a series of unrelated events

 i guess i slept alright last night. i woke up to a pleasant morning, it's was cooler and cloudy today (the heavy summer appears to be over) and i finished reading the history of western art in comics, which was a bit dry, but nevertheless an excellent teaching tool and the illustrations are great. i was also struck by inspiration to do something with hieronymus bosch's garden of earthly delights.

i managed to take care of a bunch of admin today. i was disappointed to learn today that the voucher for a pizza hut pizza which i was gifted by an employer a couple of years ago had expired. gd and i got into a bit of a tiff about something - parenting related - and i was pleased to have been able to figure out (eventually) how to express my side of things in a way that landed. i might be rougher than i need to be, but it's important for me that my wife and child understand my motivation, and that my number one priority is and has always been keeping mr smear safe and making sure he can handle himself out in the world.

it's after half-past eleven and mr smear is reading in bed and giggling to himself... and that's after i finally finished reading the colour of magic to him a little earlier...

mr smear and i walked to the comics library, which we found closed until next week. that was sad. we continued walking to the icon festival, but as soon as we arrived mr smear decided he wasn't feeling well (i believe it was the crowds that put him off) so we walked right through it and caught a bus or two home.

i then chatted with sailor for an hour and a half (!), and i'm relieved and pleased that he's excited about the social media app i'm building, and while we talked i formed some ideas about how to turn it into a platform that supports others building "apps" on top of it ^_^

mr smear chose cthulhu fluxx, which is apparently his favorite, and it was a fun game.

we watched another episode of the fall and rise of reggie dinkins over kimchi rice dinner, during which i convinced mr smear to try a drop of the carolina reaper hot sauce 😈

after showering after dinner, we sat down to watch the second half of suicide squad. i must admit i dozed off a couple of times, and a lot of the writing and acting was iffy, but mr smear enjoyed it immensely so 🤷‍♂️

now, post bedtime (even if he's not asleep yet, and it's been about twenty minutes since i started writing - largely because i've been getting distracted poking the AI in the background), i've been making progress on the side project and also on my mini-games, but i think i might end up going to bed soon.

breath

yesterday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and then we were done, too.

today so far:

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

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

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

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,

שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

...

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

in the in-between moments

 the ice-cream mission went well, we met up with mongoose and his daughter and aside from a moment where i rescued her ice-cream cone from a tumble to the floor (we think she thought i was taking it from her) and a few "the usual" moments of mr smear crossing lines, we had a pretty good afternoon.

today:

i got a pretty good night's sleep, but woke up earlier than my early alarm to take the dell in for evaluation / repair. the trip to herzeliya and back was pretty quick, but finding the place once i was off the bus was a bit of a mission.

both ways i didn't use my phone, and having that time to process my thoughts felt good.

the half hour or so between getting back home and leaving for work were stressful as i tried to set up my macbook for mr smear to use during the day. everything went wrong until i figured out that i didn't need to do what apple wasn't letting me do (their UX really can stink sometimes), after which i still had quite a lot of configuration to do...

work was full of meetings and interviews, some more pleasant than others, but mostly alright. and overall it feels like the day was successful. taking friday's cholent for lunch was a jolly good idea. learning that thurday's conversation with the new product expert inspired her to consider game dev a real resource for our product was exciting ^_^

i was a bit irritable this evening, but it was generally a good evening nonetheless. after watching why everyone is cancelling their duolingo right now i made an effort to get back into the alternative i've been putting together, and moving to a different PC has taught me that there was some funky stuff going on with my windows copy.

much frustration later, i've fixed and patched and i'm pretty much ready to move forward again. and developing on a macbook is much more comfortable, even while i'm irritated at microsoft's enshittification of vscode (using the extension marketplace).

but now it's much later than i expected to go to bed.

teeth out

 it was a weird tuesday. it started off simply, but then gd became scared about her tooth extraction so i accompanied her, but i first had a chat with a recruiter scheduled so i walked while she took the bus.

i looked at the scale this morning, and realized i've climbed past 82kg. not fantastic.

i initially thought it was a phone call, but was then reminded that it was a zoom chat, so that was a bit awkward. more awkward was the fact that i could barely here the recruiter, so we gave up and switched to phone calls, which suffered from reception issues 🤦

anyway, we finally got it right, it sounded like she was happy with my history and what i'm looking for, we'll see.

i arrived at the dental clinic, sat down next to gd, and opened my laptop to try to get some work done. gd, meanwhile, struck up a conversation with the arab dentist's six year old. when she finally went in for her appointment, the kid didn't hesitate to switch his attention to me. he's very cute, and bright, but he's in that phase during which kids barely stop for air while telling stories with no point that never end, and by the time we got out of there i felt like my brain was bleeding out of my ears.

at least gd seems to be doing well post-extraction. that's actually quite big news.

i caught a bus to the office, on the way seeing a question from my boss that made me realize that the thing i got stuck on last night and this morning made absolutely no sense, and between the mma blowout yesterday and this morning's goings-on i didn't even register before forwarding a request for help that missed the point completely...

... so that was embarassing. i walked into what i thought was a strategy/update meeting, explained myself and apologized - interrupted twice by my cousin appearing out of nowhere to hand me his laptop to look after it and take it back, for some reason - and only after that was resolved discovered that the actual purpose of the meeting was to figure out where to have lunch :P

i had to choose between gd's delicious (and healthy) cottage pie leftovers alone, or a burger joint with the team. i've mentioned this "new learning" before, but professionally, nine times out of ten lunch with the team should trump lunch alone.

the vegan burger at vitrina was delicious, albeit a bit small. but the chips portion was large, and i shouldn't have eaten all of it. it was at that point that i decided that it was time to rejoin the rollerblading group.

mr smear lost another tooth today!

the work part of the work day was all over the place, although i definitely learned some things and at least moved forward a little bit.

...

i played a bit with pokemon pocket over the course of the day, but i didn't feel quite as drawn to it. a big part of that is the battle matching system, which keeps matching me with players who ridiculously out-class me. when i got home, i rediscovered pokemon live, which is the pokemon i played before, and after reading a bit about the differences and trying out its mobile app i'm pretty confident that it's the "real" pokemon game.

it's certainly the full game, as opposed to the pared-down pocket system.

...

the evening went well until bedtime, we could all have handled it better (a really silly argument over moving a chest of drawers) but it could certainly have been worse.

then i geared up, strapped on my blades, and headed to the group.

it was a really nice night. a good route - an easy one, though by the end of the 17km i was falling apart a little bit - with quite a lot of familiar faces. the last few kilometers i ended up in a riveting conversation with a woman who's just putting together a startup, something that could be really helpful to a lot of women (and something that could have really helped gd a few years back when she was still trying to get pregnant again), and she was really interested when i started talking about gamification.

i made a whole lot of suggestions, and i realized while i was making them that i would love for that to be my actual day job.

i got home feeling pretty good about having gotten a proper workout, and a good social experience, and i'm now stretched and showered and caught up on posting and pretty much ready for bed.

post-nap

ah, i forgot about my call with a dermatologist yesterday - he gave me satisfactory answers to my questions, and i'm pretty sure i'm almost done with the treatment now.

...

i posted, i napped. i didn't nap enough, but sufficiently to spend the next couple of hours playing around with winkill and considering retrying unity development.

for a while before mr smear and i left the apartment, something i'd chewed on had triggered The Pain in the back of my jaw and it got so bad that i needed to take anti-inflammatories for it. they kicked in about forty five minutes after we left.

i coaxed mr smear outdoors with pokemon go. at least, he came out for the pokemon, but had to have an apple before he could play (he doesn't like eating fruit, it's a thing)... that gave us plenty of opportunity for chatting before i lost him to the phone :P

we walked all the way to the beach, at which point i convinced him to hand over the phone and put his feet in the sand:

are you having fun in the sand? yes. can you explain why coming onto the beach had to be a struggle? yes. because my feet weren't dirty then. now i don't care.

we had a good time at the beach, followed by the usual struggle in getting him off the beach once we were there. but the walk home was nice, the last stretch was physically taxing, mostly good fun with a "tickle fight" turning into a proper chase. i didn't feel good when we got home, though, and i think it was partially the anti-inflammatories on an empty stomach, partially the chase maybe moving stuff in my neck around and putting pressure on my vagus nerve. whatever it was, it calmed down shortly after we began eating and i'm feeling alright now.

i'm reading the wind in the willows to mr smear, i feel like he's actually ready for it this time. he's been really into bugsnax lately, i'm quite impressed by the depth of the game, and only after typing this thought to look up some reviews and realized that it's in the horror genre.

huh. do i tell my 'fraidy cat son?