the alternative

a scratchy throat all day that caused trouble all night. it's still scratchy, but feeling slightly better right now so hopefully that's a trend.

i wasn't too sure that ze germans were doing the yom ha'atzmaut thing, and i made the mistake of only asking ru55 if he was going, and he didn't get back to me until this morning. so instead of going, i cancelled the car we'd rented and we had a "barbecue" hot-dog lunch at home that was really good.

a bit later, my mom and i dragged mr smear out to the beach. there was a chill wind on the beach itself, but once mr smear (mr inertia) was on the sand he didn't want to leave the beach, nor the sea. in retrospect, we should have brought him a towel...

otherwise, it was a beautiful afternoon. we took a slow walk down the beach and then up to allenby, where mr smear decided we should have hummus. that was a fantastic decision, we had a fun experience with the shifka and the meal was delicious.

then we walked up sheinkin, picking up some coffee along the way to the bus home.

unfortunately, i accidentally ordered a regular coffee instead of decaf. so it was around 6pm that i drank my fourth cup for the day.

we got home, and there was no argument from mr smear about jumping straight into a hot shower. afterwards, we started watching the tokyo ghoul series. which is really cool, but i did nap through half of the second episode...

dinner was the "barbecue" burgers, also delicious.

we got mr smear into bed, unsure of whether to expect a disrupted night or not because the ceasefire was supposed to end.

i went to bed pretty late (played slay the spire 2), and simply couldn't sleep. i estimate that it took me more than an hour and a half to finally fall asleep, after which it was fitful with claustrophobic dreams of an in-house rollercoaster with one of ze germans.

i struggled to wake up this morning, with my throat still doing a thing, but mr smear certainly helped as he made horrible noises (his throat) for the longest time. over coffee / his breakfast, we discovered that he's been avoiding going to school because he's been getting into trouble for not having his books. he's lost most of his books, apparently, and also never thought to report back that the lock on his locker is broken, and that he doesn't remember the code for the old one.

i don't know how much of any of that is actually true.

we explained to him that the books are expensive - they are - and that he's going to find them. and that all privileges are to be withheld until the situation is sorted out. on the bus to school, i explained what he needs to do and found his old lock's code, and sent a message to his homeroom teacher. on my way back home, he called to assure me that he's at least started the day off making an effort, so 🤷‍♂️...

also, on my way home, i thought some more about my work situation which is starting to freak me out. i've been trying to get a job done with AI that i have little context for, and the AI is leading me around in circles. not only do i need to change tack and focus on building the context i need, but i also *have* to  begin experimenting with AI harnesses because i'm feeling like i'm getting left behind on the most critical issue of our (engineering) time right now...

outside

 last night was unnecessarily rough, because we could have booted mr smear out of our bed after the first siren and i would have had a much better night's sleep.

today was a bit weird.

i invested quite a lot of time in getting stuff to work on my home machine that i already had working on my work machine, stuff that - as usual - really shouldn't be that complicated.

gd had a phone appointment with our doctor, which resulted in me calling multiple clinics because ours was closed only to continue to run into dead ends. then we all went on a pharmacy mission, and a bit of a grocery mission on the way back home, and then we dropped everything at home and jumped on a bus to dizengoff center, with a little bit more of a walk than planned.

which was good. we've all been pretty cooped up for a week.

i couldn't find what i was looking for, but gd got sorted and i was inspired to upgrade her phone (she's been unhappy for a long time) and hopefully the new model will be a better experience. and then mr smear inherits her old one, and that gives us a way to manage his "banking".

we had a great hummus lunch, which i think was pretty brave considering nobody had any idea when the next attack would be, but we managed to make it home before the sirens.

mr smear convinced me to take the windows machine off facebook marketplace and reinstate it as "his" machine, and that led to me spending a good chunk of the evening (and our shelter time) on getting it set up, enthusiastically testing out shutup10++ and being pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to clean up the windows experience.

i'm also pleasantly surprised by the fact that i managed to get mr smear to do another training session with me this evening, and although the main focus was on boxing drills, i think the most important lesson was in shutting the fuck up and following instructions.

we had a bit on an incident with kevin, our little eight-legged boarder, who's been insisting on hanging out in our bed. i tried to get him out of our room, and i may have accidentally injured him :(

then he decided to scoot off into mr smear's room, so mr smear was very nervous about checking his bed thoroughly before going to sleep. but then he couldn't sleep, because he was feeling so bad for how unfairly poor kevin had been treated...

kiddush and dinner with my mom were nice, and the food was great, even though it was really late.

mr smear got siren'ed out of a shower - so much for canishower.com showing 11% - after that was bedtime and then my shower time, and now i've watched lots of politics and other garbage and i think i'm ready for bed.

...

if you want to understand what's going on with the war, and what its all about, this tom nash report is eye-opening.

everything on mainstream media - CNN in particular - is unhinged propaganda. seeing so much AI-generated slop of destruction in tel aviv is pathetic. who believes this shit?

moving day +1

 okay, this is going to be a combination of point form and whatever-the-fuck, but i have to start with the fact that i'm typing this looking out over a major intersection that's been under heavy downpour for an hour or so, after three days of unseasonably warm and dry weather that was absolutely perfect for our move. i'm also nursing a throat infection (that i've clearly been cooking since at least sunday morning) and i might be nursing an eye infection that could be caused by many things over the past day, but probably dirty sawdust from me and - i think i'm going to start calling our friend from upstairs "big data" - big data attempting to use a jigsaw to cut out the bottom from the hob space.

...

which i'd forgotten i'd asked our landlord permission for already, so that was an embarrassing conversation. but not as embarrassing as the guy who delivered the electric hob this morning. by 8.30 - key handover time - gd and i still had quite a bit to do, and while we were scrambling, exhausted and sans caffeine, i got a call from the delivery guy saying he'd arrived. i told him i should expect to be back at the new apartment within twenty minutes, but twenty minutes later i called him to say i'd need more time and he wasn't answering.

meanwhile, we'd handed over the keys, i'd warned the landlady that "airing out the cupboards" wasn't enough to prevent mold from coming in through the walls and that they'd need to remove them entirely, and i'd warned her to deal with the pipes which miraculously held even as we held our breaths for two years, and gd was staying in the apartment to finalize the packing and finish tidying up without letting the auto-close door lock us out.

so around 8.50 i hopped in the van with a load, and on my way got hold of the guy. this time he was upset, and i reminded him that he hadn't warned me he was coming and he hadn't contacted me at all to set a delivery time. this was where the argument went off the rails, because he claimed he did arrange with me to meet at 9am, and i don't remember this happening.

okay, shit, now it's my fault. then i realize, to my horror, that my wallet is empty and i need to pay him cash. so i'm panicking, he's freaking out, he's waited half an hour for me and he's not going to come back later to get paid... i suddenly remember that we now live near a gas station, so i drove there and ran inside the shop asking desperately for the ATM. they told me where to go,  i went around the back, and... it wouldn't let me insert my card.

after a wasted minute with that, i came running back into the shop like a madman, begging them to let me buy something and give me a 100 shekel note as change. i don't know what they were thinking, but it was all very dramatic. the manager kindly explained that i could use their tills as ATMs, i went through an painstaking but brief identification process, got my hundred and ran out the door thanking them profusely.

i arrived at 9.05 - so technically only five minutes late, handed the miserably lug the money, took the plate, and thanked my stars he didn't want to fight me for yelling at him when i was at fault.

BUT.

later i checked my phone records, and now i think he was gaslighting me. i don't think we ever spoke the day before.

...

when i picked up the van, it had a lot of recorded damage, the most shocking of which was that the side-mirror and window controls sections had been ripped out. during the haul, however, emergency icons started lighting up on the dashboard, and then this message:

i still had one last haul to go. i prayed, and raced to the old apartment. i'd been carrying heavy things up and down too many stairs for too many hours over a span of two days, and my back was sore and my legs hurt and i was exhausted. every time i took the stairs they seemed to get steeper.

i picked up coffee for me and gd, regaling our neighborhood coffee shop owner barista with our morning tale as if she was a bartender, and returned to carry down two more heavy sets of boxes and items.

gd made a video of the apartment before we stood together in the hallway and locked the door for the last time, having spent a week slowly-then-rapidly peeling back layers of our last four years and thanking the apartment for providing us safe haven from the storm of early '22.

...

we returned the van, complained about it's unroadworthy state, and demanded a refund and a small car to do our ikea run. they sent us a taxi, and after we arrived at the parking lot we walked to a coffee shop, used their facilities, and stopped for breakfast and coffee. then we drove to netanya, which didn't take too long.

but time dilates in ikea. we were pretty good, we didn't get distracted, we had a budget (the relief from getting our last two months' cheques from the landlady was palpable), but we also got turned around a couple of times and it was a while before we made it downstairs to the warehouse.

after everything we'd been through, that i'd put my body through, what followed was madness. three trolleys filled with HEAVY boxes, an insane workout even when i was in good shape. gd was worried i'd injure myself, or have a heart attack considering i was running exclusively on fumes and adrenaline.

...

after a long time in the line (making friends), we got hit with a new cashier. and an enormous bill, and i'm still embarrassed that i said the amount out loud to gd in front of other shoppers. and then both our credit cards were declined. twice. i called my visa service, and learned that it was simply a case of not having enough credit left, and what's infuriating is that in israel you can't just pay off a credit card even if you have the cash. and i was panicking, because mr smear was out of school already, we were in netanya, and it was the only day we had to do the shopping.

then i thought - cash! they had an ATM, so i withdrew my daily limit. then i thought, i wonder if gd can draw the same limit even though we share the same account? so she did, and it worked! just as i was being informed by the manager, after they'd carefully counted out a stack of bills, that over a certain amount ikea will only accept ten percent of the amount due in cash 🤦‍♂️

fortunately, after much drama, we could at least split the amounts so between gd's card, the ten percent cash, and my card, we managed to complete the purchase.

but then we had to run the customer service gauntlet.

on the one hand, if we'd had a van we could have just grabbed everything and left, on the other - there's no way i would have managed that without injuring myself, so it was a blessing in disguise that the van we'd rented had been in such poor condition.

i was terrified, because i know that customer service can take forever. while we waited, we texted and called furiously between mr smear and our friends upstairs, and all of a sudden our number was called!! i jumped to the counter, and was informed that if we wanted delivery, we had to pay upfront and take whatever time slot was allotted to us. and if that didn't work for us, then we'd have no recourse.

i don't understand how that can be a thing.

but also, delivery in one to two days, but helping construct everything up to three weeks? never mind that part, then. so i paid for delivery, and after struggling to get the illiterate cashier to find our address wrote it down for her, and then we were off, just as the weather was beginning to turn.

...

at this point i was afraid of the traffic into tel aviv, which i see every evening from my client's offices, and i was surprised and unbelieving when waze told me it would take 38 minutes. we let mr smear and our friends know that we were on our way, and zoomed through to tel aviv, arriving at our apartment literally about one minute before mr smear arrived!

i took a break for twenty minutes to charge my phone (it was almost dead), and stumble around with gd with neither of us knowing what we were doing, and then driving the car back to the parking lot. it took longer to get to the parking lot than it had to get home from netanya, and i was having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

i felt like i was driving home on a come-down after a festival.

after a ridiculous series of chaotic events, obstructions and miracles, i made it safely to the parking lot, took a light rail and a bus home, and we'd officially (essentially) gotten through the move. our apartment is complete chaos, and everything is going to be hard and complicated for a while, but we're home.

after a good hummus dinner, making more noise than i'm comfortable with with big data and the jigsaw (i felt like he was parenting me, which was cool but weird, but the experience itself was fun), showering and climbing into bed, i finally got myself a decent amount of sleep.

nose, throat and eyes notwithstanding. my eyes seemed to have calmed down a bit since i got up earlier 🤞, i've managed to get all this down, i'm trying to get hold of a handyman to do the hob preparation for me (i'm amazed i managed to find my old post for a handyman on facebook), gd's gotten coffee made and mr smear has just left for school, and the sun's coming out.

steps

 surprisingly, i went to bed pretty soon after posting and i slept relatively well. and we all survived getting up before dawn, and mr smear and i caught the bus on time.

bussing through bnei brak in the early morning was an anthropological experience full of teachable moments.

the surgeon inspected mr smear's toes, and made it abundantly clear what terrible parents we are for making him responsible for his own toenails. it was a relief to hear her say that they weren't bad enough (yet) to justify surgery, and that she wouldn't want to perform the surgery even if they were because that would require putting him under general anaesthetic.  she gave us a prescription, along with a list of instructions, and hopefully in the coming weeks we'll see some improvement 🤞

we walked to the light rail and i took him to school, then returned home for breakfast (and lots of responding to emails and messages) before leaving with gd on a shopping mission.

first stop: printing out her cannabis license and picking up acrylic markers for mr smear.

second stop: the shoe hunt. we went through a bunch of stores, on the way purchasing waterproof timberland shoes for myself*, and eventually ordered boots from katalina.

* expensive, but it's a much more professional-looking option than my humongous wellies, which i'll save for the more dramatic days

having (effectively) completed our mission, we walked to one of our favorite hummusiot and enjoyed a really nice lunch. and then - because for once gd was feeling up for it - we walked home, past a stationary store where we picking up a new school sketchbook for mr smear (he's filled the last one already).

i rested and read a little, and then took off again to go to the dentist, missing the bus and needing to hail a taxi. i arrived on time, but the dentist was super late... and then he had trouble with the scanning machine...

but the great news is that i didn't need to do an imprint! instead, there's a new optical scanning device. it's a lot less intrusive than an imprint, and when he eventually (half an hour later) managed to log into it i was blown away by how cleverly it's designed.

i came home, already having exceeded 20000 steps for the day. mr smear was very excitedly drawing deadpool with his new markers. the evening went smoothly (although gd's struggling with stomach issues due to some medication she's on), in spite of the fact that gd made me responsible for the post-soak toe treatment which freaked us all out.

i read the final chapter of the neverending story to mr smear. the entire chapter, so he ended up going to sleep really late, but it was totally worth it. what an insanely intellectual and entertaining story!

i didn't cry.

(i almost cried. i choked up a bit. but i didn't cry)

...

today was a good day. gd and i essentially got to go on a "date" this morning, i got a fair amount of stuff done and mr smear had a good day. additionally, i treated myself to a copy of blue prince, and i'm going to give that a go now before i go to bed.

from the AI warning to the sea

 the rest of yesterday was pretty relaxed. gd and i made extra-strength challah-peño, which really just means extra-delicious, and we finished watching eddie murphy's dr dolittle which - in spite of some spectacularly lazy writing - quite entertaining.

last night before going to bed, mr smear let me know that he'd decided that he did want to finish watching the matrix after all.

today:

gd hasn't been sleeping well, and i've been kind on/off the past weeks, with last night being one where i definitely slept some. but i woke up very early, and finished reading the first percy jackson novel.

extremely underrated.

on the one hand, it pains me to think that i only just discovered percy jackson. on the other, i've just had the distinct pleasure of discovering percy jackson! this is top shelf stuff, a brilliant, exciting blend of modern fantasy and ancient tales.

the first highlight of the day was settling in to watch the second half of the matrix. with AI tech being where it is, it's never been more relevant, and seeing my boy's face light up* as he encountered bullet time and neo's superavatar powers was so much fun!

* as well as his body twitch involuntarily, he's wired different

i spent most of the early part of the day alternating between the second percy jackson book, trying to write up manacher's algorithm in a readable way, and napping.

i'd made a pact with mr smear about going to the beach in the afternoon, which he sealed by doing something that lost him privileges (he has a compulsion that causes him to scratch himself until he has holes in his skin, and that's unfortunately the only tool we have to get it to stop) so he didn't have anything better to do...

so that became the second highlight of the day: we walked across to the promenade to meet up with a couple of ze germans, enjoyed a pleasant walk with them, then separated to go into the sea. the weather was absolutely amazing all day (hot, but dry), the sea was calm (except for very small waves crossing each other), and we chilled in the water as the sun sank lower and eventually set.

it was a glorious evening.

there was - as usual - a little unpleasantness getting mr smear out of the water again, and then out of the sand, and then across to and through the showers, but otherwise everything was cool and we enjoyed a pleasant walk-and-talk until we happened to find an open hummusia.

we opened a table and ate too much, and it was excellent.

by the time we got out of there the buses were running.

while waiting for the bus, my son blew my mind with a suggestion to reinvent the question mark.

we arrived home fairly quickly, and showered, and then i passed out on the couch, as much from the post-hummus food coma as from the day in the sun. i got dragged off the couch to say goodnight to mr smear (i'm starting to give up on keeping his door closed when putting him to bed), then tried and failed to get back to sleep even though i was half-asleep the entire time.

and then suddenly i wasn't, so i've written all of this and am now going to try to tire myself out again with youtube and minesweeper...

a dramatic start to the weekend

i've got two days to process everything that happened today (also, this last week, and possibly month or two) before starting to deal with a bunch of things that make me nervous.

...

this morning started off alright. mr smear went to school, i did the dishes and took gd's wrong-sized shoes to the post office for return. then i caught the bus to work, and immediately got caught in a web of onboarding stuff. otherwise i worked straight until lunchtime.

the good news is, i got my primary job done. and, while i was out talking with my mom on the way to and from getting lunch*, bigtalk stopped in at the office to say hi and report that he's got a new job in the building, which is a relief (i really hope his new job is actually good for his career, and not just another employer blowing smoke up his bum).

* omfg. my niece is three months' pregnant and hadn't told my sister, and when confronted she said "she didn't think she'd be interested". my sister and her son have been living with her and doing all the heavy lifting in the parenting of her kid as it is, whose father (the ex-husband) is a known paedo. the boyfriend is sweet, but useless. all the fucking drama.

the bad news is that just before going to get lunch, the new captain shared his "roadmap" with the team and my british coworker responded (in our team chat) that it looked like it was ai-generated and that it was "mental" to devise an 18 month roadmap for a devops team**.

** it's pretty crazy in general, ignoring the fact that we're a new startup and the captain doesn't understand how anything works yet.

after lunch, i took him aside to explain to him that whether he's right or not (he's totally right) it doesn't help him or anyone to be so tactless.

immediately afterwards, we returned to our desks, at which point the new captain - in front of everyone, because it's an open-plan office - climbed into him, resulting in him telling him "i'm in charge, i tell you what to do, and you do it. if you don't like it, go speak to the boss".

i just kept my eyes fixed on my monitor while this took place. the feeling of the two of them hating each other was palpable.

half an hour later, i had a meeting with the boss. he asked how i'm doing, to which i responded that he'd need to start as he was the one who'd called the meeting. he informed me a) that i was off the devops team and b) that he wanted me back "home" and programming, but that "neither of the r&d dev captains were particularly excited about me joining their teams".

now, i don't know if he was reporting accurately, or if he was being polite and saying that they'd refused to take me, but either way i'm very unhappy about the fact that two people i've been working with for eight months don't want to work with me. even if i do have some idea of why not (each of them for different reasons, but mostly in approach). so a huge part of my processing anxiety right now is trying to figure out how to approach them on sunday and try to find a way to achieve some kind of feelings reset.

so i've officially - with immediate effect - been moved to the system team. this is a fine outcome in my book, at least, but knowing it's my boss's third choice does leave me with a bit of an aftertaste.

of course, that happened right before we all walked out to a special happy hour. which i spent most of talking to the guy i used to serve with. although it was an interesting conversation, i kept seeing my boss and the new captain and a bunch of others out of the corner of my eye and i had a strong feeling that i should have been there instead...

...

gd was supposed to finally be getting her tooth sorted out this evening, and i was expecting her to be done by the time i left the not-so-happy hour. she didn't answer her phone, so i called mr smear and learned that the dentist had been forty minutes late, and that gd had been on the chair for twenty minutes already, and he was sitting in the waiting room bored out of his skull.

so i talked to him until i caught a bus to join them, unlocked a couple of games on his phone for him, and then sat quietly stewing all the way there.

i met up with the two of them just after gd had finally finished, with the unfortunate result that the new tooth didn't fit properly, so she's now got to wait another two weeks. we headed to our usual post-dentist hummusia, had an enjoyable dinner (the food, not the feelings surrounding our respective days), and then caught a bus home.

...

while we ate, i asked mr smear if he'd apologized properly to the girl from yesterday. he informed us - and we double- and triple-checked - that she'd merely giggled as a response, and that aside from that they hadn't had any interactions.

hmmm.

...

mr smear went to bed relatively smoothly, and now i've posted this perhaps i'll have energy to shadowrun a little. last night i clicked through a whole lot of dialog, but by the time i was ready for a mission i was done.

first rain

 this morning started out alright. i accompanied mr smear to school, taking turns to carefully carry his miniature sukkah. i proceeded to the ministry of the interior offices to pick up a replacement cover for my id card, which went pleasantly smoothly.

i continued on to the electronics store with the intention to purchase a gaming machine, but halfway there realized that they weren't open yet.

i returned home, bumping into the irish ze german for a catch-up, and then accompanied gd to the hospital to make an appointment for her shoulder. we managed to get one for december :/

on the way back, we stopped by the clinic to secure authorization, and i headed up to the nurse's offices for a flu shot. i was surprised to not feel it going in at all!

almost home, the skies opened, and we got caught in a downpour. the first rain of the season was intense.

the afternoon was spent resting, and starting to read peter watts' blindsight (i had to skip the description in gomel's the end of humanism, part 2 because of spoilers), and then...

... we received a photo from mr smear, who on his way out of class found that someone had destroyed his miniature sukkah before his teacher even got to see it 💔

we never even thought to take photos of it before :(

we're trying to console him, and keep reminding him that at least we got to appreciate it, and that he did a great job. but that really sucks.

...

we all went to the dentist together for gd's scan. afterwards, we opened a table at the hummusia, and then enjoyed a pleasant evening walk home. the evening went smoothly.

i've spent the past while re-watching bill hicks' sane man. now... probably going to bed soon.

double vision

 i slept pretty well, surprisingly, but i woke up with crusty eyes indicating an incoming eye infection. because things weren't stressful enough. we headed to the clinic early, where i got off on the wrong foot by taking two numbers instead of one, which offended the clerks. then gd decided we had enough time to go to the pharmacy, and it was only through sheer dumb luck that i overheard my number being called after mr smear's had already been missed.

the doctor examined him, did some complicated math, and prescribed pills instead of syrup which makes our lives much easier. and he prescribed me drops and a cream, which i'm about to use for the first time and i'm a bit nervous about it.

my eyes are really itching all of a sudden, please god don't let it be herpes :(

we came home, packed his bag, and all left together to catch a bus to the summer camp. we dropped him off, confirmed that the councillors understood the importance of getting him the medication on time, and then walked to the bus stop and caught the bus home / to the office.

the sync with the tech-ops manager seemed to go well. i really hope it did.

it was a weird day, lots of kids and a really sweet pug and odd jobs and a walk to see the new offices and a late lunch after a big department meeting. then a few more odd jobs and packing up our old offices before taking a few items across with my boss and being amazed by the new digs (the showers are particularly impressive).

i met up with gd and mr smear, introduced them to the pug, and then we (after washing our hands thoroughly because the pug is, to quote gd, a "stinky potato") walked to a hummusia for a big meal that i would've enjoyed as much as them if not for the intensely painful sensitivity of my new fillings.

otherwise it was a great evening.

we went past the mall to explore the harry potter store, sort out mr smear's phone, buy a new case for gd's phone (which she's promptly broken and is now my "new" case, i'm quite upset), and then rush (ha ha, wait forever at the bus stop while wondering who the protestors are yelling at) home to take meds and get ready for bed.

after putting mr smear to bed (with socks on his hands for the second night in a row), i did some work (about an hour and a half of it) and then watched youtube videos while playing minesweeper. and now it's midnight and i'm going to bed.

the hummus mistake

 yesterday:

i picked up the books on my way to the office, the original french version of asterix le gaulois along wiith roald dahl's dirty beasts).

it was a bit of a weird day, in that it was quite relaxed :P

the most important thing i did was sync with bigtalk about finishing his current task in time to demo it to the team this afternoon, and i really hope we're going to be ready.

a bunch of things made me get around to lunch quite late, and i got it into my head to cross the road and pick up hummus. and chips. and falafel. it was great, but i ate way too much (and that's without touching the pita), and when i started falling apart i decided to make a break for it and go home early.

i was almost home when my alarm went off reminding me of a meeting with our security providers. i died inside.

i arrived home, and immediately jumped onto the call, only to realize very quickly that it was a marketing lecture and i was trapped. i immediately shut off my video and spent the next hour barely holding on to consciousness. then i hit the bed for a proper nap.

i woke up in time for dinner, but i didn't eat anything, just joined mr smear in watching wish dragon, which turned out to be a great movie (mr smear shed a tear or two). the rest of the evening went pretty smoothly.

at 10pm, i jumped on a call i'd invited myself into for the test deployment of a feature that one of our contractors has been working on for about three months now. i'd intended to be there just to back-seat drive and make sure that nobody was engaging in deployment shenanigans while we're busy refactoring everything, but after a while it became clear that they were 100% dependent on me to get the job done.

two hours later, we'd successfully deployed and configured, and i was beyond ready to go to bed.

today so far:

aside from a fight (over video call) with mr smear about using his phone at summer camp, it's been a pretty relaxed morning so far. now i'm having an early breakfast and getting ready to face the day.

work off (art)

 work off art was amazing. i don't remember the last time i went to an exhibit and was blown away by almost all of it.

getting there went smoothly in spite of the already mounting temperature, but that was mostly a matter of luck in timing. and we had time to grab a coffee before going in.

on the way out, we sat at hummus ha'ben shel ha'suri for breakfast, which we all enjoyed, and then walked to the hospital complex where gd had an encounter with a disrespectful pharmacist* while i deliberated between reasonably-priced and comfortable sandals and unreasonably-priced but holy-shit-what-is-this-magic sandals. i ended up splurging and going with the latter, which i pray i don't regret.

* i'm proud to report that she held her own, and made her accountable to her coworkers

we picked up a traditional bread-and-salt gift for tahoma for tomorrow, then walked home humming and arguing over the exact tune of a specific bar towards the end of daft punk - instant crush (i was wrong).

after learning some of the history of the ac/dc back in black album and listening to it in its entirety while resting on the couch, i spent a good chunk of the afternoon making some progress with the language app i've been working on in fits and starts, discussing educational gaming with sailor, teaching mr smear how to play roblox snake properly, doing tons of dishes and watching two episodes of deathnote on the big screen.

gin & tonic & coffee (the latter separately) and getting ready for shabbat.

"hummus thursday"

 "hummus chamishi" - lipgirl's started a pretty dangerous tradition. miraculously, i was fully functional during the post-lunch meeting in spite of it, and i only began to crash around 4.3pm when leaving the office for the weekend.

i taught mr smear how to construct beats in the morning.

it was a tough day, although less than the previous ones since my wednesday night achievement, and us agreeing that the other stuff on my plate was more "nice-to-have" than bona-fide requirements.

our friends' son's barmitzvah was intimate and pleasant.

[writing paused to write a complaint at the discovery that all the construction noise today is from a new project]

this morning so far has been mostly alright, although there was a bit of a meltdown over writing a mother's day card (i still haven't got a clear answer as to why there was yelling and tears). i woke up and used the massager this morning, and my neck's still tender but feeling markedly less so.

...

we're retaking gaza. we should have done this well over a year ago, instead of pandering to the american left and letting the situation get worse. all the land from egypt to jordan belongs to israel, it's in everyone's best interests that we reclaim it and put this jihadist's wet-dream of a  "palestinian" experiment to rest.