't plucked up the courage to continue with terminator 2, which he finds too intense)

we managed to get through shower and bedtime pretty smoothly. i didn't have energy to read to him (and it was late), but instead i recited the slam. the last time i recited something i received some pretty harsh feedback from him ("i HATE your poetry!"), but tonight? he was riveted, and actually praised it ^_^

...

i'm going to try to get to bed earlier tonight (ie. soon). it's clear that the "cease-fire" with iran is officially over, so if there's an attack we're moving mr smear back into our bedroom immediately.

gods, this is a really confusing time. strategically, it seems like the americans have really done an amazing job, but right now being in the moment and in the IRGC's crosshairs...

terror storm

ever since i was a child i've loved electric storms, and found lightning and thunder comforting. but last night's lightning strikes were so close that every single one sounded like an iranian attack had caught us by surprise and that there'd been another impact nearby.

thanks a bunch, mother nature.

so, ironically, during a night with no actual attacks i got a whole lot less sleep and a whole lot more anxiety. fuck you, headless chicken that remains of the IRGC.

 ...

so i was a bit rough around the edges today. in spite of that, i feel like i got *some* good work done, and i helped mr smear through his programming "homework" (human resource machine), and he did (with a little bit of shouted encouragement) do a reasonable amount of music practice, and we continued to use in-shelter time-outs to learn zoology with ze frank, and while we didn't train this evening, we did do some serious stretching.

we received two deliveries today: a small care package from my client, and a slightly bigger couch. we're happy with the care package, but we're particularly happy about the couch.

the post office saga was embarrassing, the guy who i'd sent it to had to go twice to the store to pick it up, and i'd had to have a real fight with the representative who eventually ended the call because she was upset that i was upset and taking it out on her. specifically, because she started saying "the next time you use our services" which i immediately cut off with a tirade of why i would never (voluntarily) be using their services again.

what's it called, when you pay for a service and they don't provide it to you? it's on the tip of my tongue...

slightly more reasonable snacking levels today, but a big, late leftover lunch after the couch was delivered, and gd made latkes for dinner (for the flax), and mr smear and i had vegan nutella on the last of the marshmallows.

we watched another strip search elimination, unfortunately mr smear loved the sex-adventure comic and "sass" a little too much and it was an ordeal to get him to not repeat it all to my mother 🤦‍♂️

omg it's really late again. we keep eating late, and mr smear's been going to bed really late, and it kind of throws off my clock.

t-2

 i finished reading moon knight this morning, it is legitimately mind-boggling and brilliant. then mr smear went off to school after we'd had a very serious conversation invoked by the disappearance of the imagine channel - where we got synthknot from - which resulted in me posting the following:

a really amazing youtube channel got taken down, and it's almost guaranteed that it's due to unjust copyright strikes. watching content producers like rick beato fighting off lawfare trolls makes it clear that google/youtube really don't care, and that there're no humans in the loop...

and then my facebook marketplace experience earlier this week, also no humans in the loop...

and all the people who fled toxic twitter to make just-as-toxic mastodons and blueskys...

and china using discord and tiktok to spy on us and brainwash us (effectively)...

and roblox pushing kids into dark corners and actively preventing people from fighting off predators...

with everything else that's going on, i feel like the biggest, scariest, most dangerous issue of our time is social media. it's not just dangerous for kids and teens, it's dangerous for everyone. and most of us are just going with it because we don't have much choice. and all the good people who try to make alternatives are just creating more of the same, because we haven't figured out a model for connecting people that encourages good, healthy behavior.

...

we rushed out to meet the window guy, who was "almost there" for about forty five minutes. but in addition to him proposing very satisfactory solutions, something made me ask him, on his way out, what it is exactly that he does for a living.

it turns out he's a contractor, and a carpenter.

gd and i looked at each other, and showed him one of the bigger issues we've been worried about, and which for him turned out to be null sweat ^_^

we then went to our new local hardware store to pick up a whole bunch of things - mostly to make sure we can fix and paint the walls in the old apartment properly - and stopped in at the nature store for hydration and snacks.

we measured the gas hob - the underside was revolting, and i cut my finger on it - and then rushed off to buy antiseptic ointment and an electric hob. they weren't in stock, so it'll only arrive on sunday, and it needs an electrician to install it, so it'll only be installed by tuesday or wednesday, and the hole in the counter isn't deep enough, so we'll either need a handyman to build up the area or, i realized later, to cut in a little deeper.

turns out we know a guy.

gd returned to our old place, i went to pick up mr smear from school and show him the "new" way to get home, and then we went to the new apartment to meet up with our new landlord and give him the cheques, and get the keys, and remove a couple of doors and the old oven and carry them down to his storage, and then our friend arrived to speak to him and was shocked to see that the electrician who installed the three-phase plug did something wrong (both from a regulations point of view, and ethically from a cheated-us point of view).

so that's another thing we need to deal with on sunday...

from there we returned to the old apartment, i had breakfast and mr smear and i took a bag of clothing to the donation bin, and the next while was spent fighting over how to proceed, and then proceeding. by the time the new tenant came by to examine our things more carefully, we had a load of sensitive stuff ready to go.

he might take our sofa, he might let us leave the big shelf up, he might take the curtains. but he's not taking the projector. and when i turned it on to demonstrate his response made me sad: we've gotten used to it not being able to focus properly, and not being particularly sharp to begin with. our little projector probably isn't worth much, and i don't think we really have place for it in the new apartment, but it's been with us for so long and we've had such good times with it 😭

i booked a car for an hour, and in that hour managed to pick it up, drive it home, load it with all the things while mr smear "stood guard", drive it to the new apartment, unload it, get everything upstairs and into the apartment, drive to the city market, pick up a bottle of wine, and get it back to its parking spot. and mr smear and i had a great time rocking out to slipknot and synthknot along the way 🤘

...

it's shabbat, and even though tomorrow's going to be tough, we made a point of stopping in the evening, lighting candles and making kiddush for the last time in this apartment, singing loudly and drinking wine and eating vegan burgers and reading the colour of magic (even before bedtime)...

the gaping maw

 what the hell happened today?

the morning started well, i had less dishes to do because i'd done half of them the night before, and my biggest distractions from reading more planetes came from mr smear engaging me in interesting conversation.

i got some offers for moving companies, and while i think i jumped on one too early, the guy sold me with his pitch that they're mostly olim and miluimnikim, it was the best price that still included all the "basics" (like insurance), and they did have good reviews (assuming they weren't bots).

a little more than half the price i was previously quoted.

otherwise, lots of communications surrounding the apartments.

i got to work in time to make coffee before my meeting, and while a lot of my day was frustrating (obstacles hidden behind obstacles, it was obstacles all the way down) i did enjoy some successes and i got confirmation from external sources that i'm on the right path.

lunchtime was weird; i went with a small group to the same shuwarma place, but they were clearly drowning in lunchtime demand and nobody seemed to know what they were doing. so it took a while before i finally got my order in (for the same thing i got last time, the poor cashier had to call his boss to clarify that what i wanted was legit) and then it took forever to get served, and then the high-strung server "did me a favor" by putting four things in a tray with three spaces and warned me this would be the last time.

i was more amused than anything, but one of the other guys got way worse treatment and was so pissed off that he's now on a mission to properly boycott them.

my client / boss sat next to me at lunch for a personal conversation. he seems cool.

i was uncomfortable all afternoon, i've developed a rash that i don't have time for :(

i called in the data engineering cavalry at the end of the day, and left on a note of partial success. also, complete bewilderment that an entire field can be at the mercy of cruel tooling that makes every step unpleasant guesswork.

i came home, unburdened myself (i'd fielded calls and messages all day), and then entered some drama with our landlords. only to be served a good helping of humble pie, because i'd apparently misinterpreted her responses last week and she is willing to keep the rent the same for the new tenants' long-term! that was an enormous relief.

oh, and mr smear had his own drama - some kid or kids has been destroying the bathroom taps, and the grade supervisor apparently made it clear she suspected him when she talked to the class about it. he seems genuinely upset ("i've do some really bad things, but i've never destroyed school property!") and i almost wrote something to his teacher, then realized that there is absolutely nothing i can write or that he can say that doesn't make him seem more suspicious.

and no matter how i feel about it, i really can't know for sure.

we had a good dinner, a generally good shower/bedtime routine (tool - ænima) and mr smear sung himself to sleep after i said goodnight, very excited that we're coming to see his artwork on display on friday ^_^

after that, i read through the revised contract the new landlord sent, which is almost ready, and then handled some random shit. including learning that there's a school website i didn't know about, filled with all sorts of reports including some of mr smear's misbehaviors... i'm very grateful it's only the minor ones so far :P

trying to remember to breathe

 ooooomgomgomgomg

i slept kind of alright last night. gd barely slept at all - she was completely devastated. convinced that we couldn't have a pet in the new apartment, and convinced that the new apartment is a must-have, she was torn and deeply unhappy.

at one point i said to her that if we couldn't convince him otherwise, we should probably move on.

so i sent him a carefully-worded message first thing, and we then spent the next two hours fretting anxiously because it didn't make sense to take any further action without an answer. we were discussing the situation with my mom when he finally called back.

i told him that the clause was deeply problematic for us, after a brief preamble, and he immediately cut me off to make it clear that the clause was a mistake, and that he has absolutely no issue with animals.

*phew*

also, that he wants to do the contract for a year and a half, not half a year, which i'd completely misunderstood.

*also phew*

so i put together messages for our current landlords (who got back to us complaining how their son was sick, and that they needed to think about how to screw things up for us and themselves), and for our neighbors, and had breakfast quickly, and then left to the shops, where i once again failed to get a refund for a bunch of useless bowls we bought - it took a long time to not get the service i thought we'd been promised - and pick up a gorgeous gift for the mongoose's daughter's third birthday, and then we returned home, dropped off the things we needed to drop off, and headed out again to take a bus to meet with mr smear.

by that stage, the city had warmed up and wearing a sweater or a coat proved to be a mistake.

he met us at the light rail station and we continued on to allenby, but i received a call from the movers and we missed our stop, ending up at elifelet - just perfect :/

fortunately, our experience there was much smoother than my last one, and we managed to get on a train back within ten minutes. we then walked to the mattress store for a reunion, and after a lot of lying down decided that we both wanted the same mattress - the one mr smear has - but we're still ordering them as singles (that are supposed to fit on the queen-sized base we currently have) and if one of us is unhappy that doesn't need to affect the other.

we walked a bit and caught a bus to the mongoose's, getting off early in the hopes of finding some food. we happened to go past and into the very expensive, very touristy cafexoho, which is fortunately quite vegan-friendly.

mr smear was still hungry when we left, so i let him have some of my really good sesame bagel. mr smear has always had a thing about sesame seeds - he can't stand the texture - and he loved it.

[a pause to deal with the discovery that mr smear picked his scabs again after we just had a whole thing about not doing that, and he has a proper wound on his hand again]

we arrived at the mongoose's, and met up with his parents for the first time since we've been in israel. of course, i fumbled his mom's name (i was close, but it was embarrassing). anyway, we had a really nice afternoon, the gift seems to have been well-received, and we all talked a lot.

then suddenly it was time to go. we ended up walking home, stopping for ice-cream along the way (way more sugar than any of us needed), picked up a bottle of wine and some tubs of ice-cream for tonight, came home, and began preparing the challah-peño. we used a lot of jalapeño, the dough ended up really wet, i hope it comes out well.

...

the stress of the previous weeks combined with the stress of the coming weeks is overwhelming. absolutely overwhelming.

dump

 the comic recommendation session was fun! and i learned a whole bunch of cool things. also, i encountered an art teacher from mr smear's previous school who was amused to put together two and two and get four regarding mr smear's artistic influences :)

i was up late playing around with kubernetes tooling, and watching news on iran, and just before bed my heart sank as i came across a photo of my old team dressed-to-impress and opening the TASE.

i should have been there, ringing the bell, and i should have been able to start looking to buy a home. instead, i'm anxiously avoiding getting started on looking for our next rental, and being confused about the pittance of unemployment that social security is sending me.

[and then, today when i pulled off my previous employer's sticker from the back of my phone, the entire back of the phone separated from the rest of the frame]

...

today started off alright, after mr smear left for school i dived in to my kubernetes tooling experiment and ending up publishing an article just before leaving to do some errands. we stopped by the baker to get feedback on the challah-peño - he liked the concept but wasn't happy with our execution of the actual challah - and he gave us some really constructive feedback which we're going to try to implement today.

the supermarket refused to accept a return that their customer support had told us they'd take, and now their customer support is assuring me that they're in the wrong and that we should be able to try again. then gd and i found a quiet corner to consult with our paediatrician cousin about mr smear, which was fine until halfway through when an obnoxiously loud family started dragging chairs and talking loudly and playing music right next to us.

and then, while we waited for mr smear to join us after school, the skies opened.

we went around the back of the mall to rescue him and his friend, arriving just as the skies cleared. both myself and mr smear's teacher had told him to bring his history book home for a test they have next week, which he assured me he had, and we walked and sploshed back home, with me complaining that gd has misled me into wearing sneakers instead of galoshes...

we arrived home, absolutely soaked, and peeled off our wet clothing and prepared for a quiet afternoon indoors with the air-conditioning on. that was when i opened mr smear's bag to remove all the wet items inside, and discovered that he'd brought home his empty history notebook instead of the textbook.

he can't be that dumb. 🤦

i very coolly lost my shit, and we redressed in the wet clothing, and i put on my massive galoshes, and we rushed out in an attempt to get to the school before they locked the gates for the weekend. 

it was a long, wet journey by bus and light rail, and mr smear left his phone behind so i also had to pay for four extra fares, but we arrived at the school to find the gates locked.

so we turned around and headed back home. it was on the second leg of our return that it began bucketing down, with high strength winds trying to rip our umbrellas from our hands and successfully (thankfully only momentarily) turning them inside out. we were thoroughly soaked by the time we got back home.

...

have i mentioned that i'm tired? i'm fucking tired.

the (big) little things

 today had some pretty important achievements.

after mr smear left for school, i had breakfast so that i could take some ibuprofen for the leftovers from yesterday's migraine and registered for unemployment for the first time in my life.

then gd and i walked to the pain clinic. it took a while to get to see the doctor, but he was in and available and he sorted us out with the recommendation we needed. afterwards, while advising gd not to see an osteopath for her shoulder issues, gd said something and he suddenly registered - apparently for the first time - just how disabled she is. and that was when gd's floodgates opened, because almost nobody we've dealt with really gets it.

i hung around and chatted with horseman while gd got a prescription, and then we walked to a copy shop to print a return label for a pair of shoes. i followed the instructions - sending an email from my gmail account to the shop's gmail account - but they claimed that "sometimes it can take a while" which doesn't make any sense. i half-jokingly asked if maybe their internet was disconnected, and the manager took offense and made a few snide remarks. while i was standing there trying to figure out whether it was worth being offended or not, i realized that the customer-facing computers were logged in to the same gmail account. so i hit "all mail" and lo! my email had arrived.

fuckin' idjits.

so i spent 10 NIS on poor service, a single printed page and a plastic sleeve.

then gd and i walked home, had a bite to eat, and after a few failed attempts to request her cannabis license renewal i made myself a turkish coffee for the road and walked the shoes back to the post office.

with everything that's been going on, i've needed any excuse for a walk and think, even if there hasn't been a whole lot of thinking going on.

i arrived at the packed post office, and tried to set the package down because usually they don't make us wait for that. except that now they do, and the clerk made me feel pretty shitty for not waiting my turn...

when i got home, i sat down at my desk and cranked out some improvements to the language app i haven't touched in months, and although gd got a bit frustrated while testing it i feel like it's actually on it's way!

i went to pick mr smear up from the school to take him gift shopping, encountering the unhinged mother and making a point of neither looking at her nor avoiding her. then mr smear came out and we enjoyed a pleasant walk to the mall, where we found some posters but not the right one. the guy at the store had a south african accent, and we ended up talking, and i ended up learning that we could do custom prints! so we found a perfect image, got an amazing print made, and hopefully tomorrow i'll be able to pick it up with it's basic mounting.

the owner of the store told me some weird stories. i'm not sure i really understand what was happening in them.

mr smear and i bussed home, and settled in to homework. the hebrew homework went well. the math homework started off pretty well, had some rocky moments, and then mr smear took a toilet break and when he came back he was completely unfocused and uncooperative, and i got upset. and then gd got upset.

and then i started thinking about how i got called out for getting upset with skippity in the office, and about how i wasn't modeling well, and i explained to mr smear that i wasn't upset with his homework performance, but with his uncooperative behavior, and that even if it was reasonable to get angry after having all my patience worn down, i wanted to get back to the positive vibe from before when he and i were both so excited by his progress.

and between the two of us, we did it. his behavior over the next half hour or so wasn't perfect, but i managed to keep an even keel and focus on the good stuff and we both learned some cool stuff; he learned about exponents, and we learned how to use prime factorizations to make large numbers easy to reason about, and he was super proud of himself ^_^

dinner was... i overate.

bedtime went similarly to yesterday - the new plan is working, hopefully it'll keep working 🤞

finally, after putting mr smear to bed, i tried one more time to renew the license, and this time realized that i was using brave with its shields up. so i took them down, and voilà! done. what a thoroughly different experience (not using machon mor).

haunted birthday

 i've just been lying awake for a while unable to get back to sleep, with my brain running through a bunch of things from yesterday and unable to make sense of much.

first and foremost, our little boy turned ten yesterday! we've officially managed to keep him alive into the double digits, and his last year has been incredible in terms of how much he's matured and how well he's maturing. having said that, even yesterday he managed to cross some lines and that kind of put a damper on the way we ended the day.

second, work was ridiculous. it began with me arriving early so that i wouldn't have to rush to get to the office when the technician finally showed up, but then i received an email asking me to rate his service and i immediately started freaking out that he wasn't coming back had marked his job as complete.

it turned out, though, that a manager had decided to move his visit to a later slot. and not informed us. fortunately we managed to get them to switch the slot back, but WTAF? once he finally arrived, it took him and his partner an hour or two to get things working, but they refused to give us access to the controls without "proper" authorization... so that was a whole story. and once we did manage to get access back, we learned that we were in exactly the same situation as before i screwed everything up...

it took some fiddling and plenty of trial and error, but two of us eventually managed to get our internet working properly. and there was much rejoicing.

lunch was great, but i didn't realize that one of the founders' PA was in on the communal salad and i almost didn't leave her any :$

the afternoon was a series of distractions, the main one being the incoming devops manager and minion coming in for a chat. we sat for a very long time, and things were very positive, and i apparently sold them on our vision in a way they hadn't even considered before signing on :)

oh, and bigtalk hadn't come in to the office in the morning because he was feeling so shit about the choice of devops manager. which i didn't mention, and i'm waiting to hear how his sync with our boss goes this afternoon because i want to discuss it with the boss but i don't want to affect or influence their meeting.

i left a bit early because it was mr smear's birthday, and we had a bit of time at home before heading out to my cousin's farewell bash. it's an amazing rooftop venue in the heart of tel aviv, the company was great (he's made some very interesting friends, and another cousin's kid was there as well - the one who i advised a while back to follow his love interest to los angeles - and the food was great, and overall it was a very pleasant evening right until mr smear started making faces about the rest of summer camp :(

the way home was a mixed bag of parenting (he did something gross, and -

OH.

i got distracted by all the other details, i didn't write about something that's been haunting me since last night. on our way to the farewell dinner, there was a teenager on the bus. after asking him and his friend a couple of times to turn their music down, gd signed to me to let them be even though they were generally behaving antisocially (like shoes on the seats). but this one kid, he had a massive, disgusting pimple on the side of his nose. and a couple of stops before he got off, he started picking at it. and wiping his hands all over the bus. and as i became more and more disgusted, and didn't know how to even begin approaching this, he stopped a foot away from me, turned to face me, looked me dead in the eyes while aggressively ripping into the thing.

jesus fucking haploid christ.

i definitely should have handled that more aggressively, and my mind's been getting stuck on that revolting scenario on and off since.

work off (art)

 work off art was amazing. i don't remember the last time i went to an exhibit and was blown away by almost all of it.

getting there went smoothly in spite of the already mounting temperature, but that was mostly a matter of luck in timing. and we had time to grab a coffee before going in.

on the way out, we sat at hummus ha'ben shel ha'suri for breakfast, which we all enjoyed, and then walked to the hospital complex where gd had an encounter with a disrespectful pharmacist* while i deliberated between reasonably-priced and comfortable sandals and unreasonably-priced but holy-shit-what-is-this-magic sandals. i ended up splurging and going with the latter, which i pray i don't regret.

* i'm proud to report that she held her own, and made her accountable to her coworkers

we picked up a traditional bread-and-salt gift for tahoma for tomorrow, then walked home humming and arguing over the exact tune of a specific bar towards the end of daft punk - instant crush (i was wrong).

after learning some of the history of the ac/dc back in black album and listening to it in its entirety while resting on the couch, i spent a good chunk of the afternoon making some progress with the language app i've been working on in fits and starts, discussing educational gaming with sailor, teaching mr smear how to play roblox snake properly, doing tons of dishes and watching two episodes of deathnote on the big screen.

gin & tonic & coffee (the latter separately) and getting ready for shabbat.

days off

i'm currently waiting for mr smear with a cup of coffee and my laptop, so i figure this is as good a time as any.

yesterday:

yesterday was absolutely brilliant. we started the day in good spirits, and left roughly when we intended to get the car and drive up to the kibbutz. gd's on meds that require drinking plenty of water and stopping frequently to pee, but we only really needed two stops and one of them involved the acquisition of a quantity of snacks.

the weather wasn't hot yesterday, it was a bit cloudy, which for the current season and mission meant it was perfect. we arrived at my cousin's place, chatted for a short while, and then walked to her car and headed out to an entirely vegan hummus 90 on the way to the kinneret.

the food was absolutely delightful, as was the vibe. we definitely ate too much and enjoyed every morsel ^_^

we then drove on to beit gabriel, which is an absolutely gorgeous place to sit and chat over a coffee while enjoying the view of the kinneret. our initial impression was solid as we walked into a really nice photo exhibit, but my brain wondered "do i smell popcorn?" and i was confused because i'd forgotten that we'd been told there was a cinema inside.

the stunning view of the kinneret on a perfect day with almost nobody else around was wonderful, only marred by the massive screen facing the entrance and showing the trailer for the a minecraft movie movie trailer. i was a bit disappointed that mr smear literally didn't notice the lake because he was so excited by the screen :/

at least - once the trailer was over - i was able to drag him outside, and he pulled out his kindle (to read minecraft books), which is as close to just enjoying being in nature as most children get these days.

from there we drove back past har tavor (mount tabor), and gd was really excited to see another location made famous by the bible. unfortunately, on the drive back gd's back began to hurt... we also got to witness just how little patience our cousin has for the ultra-orthodox :P

we got to see one of our kibbutz cousin's kids and family and spent a few minutes chatting with them, but by then sunset was approaching and we were starting to feel the pressure to hit the road.

it was dark by the time we left, and the drive back home was mostly gd suffering from discomfort and pain and waze leading us in a round-about way (which i believe was the best way, but it was completely unfamiliar) while crazy drivers bobbed and weaved amidst other crazy drivers.

we made it back to the parking spot with ten minutes to spare, very grateful that gd was (relatively) in one piece and hadn't needed a pit-stop. we all ended up going to bed very late, but by and large everyone had had an amazing day out, mr smear had been really cool for its entirety and we were all glad to have spent such good time with our kibbutz cousin and seen new things.

today (so far):

i didn't sleep particularly well, but i did sleep. in the morning, i finished reading of mice and men, and although i generally enjoyed it from the start, the end really blew me away.

i was disappointed to learn that mr smear gave the original dune book a try, and found it boring :(

...

after getting a few things squared away, i accompanied gd to the hospital to try and organize an appointment for her to get her foot seen to. after waiting our turn, the receptionist informed us that there was no point to speaking to her and that we needed to contact their offices.

when i told the woman who answered the phone what gd had been going through, she immediately became bizarrely defensive, and there was a mix of yelling at her and trying to reason with her before she agreed to book gd for an appointment that was only in a month's time (as opposed to a half a year's time that she'd threatened).

i then spent about twenty minutes on the phone trying to arrange a private consultation, eventually giving up (the phone menu system is rigged) and heading to our clinic, where we were fortunate to receive a personal recommendation from one of the receptionists.

so she has an appoint for three weeks' time, instead of a month. it's better than nothing.

...

herding our cat of a son to working on his hebrew class' holiday project was exhausting, so i piled some blankets over my on the couch and enjoyed a beautiful nap, which i was wrenched out of to bring him to his therapist. and now it appears to be time to go and pick him up and see what the rest of the day brings.

service with a _____

overall, i think it was a pretty good day. i didn't sleep enough but the sleep i got was good, and the morning started off well, albeit uneasily. i dropped mr smear off at school with a good feeling. i flipped our mattresses, and took care of some paperwork and other minor things... and then tried to book a technician for the washing machine.

...

i tried their whatsapp account first, but at some point - after gathering all the data i needed to get through the menu system - it seemed to freeze.

so i called. i was number ten in the queue. after about ten to fifteen minutes of muzak, with a tone every few seconds to make you think someone's about to answer you, there was a pause, a real tone, and then the sound of a call being hung up.

furious, i called again. this time number twenty in the queue. the number's seemed to be going down pretty quickly - one or two each minute - so it was only another ten to fifteen minutes of that muzak with the tone... when a woman's voice finally answered, i yelled just to make sure she had no excuse but to talk to me.

after all that, all she would say was "give me your number so we can call you back". i fought down the urge to yell at her to be ashamed and gave her my number.

later, i'd see a response to the whatsapp messages and learn that i needed to go through the process with a different service 🤦

...

on my way to work i noticed that the unicode code for the tiny heart fingers emoji (🫰) is FAF0. i'm not going to forget that in a hurry. i message an ex-coworker who loves that sign to share the weird discovery :P

it was my old boss' first day as my new boss, kind of. our roles and reporting aren't clear (intentionally), so i guess he's more like one of my bosses.

aside from trolling my team with an april fool's daily report, a very positive check-in with my boss (my direct boss), and a pleasant walk to grab lunch with one of our other bosses (oy) along with an interesting lunch time conversation about parenting and screens, i spent most of my work day getting an installation done over an unreliable network and when i eventually left the office, it was after much celebrating because i finally got the damned thing to work (i was actually starting to suspect a hardware failure).

pre-dinner was quiet, mr smear had apparently had a good day. and nystire and i spoke for a bit and might end up doing something interesting together.

dinner was nice, although we did get into The Discussion again about him accepting his reality - who he is, where he is, and what he has to do - which may or may not have had an impact, but i'm pretty happy with the metaphor i came up with: a heavy car is rolling inexorably down a narrow hill dragging an impassable wall behind it. you can try to stop it, but at some point you will get run over. you can try to go back up the hill, but you will be dragged painfully in the direction of gravity. or you can try to run alongside the car and try to direct it by pushing it to the left or the right.

(or maybe jumping in and steering is a better analogy. needs work)

...

then we had to do the homework page from yesterday that hadn't been completed, and what started off alright rapidly turned to shit. fortunately, we got out of the shit, but not without some serious feelings (and threats).

it took a few passes over the question, but then there was a magical moment where mr smear *clicked*, and he understood what he needed to do, and he enthusiastically Did The Thing. and he did it well.

i told him to hold on to that feeling, and understand what caused it. i pray he does.

even though it was a little after his bedtime, something inspired me to read a little the colour of magic to him before saying good night.

gd and i watched most of the rest of john wick, and i've spent most of the remaining evening updating my macbook, watching random youtube videos and playing inscryption.

holy shit, i didn't realize it was approaching 1am already and we have a meeting with the school in the morning.

doing, and not doing

 i slept pretty well last night, but not enough. after taking mr smear to school, i continued on to the post office to pick up the palm rest sticker for my dell laptop. it was a beautiful morning, and i would have appreciated it had gd and i not been fighting over whether mr smear had lice or not 😣

anyway, we got through it quickly, at least.

i applied some more spackle on a spot i'd missed yesterday, and made some good progress with the silicone tube in spite of the fact that it's designed for one of those gun thingies and now the skin on my hand's peeling as a consequence :P

i called the number of the organization that's supposed to take over gd's cannabis licensing, which was just like a canadian government organization: a whole bunch of telephone menus, only to be directed to their website instead. anyway, i uploaded everything and i hope it's good enough.

i discovered that the sticker i'd bought was the wrong one, the ali express format confused me and i ended up purchasing a similar-but-different product. fortunately, i managed to cut out what i needed and it fits pretty well, and i don't really care if it's incomplete - it does the job.

work-wise, i think it's safe to say that i got practically nothing of value done this morning. i was quite hungry and i snacked a lot. i did do quite a bit while waiting for mr smear's hebrew lesson - oh! he drew a pretty cool pixel art hand today, we're quite proud ^_^

we're also extremely proud, and literally amazed, that he figured out part of wolfmother - pyramid by himself on the keyboard, entirely from memory because we haven't heard any wolfmother in aaaaaages 🤯

i did a fair amount of work in the afternoon, kinda making up for the slow morning, and then received a suspicious-looking message that i had a package waiting for me at a postal point in dizengoff center that i'd never heard of. i tried calling, but the number wasn't connected, and the message had come with a warning that they'd only hold the package for two business days, so on the off-chance that it was real (no way i was clicking on the url-shortened link) i decided to head down and see what was going on.

it was raining. i noped the fuck back home and waited until things looked dryer, getting some more work done in the meanwhile.

when it was dark already, i tried again. i made it there without a hitch (although something in the bus made my skin crawl), and i found the postal store. i explained my issues to the woman at the desk, who promptly disappeared. i struggled to find my package, and ask for assistance. the only person working at that point was a sharp-faced woman who assured me she'd help me in just a minute. then two teenagers came in, and she turned to them.

i asked her why i wasn't being helped. she told me, "they're kids". i was utterly dumbstruck for a moment, then tried to get her to explain why they get priority, but zero fucks were given on her side and on mine, i had to keep it together to not lose my goddamned mind. it was a while after i left the store before i started to cool off.

jesus.

anyway, i picked up a new pixel art sketch book (just a nice sketch book with squares) for mr smear now that he understands what i was trying to achieve the last time (when gd tried to inspire him with some examples, and he decided her drawings were cooler than his so he refused to use it), so that's cool.

i tried to come home but it was raining again, i then spent twenty minutes or so hunting for an umbrella that didn't suck and also didn't cost too much money. i ended up leaving without finding one, and fortunately made it home during a break in the clouds.

we watched about half of pixels during dinner, some of which is awkward, but most of it is hilarious, especially for a nine year-old...

and now it's bedtime. i'm a bit disappointed that mr smear didn't want to continue reading the magic pudding tonight, and then gd wasn't interested in it either :/

back to front

 yesterday was a bit shit, i'm really hating working with pure frontend and for the entire sprint every time i've resolved an issue another one has sprung up. i haven't been this unhappy with not-exactly-coding since i quit my job with mmf at the end of 2011.

anyway, it's not my usual job. and i had a conversation with my manager wherein i explained that i understand frontend dev enough to know how much i don't understand, and that while everything the contractor did makes sense within the confines of his employment the solution wasn't built in a way that inexperienced frontenders like ourselves would be able to make massive changes to its scope. none of us are really qualified to work on this, nor interested in it, and we're burning money and demoralizing ourselves. if we really feel like this is something we should be investing in, then we need to hire a frontend dev. if not, then we shouldn't be offering to build this stuff for our clients when it's far outside our competence.

in the middle of the day i left the office to pick up mr smear and taking him to his therapy session. while he was occupied, i tried to find a place with coffee that i could get some work done. the aroma's bathroom was unusable, and then i witnessed one of the kitchen staff walk out without washing his hands, so i noped on out of there. the next place didn't sell coffee, then the next place did have a place to sit and the employees were smoking right at the entrance. the next place, cafe taizu, doesn't sell coffee, and i finally landed on maafiyat lechamim. the atmosphere was cool, but the service was really shit and the coffee mediocre at best.

i'd spent so much time looking for a place that i got about five or ten minutes of "work" done before i had to get up and leave to pick up mr smear. i didn't really get anything of value done.

...

our financial situation's better, but not good, and i was really hoping to be able to put down the money for a proper keyboard for mr smear this month. and now i've been looking at vr video games and equipment as well. and gd wants a clothes dryer. fuck.

...

mr smear was only too happy to continue watching the original x-men series, but that's because he's seen the trailer for x-men 97 and he's really excited to see that... aaaaand i just realized we still have two more seasons we haven't watched, and everyone's groaning :(

...

i just went on-call ten minutes ago. hopefully it'll be a quiet day.

progress

 yesterday:

another clinic visit in the morning on the way to work. buying a laffa for lunch but being served a pita instead, "paying" them to not have to go back inside. meetings in the morning and struggling not to fall asleep in the afternoon.

a good evening, but issues with mr smear around and after bedtime, making for a long, shit feeling until my own.

today:

a somewhat decent night's sleep, weird but forgotten dreams.

on the way to work, i dropped off the shoes gd's returning at the post office. the post office experience was okay, but the people were weird. especially the older woman who kept bashing into some guy's scooter (even immediately after apologizing for doing it), and the woman who was in a hurry because she'd left her baby somewhere bothered me.

i walked and talked with my mom on the way to the bicycle repair shop, not sure if the bike would even be there. almost there, the call cut off, and i couldn't call back - i only understood later that my ear had hit the airplane mode button :/

i arrived at the shop and asked about the bike. the good news? the bike was there, and the bike was repaired! the bad news? once there, i *had* to pick it up and i had to carry it all the way home. by the time i got home i was seriously sweating, and not only that but i was running late to a meeting...

... i managed to get to azrieli center in time for the meeting, and parked myself in the food court. this was fine at first. the first guy i spoke to was pretty professional. after five/ten minutes he realized he was in over his head and brought in a dev.

the dev joined the call wearing a wife-beater and with one arm holding a cigarette out the window next to his desk 😂

we spent the next forty five minutes finding the first bug, but the next one was on them and we eventually called it and agreed to meet again. by that stage the end-of-summer-holidays crowds had filled the food court and the rest of the mall, it was loud and unpleasant, and getting out to the street was anxiety-inducing.

i arrived at work just as everyone was planning on going out to eat. i'd brought lunch from home, but i joined them anyway - i recently read somewhere that nobody ever remembers when you worked through lunch, but they remember when you impacted them socially, so i've been making a point of not skipping lunches / happy hours.

i didn't want to eat, but i hadn't had my usual second coffee and i stumbled upon a fruit shake place selling vegan coffee shakes made with dates and bananas, and that sounded really good. unfortunately, i didn't think to ask about the price until the shake was already ready, and i was shocked to discover it was more than the cost of a meal. it wasn't just me, my coworkers were shocked too.

it was delicious, to be fair, but i won't be doing that again.

the rest of the work day was... not bad, but difficult. i've been struggling with frontend shenanigans for two days, and it's been very frustrating. every time i've gotten one thing working, another's fallen apart.

in the middle of it all, i had my second bi-weekly (every two weeks) meeting with my boss. i was expecting to discuss how things have been, considering that the last meeting was quite negative, but i guess things are fine because we chatted awkwardly about family and argued gently about traditional weddings - i've never been to a wedding with groomsmen.

anyway, there was a visceral moment this evening, around 5pm, when i suddenly, luckily - nay, miraculously - got everything working the way i wanted it. i spent most of the next hour tidying things up for a code review, and then walked home.

the evening has been mostly positive.

counter

 i just made a mistake and looked at my tiktok inbox while decided to wake up, and encountered the account of someone i know personally who's built their identity around serving as a mouthpiece for anti-israel propaganda. we've been at war and under attack for ten months now, and this asshat is fighting for the people who want him and his kind dead.

...

yesterday... wasn't great, overall. it had some good moments, though.

the day started with a surprise credit card charge from ha'avoda - i voted in their primaries a couple of years ago - and i spent an angry part of the morning trying to communicate with them to get my money back (and to get them to lose my data), but finding it impossible.

i did, however, continue playing inscryption. and, with my son as my witness, i finally beat the eighth challenge level!

on the way to work, i took the vacuum cleaner i bought just over a couple of weeks ago to try and return it. the guy i approached informed me that it has passed the 14 day deadline for returns, and i asked if there was noone we could speak to. the guy next to him got irritated and grabbed the box, inspected it, and told him "it's practically friday already, just give him the refund and put it away" 😂

work was rough. i wasted a couple of hours on something i shouldn't have been working on, and ran into a bunch of problems, not least being that i hadn't realized that i could test one thing one way, another thing another, but not both at the same time so all of my test results were meaningless.

i kind of lost my temper.

just as i was venting my frustrations to my boss and one of my coworkers, someone i studied with walked past, tapped me on the shoulder and threw me off completely!

i overheard an argument between two of my coworkers, and jumped in with some actual experience - only to find myself arguing with a wall of ignorance. i know the intentions aren't bad, but i let my infuriatingly-stubborn (and wrong) coworker push all of my buttons. no matter what, i shouldn't have lost my cool with him (not for the first time) and  i'm embarrassed about it. i'm going to need to practice keeping a level head.

it was our consultant's last day of his second contract, and he asked me to lay tefilin. we eventually found an unused meeting room, and in addition to a not-unpleasant experience we had a conversation that turned to surprisingly well-received criticism about modern orthodoxy.

there is hope.

what remained of the work day was short and disappointing. then i left early to get home, change for my cousin's funeral and drive through.

the funeral was very touching, and i honestly didn't expect each and every eulogy to make me cry.

kc's brother's girlfriend - who's been around for a couple of years now, and i still had to ask someone her name yesterday - was carrying one of the kids past me and the child's grandmother, with the child bawling. the grandmother - clearly joking - said "what are you doing to my grandson?!" and she took it completely seriously, it was a surreal moment and at least some of us had a good laugh about it afterwards.

after the funeral, i joined the family for an hour or so at the shiva and then made my way back to tel aviv, in time for dinner.

one of the mma instructors got back to us about the mma camp, he asked that we reconsider sending mr smear and rather take the approach of easing him back into things. gd and i agreed, and i guess the next couple of weeks will be a bit less expensive... if we're making the right choice, we're making the right choice, but at the back of my mind there's still a bit of doubt that the mma camp could have been a better one.

i played more kaycee's mod until i was ready for bed, and slept better than the night before (this time without hyper-realistic zombie dreams, or waking up with numb limbs), and now that i've posted this and done some of the daily bloons: adventure time challenges, i think i'm about ready to face the day.

the mixed bag

 this morning was a bit shit, really. i scrambled out of bed to grab clothing and a coffee and walk mr smear to school. he didn't want to be photographed.

we arrived just in time, found his new classroom, met his new teacher, and i left feeling like it was going to be okay.

then i rejoined gd and the two of us hopped on a bus to find fluorescent lighting. that part of the mission turned out to be surprisingly quick and painless. but then we tried to find something else, and ended up in a situation - it was with unhappy feelings that we finally found a bus to take us to dizengoff center.

which turned out not to be the place we needed to be.

the easy app is hands-down the worst app / search / navigation experience i've ever encountered.

we eventually gave up on finding a barber shop near the center, and bussed to where gd took mr smear a short while ago. as we were about to walk in someone else was coming out, so we stopped to give them space. at which point a very rude couple snuck around us and took the next (and only) available chair.

i was quite annoyed, on top of the general irritation of the morning, but i waited for the next opportunity, only someone else arrived and i knew immediately that that next chair was going to be hers. at that point i lost my cool and definitely didn't want to be there any more.

so we came back home - with my hair still looking very shaggy - i tossed back a coffee with ice-cream in it to calm down and then we left almost immediately to pick up mr smear. we were both a bit nervous, and also a little surprised when we picked him up to learn that he'd had a really good day! and that both he and his teacher thought so!

it's a good start, hopefully it'll continue in this vein.

we did half the grocery shopping, then returned home to find the other half outside our door, this time with no "gifts". i rested for a bit, then got up to put the old mattress outside (gd wrapped it nicely and put a sign on it), then attempted to replace the fluorescent lighting.

i think it's safe to say i failed. the first one works nicely, but still only fires up about half a minute after pushing the button. the second doesn't fire up, just hums annoyingly.

i suspect the fixtures are fucked. and my fiddling probably didn't improve matters.

and touching anything up there was gross.

...

mr smear and i watched two episodes of the live action reboot of one piece. it's... it's brilliant. just brilliant. mr smear has decided that he no longer cares for becoming a scientist, or a chef - now he wants to bring back old-school piracy.

that's my boy!

...

additionally, i played enough of the crying suns demo to decide that it was worth dropping $8 on the full game. it's FTL, but better.

we watched half of elemental this evening, so far there're a couple of annoying contrivances but the overall concept is good and it is enjoyable.

i've been making far too much effort to manipulate midjourney into producing something that i think is pretty straightforward, but apparently isn't...

...

i hope i'm able to sleep tonight.