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 didn't 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.

mission

 yesterday:

the surgeon advised me to return only as a last resort, and to book an appointment with a pedicurist instead.

my mom, mr smear and i took a very long walk to the beachfront and down to the shuk. we had a very serious talk about her making aliyah, and i hope she's processing it all because it was a big conversation and i think i managed to get across all the big points.

we took a bus home, then spent the next few hours resting.

in the late afternoon i picked up a car (which was a struggle, it was hot and the directions were shit) and we dropped off the watermelon at our cousins', then met up with them at the cemetery for a quick and personal memorial service.

we then returned to their place for a really nice friday night dinner. for the most part we all had a good time, including gd who'd been very uncomfortable the last couple of times. mr smear slipped back into his usual baby-hating habits, but was mostly good.

this morning:

this morning i discovered that my hip issues aren't necessarily caused by the bed. halfway through the night it got so bad that i left the couch and went to the bed, and slept better.

weird.

we had a pretty relaxed morning (i read asterix, and napped), and then we all went to the swimming pool. the lifeguard wasn't convinced that mr smear should be allowed in the deep end, but we were with him at all times and he made an effort to prove he actually could swim... but i think my mom and gd are right and that he needs proper lessons.

we were there for a couple of hours, we had a really good time, but it started falling apart as we prepared to leave when mr smear got angry with a baby for picking up gd's phone, and then messed around in the shower while i was waiting for him and while the clock was ticking on our car. and then when he finally came out i saw how badly he's scratched up his leg, and i lost patience.

and then, when i told gd that he was in trouble, she lost patience. so it wasn't pretty.

in spite of that, the rest of the afternoon went pretty smoothly (i think, i napped for most of it) and in the evening my mom took mr smear out for dinner and i took gd to south tel aviv for a dinner date. between the green cat pizza and a random hostel bar, we had a really good night ^_^

...

but we're all sad that my mom's leaving tomorrow.

shifting gears

 yesterday:

we walked. we dropped off gd's sandals for repair, found the bike shop closed, and walked up the road to the next bike shop. we dropped off the bike, then walked to a small grocery store, then continued on to the big one, did an annoyingly long shop and carried it all home.

loop one.

we stopped for a bit, but the clock was ticking so we walked again, picking up gd's sandals, then grabbing a laffa for mr smear, picking up his bike and walking it home.

loop two.

the good news is he was very happy with the repair job.

the remainder of the afternoon was pretty quiet, with lots of napping and reading.

one of my upper teeth has been really, really hurting the past couple of days, and it's getting worse.

in the evening we all went to our friends for a delicious and very entertaining dinner. the conversations were all over the place, but i'm struck by how diametrically opposing our political views are becoming.

we came home very late and i slept surprisingly well.

today:

we got up pretty early, and ended up leaving around 10am for the kibbutz. gd and my mom prepared and brought all the food - there was plenty - and we had a very nice time visiting our kibbutz cousin and her daughter (who i haven't seen in many years, and suddenly looks so much like her dad), and an excellent time by the pool.

on the way home we stopped in netanya to see my cousin, for whom the move (and the leaving of her husband) is very new and overwhelming (and i also realized that the connection to one of my bosses is that he was her landlord, which is a whole story). she suddenly looks so much like her mom that my mom and i were both blown away.

gd was having a tough time by then, so we came home. it's been a very long day, mostly very enjoyable, and i think i'm going to crash soon.

after a gin and tonic, with my mother and i realizing that i've been joining her the past couple of days and it seems to be helping me sleep...

weekend vibes

 i eventually got to sleep after posting, and was rudely (and bitterly) awoken to a rocket alert. it was my mom's first time in the shelter, and we encountered some new neighbors for the first time.

getting back to sleep for an hour or two was hard, not least because mr smear decided this was a great opportunity to brush his teeth so he could get screen time earlier 🤦

i had a meeting with my insurance broker which was supposed to take ten minutes, but by the time we were done a full hour had passed and i needed to join our daily meeting from home. the first few minutes turned into a private sync between me and the new devops guy, who's giving me weird vibes. he seems really antisocial and i'm feeling like i can't get him to focus. he told me he was also coming in to the office, but he didn't :/

on my way to the office i was presented with an opportunity to speak to the guy who'd called the evening before and who i thought i'd offended, so we cleared the air before i got to work.

the work day was... interesting. it turned out the drama the night before was due to something i did that we all agreed should have worked, so i had to write a script to reset my change. most of my focus for the rest was on developer methodology, and i was pleased to be a part of a whole bunch of things coming together, as well as feeling like an authority in our organization.

there are days (like the day before) that i have to deal with a sense of imposter syndrome, so it's nice to have some balance to that.

the last couple of hours were busy, but not too intense, and included an interesting theological discussion with a religious contractor.

i came home to a full house - mr smear's friend was over for dinner. we all had a good experience, some interesting conversations in english and hebrew, and then we all took a walk to get him home and chat with his mother. on the way home gd expressed frustration with me sometimes speaking to her in hebrew, which i'm conflicted about.

the evening went smoothly, minus me discovering a problem with one of my toes that definitely needs a doctor (i hope it's just an ingrown nail).

while trying to help my mother with her iphone (i detest iphones now), i was convinced to finally - after three and a half years - update my country of residence in steam. i did so by purchasing minutescape, the testing of which cost me a pleasantly entertaining hour of my life.

and (pretty much) then i went to bed.

today so far:

i slept surprisingly well, dreamed long weird dreams, and this morning so far has been good. in addition to visiting our kibbutz cousin tomorrow, we're making a stop by a cousin i spoke to a couple of weeks ago (the one with lots of kids) and we're collectively supportively shocked to learn that she's finally left her husband.

right: shabbat!

glassy eyes and smooth brains

i got a lot of work done before finally going to bed around 1am, but we were sent rushing to the shelter around 3am, and after we were finally able to return home i couldn't sleep and so continued to work for the next two hours.

i was bleary-eyed but satisfied by being able to push a clean, working solution before crashing for an hour or so, then waking up and working some more before our parental guidance meeting.

we talked a bit about how tech children communicate strangely, i had an interesting thought but i'm too tired now to recall it :/

oh! i forgot to mention yesterday - i finally got through to someone in the municipality regarding mr smear's art school application: he didn't get in, but he's no. 2 on the waiting list. we'll take it🤞

...

i'm disappointed to learn that there's some unknown issue with gd's cannabis license application. again. i fucking hate these people.

...

my mom discovered that godmother has the original copy of their maternal grandparents' ketuba! and their other sister happens to be visiting for the first time ever, so she's going to bring it back. i'm praying it gets into my mom's hands in one piece 🙏

unfortunately, i was so excited that i reported this piece of information to someone who's supposed to be helping us, and she immediately responded with "oh, nice, so just take that to them then". fuck.

...

i was just telling my boss how i couldn't go back to sleep after the "lame" missile attack in the night (one rocket?) when the pre-alerts went off, so we packed up and rushed downstairs. our sirens hadn't gone off, neither phone nor air-raid, for an oddly long period of time so i ventured outside for internet access to see what was going on and as the door closed behind me there was a massive explosion close by, so i rushed back inside and swore not to do that again.

the day was a mad rush of deployment testing and troubleshooting, being an "onboarding buddy" to a new guy (who's hopefully going to take some pressure off of me personally), and wrangling mr smear.

mr smear pushed hard today, and things got bad before they got better. the day ended on a positive note, but it was long and upsettingly shit until it got there.

...

did i mention the thing on my face seems to be healed (yesterday) already? i'm not complaining, just confused by the speed. and i'm struggling through my beard's itchy phase because i won't shave until i've really sure my cheek's alright, and it's getting hotter.

...

according to iranians, us striking the entrance to evin prison is their equivalent of the berlin wall coming down.

the IRGC attacking qatar (and everything else they're doing) is insane and suicidal, it feels like they're trying to martyr their way out to avoid surrender.

a whole kernel through a nostril

we woke up this morning to another massive barrage. in addition to discovering that our neighbors are also vegan, we also learned about the US strike on the primary iranian nuclear facilities during the night.

now i'm listening to how islamists are attacking churches... they're deep into phase FA, i can't wait to see them FO.

...

yesterday:

after the midnight attacks on friday night we had relative calm. it was a day spent reading (i read about half of danny the champion of the world), we played (or, more accurately, i picked up a copy of webbed and mr smear played a lot). and getting the basis of the frontend for my language project.

in the afternoon, mr smear was invited by his friend to play table tennis, and i joined them and his friend's mother, scouted the area for a bomb shelter, and then enjoyed watching mr smear actually get into playing - giving him breaks by taking turns, and i was quite surprised by how good his friend is!

he came home with us and joined us for dinner, and his mother and i both made the screen-time rules clear. until dinner the two of them legitimately played, amusing themselves in hilarious fashion, and it was a treat to witness it. dinner was nice, but i was concerned about getting him home before mr smear needed to start getting ready for bed (and before the expected iranian attack), so i accompanied him home.

and then felt super awkward when i returned home to find mr smear still eating (demolishing a large pile of corn-on-the-cob), so he could've stayed later...

today:

it was a busy morning, and i was a wreck even though i slept a little better last night (not well, but better). i spent my work day in meetings, and working on something that took a lot more time than it should have, so unfortunately i'm going to have to continue working after posting this.

on a positive note, my mother sent me a whole bunch of documents and images of her parents and grandparents, and aside from being fascinating it gave me what i needed to respond to the people who've offered assistance with her aliyah process.

the saddest reason for a lot of lost time today was mr smear, two days after getting his privileges back, losing them again over homework (and lying to me). so that sucks.

but in positive news, we received the next two illustrated harry potter books (books four and five). it occurred to me that purchasing more beautiful books while we're under threat of getting our apartment bombed might be a mistake, but thinking like that is just silly.

[knocks on wood]

the beginning of week two

 yesterday:

the day began with a massive strike on us (hitting a hospital ward, fortunately already evacuated), so that was a way to wake up in the morning. then we headed to gd's pain clinic appointment, picking up a last-minute insurance authorization on the way (whew!), and coming home just in time for my first meeting.

the first few hours of my work day were occupied with sorting out other people's problems (we have a couple of devops joining us next week, so i might be able to actually work on my own tasks).

around lunchtime, a taxi showed up with a "care package", which made everyone's day (mr smear couldn't contain his excitement over an unexpected haul of vegan treats) and [this evening] gd and i did shots of the really nice vodka to usher in the shabbat, though sadly it appears she's not a fan 🤷

i got stuck into an unnecessarily difficult problem with one of our external devs, and i had just resolved it when i received an urgent call from my boss instructing me to drop everything and head off to our test site. so - after gd assured me that they'd be okay* - another taxi showed up, i hopped in, and after picking up a package from one of my coworkers we headed out.

* that's a big deal, that she was able to accept it so quickly under the current circumstances

about an hour later, we arrived. an hour spent worrying about what we'd do if there were sirens, working on my laptop in the back seat or staring out the window feeling sorry for myself for not having had my afternoon coffee yet.

fortunately, as soon as we arrived i found that we had the facilities to make turkish coffee, so after a brief introduction to the site and preparing a cup i went outside to talk to one of my coworkers. i'd been on-site a total of maybe five or ten minutes when we looked up and saw an iron dome missile fire - i've never seen that with my own eyes before - and moments later the siren sounded.

i'm still amused that the last guy into the shelter brought in a sixpack of beers. genius. 😂

it took a lot more time to prepare a station than i would have liked, but the entire site is full army vibes and aside from learning new and interesting things, it was fun. the first part of my work went pretty smoothly, but then i ran into unexpected issues with my coworker from tuesday's code, and it took forever to find a solution. and not even a good solution. but i pushed on, and eventually managed to get things to a point where i could continue to work on it remotely so that i could stop holding back my coworker who'd offered to give me a ride back to tel aviv.

the ride home was entertaining, but also scary. not only was it made clear to me that we weren't going to stop for any sirens, but my driver was an absolute cowboy and i had to work hard to keep from visibly slamming on the passenger brakes :P

i arrived home pretty late, showered and ate (effectively all i'd consumed since breakfast were two bags of crisps and an energy bar), and then jumped back in to figure out how to continue the work (i'd left knowing it was possible, theoretically).

it was about half past midnight when i finally succeeded, and it wouldn't have been possible without the deep dive i'd done earlier in the day for the external dev 🤘

today:

it was weird waking up in the morning without having been jumped by a siren. the day began well, with a very excited and grateful mr smear getting his minecraft account resurrected.

i did get a little work done in the morning, but i was mostly distracted by random things and the news cycle. then we headed down to the mall (which has taken a fair bit of damage from some of the strikes), where mr smear and i milled around waiting for gd and he badgered me until i purchased death note black edition, vol. 1, which he subsequently completed reading by dinner time; so now we're all watching the anime series together :P

i was feeling very tired by the time we got home. my mother's had some potential success with her aliyah story; she found familysearch.org, and located some really interesting documents which might prove useful.

we helped gd with some cleaning today (mr smear and i cleaned standing fans together, and he helped with the vacuuming too), and aside from two big missile barrages it's been relatively calm.

...

it's 4.30am now, and i started writing this before dinner. but then i was too tired to stay up, but had really bad insomnia for the first time in a little while, and when i finally did fall asleep we were woken by the second missile strike :/

the retelling

friday evening:

so we watched prince of egypt on friday night, and if i recall correctly we also watched the end of paddington 2. regardless of when we watched it, i interpreted the ending the same way as this guy.

gd was going to bake challah for shabbat but suddenly realized - once the dough was ready for the oven - that we don't have a working oven... so we did what we technically should have been doing anyway, and had matzah instead :P

yesterday:

we re-watched joseph: king of dreams in the morning, and while we didn't love the songs it wasn't as bad as we remembered. but the writers really added a whole lot of unnecessary stuff to the film and laid it on so thick, that afterwards i downloaded the sefaria app and started reading the original text.

i don't recall much from yesterday afternoon.

in the early evening we picked up the car, and almost left the gift behind... which worked out, because i'd forgotten to relieve myself before heading out and considering the traffic i would've been in trouble if i hadn't.

it was heartbreaking and aggravating seeing so many people protesting on erev pesach.

we arrived in reasonable time, and the evening was very pleasant. the seder was a lot quicker than usual (and less loud), and mr smear got "stage fright" when it was his turn to sing, and i struggled with the tiny font of the unfamiliar haggadah, but it was great seeing everyone and the kids were adorable and the food was great. (i agreed to let mr smear have half an egg on account of it being a very special occasion and ironically symbolic, but it bothers me)

and the drive home - ignoring having to duck my head to avoid super-bright LED headlights - was relatively smooth.

today:

i spent a large chunk of my day napping. leftover lunch was delicious. in the afternoon i took mr smear for a long walk through the park, we talked about storytelling and workshopped an idea of his. on the way home we picked up some snacks, and hid in the entrance of a building when the sirens went off for a rocket attack.

we watched the simpsons over dinner, and i started playing slay the spire, which is really fun. mr smear went to bed rather late, in large part because i picked up a copy of asimov's i, robot and started reading it to him. we're well into the first story and really hating the parents.

i played some more, until i died, and although i have to work tomorrow i'm contemplating playing a little more now...

... uh, oh...

pains in the neck

 wednesday was rough. i was fine in the morning - i took mr smear on an "outing" to pick up a parcel, which was nice* - and i was fine until i got into the office. but at some point something in my neck / shoulder spasmed and started pushing on a control nerve, which immediately triggered a painful headache, dizziness and nausea.

* he made a point of carrying something heavy because his new "resolution" is to not be lazy. that last all of a day, and then the next day he made a new "resolution" to be lazy again 🤣

and then i had to navigate two arguments with coworkers, mostly in a position of having to calm them down.

after a while i realized that i was on the verge of fainting, and i packed up and wobbled my way home.

i felt a it better after lying down and stretching and massaging my neck for a couple of hours, though i managed to bruise myself rather severely. i spent the afternoon / evening learning the hard way that my lead's warnings about never modifying git submodules directly were bang on the money.

...

yesterday was better, though i was still sore (as well as bruised) and my neck was threatening to go bad for its entirety. a coworker leant me a small but surprisingly powerful massage tool that i tried a couple of times, but that literally made my eyeballs bounce in my head and made me start feeling nauseous...

i started the day trying to read a canticle for leibowitz, which starts off well enough but i was still too sleepy to get very far.

on the way to the office, gd and mr smear joined me for a mission to the appliance store where we ordered a replacement oven (even with delivery it's cheaper than a repair attempt) and picked up a blender to boot. which i carried to work in the unexpected dribbles of rain that started when i left the building and only stopped once i found cover again.

it was a long and intense day, beginning with me moderating squabbles between my teammates and trying to keep everyone with eyes on the prize in spite of personal differences towards approaches. there were lots of feelings.

i warned everyone that we needed to rip the bandaid of our old tooling as soon as possible, and for my sins they complied. we're running into a lot of teething troubles, but rather sooner than later ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

my interview with one of the investors was postponed, which turned out to be a good thing because i spent most of my work hours running between people to give them assistance. or cheerlead. or commiserate, such as when my lead got irritated by a linter i'd introduced and somehow managed to deep-six hours of his work.

anyway.

we received some nice passover gifts from the company.

lipgirl had put me onto a midi controller (the akai mpk mini mk2), and i really wanted to pick it up before the weekend. at 19.45pm, i had just sat down to dinner when the seller contacted me to say he'd be at azrieli at 20.15pm, so i ate too quickly and scrambled to get there on time. in spite of the evening bus schedules and regular protests, i arrived with a few minutes to spare...

... and then had to hang around for another half an hour before he showed up :/

but he was cool, and i was happy to have paid about half price for a piece of equipment that looks really good and is in really good condition.

on my way to catch a bus home i walked past an old grocery store cashier who's always very kind (she's taken a shine to mr smear) and waved to wish her a chag sameach, and she called out for help - she's injured her leg, and was having trouble carrying heavy groceries to her bus stop. i gave her a hand, but as we arrived she suddenly realized she hadn't swiped her card when she left, so i quickly ran back to take care of that.

so it was with a good vibe that i caught an unfamiliar bus, with the driver making sure that i got to the right stop. and then i came home, chatted with my mom**, showered, put my son to bed, opened the gift bottle of gin and tried to continue watching redline. gd got bored, and wasn't interested in akira, so we ended up watching some of nightcrawler before going to bed.

** oh! my brother's oldest got married yesterday. none of us were invited :P

...

today: i think i must have spent about three hours trying to figure out how to connect the midi controller, create the requisite accounts, install the basic software packages... i'm sure there's a whole bunch of stuff we've yet to learn, but by the time we left the apartment for a gift-shopping run i'd at least managed to get mr smear able to play with samples in cubase elements, and he was making pretty cool noises.

[gd shatters a bowl in the kitchen]

we walked down to ibn gvirol, where gd got additional holes punched in her belts, we picked up a bottle of cognac as a gift for the seder, tried and failed to find someone to cut a new house key for us, gave up waiting for laffot, scarfed down sandwiches at cafe eva (and found black salt!), made it back to our local hardware store in time to pick up dehumidifying slabs, and have spent a cozy afternoon doing not much.

mr smear just got through his homework for the day without a fuss, and he did it well, and now we're settling in to skip shul and watch prince of egypt instead.

...

i just finished watching dave smith and douglas murray on joe rogan, which i found deeply disappointing. if nothing else, murray could have talked about the outrageous efforts israelis make to avoid civilian casualties, but either way he wasn't on form, and his manner rendered him less than effective. looking at the comments, he didn't convince anyone of anything.

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.

the festival of everything being upside down

ugh: it got worse before it got better.

around the time i finally went to bed, mr smear woke up needing to go to the toilet (so there was much messing about with lights). i closed my eyes and let gd handle it.

then, around 3am, i got up to pee, and found mr smear with his light on reading harry potter. i stood in his doorway and (gently but with a disapproving tone) made it clear that that was unacceptable, and that he needed to be sleeping so he could get up at 6.30am.

and that was when he started arguing with me. and on top of the bad vibe, once i got him to put the book away he then complained that he couldn't go to sleep because he'd read something creepy.

that was when i lost patience, and he was fighting back, and i'd been exhausted already, so i called gd in to handle the situation and tried to go back to sleep. but i was too angry, and i couldn't bring that anger down, and then i remembered jordan peterson talking about not letting your kids do things that make you dislike them, and that anger with him slowly morphed into fear for him.

i never really got any rest, and in addition to the psychological/emotional struggle my lower back started giving me trouble too.

i was a wreck come the morning.

i managed to avoid dealing with the issue until mr smear and i were both "awake" and doing alright, and then i took him aside and told him what i'd been feeling and worrying about. he seems to have heard me, he responded well, and the rest of the morning went well.

after mr smear went to school, gd and i left to meet up with one of my los angeles cousins' kids who's visiting israel from new york, and who i haven't seen since i was a teenager and he was little. we had no idea what to expect (turns out he did a little jail time at some point, so maybe both of them did?), but after arriving at his hotel (and taking a quick tour of a tattoo studio / gallery, it's kind of our thing) we found him and walked to a cool little coffee shop, and spent the better part of two hours enjoying a beautiful sunny morning chat with a really decent guy who turned out to be quite a kindred spirit ^_^

afterwards, gd and i took the light rail to my office from where she took a bus back home, and i walked in and immediately began to fall apart,

the coffee didn't help. the fruit didn't help. the hummus for lunch was delicious but certainly didn't help. and then a long meeting in a stuffy meeting room on top of all of everything made the struggle to keep my eyes open very, very real.

not counting the happy hour (and unveiling of our new logo, which is actually pretty cool), i spent the rest of the afternoon in a fatigue haze trying to compensate with lots of sugary snacks and i'm not quite sure how much i actually achieved.

after finally arriving back home, i helped mr smear with a couple more pages of math homework (with no drama!) and we watched an episode of delicious in dungeon while eating "drekfast" (dinner + breakfast), took care of some random things after getting mr smear into bed, and then went to bed myself and passed out.

...

aside from very long, very scary, very real dreams about a dinosaur apocalypse, i slept relatively well. now we're all up and coffee'd and breakfasted, we're off to dizengoff center to see what's happening there for purim.

chag sameach!

accounting

 well... this morning could have gone better, mr smear was his usual uncooperative-in-the-morning self and our day began unpleasantly. although we did eventually have a (relatively) good talk, he was still unhappy for most of the walk to school. then i dropped him off and told him i was off to the doctor, and he very aggressively demanded that i tell him why which was kinda cute.

[jackals going mental, i've shushed them twice tonight already and i feel like they're not caring much]

i walked to the clinic and sat with our doctor. by the time i left, i had referrals for a sleep lab, a neurologist, a psychiatrist and blood tests, along with a prescription for alpha lipoic (supposedly for my pseudo-RLS hip issues, at least it's not psychotropic).

i came home, helped gd with some stuff (her back's giving her trouble), then got sent out to draw money for her. i was feeling a bit woozy by the time i got back up the stairs, so i hurriedly wolfed down an early breakfast and headed off to work.

i think my work day was pretty good, but it could've been better. i'm very excited by how we're performing as a company, though, the results of our weekend efforts were particularly exciting ^_^

i picked mr smear up from his therapist and he hung around the office - mostly pretty chilled - and i feel like the end of my day was alright. then we came home for dinner.

...

gd and i had had a discussion about his eating habits this morning, it's something i've been bothered by for a long time: he only eats symbolic amounts of the food he really needs. tonight i was proud of both of them; in spite of the drama (mr smear claims it was the most traumatic experience of his life) he ate three whole slices of zucchini.

...

we had a good chat with my mom and sister while mr smear got ready for bed. one of my cousins' kids is coming to tel aviv and we're making plans to meet up. and it was a little bit of a relief that it's his brother who was the jailbird and not him. we saw my nephew for a half a minute, and were shocked because he's not looking too good at the moment - his health situation's been terrible, he's been having a really hard time :(

after putting mr smear to bed, brushing my teeth and showering, i settled in for some phone calls to my canadian bank. it took a few tries, but eventually i got them to close the account and it looks like we're properly done with them!

it feels good to close the chapter on that.

i just realized how late it's gotten, i'm going to try going to bed now.

fight or flight or both

what the hell happened today?

i've been on leave for two weeks, they're almost done, and all i've experienced is being sick and loads of unexpected and heavy adulting and parenting responsibilities. i'm not even tired right now - especially after today's drama - i'm just in shock.

...

it wasn't an easy night, mr smear woke up from a nightmare and it took a round or two of parenting to calm him down again.

otherwise, the cold, rainy day started well, and i got mr smear to school in good spirits.

i took care of some stuff (including informing ze german that i couldn't commit to anything), ate an early breakfast (i think i'm putting on weight again, but i'm struggling psychologically right now), and caught a bus to the shuk. on the way i spoke to a cousin who also wanted to start a joint venture, and had to explain to him too that i'm happy to advise but not available.

about halfway there, i was asked to please stop my conversation because i was bothering everyone on the small bus. i thought i'd been speaking in an unobtrusively low voice, but apparently i was wrong so i hurriedly ended the call and apologized to everyone...

we resumed the call when i arrived, and aside from my heart skipping a beat or two during the siren testing we had a good conversation. then i went through the shuk, and was ultimately unable to locate the bag of shirts we'd bought. so i picked up a coffee, bought another set (the guy felt sorry for me and gave me a bigger discount than before), and then walked up king george, picking up fingerless gloves for myself and mr smear and ordering inserts for my too-large rain boots.

i bussed home, relaxed for a bit watching mostly political videos on youtube with gd, then walked to the school to pick up mr smear.

on my way, a group of bigger kids went past with two of them literally in the middle of a fist fight, and it was only afterwards that i realized that i should have intervened. then i picked up mr smear, and learned that his bully had kicked him twice in his sprained foot and he hadn't been able to defend himself.

what followed was in two parts: part one, losing my cool and my "appropriate parenting language" and giving him hell for how he mishandled the situation (in particular, how he got into the situation in the first place by behaving precisely in the way his bully wanted). i wasn't communicating appropriately, but it appears (based on how he responded both immediately and later) that i was communicating effectively.

part two was me, after getting through part one, becoming absolutely enraged to the point of trembling and considering heading over to his bully's home (i have the address) to threaten his parents in person. or just beat the shit out of them. but i was also very aware of the potential consequences of doing that, and i know that if i start down that path that i'll almost certainly end up in jail, and i wouldn't do that to my family (or myself).

so the next hour or two were spent getting in touch with orgs who are now helping me file complaints against the school and move mr smear to a different one. 

all while trying (and failing) to help mr smear do his homework :/

then i rushed mr smear to his evaluation, which was apparently the second last session. the bus there got stuck in traffic, but we didn't notice because we were heavily engaged in a variety of topics - i got into the weeds of explaining what we're dealing with politically and historically, which he appeared to follow.

while he was there, i grabbed a coffee and wrote up the complaints for the two orgs. i had just enough time before being called back to pick up mr smear.

gd was at her second acupuncture session, so i decided to treat mr smear and take him somewhere in the sarona market. we ended up at mexicana, which may be fast food but it really got mr smear excited. we both loved the food, and he invested himself in experimenting with different combinations of foods and sauces which was very cool.

i was very proud of myself for stopping when i was full, and he continued on a loooong time before he was ready to pack up and go home. at that point we entered into a discussion about judaism vs christianity, which got surprisingly philosophical!

while mr smear got himself ready for bed (he's still into the hobbit ^_^) gd and i spoke to my mom, sharing the days trials and tribulations and hearing some things (specifically about my niece and her kid) that made us rather upset.

...

as i just said to gd: while mr smear's got issues that we need to work through, while he drives us crazy on all sorts of little things, if i think about the big stuff he's facing and how he's facing it his resilience is nothing short of miraculous. he's a good kid, and he's tough in ways i can't wrap my head around. his last few years have been immeasurably hard, and he deserves so much better.

i fucking love my boy. i'm fucking proud of my boy. and i'm fucking grateful that our relationship has improved so dramatically over the last year or two. he's learning to trust us, to let his guard down around us and let us in (including taking criticism well, and trying to incorporate it), and it's an amazing feeling.

...

anyway, mr smear went to bed without too much fuss, i've now finished this and am about to try help gd with her neck. for tonight, everything else is just whatever (including messages waiting for me that i'm deliberately ignoring).

two steps

yesterday:

the work day was pretty bland.

i joined my boss for a walk for our one-on-one, and i asked some tough questions about where we're at. we're going to have an all-hands tomorrow so he didn't want to say too much, but he did a pretty good job of assuring me that we're not in a bad place.

the interview in the evening went pretty well, although signing off was really awkward so i've no idea if i made a good impression or not.

watching the simpsons as a family is therapeutic. it's also highly relevant, as we saw the results of marge getting itchy and scratchy declawed and then this morning i saw the real-life results of a 21-day cellphone ban.

today:

the morning started off alright - three mornings in a row with mr smear responsible for getting himself organized before panic time, and three mornings that were much calmer than usual - and after dropping him off at school i continued on to the post office to pick up socks and a beard trimmer.

then i accompanied gd to her dental appointment, and found a nice coffee shop (lebowski, which used to be movie-ing) to wait for her at. her appointment turned out to be quite different / less dramatic than we'd been told, they just took an imprint for the tooth that's due to be extracted so she'll be able to wear a retainer with a temporary replacement while they prepare for the real work.

i got some decent work done today, ran into another cousin working in the building on the way out to lunch with my coworkers, and by and large it was quite a relaxed one. having said that, by the time i left the office i was feeling wiped out and i still had a parents' screentime workshop at the school at 8pm.

ugh.

so we had a nice, early dinner together before i left. the evening was... well, some of it was interesting, and some of it was inspiring, but a lot of it was a slog and by 9.15 i just wanted to get the hell out of there. when she pulled out cards for a "last activity" at 9.35 i fuck-that'd and noped on out.

gd and i had a conversation about all the things that came up, and we're both going to make an effort to modify our screen habits, particularly around mr smear. this is going to be an interesting experiment, but i don't think it's going to be hard - i just need to pick up an e-ink ebook reader as quickly as possible.

...

jason pargin's review of deadpool & wolverine just blew my mind.

the slap

 well, shit.

it was a bit of an annoying work day, and i didn't get too much done. in the middle of it, i got a phone call from mr smear complaining that he'd been waiting at the gate for half an hour, which was entirely my fault because i told his teacher that his tutor session was cancelled but forgot to tell him 🤦‍♂️

to be fair, though, the reason it took him half an hour to call me was because he was playing games on his phone...

[source]

[source]

the interview went... not great. the experience was fine, but they weren't happy with my coding exercise and called it before the architecture section. i very much appreciated their directness and their not-wasting-anyone's-time-iness, but it does sting... especially considering that i felt i did pretty well.

not amazing, but well. which is obviously why they called it.

anyway, it's been a mixed emotion evening - mr smear's doing his usual, nothing extraordinary but annoying - and i'm just done with the day. i feel like watching the simpsons as a family is healthy.

i have another interview tomorrow. maybe it'll be better.

norms

 why am i awake so late? i've been soooo tired lately...

getting mr smear to school was fine, and i actually put a layer of spackle over where i cleared the peeling crud off mr smear's walls, as well as put in the first line of polyfill around the cupboard in our passageway.

so that was good.

gd and i arrived a bit late for our parental guidance session because the bus we were waiting for disappeared. it felt like a good sessions.

getting gd onto a bus to get to the dentist for another first aid meeting - she's been so scared to crack her other tooth that she's lost 2kg in just a week, which is distressing - took so long that i ended up quite late for work.

it was a pretty productive day, i guess, and my cousin's kid has just moved into an office on our floor and that's both cool and awkward at the same time :P

i left late, and was really pressured for time because i had to go to a lecture at mr smear's school that i was dreading. mr smear informed me that he had not, in fact, had another perfect day, but in retrospect it doesn't seem like such a big deal. then again, i've only heard his side of the story...

the lecture was about setting norms for tech use across the school, and i initially presumed that the school would be interfering with parents' choices. this immediately put me on the defensive because i don't trust anyone with those sorts of intentions to also be operating in an evidence-based manner. by the end of it, though, i was convinced not only that this initiative is well-informed, but that they have an approach that really does make sense.

assuming the prinicipal doesn't screw it up.

gd and i watched some pantheon, which was brilliant, and i've played some crying suns, and i'm now pretty sure that i'm ready for bed.

...

i've been battling with a mosquito for the last hour or two, it's infuriating.

relaxed

 today was mostly very relaxed. not only did i get a good night's sleep, but i also had to take a couple of solid naps during the day as well. in the morning, i played some chrono trigger, and mr smear sat with me for some of the experience - it's really fun. i mean, i know that everyone knows it's really fun, but *i'm* enjoying it.

i mistakenly wished a cousin a happy birthday two days early in a group chat this morning, and another cousin teased me about it to the point of bullying. interestingly, i was reading some of worm this morning and i found myself in a similar unpleasant situation where challenging said bullying would only really cause harm to me and my relationships, so i did some dishes which helped me calm down.

aside from that, we continued a bit on our replay of rayman: legends. it's going pretty well so far, and as a family we're definitely playing together better.

we were smarter than in the past, and although we had a great experience watching the first x-men movie,  we didn't just assume that the sequel would be safe. according to parent reviews it isn't. so, in the early afternoon, we watched the mask instead. we all enjoyed it, and i'm pleased to report it's aged well :)

in the late afternoon, i went out for a walk with mr smear. some of the walk was pleasant, but it had a few intense moments - a couple of things happened that needed to be resolved with important conversations. so we had those conversations, and i feel like they went well, and i feel like the messages were received. i hope so, at least.

dinner was good (we watched a couple of episodes of brainchild, it's brilliant), although mr smear decided he was hungry again just before bedtime and ended up with a tummyache... otherwise, the evening went well.

i just had a chat with my mom, who amongst other stories (including the heartbreaking story of a cousin who got scammed) told me this cringer.

...

i'm still feeling amazed that thursday's workday ended so well, and that tomorrow morning i have relatively low-stress tasks to do. this is a nice feeling with which to start the week.

adventures in vpn-land

omg, that was insanely complicated: i just spent the last hour and a half trying to set my mother up with a google account that we could connect to our family account. everything about the process is ridiculous, not least of which being that our family accounts are all registered as canadian because that's how they were legitimately created, and we can't change that because we need access to the canadian play store in order to use canadian apps (like our banking apps).

firstly, google insists on phone verification when creating an account on the desktop, but wouldn't accept any of our valid, active phone numbers. after quite a struggle, i stumbled across a support answer that suggested creating the account from an android phone, where phone verification is optional.

excellent. i still can't believe that worked.

but then, once i had an account created i couldn't change its country. even after providing my canadian payment details, because that's based on the current IP address and not card issuer. i - tried - so - many - things...

eventually, i thought "bugger this", subscribed to and installed a vpn on both my desktop and my mobile, set everything up for ontario (not quebec, which was somehow confused with romania?!), created a brand new account on my mobile, signed in on my desktop, and finally - FINALLY! - was able to hit the "join family" button.

i never thought i'd post an endorsement like this, but veepn was well worth the once-off $10 for the month. i've paid for vpn trials in the past and been very disappointed, but this was simple AF. if i actually needed a VPN long-term, i'd probably go for the cheaper plans, but it's good to know there's a viable option that doesn't suck.

openings, closings, and in-betweenings

yesterday:

after another good morning getting mr smear to school, i synced with my mom and made what i hope will be my last big forex transfer to canada.

although gd has been hurting, she gave me a haircut in anticipation of the important meeting that was scheduled for this evening. she wasn't happy with it, but it's definitely respectable enough that i've got nothing to be embarrassed about.

work was tough, but i finally got the job done. then i ran into performance issues, and spent the rest of the afternoon (and some of the evening) tweaking until it was good enough.

at 5pm i met gd and mr smear at the pain clinic for her nerve block appointment. as soon as she went in, i took mr smear for our "usual" falafel laffa. the food court - and ordering in particular - was an exercise in cultural anthropology. even the team working the counter were having a hard time with the group of seniors ahead of us weaving in and out between the rest of the customers sowing chaos. when we finally got our order, i asked the girl sitting behind us with her mother to take her shoes off the chair, which she didn't. halfway  through our meal, i looked up and saw - and then couldn't unsee - that almost everyone around us was chewing with their mouths grotesquely wide open.

so that happened.

regardless, mr smear and i enjoyed our meal together and we both ate a lot. after we got gd home, i walked to the cafe to pick her up a sandwich (and dessert), and the rest of the evening was pretty quiet.

today:

i got up a bit early this morning, with my neck still giving me some trouble. not a lot, but enough to be uncomfortable all day.

the day began with two Very Big Deals: the first, that after chasing down the canadian debt we generated migrating and getting settled for two and a half years, we finally were able to pay it off! we're not out of the woods yet - we owe my mother and our south african bank quite a lot of money - but it's a huge milestone and relief.

the meeting i was looking forward to in the evening? gco had forgotten about it and run into complications, so it had to be cancelled :(

the second Big Deal was a meeting with mr smear's teacher, principal and guidance counsillors. the first step to a corrective experience was that i made it very clear to the principal - twice, for two different aspects - where and why our last meeting went south, and she accepted it with a grace that really impressed me. the second was an actual discussion - much easier to have without gd, primarily because i didn't spend half the meeting translating. so it's a pity she couldn't make it, but it worked out for the best.

in short, mr smear has started the year on the right foot*, and we've received helpful advice, and he's going to be supported, and we're all feeling better about how he's handling.

* okay, not perfectly, as we learned later in the day, but definitely on the right foot.

my work day was a bit wonky. i fixed yesterday's code based on my boss' comments, partially at least, but i was supposed to be focused on a hugely important bug and it was a morning full of distractions (although the back-to-school sandwiches were very welcome). at lunchtime i walked to the school to pick up mr smear, walked him pleasantly back home, had a bit of a family fight when gd found out that he'd done something self-destructive that we've been warning him to stop doing, which i'm pleased to report i managed to diffuse pretty effectively.

i returned to work, right into a retrospective. afterwards a bunch of us went downstairs for coffee, where i bumped into one of my cousin's kids, who's just started working two floors up from us.

the rest of the workday was a mixed bag. by the time i left, i hadn't achieved what i needed to and i felt like my brain was melting out my ears...

i walked home, managed to rekindle the earlier fight, which we eventually seemed to have resolved, and dinner was great (we started watching the first x-men movie).

i've just put mr smear to bed - we're both really enjoying reading the goblet of fire so far - and we're about to call gd's canadian bank to ask them to close her account.

divine potential

why do i have the chorus to איש קש bouncing around my head?

i slept better last night, though not great, and took a much-needed easy morning. well, that's partially true. some of the morning was spent supporting gd with her war anxieties and trauma. i initially responded in a very unconstructive way, but i managed to get my head together pretty quickly and talk her through my perspective, and it seems to have helped. my perspective being that it's my job to do my job, and to keep abreast of what's happening, and hers to take care of herself and our son. the conversation ended on a very interesting spiritual note - she's been experiencing sporadic episodes of intense spirituality lately and i'm happy to accept and support anything that keeps her sane.

then i went to work, which turned out to be a very busy, but odd sort of day.

i needed to merge something which my coworker was certain would cause him trouble, and i was certain wouldn't. i merged it, and it messed his work up completely :(

i never fully trust git's merge strategy, but i've never seen it fail to abominably as it did today.

...

i came home in time for an early dinner with the family, and then at 8pm jumped onto a call with gco, sailor and gco's partner-in-crime that has the potential to be life-changing. the call went on for a couple of hours, and i feel like everyone dropped off with a greater sense of purpose.

now i've done the dishes, showered, and am trying to decide whether to try to go to bed, or let the buzzing in my head die down a bit first.