hyper-real

 i slept remarkably well last night. i got up a little before my alarm this morning, and took to my office instead of the balcony so as not to disturb the kids sleeping in the living room. i began my day by writing up the article about what AI teaches us about human consciousness (leading to a new appreciation to the insights of the movie memento), and did some work on the auto-doc, then headed out with my sister to meet up with our cousins.

...

i'd managed to get the wrong address from google maps - i just checked, and the address in google maps is simply incorrect - and that led to some confusion as we first walked the right way, then turned back because the address was wrong, then doubled back once we arrived at the wrong place. so we arrived a bit late to the beachfront coffee shop. then ordering coffee turned into a thing (apparently the guy behind us was being weirdly stressed about me speaking to the cashier), and then we sat down at the table to discover that the chairs have all been bolted in place.

weird fucking place.

anyway, i spent most of the hour making my pitch, primarily to our younger cousin but it was a good conversation all round. i was very grateful that my sister was with me because she definitely contributed, and also grateful for our older cousin pointing out that our younger cousin has been looking for something meaningful, and by the time i had to run i believe i'd managed to put all the pieces together into something coherent.

i walked out of there buzzing after having been thanked warmly and told he was already thinking about it.

...

my phone went off informing me that i had a newly scheduled meeting that my manager had arranged with one of the data guys (they'd been ignoring my request for assistance for a day or two), and i rushed through the shuk, getting properly turned around, in the search for a quiet place to get online, all the while discussing the meeting and the idea with my mother on the phone.

with a couple of minutes to go, i sat down on a bench under a tree, sweating in the already-heavy heat, actively context-switching into the meeting and nervously praying that i or my computer didn't get shat on by birds. that was when i realized that it wasn't an online meeting, there was no link, and i had been expected to be physically in the office.

that was also when i saw that i'd just been contacted about the work i'd been doing the day before, and learned that by fixing the nine year-old bugs in the golang service, i'd inadvertently caused an incident 🤦‍♂️

fortunately, reverting was easy (because i'd fixed its CI a week or two ago) and i quickly made my way to the bus. on the way home, i continued to apologize and explain and reassure the poor on-call that the incident was over and that i would provide the post-mortem.

i was hungry by the time i got off the bus, and stopped at home to pick up a sandwich from gd and then walk it to the office. it was more than just a sandwich. it was a heavy, delicious sushi filling on good bread, and by the time i was done i felt a combination of deep satisfaction and a sense of having eaten more than i needed.

i arrived at the office just in time to see the guy i was meeting with leave for lunch. and, also, just in time for my elevator pitch to my employer.

...

the call was fifteen minutes long (it had been scheduled for half an hour), and he got the idea pretty quickly. he asked a couple of good questions, and then told me he wanted a PRD. so 🤘

then he informed me that he'd considered my request for a raise, and that these weren't good times for it but he does appreciate my situation, and offered me a very respectable bonus instead... on condition that i don't leave the company within a year.

i was very grateful, both for the bonus and for the implicit additional positive feedback.

...

writing an AI-assisted post-mortem is a treat. it put all the facts together, i edited and added a recommendation, and it was started and published within 25 minutes and without any stress.

my recommendation: protect the bad / broken client-facing behavior, but disconnect it from actually trying to do anything.

i was asked for help by one of my previous client team, and i hope i've managed to onboard him as a new (replacement) dashboard-as-code champion.

i bumped into the other contractor, and we talked about our employer's new market shift, and invited him to join my "async game jam" experiment.

i tried to discuss the incident with someone from the old client team, and ended up down a rabbit hole with another AI specialist and demo'ed the auto-doc. now both he and my manager want to see the one-pager, and he gave me some pointers as to what specifically he wants to see, which is encouraging!

i finally sat down with the data engineer, and discovered that the problem i've been needing help with was a bit simpler than i'd thought. we both spent some time working on the fix in parallel, hopefully it'll be in early next week.

i then had a one-on-one with my manager, which turned into a very long, very interesting debate because we have very different ideas about what to focus on when building out our harness. there are some things we clearly agree on, though, and i was pleased at the end when i made a suggestion that he was happy with, and even more pleased to speak to the AI specialist again and discover that he'd already implemented something similar that i can use to make it happen :)

the happy hour was good, and i continued my earlier conversation with my fellow consultant before my client / the boss pulled me in to a meeting with the previous client team's lead - he wants me to do another job for them next week, between other jobs :P

i worked another hour, then left the office feeling pretty darned good about how my day went.

...

gd, on the other hand, had not had such an easy day. she was traumatized by mr smear's friend from the wrong side of the tracks, and having to parent him in ways that one would hope a ten or eleven year-old wouldn't need. ultimately it sounds like she handled the whole thing excellently, but it was difficult and concerning. i discussed it with mr smear as we strapped on our rollerblades - he'd been supporting gd in trying to help his friend, and for the most part had behaved very well himself - and he seems to be a lot more appreciative of the parenting he's gotten having witnessed the alternative...

...

the rollerblading went well, though it got off to a frustratingly slow start, and we had a good time and it was a beautiful (if hot and humid) evening. it took mr smear so insanely long to get showered and ready for dinner, though, that by the time we sat down my sister had already returned home from ra'anana after having had dinner herself, but she sat with us to chat.

it was pretty late by the time we were done, and i didn't last long after putting mr smear to bed. i suspected i wouldn't sleep through the night, though, and i think i lay awake for at least an hour before getting up almost an hour and a half ago.

perhaps i'll sleep easier having gotten all of this down.

familia-rity

yesterday:

the last hour and a half of the night was the best hour and a half of the night. i actually slept, and my alarm forcefully ejected me from a dream and got my day off to a (literally) wobbly start.

...

i accompanied gd to the hospital for her toenail appointment that she's been waiting for since april. i think we must have sat in the waiting room, surrounded by wet coughing, for about an hour before we were finally called in. i got a bit of work done, at least.

[stops writing to hunt for and then complain that the kiffness' balkan song isn't available anywhere]

the dermatologist doesn't believe the second toenail incident was fungal, just that gd is susceptible to whatever the fuck is going on. not exactly confidence-inspiring.

on our way out, we took the elevator down and as we were leaving it a 300 pound woman walking out in front of gd stopped suddenly and took a step backwards, landing squarely on gd's recovering toe. un-fucking-believable. after helping gd out of the elevator, and struggling to deal with the combination of her rage and the horror of her toenail likely being re-injured, we parted ways with me warning her to stay away from others for her own safety.

i hopped on a bus home, and was just calling my mother to update her when gd called me to inform me that some old woman had rammed into her in the supermarket - same foot, fortunately missing her toe - jesus fucking christ.

i understand why she felt the need to take a taxi home :/

...

hungry and tired, i stopped at home for breakfast instead of heading through to the office as originally planned, then crossed the bridge and went in for a couple of hours. earlier in the morning i'd threatened my teammates with an openspec workshop, and i took the opportunity to run a private training session with dx and his manager.

...

i returned home for an employer meeting, which turned out to be a presentation by the boss explaining how the whole company is about to experience a massive shift in order to realign with the market trends. i already found our division into backend / frontend / full-stack strange - i've been having difficulty understanding the distinctions since before AI became a thing, probably because i'm a sort-of full-stack engineer, and devops engineer, but not a frontend engineer at all - but now things are getting really interesting and we're going to be divided into the kinds of building we do, and our proficiency with AI and depth of experience with harnesses is going to determine whether we cut it or not.

...

by the time we needed to leave for netanya, gd was certain that she wouldn't be able to join us. she's been properly sick (her stomach, mainly) for days now, and it's really frustrating and disappointing for all of us.

we left the city in heavy traffic, and it took us about an hour and a half to get there, with mr smear complaining about motion sickness the whole way and insisting that using his phone made it better 🙄

the evening with our cousins was just lovely. the food was a big issue for them, but we were fine, and there were soooo maaaaany kiiiiiids which was loud and wonderful. we also walked down the two minutes to the beach for an incredible sunset, and just generally had a great time.

the ride back to tel aviv was quick and whineless, with all of us singing along to my driving playlist (that spans most of a century of good music) and managed to shower and get mr smear into bed around midnight. my first "girlfriend" (who's married to the guy who introduced me to my friends in matric which fundamentally changed my life's direction) finally sent me the summer camp photos i asked for back in may, and they are AMAZING. i can't believe how young we all were!

so that sent me down a rabbit hole of looking through my and gd's photos, which was a trip, and then it was after 1am and i crawled into bed for a relatively good sleep.

the dinner party

i'm sitting on the balcony having just sprayed the edges with pidgeon repellent; it's not a bad smell, hopefully it'll work. our neighbor's just pumped up the volume on what, thankfully, isn't the worst music. it's another beautiful saturday morning on our little corner of the highway.

last night was really cool. dinner was at a beautiful rooftop apartment, with lots of interesting people. for the most part mr smear occupied himself with weird conversations with AI (i think i need to review them when he wakes up), but when there was social interaction he was cool and behaved appropriately. the food was great, but that's kind of cheating because gd was responsible for our dinner, and a lot of people seemed to really enjoy the challah-peño :)

i got stuck into multiple rounds of entertaining conversations and debates with a wide variety of people, beginning and ending the evening with real talk with our cousin who i haven't seen in ten years, but haven't spent real time with since i was a kid!

it was well after midnight by the time we left, and this happened while we waited for the taxi:

there were some emergency cleanups that took place once we got home, and then everything quickly and quietly went off to dreamland.

myths and fables

 my bum still hurts - gd dug her elbow in and i've used bengay, but the tightness isn't going away and i'm nervous about going to bed...

it's probably not helped by my spending the last hour or so sitting down at my computer.

i began the day trying to figure out why my external monitor was flickering, and it resolved without me getting an answer. apparently it's a known macbook thing. nice.

i then spent the next three hours putting fable through its paces. i sent the following to horseman:

bro, i’ve been using fable for the past couple of hours. it’s… 

it’s…

it’s an AI model 😂

it does seem like a significant improvement so far, but god damn the hype is so detached from the reality - as usual. also, holy shit it’s expensive.

we walked to our favorite vegan coffee spot to meet up with my aunt and her family - we haven't seen my cousins in years! i spent most of our time talking shop with the younger brother, and then tgtbt stayed with us when everyone else left and we talked and talked until mr smear had long had enough :P

the afternoon / evening was going great, mr smear and i agreed to a compromise between video games and fluxx, and i think that's the first time i've held my own in spiderheck. a lot of our math fluxx experience was good - meaning both of us were enjoying it - but then he got in a mode after deciding that the game should have been over (when it wasn't) and made a whole thing... which i kinda the whole thing gd and i have been charged with getting him to learn how to handle. so we entered shabbat with a bit of a shit vibe.

kiddush and dinner were nice once we got over that initial hurdle, and then it was shower and bedtime for mr smear, and then i passed out for a while, and woke up with my hip flexors doing their thing, and for the last while i've been playing slay the spire 2 while occasionally checking in on fable because i forgot to set --dangerously-skip-permissions which are far more nuisance than any real safety they provide.

so far i've apparently used $45 worth of fable tokens, and i've yet to see evidence that the effort is any better than sonnet. perhaps i'm wrong? i guess i'll find out in the morning, but i'm beginning to believe the rumors that LLMs have peaked and the next evolutionary jump is going to have to come from some other idea. and that the magic really is in the harness, and that off-the-shelf harnesses are just not where it's at.

discouraged

 the more i worked today, the more despairing i felt. i'm extremely anxious and overwhelmed, i feel like i'm drowning. every layer of the onion i peel shows me that the onion was far larger and deeper than i thought; or, at least, each wall that i break down thinking it's the last one turns out to have two more standing right behind it.

it doesn't help me personally that i understand that what this company has done to itself is dangerously stupid: most of the companies in our industry, it seems, have shot themselves in the foot by attempting to drop headcount and fill the gaps with AI. even if we were using the latest models this would be a stretch, but with the model pricing being raised across the board (the drug dealer's sample period is over) and the israeli shekel having strengthened significantly against the dollar (making actual developers more expensive to the company), it's a race to the bottom and everyone's losing.

the only positive thing i managed to do - i'm not holding my breath about the disappointing reports i put together after five additional hours of investigation, or the plans for tomorrow so that i can ask for help - was to disable and migrate all of the thousands of lines of irrelevant and contradictory repository rules and skills that i didn't realize were polluting each and every AI context i've been working with up until now :/

...

gd and i were a little late to the school meeting this morning, because of course we hit ridiculous rush hour traffic and of course we decided to get off and switch to the light rail just as we got through the worst of it. we had a good, productive hour with the councillor and new homeroom teacher, though, some of it was funny and some deeply concerning. the homeroom teacher did a little snooping right after, though, and called me to clarify that the incidents were not quite as serious as they'd been made out to be.

that was an enormous relief.

gd stopped at azrieli by herself on the way home, which was the first time she's felt safe enough (from a health perspective) to do so in many months. i came home and dived into work.

i had a really rough afternoon, and i don't know if my regularly running back-and-forth to the bathroom was the result of something i ate, or the anxiety that was slowly building up.

either way, my first real "break" was after mr smear came home, and we had a very long (an hour or so) family meeting during which we discussed All The Things that had come up during the school meeting. it was mostly positive, but the big stuff is him needing to learn to avoid alienating his peers, and find more ways to connect with them.

oh, yes - mr smear came home sporting a weird rash on his hand. gd and i suspect that it might be from the borrowed wrist protectors, but it didn't seem to be getting any worse so now we think he must have brushed past a bush or something that he had an allergic reaction to.

because we were super-bored, and not stressed about anything, we discovered that in addition to everything else we have an infestation of cigarette beetles - or something very similar :/

by the time we had dinner i didn't have much of an appetite, and neither did gd, though we managed to eat anyway. after a couple of great episodes of infinity train (we're into season 2, now), we chatted with my mom for a while, fortunately discussing her birthday present and not making the mistake of getting her something she doesn't want.

...

we also discussed my cousin who was scammed a while back, and taken for literally everything he had. not only has he just gone from wealthy to destitute, and not only is he seemingly making every effort to not get back on his feet again, but gd made a good point today and now we're all really concerned that he's essentially dragging his son down with him, because nobody else is going to put him up.

it's just awful.

...

i honestly don't know how i'm going to sleep tonight, but i have to. i'm so nervous about all the steps i need to take in the morning, and i feel just horrible about everything.

abandoned beer

 well, i guess i was wrong. a minute after posting i received a message from one of the birthday moms, to say that they'd tried to get mr smear to stay...

i packed up, abandoned my beer ($#@%!) and stalked out the coffee shop, calling gd to update her (and vent). she quickly convinced me to avoid being reactionary and hold a family meeting when we got home. i was furious when i found him, i made sure to send him back to apologize and say goodbye, and we began the walk home.

it was good that we walked. not only were our public transport options limited - and i didn't want to pay for another taxi ride - but it gave us a lot of time to talk once i'd calmed down (fortunately, that only took a couple of minutes and i didn't say anything that i ended up regretting).

his behavior was less bad than i initially thought, though it definitely wasn't wise, and it seems like there was a lot more at play than just pop music and food smells. amongst other things we spoke about the importance of integration with whoever you're studying, working or serving with. during the family meeting gd and my mom both helped drive that home, and i feel like we got through to him 🤞

there were a bunch of other things, but that was the most important one. i'm pretty glad we handled it relatively calmly and constructively.

dinner was great (gluten-free-gd's getting good with daal), and although mr smear took a long time to get ready for bed, it gave my mom and i an opportunity for a really interesting discussion about pluralism, contrasting my experiences in japan and india with hers as a foreign exchange student in the 60s.

i'm not sure how functional i'm going to be right now, perhaps i should start moving towards going to bed.

new family update!

 i completely forgot to include this in my previous post! last night, we received an update from my sister than her new grandson has (finally!) been born. it was an intense couple of days - mostly due to NHS incompetency - but everyone seems happy with the resulting bébé.

i hope he has a good life. i hope his older brother has a good life. i feel really bad for both of them for having such shitty parents. i hope the new parent combo works out better than the last one.

out and... out

 my niece has been waiting for attention in an NHS hospital in london, things are becoming... tense. i guess that's what happens when your healthcare is at a third-world level...

my mother, gd and i bussed to ikea, stopping for a few minutes between buses to walk through the mall in glilot. we arrived with some time to spare, found a surprisingly nice coffee shop where i plugged in, enjoyed my coffee and had my daily with my team.

then i joined gd and my mom at ikea itself, and settled near a plug-point in the food court while they did the slowest part of the shopping.

i actually got some work done. including getting my client to change their substack profile name; as soon as i pointed out that it didn't look good, nobody argued (it looked like something a pornographic site might be called).

a bit later they joined me, and i continued to work until i received a reference phone call for my british devops coworker, which i really hope helps convince them to make him an offer.

my cousin arrived, with a very stiff neck, and we sat and talked for a while, which was lovely as always.

from there we headed downstairs and through the second part of the gauntlet, then through the warehouse, finding pretty much everything we needed, including a really nice big carpet for the living room.

the wait for the cashier was long, but i guess not as long as it looked from the back of the queue. i bought fries while we waited, and it wasn't until i picked them up that i realized they sell falafel too, but i ended up getting a falafel later so it's all good. a bit dry, but for NIS 5 it tasted pretty good :P

once we paid - with a lot less drama than last time - we very quickly got called to the delivery counter. while taking care of that and also severely instructing mr smear to do what he was supposed to (what was written in his temporary diary) before coming home, there was some kind of incident between a couple next to us and a very angry dude with a particularly dark energy who i'd noticed at the cafeteria earlier. just after two of the mentally handicapped staff almost came to blows. weird times.

on the way out, waiting for gd and my mother with my falafel in hand, i noticed a tall, heavy, older security guard angrily speaking in french while eating a small ice cream. i didn't take a photo, 'cause that would have been rude, but i have that image in my head now 🤣

they wouldn't deliver the big heavy carpet, so i had to shoulder that along with my heavy backpack for the not-inconsiderable walk to the train station. it was okay for me, but my mom and gd were both feeling a bit sore (for different reasons) by the time we eventually got home.

while there was a stretch of fighting with mr smear just before dinner - due to his "sensitivity" to "cringey" music (johnny clegg) or any level of noise that isn't silence - for the most part he was compliant this afternoon and did a fair amount of math catch-up.

when i threatened him with punishment, i tied it into his homework - he's just learned about the fibonacci sequence, so i explained that he would lose hours of privileges in accordance with it. he found that funny just before he realized i was serious :P

dinner was great. mr smear ventured a drop of scorpion pepper sauce this evening and did just fine :)

...

i've really struggled this past couple of weeks, and i'm anxious about the coming one. i've worked a lot less than i should have, mostly due to the combination of family surprises (gd's health and mr smear's schooling) and me being sick and losing a heck of a lot of sleep.

i've taken my supplements, and i've turned my brain off for the day. hopefully tonight will be smooth.

untethered

 sleep journal entry: after two hours of fitful sleep, i woke up with lower back and hip pain again and it took 45 minutes of stretching to calm down. this is the first time since i began supplementing with iron and magnesium, and i woke up feeling particularly poorly rested

meanwhile, gd woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning and her temper's on a hair-trigger.

all that aside, my niece is supposed to be giving birth in an hour's time at the latest, and we're all in a weird state of wanting to be supportive while certainly not being supportive of the fact that she's having another kid at all. i feel bad for both the siblings and the little one hasn't even come out yet.

...

yesterday was a day. i took mr smear to school, deciding once i got home that i have been being paranoid. i guess i'll wait for the homefront command to advise.

i did get a bit of work done in the morning, and i had a great (short) sync with my mentor. the afternoon, however, was a complete mess as far as work was concerned. i managed to get a whole lot of personal admin done, and i had a half hour meeting about the urban kibbutz idea that went really well, and certainly gave me some food for thought.

...

mr smear made some drama yesterday. when i dropped him off at school, it was with instructions to find out what work he needed to catch up and to bring home his workbooks. i called him after school to remind him. he arrived home without doing either of those things.

aside from the bad vibes, he's now under threat of losing weekend privileges if he doesn't shape up. i got him to write up what he has to do today in a temporary diary, including the instruction to start using his actual diary, and hopefully today will see him more functional.

after he did his chores, and a whole lot of music practice, he fired up human resource machine before i could stop him. technically i've made it homework, but practically speaking it's a video game, so i kinda screwed myself on that score :P

he spent a lot of time staring - his usual "i don't wanna think" mode - and there was a bit of tension, but i refused to give him the answer even as i gave him all the hints he needed to solve the problem. when he finally put 2 and 2 together (or 8 by 3, in this case), there was much rejoicing!

...

dinner was delicious, shower / bedtime went pretty smoothly, and i went to bed shortly after he did.

respite

sleep journal entry: i just got up a short while ago, after a terrible night's sleep due to acute sinusitis. i slept very little during the time in bed and got up frequently due to intense nasal and throat congestion.

...

my throat had ceased to feel scratchy, in fact i was feeling fine yesterday morning. it was a beautiful day. gd's stomach was giving her trouble so she couldn't join us, but my mom and i ventured to south tel aviv for a stroll with a shopping list.

we had a nice coffee when we arrived - both of us were approaching dire need - after which we meandered through the streets, eventually looping back to pick mr smear up from school. from there we went past yuka monsters so i could ask them (again) for a contact for their printing house, after which we walked past an ethiopian restaurant and decided to give their vegan "tasting plate" a go; not least because my mother had had to stay in a hotel in addis ababa at the beginning of the week and her culinary experience had left a lot to be desired.

...

firstly, ge'ez smells really good. it's clean and has a nice vibe. the food took quite a while to prepare - which is fair, considering it was a whole bunch of dishes in one, and in retrospect i'm really glad we only ordered a "single" because we weren't that hungry and it was a decent amount of food for the three of us.

secondly, it was not only a "corrective experience" for my mother, but my son dug in, tried everything without any encouragement ("it looked really good!"), and we all left pleased, sated and in good spirits ^_^

...

we traveled to yehuda hamaccabi, and proceeded to do the shopping. the fruit seller had great stuff (we were responsible for bringing a fruit platter to dinner), and we found a decent food scale at the hardware store, and we managed to find everything else between all the supermarkets.

we did have some bad vibes with my mother insisting on buying a dairy gift and keeping it in our apartment until the evening. mr smear is still dangerously allergic, even if it's less dangerous of late, and we are a vegan household.

that mini-drama was compounded a little later by her discovery that a coke she'd put in the freezer and forgotten about had exploded. what followed - after the initial anger (mostly at herself, but merged with her frustration over the previous dairy issue) - was a full family effort to clean out the freezer, which became progressively more light-hearted except for when mr smear thought it appropriate to begin trolling me.

the rest of the afternoon was a mix of playing slay the spire 2, and another episode or two of tokyo ghoul.

gd still wasn't feeling okay by the time we left for our cousins', so she sadly stayed behind.

the evening was very pleasant, mr smear was well-behaved and generally quite complimentary about the food, and the only thing i'm uncomfortably regretting was telling the story of how i got fired. not because it was inappropriate - there had been a point to the story - but because i was halfway through the story when i realized that it's a very long story and there's no way for me to "get to the point" without adding so much more detail...

we came home pretty late. right before leaving i coughed for the first time, which was the first indication that something was coming. by the time we arrived home, it had progressed to a proper, troubling post-nasal drip.

after showering i played more slay the spire 2 until mr smear went to bed, which took him so long that i eventually agreed to let him shower in the morning. which i'm kinda glad he did - he jumped into the shower first thing this morning with none of the usual bedtime time pressure, he didn't take too long, and for the duration was living his best life with his music blasting but not waking gd up because there were two-and-a-half closed doors between them.

for all its issues, this apartment is such a huge upgrade from where we were it's ridiculous.

while he showered, i finished reading the day everything changed. the artwork is fantastic and the stories are powerful, but i feel like the writing doesn't always do the stories justice.

the masses move through the tent city

 the nights have been relatively quiet the past few days, but i've been sleeping worse. physical nerve discomfort, primarily, but also mental disquiet.

we got up yesterday morning at 10am, which felt wrong somehow. it was only in the evening that we learned that it was wrong, because daylight savings time. it took us a remarkably long time to get out the house, by which stage the weather had turned to cold and wet.

we were nervous about traveling across the city and getting caught in an attack while outside, but fortunately we were caught once while at the mall, and the second time while waiting for the bus home, so we had time to get down into the parking lot.

man, the tent city is an experience.

between the mobs of mall people, and mr smear being generally disagreeable, and a siren catching us before i managed to get myself a second coffee when i was already feeling twitchy desperate, i had zero patience by the time we left. but we had managed to get the two things we needed the most: a kettle cord* and a smaller (and less permeable) shower curtain.

* how the hell did we end up with one less than we have appliances that need them?!

and gd's hair-care products, and also a large container of cholent, which mr smear finally tried and liked ^_^

once we got home, i spoke to two cousins, declining the still-open invitation to a pesach seder because there's no way we're traveling far with the war still on.

big data's been doing a lot of work on the building these days, and in the afternoon he came over with his tools to give me a hand with putting up a shelf to tidy up our modem / router situation. not only was he a great help with getting the shelf up easily and neatly, but he had a brilliant idea of attaching our sound bar underneath it, and we now have the solution we should have had for the past four years - it's awesome!

unfortunately, while we did get the projector set up "well enough" (using polystyrene from the electric hob's box that we hadn't tossed yet), it's clear that it's seen better days and that at some point we're going to need to upgrade it :(

i mean, it's served us well for a decade already...

a bit later we went upstairs to join them for dinner. good food and plenty of it, and aside from some issues with mr smear we all had a very pleasant evening. it was very late by the time we finally went to bed**, but between the achievements of the day, the company, and a fair amount of alcohol, i went to bed feeling quite relaxed.

** after watching the first episode of rick and morty with gd so that she could be reminded of why mr smear shouldn't have seen it

so it would have been nice if i'd been able to sleep better.

...

it's been a peaceful morning so far. i sorted out the playstation in preparation for mr smear's friend coming over, and i've watched some random things, and maybe i'll do something productive now or maybe i won't.

no offset

 last night was disruptive again. less than the night before, enough to make today a bit messy.

we all got up late again.

coffee and ghost in the shell - currently in the chapter which the central action of the movie is based on - and then most of the work day spent fighting an IDE not playing nicely with AI agents whose wheels are spinning but aren't going anywhere fast.

meanwhile, gd had a productive day unpacking and moving things around, and our apartment is starting to make a bit more sense. i mean, i still don't know what kind of furniture we'll need or how things will fit together, but it's definitely easier to begin using our imaginations.

zero exercise today, unless taking recycling downstairs counts. and now, after showering and brushing my teeth and making myself a cup of tea, i remember that i put a box of not-trash outside where the trash goes, and i probably need to go out and take it somewhere more likely to be enjoyed by random passers-by...

i had a short chat with one of our cousins earlier, it looks like we're not the only ones lacking confidence that a normal pesach seder is going to happen this year. my mom's re-booked her flights for next month, which i'm guessing will be more-or-less back to (a new) normal.

i feel... kind empty this evening. like i just don't have mental capacity to feel. but there's stuff i wanna do and it's bothering me that i'm not doing it, and that it's been days of not doing it...

jalapeño-powered

 my knees are threatening every time i get up, and my lower back's sore, and my neck's been giving me trouble on and off today. hello, mid-forties.

...

i'm very excited to report that before leaving the apartment this morning, i was able to complete the work on my side project's auth flows, and i'm hoping to have the whole thing essentially ready to roll out before i begin my new job on monday!

our first stop was dropping off the first challah-peño at the bakery. we're looking forward to hearing their review, it seemed like the wife thought it was good :)

gd and i walked to the light rail and made our way to the school, where mr smear was waiting, alone, playing with one of the school cats.

i thought he was allergic to cats? i don't know anymore.

we walked to our cousins, with gd stopping by the pharmacy on the way and mr smear and i sitting down at a coffee shop so that i could have a coffee and he could eat his lunch, then show me some really funny drawings he's been working on.

lunch was long, and mostly really nice. our cousin appeared to be more restrained that usual regarding overriding our parenting, and i think a lot of what we said and did really pressed her buttons... but all-in-all it was a pleasant afternoon.

unfortunately, gd had been getting more and more uncomfortable because of the cold, so the beginning of our walk home (we couldn't catch a cab) was a bit rough until she warmed up a bit. mr smear and i discovered jalapeño pretzels on the way home, which are really good.

after we got home, it was time to bake another challah-peño for ourselves (that's a lot of carbs for one day), and while we waited for them i caught up with the class whatsapp group which had gone a bit off the rails over the course of the day, which led to some important-yet-fun family conversations.

over dinner and after, we watched most of the first episode of the a-team, which we apparently tried to watch with mr smear before (but i can't look up "a-team" on my blog) - mr smear was skeptical at first, but once it got going he was all in :)

after everyone else went to bed (around 11pm), i completed my (relative) speed run through botopia, and now i'm sitting with my chamomile getting ready for bed.

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

today went much better than it could have. in spite of a bit of a rocky start - gd realized at 8am that mr smear hadn't yet left the light rail station, and when i called him he informed me that "the trains had been too full for him to get on", at which point i yelled at him so loudly that i actually hurt my throat. i feel stupid for having lost my temper, and knowing he was right to put the phone down, but at least he got on the next train.

i spent most of the following hour sending my comics samples to the publisher, then gd and i did the grocery shopping, and i ate breakfast, and then i sat down and prepared for the afternoon's in-office workshop.

gd and i arrived just on time for the meeting with the principal (and councillor, and grade supervisor, and class teacher). it was a heavy meeting, but it looks like we got them to at least understand where mr smear's coming from, and how much we're invested in his success, and from their side they made it very clear that this is a critical time for mr smear to learn how to cope and cooperate, and that we need to get him back into therapy.

i just realized as i type this that it's therapy for a very different reason than before, for which we should be grateful.

i don't know why they asked us where mr smear's name came from, but i obviously explained it well because at least one of the women got emotional :)

gd and i split up at one of the light rail stations, and i went to his previous psychologist's clinic to ask about taking him back. unfortunately, the usual receptionist wasn't there and the one who was responded very bureaucratically. so i walked further along to a coffee shop, where i composed a message to his last psychologist asking for assistance.

i tried to get something constructive done, but couldn't concentrate, so i took a walk to my new office, arriving just in time to be introduced to some people before the workshop began.

between the miserable weather and trying to make arrangements for gd to see my aunt before she leaves, i'd been regretting signing up for the workshop, but in retrospect i'm glad i did.

from there (it was running late, and when i left 15 minutes after the scheduled end of the session it was still ongoing) i fast-walked to a bus stop where i could meet gd and mr smear while coordinating with my aunt and cousin. ultimately, we made it pretty much at the intended time, and we had a great hour and a half with them :)

we quickly gave up trying to find dinner in the area, and took a taxi home (kinda rude driver, and took an extra-long route), and mr smear jumped in the shower and gd and i sorted out a grocery delivery while we waited for the food.

the rainbow burgers were amazing ("chunk" steak and perfect garnishing/sauces). we ate too many fries.

we got mr smear into bed, and then i called my sister, and we talked a loooong time about my niece's drama, and then about mr smear's drama, and i was starting to fall asleep by the time we ended the call. then i remembered i hadn't brushed my teeth, so i did that, then i called my mom to sync, and then i showered, and now i'm thinking that maybe it's close to my own bedtime.

it's been a day.

good

 my fingers hurt from cleaning the apartment today (probably mostly from getting gunk out of the wheels of the vacuum cleaner). my eyelids are drooping, it's very late after a very late night with mr smear having dinner with my aunt and a bunch of cousins in south tel aviv.

i got a call this morning informing me that the client i interviewed with wants me on board, and wants me on board much sooner than planned. this is good news, and quite a relief because i was worried that being rejected on my first client application might set a bad tone.

it'll also be a relief to be earning again earlier.

babysitting

 it was difficult getting out of bed this morning. i made it even harder by moving to the couch and covering myself with five soft blankets (we just bought another two a couple of days ago).

i seem to recall it not being the smoothest back-to-school morning, but i don't actually recall anything particularly troublesome either, so 🤷

i accompanied gd to the dentist, where there was a weird mix-up about her appointment time (it's not clear if they messed up, or if she misheard), and the secretary was being unpleasantly and aggressively defensive while i was trying to figure out what happened, and gd assures me that she's seen this same woman drive other patients mad so i guess i shouldn't take it personally...

apparently gd's situation isn't too worrying, but the dentist who examined her needed to have his finger put on the place she's worried about before he could recognize that there was anything at all, so...

we took a walk past the doggy cafe, and were both surprised to hear my name being yelled by my cousin - who's just arrived from the states with my aunt - flying past on a scooter! it's a tiny country :P

i picked up a coffee, and we continued on to her gastro scope. we arrived early, concerned that gd drinking sips of water when it's supposed to be a water fast might be a problem :/

we waited quite a while, and i spent the time working on one of my side projects. then we went through, and i hung around while gd waited for quite a while (on a less comfortable chair) until they came to get her, and sent me back outside. i waited a while (not too long) and read dev articles, then they called me in and we waited for quite a while until a doctor came to tell us they hadn't really found anything interesting.

it's information, i guess.

gd was pretty messed up after the anaesthetic, but okay, and overall her experience was considerably improved from the nightmare scope she endured in montreal at the hands of a couple of evilly cruel doctors and nurses who barely sedated her and... i guess that's her story to tell.

we came home, i ate breakfast, barely finishing before jumping onto a zoom presentation about using AI to handle entire task lifecycles. after a pretty boring hour, not only was i left unconvinced that one should do that, but i was pretty convinced that the presenter's company (which he's running, essentially) is burning through huge quantities of human capital and energy capital and that the value-for-money isn't as high as they probably think it is.

but i was reminded to reactivate my sonarqube plugin for vscode, which gave me some fun chores to do this evening.

mr smear came home, and sat down to his homework for the first time since before the holidays. it didn't go well (i later discovered he's been skipping exercises again, which blows my mind because it took us months to catch up last time and it was a big deal for both of us).

meanwhile, i napped under all the blankets until i needed to go to my dermatologist appointment. i didn't feel like going, it was cold and i was tired. but i went. the dermatologist did a full examination (and used the sun damage on my ankles to quiz his intern), and i guess the thing that was bothering me a few months ago when i made the appointment must have gone away 🤷

i walked home, chatting with my aunt and then my mom, the latter discussing apartment hunting and the fact that we should get started already.

i stopped at the bakery on the way home to chat and pick up more-expensive-than-i-expected yummo's bars, then came home to take care of mr smear's toenails and shower, and deal with his non-compliance, and have dinner, and then read another chapter of the ocean at the end of the lane.

i'd forgotten about the bathroom scene. i apologized to mr smear, to his five year old self, and to all his selves since. i don't know what i was thinking at the time, but that definitely wasn't appropriate.

...

after reporting that back to gd, i told her what i've been thinking about a lot today: things are really hard for her, and i know that i can't fully understand what she's going through, and i know that i get upset with some of her behaviors that aren't her fault, and that that's not fair. at the same time, though, i don't feel like i ever really get a break, and my life seems like a never-ending gauntlet, and i guess i need to accept that as my base-line.

all either of us can really do is just do the best we can to keep putting one foot in front of the other. i'm not sure what normal people go through, but whatever it is, i'm pretty sure we're not normal and that this isn't it.

shhhhhhhhhh 🤫

 i'm sitting here quietly in my bedroom because my family forgot my birthday's tomorrow and they're "secretly" making me card 🤣

today was pretty cool. this morning we watched batman begins, which of course we all enjoyed, and in the early afternoon mr smear and i rode / bladed to his school to test out the route together, most of which was fun.

one thing in particular got under my skin, though:

a ten year old just told me led zeppelin's whole lotta love is elevator music and now i need to figure out if that's an offense worthy of disowning him for 😒

the evening was chill, i've suddenly found myself on a drum & bass kick for the first time ever. and over delicious ramen* dinner we finished watching young guns, which was awesome.

* we're actively praying for positive news from the consulting agency soon 🤞

and now, getting ready for mr smear's bedtime and then probably putting some effort into the assessment.

distraction

 yesterday:

yesterday got off to a busy start, mr smear went to school on his own (on his own by bus, which we only learned later) and we headed to bnei brak for an appointment for gd. the doctor could handle speaking in english, but gd did a great job of breaking her teeth and i was barely needed :)

we got off at the hospital stop to pick up some things on the way home, after which i spent some time preparing for an interview. the interview went well.

i chatted with my mom for a bit (mixed feelings: pride in my nephew for telling my niece what's what, sadness that she's been neglecting her older child while planning on bringing a new one into the world).

i dropped a return package off at the post office and then paid a visit to another clinic to confirm that we'd done the right thing when trying to book gd a followup appointment.

i did some post-interview "homework" (playing around with temporal), and then when it started getting dark i headed to the comic library - which i'd never heard of before - where i found mr smear engrossed in tokyo ghoul.

the library has a lot of interesting stuff, and i was pleasantly surprised to learn that residents have an all-access library membership, so we picked up a copy of the incal and two tokyo ghoul volumes and made our way home, with me investing some time in getting mr smear familiar with the landmarks along the way.

i decided to tell mr smear that i'm leaving it up to him to determine whether what he's reading is appropriate or not, and to talk to me if he encounters anything confusing or disturbing.

just before dinner i discovered that the dinosaurs tv series is on apple tv after all! so after mr smear got through his math homework, we sat down to eat and enjoy the first episode :)

it was an easy bedtime, and i fell asleep pretty easily.

today:

i slept quite a lot last night, and had a lot of strangely unremarkable dreams.

everyone's morning was smooth and positive, and i accompanied mr smear to school "just because". i came home for breakfast, and then gd and i walked to get mr smear's school logo printed on his shirts. on the way back we picked up a lentil soup, then i stopped for a coffee while gd visited the pharmacy, and then we stumbled upon a good place to buy a comforter (it's starting to get colder).

since we've been home, we've chilled, had soup for lunch, and i'm now doing a terrible job of focusing and being productive. it doesn't help that gd's watching 28 years later while i try to be functional...

...

and in an hour or so i'm off to a (hopefully) final interview for the consulting agency 🤞

preparation

 yesterday:

i did a little bit more work on my side project, but spent a lot of the day on leetcode practice questions, when i wasn't just reading or doing chores (gd and i spent a good chunk of yesterday dusting and de-molding mr smear's room)

i picked mr smear up from school again, and we walked to the center again, and we picked up his friend's mounted poster, which looked amazing.

we got it home, the homework went well, and we ate way too many pastries for dinner.

bedtime was a bit rougher than the previous two nights. of course. but it could have been worse 🤷

i started falling asleep during jujutsu kaisen, but then woke myself up as i getting to bed :/

today:

i got practically no sleep last night. i didn't feel terrible this morning, but i didn't feel rested, either. but the entire night was a combination of mental restlessness and the usual lower back / hip pains.

i took mr smear to school by bus this morning, demonstrating to him that it's considerably faster than the light rail. i took a walk through the mall on the way home - by accident, really - and then spent most of the day doing practice questions on leetcode again.

this evening's planning - which was originally for me to go to a job interview - became complicated by mr smear's friend's availability... after a "discussion" with gd about mr smear travelling by bus on his own, it was decided that he would come with me to the interview, and we'd go together from there to his friend's place.

on the way, i decided that if bringing my kid to an interview was a problem, i'd consider that a red flag. fortunately, it wasn't a problem at all, everyone was cool (including mr smear!) and the biggest concern was that he wasn't impressed by their snack selection :P

the interview went on much, much longer than anyone expected (2.5 hours), but by and large i got a good sense of how they operate (i like the approach) and i think they were happy with my performance (in spite of my arriving with no idea of their tech stack or what they really do), and i feel a good culture fit overall. i hope the feeling was mutual!

mr smear and i caught a bus to his friend's, who was delighted by the gift, but disappointed that mr smear had to leave directly (by this point it was 8.30pm already). we then raced to catch a bus home, wolf down dinner, and get mr smear ready for and into bed.

fortunately, bedtime was smooth tonight.

oh! and we had an entertaining chat with my mom and sister, who's just announced to the family that my niece is pregnant again. none of us know quite how we feel about that :P

...

right, these past two days have felt a bit nuts, and i can't quite decide what i'm going to do right now. on my mind: praying that these guys are excited about me and that i get an offer soon, and hoping that tomorrow's HR interview with a well-known outsourcing firm goes well.

today felt like a good day.

closure

 oh, and there are other anxieties too... like the "i've just started an application with a company and they're not going to be okay with me stopping the process with them for the fourth time in three years", and the unrelated but not negligible "my son isn't fully understanding how precarious his tenancy at his new school is" anxiety...

i accompanied mr smear to school this morning, then ducked into the office to clear my desk. i encountered two of my now-ex-coworkers and we talked for a bit, with me needing to do more consoling than them and not doing a particularly great job of it.

the "decision" meeting of my hearing took about five minutes. i wasn't unhappy with the severance they offered. when i later signed the document, it was with utter disgust and contempt for their pitifully childish responses to my hearing responses that were encoded within.

i posted a farewell message in the company whatsapp, to which i have received a heartwarming outpouring of commiseration and goodwill. there's something extremely precious in knowing that during the course of my eight month run i touched a lot of people, and that a heck of a lot of them understand how capable i am and how wrong this all is.

some of my now-ex-coworkers are miserable, some are scared, some are furious.

one of the back-stabbers had the gall to send me a perfunctory message, gd was impressed by my ability to phrase "go fuck yourself" so politely.

i must say: it struck me on the way to gd's eye doctor appointment that had my boss fired me the week before, or had he let me grind another month or three in the new team before firing me, i think my reputation would have suffered considerably more harm. he has no idea how much his bumbling just-so has protected me, and i guess i should be grateful.

in the morning, my old improv teammate called me to discuss his employer, and not only did he sell it but he gave me some useful advice about interviewing with them.

i'm now looking for something a little less adventurous, something that will hopefully stick to my resume for a few years at least.

[logging in to my cousin's funeral on zoom]

not being employed, i was able to accompany gd to her eye doctor appointment in neve tzedek. we picked up a really good coffee from mae on the way, and the appointment itself was interesting because the doctor is french so a) gd didn't need me for translation at all and the communication was fluid and b) i was surprised to find i understood most of what transpired.

after a mission to find polenta we came home, stopping by the store on the way, and i was feeling pretty weak and a bit faint. i wolfed down some leftovers, then rushed off to the school to inspect mr smear's locker. on my way, i spoke to skippity, who hadn't been able to bring himself to join us yesterday. i told him it's not a good idea to grieve alone, and i gave him some encouragement, and i really hope he doesn't keep taking this so hard.

1. i learned that when mr smear doesn't leave class with everyone else, he holds up the janitor who does not appreciate it at all.

2. his friend ratted on him and i learned that he's still using the teacher's computer (boy, was he surprised to be informed that all his teacher has to do is look at her browser history)

3. he very confidently informed his friend that i was fired, which made my heart sink. later, when i mentioned it to gd on the phone, i was walking into a light-rail tunnel and said it out loud just as a whole bunch of people came walking round the corner :/

4. the books he claimed he couldn't find were right in front of his eyes when he opened his locker. and he's missing a book, that he likely left outside the locker, and we're going to have to put down a lot of money to replace it :(

it took so long to get out of there, that i was under serious time pressure to find a place to take the sensitive* intro call. we pulled into a hotel foyer, paid the dues (a coffee and orange juice), and i had what felt like a pretty good conversation.

* the fourth-timers

we went into the mall and went through the posters hoping to find what his friend wanted, but they didn't have it. then we returned home, breezed through his hebrew homework, and he did his math homework well.

gd made good on the polenta, i usually don't like it but i totally enjoyed the dinner tonight.

the bedtime routine went quite smoothly, but i almost fell asleep reading to mr smear and i joined gd in the living room and passed out on the couch. i woke up a while later extremely uncomfortable, and transferred myself to the bed. then i got up to my midnight alarm for my cousin's funeral.

for decades, my memories of him have been tarnished by something he did when he emigrated, but listening to the eulogies and being reminded of all his other attributes, i feel like i've been judging him rather unfairly.

...

mr smear just jump-scared me, it's 1.30am and he just had a nightmare. i am grateful, though, he finally got the message about not yelling "help" from his bed...