girl drama claude drama

 hoooo boy, it's been a couple of days. i'm going to be rushing through stuff i don't want to rush through...

yesterday:

arriving in the office just in time for my meeting, then spending a good half hour trying to get my computer connected to the network. nobody knows why my vpn connection keeps dropping, and i lost a significant amount of ephemeral context - not just work time - resolving it.

i spent a good chunk of my day running test jobs to enable me to finish working on one of the changes, and then i had to leave early to pick up mr smear, grab a bite to eat (and a cup of coffee), and head south to his class end-of-year pool party at a country club.

not only did we have quite a time getting there, between bus line switches and an unhelpful transit app, and some drugged out guy aggressively harassing innocent bystanders (he came too close for comfort while mr smear was fiddling with his sandals, but i think he ducked when he picked up my vibe).

while we were trying to get there, gd had managed to get herself lost on the way to the dentist, and there was much drama as i tried to troubleshoot remotely for her...

the pool party was really cool. the kids in this school are a different culture completely, much less cynical, and there were a few "performances", a couple of nice speeches, and then into the water. only a couple of parents went in with the kids - myself being one of them - and i had a good chat with the mom of one of mr smear's friends. and then some fun with mr smear before getting out (he was disappointed, but he was having a good time with his friends) into a chilly post-water 28 degrees.

i sat with a couple of other parents and we really got in to politics, ai, economics and ideologies, it was an exhilarating rabbit-hole dive and i think we all enjoyed it. when we were thinking about leaving, the mom offered me and mr smear a ride home, which i gratefully accepted.

suddenly, mr smear came out the pool and declared that he was "bored" and ready to go, but i could tell by his expression that something was up. i walked with him a little and managed to get it out of him - one of the kids had told his class nemesis that he liked one of the girls, they all were chanting it loudly, and the girl in question heard and apparently seemed to quite enjoy the idea of mr smear liking her.

he was mortified, dying inside, and i gave him some calming advice... but also, when i asked him what her name was, had to inform him that we were going to be going home with them in the car!

both the kids were a bit distracted on the way to the vehicle, but she saved mr smear from the scenario he was particularly dreading by jumping into the front seat. but then, as we pulled out, mr smear let one rip - i don't think anyone else heard it, but he opened that window really quickly 🤣

the ride home was much less awkward, the little girl's very sweet, and he made it home in one piece :)

it was pretty late, we had an amazing dumpling-y dinner that gd's concocted, and a good conversation about relationships and responding to teasing at bedtime.

today:

i didn't sleep so well last night, i spent at least a couple of miserably hours lying in bed, not quite awake but certainly not asleep.

i received some good news this morning, and some not-so-good news: gd's physio treatments are finally being covered - half the amount, but considerably better than nothing - and my request to have the parking fine cancelled was rejected.

the main thing this morning before heading to work was switching my copilot subscription for a claude code one. i figured it made the most sense, not just because it seems better from a value-for-money point of view, but also because my client is switching everyone over to it and i have to learn how to work with it anyway.

so that was pretty much the story of my day: trying to get real work done while simultaneously trying to get claude code to work the way i want it to. it's not a trivial migration at all, and claude code does a bunch of things in an utterly infuriating way (and i'm not the only one in our area to feel this). that stretched the day into a particularly long and emotionally draining one - lots of "i REALLY hate claude" moments - and i got stuck on something at the end of the work day that made it take longer to get out of the office than i could handle.

i picked up some healthy snacks from the supermarket on the way home. i wanted to take mr smear rollerblading, but he was doing hebrew homework and i walked in just in time to go over it with him. we both learned some stuff, but overall i'm very pleased with how he's doing.

we watched some more grease at dinner, which is initiating quite a few interesting conversations, and after dinner we had a lengthy and heated discussion about an incident with the crazy mom's manipulative daughter at school today; i'm so grateful that he voluntarily let us know immediately after school came out, because that gave me an opportunity to text his teacher before the madwoman poisons things.

i managed to do a little bit of productive stuff since putting him to bed, but i had to stop to write this and now it's feeling like bedtime.

expanding to fill the hours

psychologically, i'm really struggling. it wasn't a bad day, i think, but it was mentally tough and now that it's just about 10pm mr smear's finally gotten into the shower after only just finishing his hebrew homework. it has been extremely trying for me, even though i did finish my first ascension in slay the spire 2 while i sat behind him alternately coaching and chiding him.

i got a surprising number of hours in at work today, in spite of the fact that i had to take two hours to bus to the other side of bnei brak and back for a (literal) two-minute ultrasound.

it's always an experience seeing how those people live. bnei brak, a city as beautiful as its people. i arrived there with the back to the future theme in my head :P

my coworker who i spoke to for a couple of hours last week pitched some ideas this morning. this afternoon, our manager contacted me for a quick meeting and informed me that that coworker is no longer with us :(

the explanation he gave seemed reasonable, but didn't quite match with what my now-ex coworker said in a linkedin message (his company slack had been disabled by the time i found out).

apparently i'm okay? i guess we'll see.

we had a Q&A with my client's COO, which was edifying, but really, really long and boring. i'm really glad my client is not my employer, i'd be nervous for sure.

["i'm done showering!" | "really? the water's still running" | "well, if that's how you define if someone's still showering, then fine"]

i came home to hound mr smear (his homeroom teacher informed me today that he was trolling the hebrew teacher about his assignment which he'd claimed to have completed), and then we took a break for dinner (and highlander), and now...

... i have so much stuff to do, but i'm tired, and i don't feel like it. also, it's been two days and i'm sooooo damned sunburned it's ridiculous.

patience is a virtue signal

"patience my ass, i'm gonna kill somebody" - the vulture

 i must be getting better, because it's almost 1am and i'm only now getting ready to go to bed. one of my nostrils is a noticeably blocked, but otherwise i'm doing okay. for now...

the next meeting was run by the guy responsible for my current project, but related to an aspect of my previous project, which is owned by a team that doesn't really know anything about it. he mumbles, and even if he didn't mumble it would still be difficult to understand him - not the greatest communicator. and the team lead who didn't know why she was in the meeting doesn't have the best english, so i was amused when i saw that she'd sent me a message thanking me for summarizing - i explained that it wasn't for her, i really did need to verify that i'd understood what we were talking about for myself :P

mr smear came home, and he was absolutely taken with the bean bags; as gd pointed out, he's all cat.

i was supposed to leave the apartment at that point, but then learned that i had a meeting with my employer team. which turned out to be an hour long presentation, or sales pitch, for software i really don't care about. i was so bored by the halfway mark... it was basically an unpleasant minesweeper session for me.

i took a walk through to the courier pick-up point, which was quite a long walk, but it felt good to be out in the sun (even on such a suddenly hot day) with my brain switched off. then i caught a bus home, and between the bus and our apartment took a quick detour to hunt down gluten-free pastas for gd.

the good news is, i found some - and the spaghetti which we tried tonight was surprisingly decent! - but by the time i got to the self checkout i was already sans patience from all the tourists and leisure class people in the store and i had a really hard time keeping my cool while waiting for two women moving in slow motion and with entirely suboptimal bagging strategies.

i came home, oversaw some of mr smear's progress (he did well this afternoon) and got back to work. once done, mr smear called me over to demonstrate that he'd solved the multiplication level in human resource machine all by himself, and he was rightly proud of himself ^_^

i received a very strange email this evening, apparently from an investment research company who are offering to pay me to answer questions about my previous employer, answers which, if honest, would explicitly violate my termination agreement and i'd owe them my severance pay back. i wonder if this is a case of entrapment?

dinner and some more of dead poets society was nice, although by the time we got to dinner my patience had been worn down to nothing; i did lose my cool with my mother while trying to help her, and as much as it was partially her fault i was upset my reaction certainly wasn't appropriately measured. mr smear also did a little patience testing, but for the most part he continued behaving well.

after dinner i did a little more work on my telephony side project - i'm rather pleased with the results - and after watching a few videos i decided to allow myself some spire slaying. i've just completed my first run with the defect, so that's all the characters done (no ascensions yet), and some of the relics and cards i picked up were completely insane!

...

some good news, at least - it looks like gd's toe might be starting to heal 🤞

asshole accumulation

today - post posting - continued with four assholes. i called the jewish agency to find out something for my mother, and was stuck with their hold muzak while running around the supermarket looking for a product that they didn't stock. as i gave up and arrived at the self-checkout, an agent answered and promptly refused to answer my general question because my mother wasn't with me. while i was being pissed off about that, the checkout assistant came over and insisted on interrupting my call to tell me about a special on one of the items i was purchasing, to which i responded sharply "i really don't care" but i really wanted to scream it. the answer i got from the agent was basically that the people in cape town are continuing to waste my mother's time. i tried to reset emotionally, but almost got run over by an irresponsible cyclist as i stepped onto a crosswalk (he was coming up behind me, and decided to go around in front of me instead of behind me. or slow down a moment, as i had right of way. a few seconds later the crosswalk was blocked by an impatient taxi driver while it was still green for me to cross, and he got angry with me for indicating that he was doing something wrong.

later, i'd learn that half the kids in mr smear's class are sick with covid so tonight's lag b'omer bonfire isn't happening, so that was all for nought...

working from the office wasn't unpleasant, though i was very frustrated by the coffee machine situation. not only do people move the pipes between the dairy and non-dairy milks without cleaning them, and leave milk pouring onto the grid our cups are supposed to go on, but there's no decaf coffee anywhere.

my work day was... well, it was successful in the sense that i eventually managed to run the tests i needed to run (and that i arguably should have run weeks ago). it was unsuccessful in that i uncovered even more of a hot mess beneath the surface than i already thought there was. i worked a longer day than usual, and my last findings before stopping for the night stressed me out. i've sent an update to my manager so that he's not surprised, and i'm overall feeling pretty shit about it.

...

anyways. i came home for lunch, primarily because krybabie's widow (what a weird thing to type, even years later) had come over to pick up some stuff my mother brought with her. it was nice to see her, and it seems like she and the kids are doing quite well.

it turns out she recently met up with some old mutual friends, and that they have pictures of teenage me at summer camp, so i've just awkwardly reached out to them to ask if they'd do me a favor and send me a few of them... i don't have much from before i made aliyah, a handful of photos from my party days is just about everything.

...

mr smear once again came home without having done what i asked him, and i gave him the twenty minutes it took for me to get home from the office to rectify the situation. i spent some of the walk home wracking my brains trying to think of an appropriate and effective punishment if he didn't, and i was deeply grateful that he managed to get his assignment off one of his friends and i didn't have to come up with a solution to the problem 😅

dinner was great, as was the evening in general, but he started coughing just at bedtime and i'm hoping he's not doing the covid thing himself. i actually suspect that that's what my last week was about, and that perhaps mr smear was patient zero when we sent him back to school a couple of weeks ago because he only had symptoms when getting out of bed.

...

i don't have energy or bandwidth to be functional tonight. i'm really enjoying starship troopers and slay the spire 2, one (or both) of them will suffice.

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.

brain fogging

 once again, as it gets later and i get ready to go to bed, my nose and throat situation begins to worsen... on the one hand, the antihistamines seem to be helping a bit. on the other, this really can't be just allergies.

i'm enjoying the excuse to accompany mr smear to and from school these days, even though it's awkward and getting more awkward by the day. are we at war? will the bombing resume? or should we be living our best lives?

limbo is uncomfortable.

i told my team what i've been thinking, and that i essentially needed to go back to the drawing board, and they were understanding. in spite of a fair number of distractions, i did manage to be productive today and i'm understanding considerably more than i did before. i'm not quite sure how to formally introduce AI tooling into what i'm doing - i may have to treat it as local harnessing only - but at least i'm feeling a little less lost.

a couple of months ago i began the process of setting up paybox for mr smear, and then a few weeks later got his account set up. since then it's been unclear whether he's actually earning interest, and today i got in touch with their support. after they initially lied to me, it became apparent that children's savings accounts do not, in fact, earn interest. so the whole exercise was one in futility, and i've now withdrawn all the money and we're going to have to find another option. and, just like every other thing we've tried, this has cost us; not just in cash, but i've now got two credit cards that need to be cancelled :/

assholes.

i snacked a lot today. today was all about snacks. even if some of the snacks were essentially just an extended lunch :P

the supplement routine is getting a bit ridiculous, though. it's complicated, and i've kinda given up on intermittent fasting the full 16 hours (though i guess i've been unofficially doing less for a while now) because it makes it even more so. i can't drink tea or coffee for an hour before or after taking my iron supplement (or eating something with a reasonable amount of iron in it), and i've got to take vitamin D in the morning with food, and magnesium at night with vitamin C (but not vitamin D), and i have to have my handful of walnuts (or pancakes, if i'm in time for gd's breakfasts) for omega 3, and not forget to regularly take b12.

after my mom and i picked mr smear up from school, we returned home and then walked across the highway to find the supermarket. it really is well-hidden! mr smear's whole thing for weeks has been hunting for lotus biscoff cookies, and i honestly wasn't expecting to find them there.

but find them there we did :)

on the way there, i'd charged him with paying attention to the route so that he can he gd find the place, to which he'd responded in a decidedly uncooperative manner. i warned him there'd "be a test", and on the way back i quizzed him, putting the lotus cookies on the line. he was not happy when i "failed" him and assured him there'd be no biscuits until i got a map, at which point i went home and my mother volunteered to accompany him to give him a hand.

which he apparently didn't need 🤦‍♂️

it really is all about motivation with this kid. he got home, drew me a map, took half a biscuit and promptly forgot about the ones i'd offered him as a prize, and then settled down to try and improve his previous solution in human resource machine.

that was effectively the end of my work day :P

while he didn't exactly post the correct solution himself, he did work through it really well, he made a real effort and stayed focused, made a bunch of modifications that he was pleased with himself about, and when i sat down with him at the end, he was clearly on board with me every step of the way.

this is exciting stuff ^_^

just before dinner his new teacher called me, and our chat was pleasant. funny, even, in a distressing kind of way, because the story she told me was that she'd loaned mr smear a book for the lesson, and he'd somehow managed to lose it by the end of class even though nobody had moved.

my child is certainly talented.

eventually, i got the full story over dinner and everything made sense, nothing had been lost.

dinner was really good, gd and my mom worked together to produce a lentil curry that even anti-lentils mr smear found edible.

bedtime was smooth, i finally read a bit more of the colour of magic to him (we're so close to the end!), and i've now spent a couple of hours doing nothing of value (including some spire slaying). now i'm taking my cough to bed and praying to get some rest.

of course.

 of *course* i'll get the work done after putting mr smear to bed. of course :/

as usual, the sinus thing hits harder after dark, even though i'm taking antihistamines at dinner and they do seem to be helping considerably.

...

my mother and i accompanied gd to the clinic. along the way, my mother almost got run over by a reversing truck - gd had to pull her out the way - who'd stopped in the middle of the intersection.

jesus.

the nurse was pleasant and helpful, and referred her to the doctor on duty who was pleasant and helpful. gd's been prescribed antibiotics and told to come back in a few days if the symptoms don't improve.

between the two visits, i spoke to the manager who was just as concerned by the lack of professionalism and the mysterious disappearing poo sample, and who apologized and thanked me for bringing it to his attention. so that was good.

we picked up a not-awful gluten-free bread from our favorite bakery, then walked to the mall, picked up a coffee (because i'd forgotten to get one at the bakery) and did a little moseying while gd hit the pharmacy.

we then walked over to the dermatologist's offices to try and bring her toenail appointment forward, but she couldn't wait that long so we promptly returned home.

after breakfast, i sat down and actually made some progress with AI harnesses. i also sat down with gd for a few minutes and laid out exactly what's been on my mind lately, and how i feel about her and the situation, and expressed that even if she only understands it intellectually that's fine by me. so i think i  managed to make her feel safer, and less of a burden, which is something she often has trouble with.

have made some progress - and then a little more - *i* felt a bit safer. or less anxious, at least.

my mother took another walk around the area we visited last night, and she found the hidden supermarket! it's literally well-hidden, no signs, and i'm now very confident that that's on purpose to keep us riff-raff out.

too bad, fancy-pantses, we're coming for your groceries.

my mom joined me on the pick-up run for mr smear, though he didn't come home after all because i agreed to let him and his friend go to the comics library. so we returned home - the long way - and i think my mother finally understands that me being concerned for her safety on public transport (specifically vis-a-vis holding on to things at all times to not get thrown due to heavy acceleration) has nothing to do with her age :P

i seem to recall getting a little more productive time in, but i didn't record it so i'm not sure. perhaps not, i think the hour or so between getting back home and then leaving again to pick him up from the library was a bit of a random mess.

i found him reading, chatted briefly with the librarian while he got ready to go, and then we returned home.

he had "homework" to do - human resource machine and music practice. he did really well on the programming, so much so that he was so thrilled he's decided that maybe coding stuff on the projects he wants to do *is* something he should be handling ^_^

i spoke to my mentor about pivoting towards AI harnesses, and he was both assuring and encouraging. i'm not sure how i'll approach the same topic with my teammates at my client in the morning, but i guess i'll cross that bridge when i get there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dinner was nice, gd testing out a gluten-free pasta that was at least a palatable vehicle for her vegan pesto, and mr smear and i made a joke about putting black salt (kala namak) on clementines and were shocked to discover that it was weirdly nice (O_o)

showers / toothbrushes / bedtime went pretty smoothly. including getting started on never again will i visit auschwitz which i understand ends with some heavy TDS but at least starts very well.

...

i've got a cough and a post-nasal drip, and it's unpleasant. i'm going to do a little bit of nothing and then try to get some sleep.

downside up

 we were all relieved that mr smear made the sunset deadline yesterday!

it's day two of gd not consuming any gluten, and she's already starting to feel a bit better. we tried to make gluten free challah yesterday, it came out a bit like soggy rusks and i don't think we'll be doing that again. certainly not the same way.

we watched the second macgyver episode, which was a bit camp but mr smear was clearly into the experience :)

i don't recall too much after dinner last night, though it was definitely a late night.

what i do recall - because i'm now keeping a proper log - is that i went to bed just after midnight, took a long time to fall asleep, and then woke up about an hour later for about five hours of restlessness and discomfort.

i slept like shit.

in spite of that, i was kind of functional this morning. i started the day making an important firefly gif and sleep-journaling, then spent most of the morning playing slay the spire 2.

the afternoon involved finishing the first part (the colour of magic part) of the graphic novel, and sort-of napping for half an hour. it also involved finishing terminator 2, which was a much better experience due to the sound upgrade even though the projector  quality is garbage. after that, i sat down to learn how to make comics with kindle create, documenting each and every step along the way.

[stops to witness a large mosquito being zapped and going up in flames in the zapper behind me. and be dismayed to see what looks like a crispy flea.]

it's fun to see the guided view experience take shape, though!

between working on that and dinner, mr smear and i did some boxing training for the first time in weeks. not only should we be doing it consistently anyway, but today was another dust-stormy indoors-only day... i'm actually quite impressed with how well my post-workout stretching went.

we started watching dead poets society over dinner, not speaking to my mom because she was on a flight to ethiopia (she's staying there overnight), and tomorrow after dropping mr smear at school i'm going to go set myself up to work at the airport so i'll be there when she lands.

...

please lord let me sleep tonight 🙏

dust mouth

 firstly, omg i didn't realize it was my turn on crosswalk duty at the school this morning 🤦‍♂️

so that's a bit shit.

also a bit shit is our financial situation this month...

i dragged myself out of bed this morning, and immediately completed my first sleep journal entry. i found it a bit confusing at first, not just because of whether 12am and 12pm are midnight and noon or vice versa, but also because it's weird documenting the night's sleep and only afterwards documenting any naps from the rest of the day before the night's sleep. either way, it amuses me that the first night of sleep journaling and i actually slept pretty well.

it was a warm morning, first day of shorts and vests. i dropped mr smear off at school, returned home for an early breakfast, and then accompanied gd to the clinic. she got an appointment for our doctor, and so until then we burned our time waiting in line at the pharmacist. we picked up a coffee at "our" bakery, and then sat down with the doctor for a very unpleasant session.

gd was not happy, because the doctor doesn't agree with her assessment of something she's dealing with and so refused to prescribe medication for it. after much drama, gd's managed to get our old doctor in cape town to prescribe it in a way that my mother can pick it up... it's all very weird.

after that, we visited the nurses office to find out what happened to a sample gd delivered over a month ago, and learned that she'd never provided a "permission" (which nobody had told her about) so somebody had collected the sample and... made it disappear? so we'll be complaining about that on sunday, when she brings in a new sample.

jesus.

we returned home to drop off the groceries and then head out to the mall to pick up gd's new prescription specs, at which point we realized that we'd forgotten about mr smear and that school had come out already. i told him to meet us at the mall, which he dutifully did. he arrived just as gd's eyes were being re-tested because her very expensive specs were completely useless - she literally couldn't see anything - and entered the lego store which i chatted with my big sister.

during our chat, i learned that someone in a group i'm in is doing something related to the impact work i've been thinking a lot harder about since wednesday. i've just sent the guy an email, hopefully it'll lead to something.

after gd came out, we went downstairs and had a delicious hummus lunch, then gd failed to pick up another pharmacy prescription (part of the doctor drama) and we headed home, stepping outside into a massive, choking dust storm.

i read a little bit of the the colour of magic graphic novel while listening to tool before crashing into a semi-conscious nap for an hour, then made myself a coffee, used the massage tool on my neck, and then settled down at my computer to try and do something productive, even though my brain's offline, while i listen to mr smear humming to himself and appearing to make enough progress on his homework that he might actually be done before the sunset deadline.

i don't know if i'm going to get anything productive done.

hopping from one foot to the other

 i think i slept alright last night, or at least better than the preceding nights. i woke up mid-dream, so i needed a few minutes to shake it off, and the day began with some mixed emotions over riddles and mr smear's breakfast habits.

i accompanied mr smear to school - i'd still rather be foolish than sorry (better silly than sorry?) - and continued on to the sleep clinic at the hospital. my appointment started on time at 7.30, and i walked out of there an hour later feeling pretty confident that the doctor had performed a thorough investigation into every relevant aspect of my potential narcolepsy (and potential rls, and possible anemia) and i felt very well understood.

i left with a recommendation to take iron supplements, keep a sleep journal, and exercise more.

by the time i closed in on the clinic, it was too close to my daily so i picked up a cup of coffee from "our" bakery, and tried to find a quiet spot for my meeting. unfortunately, something was blocking traffic and i ended up hiding out in a random building's parking muting constantly because multiple directions of cars were all honking furiously.

and, of course, our usual ten-minute meeting took half an hour.

from there i crossed the road and entered the clinic, where i was informed that i could only make the appointment by phone, so i dutifully informed the lady that i'd spent half an hour on the phone yesterday to be told it was an in-person only thing. so she said that it was probably an in-hospital thing only and not an in-clinic thing only, but that in any event the referring doctor had already requested permission and she had a response in hand: denied.

floored, i read the response and learned that they won't let gd do the recommended examination unless she's done a course of iron supplements too. i booked her a repeat visit to the same doctor, and the earliest appointment i could get was for july.

i left the clinic quite demoralized.

bus routes from the clinic are lacking, so i fast-walked home and arrived five minutes late for my quarterly roadmap meeting with my mentor. it was interesting, and while i was disappointed with myself for not achieving my goals, he was disappointed with me for being unnecessarily hard on myself considering what i've been through these past few months.

so that was encouraging, i guess.

i scarfed down a quick break, anxious that i hadn't yet called the plumber and clueless as to when would be an appropriate time for him to come over, when he called and asked me to take a video for him to assess. a few minutes later, his brother called to say he was on the way. i couldn't have planned the timing any better!

within two minutes the smell trap was installed, which was completely anti-climactic. the idea that there wasn't a smell trap installed before was and is blowing my mind!

gd, who had been struggling all morning* somehow had the presence of mind to ask him to check our hot-water cylinder, and we did, and it looks alright. then he left, and was just out of the building when gd had another bright idea, and we called him back to check under the kitchen sink.

* she suffered so much this morning that she was finally willing to try avoiding gluten to see if it would help.

he obliged. within two minutes, he'd found the source of the leak, and it wasn't the sink. we realized that there was a long gap at the back of the countertop, and water was splashing down the back of the cabinet 🤦‍♂️

(apparently, he'd warned me about this when we moved in. i don't recall this at all.)

between him and gd, and the special silicon we'd already bought to fix up the shower, the gap was sealed quickly and cleanly and i was able to grab my bag and head to the office.

what a day, so far!

[plugs in and turns on the fan for the first time this summer]

i got some work done, and then had to head out (again) to pick mr smear up from school. i managed to get there much faster than before by walking to the light rail, and that made it clear to me that the way back needed to be the same after losing a ridiculous amount of time to the bus ride yesterday. i got there early enough to catch up on instagram messages, and he came out pretty quickly for once, and i took him straight back to the office with me.

my desk-neighbor's dog was in the office. on the one hand? awesome! mr smear and him got along great ^_^

on the other? i've been feeling things (or imagining feeling things) since we got in, and i'm super-paranoid about fleas since the other night.

gods help me.

i barely had five minutes to work before everyone had to join a meeting about formalizing AI management, and mr smear came in with me and sat quietly in the corner reading. after an hour we adjourned to the main kitchen for happy hour, and there was delicious vegan ice cream! so that went well (mr smear has a penchant for coming to my work for good happy hours!).

i grabbed a beer and got some work done while mr smear put together a cool animation using flipaclip, then realized how late it had become and we packed up and walked home. walking across the bridge over the train tracks i pointed out an oncoming train, and the train driver tooted the horn and waved to mr smear, which was pretty cool! or, it was a pretty cool sentiment, at least, because mr smear didn't notice at all 🤣

i put in some more work while mr smear did or pretended to do his homework - i don't know if it's going to be complete by the weekend, and his weekend screen time depends on it - and then (finally) forced myself to file some of the stacks of papers that have been piling up.

over dinner, we watched the pilot macgyver episode, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all ^_^

(except for the kissing bits, which we all felt were inappropriate. but i kept dropping recently-learned trivia that made it even better)

it's been a pretty peaceful evening, and i think i'm going to be ready for bed soon. just one more cup of tea.

...

trendslop and mediocrity.

0.8

 i guess the day worked out alright, all things considered. gd and i are celebrating the 12 anniversary of our first (and only) date [i just got lost down a rabbit-hole for a while].

i accompanied her to her appointment, which we almost missed because although we arrived on time, it was four floors from the reception and it's a really slow elevator. as we walked in i noticed the doctor had a french tinge to her accent, so i asked if french was okay and from that point (especially after the two of them strongly agreed about how awful celine dion is) she and gd communicated perfectly well and i was only able to catch the gist of things.

so gd feels heard and understood, and we have referrals to further testing and suggestions of what might be going on.

we returned home, and then i left for mr smear's school where i ordered a lemonade at a coffee shop and tried to get some work done while i waited for him.

that was where the AI really began to lead me astray; i hadn't read the project's installation instructions properly, and it hadn't read them at all, and it started "fixing" things that weren't actually broken, each fix breaking something else in a slow-motion chain reaction.

when school came out, mr smear called to ask if he could go to his friend's place instead. getting to my dermatologist appointment from there was going to be complicated, with or without him, so i agreed and then made my way to the clinic.

i arrived with some time to spare for some more work. or, i should say, more running on a virtual treadmill. between my lack of sleep and the sheer boredom of what i was doing, i was pretty sleepy by the time it was my turn.

the doctor was quick, and pleasant. he's not concerned by the lump on my neck, but he's referred me to an ultrasound and a removal, so i'll look into that tomorrow.

from there to the bus i was falling asleep on my feet. i did get a bit of rest on the first bus, but was still groggy when i got off at the prescribed stop only to realize that that app had steered me wrong and made me get off two stops earlier than i should have, so i had to walk an extra ten minutes to catch the next bus :/

i arrived at the mall, had a chat with my mom, then went to the bathroom before finding a spot at a coffee shop. i stood at the urinal next to another man with a shy bladder, and the next few minutes were very awkward for both of us. at least *i* eventually managed to pee :P

the next hour or two were the most productive of the day. about halfway through i finally realized what i'd been doing wrong, restarted the day's effort the right way, and finally had things making more sense.

mr smear really didn't want to leave his friend's place when it was time ("we were about to go to the park!"), but i eventually got him to come down and we had a good time together on the way home - aside from when an old lady fell hard while trying to get off the bus, poor thing was on a walker and dressed up (too much heel, too little skirt) and we all felt really bad for her. i hope she's okay.

the evening was pretty smooth. i completed the work i was doing, mr smear easily breezed through the homework he'd spent an hour staring at yesterday, we watched some more of ready player one (omg it's so good!), bedtime was smooth.

now [yawns] i think it's time for mine.

finding out

 i think i had plans for tonight. like, real ones, i was excited. but after a really long day - accompanying mr smear to school while practicing the sign language for FAFO and singing nant's ingonyama bagithi baba, trying to console gd who's stomach's messed up again, investigating weird messages from my mobile provider, long hours working with AI*, a huge, delicious vegan lunch from an unfamiliar place, more hard work, picking up mr smear while "participating" in an hour and a half zoom workshop that i didn't need, lots more hard work, losing my temper trying to help mr smear with his homework (him claiming to not understand a thing after successfully doing pages of the same stuff), sitting down with big data (and then his family) over a utility app he wants to build, a great dinner and ready player one followed by the terrible mistake of trying to eat 99% chocolate (why TF does it exist?!) followed by a rather shit bedtime, followed by more hard work.

* and understanding that AI is really teaching us to be better mentors and instructors to juniors

oh, and i saw and killed a fucking flea this afternoon. we have no idea where it could have come from. fuck.

i mean, at least i managed to sleep a bit last night. i wonder if i'll be so lucky tonight.

complications

 last night was a bit rough. first, getting mr smear into bed at a reasonable hour didn't happen, after we finally did get him into bed i went to bed soon after, only to wake up a while later and find him out of bed. that led to some bad emotions, because we were already out of patience and we knew how difficult this morning was going to be.

we finally threatened him (one hour of screen time for any infractions) into bed, and i eventually managed to get back to sleep.

for a bit. but then i found myself awake again, sore lower back and hips, and indigestion. so i dragged myself out of bed and spent an hour or two playing balatro and listening to tousi making it clear that this ceasefire is bullshit.

i finally got a couple of hours' sleep before our alarms went off at 6.30am. getting out of bed was hard. my neck hurt.

to be fair, mr smear handled himself pretty well this morning. he got up, made his bed, brushed his teeth, and then sat down to do some of the homework. he made a good effort.

then i accompanied him to the school, early because i had two back-to-back meetings starting 45m before his first class. we arrived just in time for my first one, and he sat across from me reading on his kindle.

after my second one - by which stage he'd gone off to class - i made my way to a KSP to stand in line for half an hour for a couple of ethernet cables. then i picked up some groceries for gd, then i returned home.

i was at home for an hour and a half, struggling to get work done, then headed out once again to pick up mr smear, and then return home for another hour or so, before heading out with gd for her dental appointment.

in spite of the fact that her dental appointment turned out to be a few minutes - and that we didn't need to be there - i got an hour of real work in (jira tedium) and felt at least kind of okay about calling it a day by the time we started back home.

we stopped for an expensive visit to the grocer, then gd picked up more groceries, and then it was finally time to come home and unpack the other groceries that had been delivered.

so lots of groceries.

i had a good chat with sailor before dinner, over dinner we watched an episode of the littlest hobo (gd was bit upset that mr smear didn't love it, but i was impressed that he watched it through to the end without complaining), chatted with my mom, got through the evening stuff (including moving his bed back to his room!), and then i sat down to watch all the videos that were open on my work computer, set it up for the OS upgrade, and now i'm on my second cup of tea and winding down.

the square hip

 not so restful, but i did eventually manage to get my hip to stop bothering me enough to get some sleep. but then, when i was woken up by the third alarm for an all-hands event that had nothing to do with me, i got up to find that my hip was totally locked up, front and back.

i started my day on the carpet on the floor trying to stretch it out while sipping coffee and reading the importance of being ernest - i've owned my copy for years, how have i never opened it before?

i guess today was pretty constructive, all things considered. i think i've finally nailed down the upgrade of a service to the latest golang version (from 1.11), and i think i handled my RCA ticket being irrecoverably deleted by someone who didn't know what it was quite admirably.

i took mr smear with me to witness my very painful limp and call me a cripple pick up the internet cable outlet plates and return the comic books to the library, but arrived at the library to discover that they'd been closed for half an hour. because holidays. and war.

getting through the mall gauntlet was alright. there were a few cosplayers doing their thing, but i don't think mr smear noticed much.

after we got home and dropped off the box, we went to our new 24/7 to pick up a couple of things, then returned home for more work, to receive the new soundbar, and then to dive in to a dramatic homework session.

ultimately he did well, and he was pleased with himself, but the journey there was fraught with him doing everything he could to sabotage himself. i truly believe he can do anything he puts his mind to - and i don't believe that of many people. but omg getting him to put his mind to anything is nigh impossible.

dinner (and strip search) was great, gd rushed him through shower and toothbrush time surprisingly rapidly, he read while i showered and brushed my teeth, and then we said good night.

gd and i spoke for a little while - mostly she's feeling bad about stuff that's totally normal for all of us right now - and i tooled around (mushing my brain with trash) until posting this, and now i think i'm going to try to get some rest.

again. my hip's still acting up.

lackluster

 today was a weird one. not a bad one, mind. lots of it was comfortable and comforting.

i got up tired. i read a bit more of mairowitz and crumb's kafka (it's amazing, with a very interesting perspective of ghetto life), i worked, with shenanigans around code ownership, and i eventually ended the work day in the middle of making some progress but also ready to put everything down because i'm officially on leave for the next couple of days.

i left the house around noon to get to a blood donation site, but for the first time in my life was rejected because my hemoglobin count was too low. so there's that to stress me out now.

mr smear tried desperately to get as much screen time as he could even though he was under punishment from calling me a jerk yesterday. he did music homework - garageband, he's making cool stuff - and later we sat down on yesterday's human resource machine problem and had a positive experience.

i'm not sure if his "performance" of being sick just as we started training was real or not, but whatever. he's the one concerned about his weight.

actually, that's not entirely true. mine's been climbing a bit, too.

but he did join me for a very serious mission hunting down matzah meal and healthy snacks, which proved surprisingly difficult to find.

either way, we watched strip search over a delicious dinner, spoke to my mom, and then got through the evening rituals and a bit of the colour of magic before calling it a day.

...

i've engaged in three or four different, toxic arguments on facebook over the course of the past day. people are fucked. i've now watched a whole lot of random youtube videos (some news, some not), and now i'm going to play some more balatro and have one last cup of tea and then climb into bed.

limitations

 today was messy. we slept alright - mostly - but i woke up with a skew neck. i managed to get mr smear out of bed and brushing his teeth, but by the time i'd brushed my teeth he'd curled up under a blanket on the couch, and i couldn't argue with that so i followed suit.

then we accompanied gd to the mall (with some nasty lingering feelings on the way out the door) to get her eyes retested and order new glasses; which she did that, mr smear and i milled around. the moment we finally sat down and i opened my laptop, and fortunately just before i ordered coffee, gd called to shock me with the amount they were asking her for - more than half a month's rent.

so we scrambled on over there, and managed to reduce the price by a thousand shekels. it still came out about half a month's rent, though :(

we caught a bus home, where we split up so that they could try to get vegan eggs for the seder and i could get started with work.

in spite of everything, i feel like i made a bit of progress today, but i couldn't check in with my team because it's their weekend so i've held my updates back until tomorrow.

in the meanwhile, mr smear's friend came over for a few hours and the two of them had a great time.

my company sent us a holiday care package, which was very sweet but also contained dairy, so fortunately his friend took that part home with him and i reminded our office manager (for the manyth time already) that we're vegan and have a dairy-allergic child... 🙄

the half hour zoom all-hands with my employer was a bit awkward, but sweet. i came stone last in the company quiz, in no small part because it took me so long to read the questions that i ran out of time on half of them :/

mr smear got through his human resource machine homework really well (i love seeing him excited when he finally *gets* it, even if can be a struggle to get him to focus), and his music "homework" was tooling around with garageband and he managed to put something together that sounded surprisingly good.

i tried to put in some (formal, for my employer) learning time while he helped gd with the kitchen, but i don't think i was working on the right stuff. also, my brain's been largely offline most of today.

we had a huge dinner and watched strip search, then had a good chat with my mom, and got mr smear showered and in bed. i was on my way to shower when gd caught me for a very serious talk, which ended up being a very serious fight, and it took a long time to get ourselves resolved and in agreement with each other about how we move forward.

and to get the office dry, after somebody got sprayed with a hose. with time that part will probably seem funnier, i'm sure.

getting out the house

 it's almost 1am as i begin writing this, and i'm sitting here with my usual sore lower back  / bum, and indigestion. i guess this is the price to pay for trying to go to bed earlier. or just for being me.

...

we had a quiet night last night; the day was full of attacks, but it was a quiet night last night. i started the day sitting on our couch with a cup of coffee and the first volume of dragon ball. and arguing with gd over which side of the living room the couch or projector or future television need to be. my primary concern is not being able to look out a window from the couch, and my eyes have been strained and my vision blurry for the last couple of days so that's kinda front of mind (just like my eyes).

...

if there's something that set the tone of the day, though, it was putting together a whole lot of my old jokes and scripts ideas just before we had to shelter from a strike, and while we waited out the attack i used notebooklm and gemini to put together a two-panel comic that came out really well!

...

my client / boss invited a few of us to the office for lunch and beers, and i decided it was worth it. gd packed me a sandwich and some salad, which turned out to be a good idea as the guys ordered vietnamese with zero vegan options on the menu, and i managed to get to and from the office without any alerts (i was a bit nervous crossing the massive bridge over the highway).

it was nice to be in an office with my coworkers, it was a good vibe and in theory it was more comfortable to work than from my home "office". but in practice, the moment i left the apartment i felt weird, a bit dizzy and "off", and my stomach was uncomfortable the entire time i was there. by the time i left, i was nursing a pretty serious headache and i needed to lie down.

while i lay down, my sister sent us messages informing us that she's finally got permanent residence in the UK! this is great news; even though she's nervous about what a shit-hole britain has become, it's a much better class of shit-hole than south africa.

we spoke for a bit until there was another attack; i'm beginning to lose my mind, because the last week or so there's been a problem with our shelter wifi. then i saw a message about the state of our garbage bins, and realized that a large part of it was from the couch guys yesterday... so i headed downstairs and literally got my hands dirty, so much so that i needed to jump in the shower immediately after returning to our apartment.

i had a chat with my mother, and then gd ordered dinner and i sat down with mr smear to help him through another level of human resource machine.

getting him to think through problems out loud, and guiding him without giving him answers, is tough. but i'm extremely pleased to report that he's doing it!

over rainbow burger dinner, we watched another couple of episodes of strip search, then it was shower time for mr smear, after which there was some drama (gd called the shower "condemned").

and then suddenly it was 10pm, and we apparently agreed that that was a valid pesach holiday bedtime for mr smear, so i read some more of the colour of magic from my bed (his bed has been next to mine for the last while) and then we both fell asleep.

...

i'm listening to the latest tousi tv report, the news is completely insane. i played a bit of balatro last night before going to bed, perhaps i'll do something similarly braindead now.

terror storm

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

thanks a bunch, mother nature.

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

 ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

when life gives you a permeable shower curtain...

 ... double up. as i begin this post mr smear is taking a turn after me, after we put in another one of the same on top of the one from yesterday. so far so good, and i'm enjoying him singing to himself and having a good time 🤞

today began with a boom - a building or three a few blocks away got hit with a missile, a few cars got hit as well, and the next hour or so was an orchestra of emergency service vehicles. but, miraculously, the building in question was evacuated a while ago for reconstruction or renovation, so while there was a lot of damage, there weren't any serious injuries 🙏

not-so-small mercies.

so the morning went straight in and hard on social media and news.

my work day was far better than yesterday, even if it ended on a droopy note with me listening to a recording of someone who mumbles monotonically with a difficult accent.

three call-outs for the day: losing the spider we weren't sure was venomous (we don't think it is now, but we weren't sure), and way too much snacking, and trying to find out where our new couch is, and losing my temper after learning that the package i paid to have delivered to a specific address in ramle was delivered to a store nearby and they want the addressee to pick it up.

from a mr smear point of view, the first day of holidays went quite well. i cancelled his matific subscription - he hasn't used it in months, and it's a great practice tool but not very good for learning - and his "homework" for today was to play human resource machine. (on gog, so i'll link that edition too).

[the shower experience was good and didn't wet the floor! score!]

i was so proud of him! especially of him being proud of himself whenever he figured stuff out ^_^

the evening training was mostly really good - checking and roundhouse kicks - but the biggest challenge was him not responding when told to stop responding. i honestly couldn't tell if he was trolling me, or literally couldn't control himself, but he eventually got a hold of himself and we had a constructive conversation about it while stretching.

overall, he's doing really well.

dinner was delicious. dinner was interrupted by an attack. dinner was extended to include an extra episode of strip search, and more of panda's dubai-style chocolate with vegan marshmallows. it's kinda like peanut butter and marshmallows, but even better!

i'm not making any plans for tonight, but i'm tired and sleepy and i think i might go lie down soon.