the mandate

 i'm absolutely exhausted, but finishing my "good night" tea and dropping these notes before hitting either the couch or my bed.

yesterday:

a mix of learning, getting distracted and improving my changes from wednesday, and distracting myself with random shit.

in the early afternoon we all took a walk, a very pleasant one, and ended up at the ice-cream parlor with the salted oreos flavor. mr smear was *extremely* excited by how clean their toilets were and couldn't stop repeating, in wonder, how much they care about their customers.

after we returned home, i caffeined up and got a ride to the shiva house. a whole lot of us were there, the family was stunned to hear stories about a side (or sides) of my lead that they never saw, and our hearts broke for his wife, their kids, and his poor parents.

that was hard.

i missed my ride on the way out but got a lift from one of our founders who i've been chasing for a one-on-one for weeks, so we talked all the way back to tel aviv. i was in a hurry to meet with the rest of the team on the beach for beers in my lead's honor, stopped to use goodness' toilets and paid for a shake, and then had to hang around forever while they made it.

and it was getting cold.

i hopped in a taxi and met up with them, borrowed a sweater and we all commiserated over beers and pizza. i got a ride home just in time to say goodnight to mr smear, get myself ready for bed, and crash.

today:

in the middle of night i became restless, both physically and psychologically uncomfortable, and after an hour or two i moved to the couch where i stayed until morning. (i think the massager helped a bit)

mr smear's school's on strike (and again tomorrow), but we forgot until we arrived there... we did a full page of harry potter in hebrew, and he did well, and then i went to work.

between conversing with coworkers, a picnic in my lead's honor, and bussing through to the funeral, the day was almost all about him. in between, we discovered some issues with a deployment and i just (a few minutes ago) redeployed, found some more issues, and put it aside until tomorrow.

the day was hard, the funeral being the hardest part. i've only known the man for two and a half months, but son of a bitch, i don't think i've laughed that much or cried so hard at a funeral before. i still can't believe he's in the ground.

and i'm keenly feeling the weight of the additional mandate to succeed for his memory's sake, and for the sake of his family.

the big nine

it got worse before it got better. it took another couple of hours before i was finally able to get some sleep. during that time i watched random shit, did bloons: adventure time quests, and played inscryption.

i had a revelation while playing inscryption - instead of investing in beating the game, i made a conscious decision to try and just enjoy playing it. i also started "cheating" - the battles only save after they're over, so if you mess up you can just bail and continue from the previous save point.

i ended up completing the 11th challenge level of kaycee's mod before crashing.

the morning started off well, although i was still struggling to formulate a plan of action for when i arrived at the office.

mr smear turned nine years old today! we managed to make it really nice, and special, and he had a really good time. except for the bit where gd took him to the mall in the hope of finding something to engage him / a birthday present, but once they got there he just wanted to come home and wait for me to take them to goodness.

i had an intense day at work, which began with me taking aside my coworker (the "lead" from yesterday) and together we cleared the air and had a productive (albeit somewhat heated) discussion. the whole thing was an enormous relief. that was followed by sprint meetings where we took those points further, and aside from a moment in which my boss repeatedly told me to stop shouting at him* i felt that even the items i wasn't happy with were at least addressed and given some thought.

* i was fired up, everyone was talking over each other, and i hadn't realized i was shouting - so that was embarassing...

the rest of the day was pretty intense, but ultimately successful.

i walked home, and we got ready, and we took the bus to king george. the bus driver was a maniac, and although getting through to the bus' service agent was a frustrating mission it was really nice that the app we're using (rav-pass) makes it easy to get all the actual bus's details and i could be sure that the bus company knows exactly who i was reporting.

our experience at goodness was excellent. the service was a bit off - though it was understandable as they were very short-staffed - and they no longer server the dish mr smear was specifically excited about, but the food and drinks we ordered were delicious and the experience overall was fantastic. not least of which being that mr smear behaved well even by an adult's standards, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself and his food, and the whole thing was just a real pleasure and felt worth the expense.

we got home reasonably early, and after showering and drawing we had a smooth bedtime. all in all, it was a grand day for mr smear ^_^

now... praying to be able to catch up on some of the sleep i missed last night. the war anxiety's still there, and it's *very* frustrating that our western allies are asking us to shoot ourselves (and our credibility) in the foot by exercising restraint, and we've already suffered more casualties up north. here's praying for a peaceful night 🙏