the win

 today went as best as could have been hoped for. after a good night's sleep, we talked to mr smear about ice skating and he became very enthusiastic. we walked to the new 24/7 to pick up a treat, then went hunting for the car. between the search for the car and taking a wrong turn to the ice rink, we arrived about half an hour later than planned, but no biggie.

getting mr smear sorted out was a confusing mess, then i headed back to rent a pair of ice skates for myself and got stuck behind a large group of old people.

i managed to keep relatively calm.

a lifetime later, i grabbed my skates and made it to the birthday / prep room in time to give mr smear a hand with his and go through to the rink with him.

what followed was an awesome time teaching him to skate. we both had a great time, he loved skating and he handled himself well both in getting his balance and in bouncing back up whenever he fell. i was really grateful that i could be there on the ice with him for his first time, and that gd was able to be with us even if her role was standing at the edge taking photos and videos and cheering us on :)

when it came time to go, mr smear decided he wanted to go to his friend's place, and his friend's dad okay'ed it so we shrugged and left. i was feeling a bit tired when we got home, but not that tired, but then swordschool called and as we talked i felt my eyelids and brain getting progressively heavier as my need for a nap became progressively more aggressive.

eventually i apologized and ended the call, then lay down on the couch, then realized that with mr smear out of the apartment gd had lit up a joint in the living room and the windows were closed. by the time she understood that i wasn't kidding about its effect on me and closed the windows, i was out cold and i would only wake up two and a half hours later...

after waking up, i lost some time trying to figure out why plex wasn't working properly* and then we took another car to pick up mr smear.

* it's a combination of my dell laptop's performance and the ps4 client, they're both a bit shit. using my macbook works brilliantly, though.

i would've hopped on a bus, which would have been much faster as well as much cheaper, but the buses weren't running yet... i managed to return the car with three minutes to spare, but then got stuck on hold with their service department for almost fifteen minutes because i ended the ride without realizing that i'd left the overhead light on :(

i came home, ordered pizza, chatted with my first boss for a bit, did some dishes, then finished watching the book of life which we'd started last night. it's a pretty solid kids' movie, but the music is really cringey and the sudden change of heart in xibalba really rubbed me the wrong way. overall, it felt a bit rushed.

after finally getting mr smear into bed (very late) - right after i got into trouble because he caught me sneaking a scoop of ice-cream - gd and i watched an episode of evangelion (the one where asuka and shinji get in sync), and after messing about and then posting this i'm now just about ready to get into bed myself.

don't be greedy

wednesday:

after my complaints the previous week, we received a very postive email from our boss - we have a budget for office chairs! so we're all off on sunday for a test drive together.

the contract signing in the evening was... an experience. signing the cheques was a less of a strain than anticipated. then our landlord arrived, and she wasn't more awkward than usual. the signing was fine, we talked a bit (i mentioned that our neighbors had left because their landlord got greedy, and now that apartment's been empty for a year), i showed her the things we had fixed on sunday and we talked about the mold in the cupboard situation (after gd had managed to clear it, hopefully we're done with it now at least for a while).

we then discussed whether she actually needed guarantors on top of the deposit and the cheques, which was very awkward and confusing. then she left. then she called, two minutes later, to remind me how they hadn't been greedy and raised the rent (even though all the rents in the area have been dropping recently) and how i should expect to take care of all the maintenance stuff 🤦

i told her we'd take it on a case-by-case basis. regardless, she managed to add a sour feeling to an otherwise positive evening.

thursday:

it was a tricky morning with mr smear, but we were managing it well. then i breathed out (as a form of self-regulating) in a way that upset mr smear, and then things got ugly.

i didn't manage to de-escalate before getting him to school, but i'm pleased to report that i managed not to escalate things, either.

still a kak feeling.

i had lunch at the sarona market with a couple of coworkers, one a new parent and one with a toddler, and All The Things about discipline and emotional regulation came up - the new parent announced at the end that he's about ready to take his kid back to the hospital :P

in the morning, my boss asked me to put the work i've been doing aside for a rainy day after i intuited an obscure test that managed to break one of the update's dependencies. in the evening, i left with a good feeling having made real progress on an entirely new piece of work.

i passed out watching evangelion again. at least gd's enjoying it.

today:

as i left the apartment this morning, i felt a sharp pain in the right side of my lower back (sciatica, seems like) and i've been struggling with it since.

the school run was fine, but i saw mr smear's nemesis' dad at the gate and i spent most of the walk back thinking about how much i dislike him and his bitch husband (him more by association, to be fair). the bad feelings at the end of the walk were for the old guy dragging his jack russell on a short leash; he didn't like being asked if he'd be okay with doing that to a small human.

gd and i hopped on a bus to dizengoff, where gd got her eyes tested, i picked up a replacement for my broken watch*. the prescription lenses she's getting are ridiculously expensive and not at all covered by insurance in any way, shape or form.

* a redmi smart band 2, it's the cheapest watch replacement available and feature-wise it honestly seems like an upgrade from the amazfit bip, which cost me about twice as much in south africa in 2018 (and costs almost twice as much here right now).

we got home in time to pick up mr smear from school, then we walked down to ibn gvirol for breakfast and coffee. then we came home. we spent the afternoon mostly uneventfully, but at the end of it we had an incident: mr smear decided he wanted to go to the ice-skating birthday party tomorrow, so i asked one of the moms if it was okay to RSVP so late in the game. then i booked a car. then mr smear decided he didn't want to go.

the ensuing conversation turned into a fight and did not go well. eventually, we all sat down and talked, but the process of getting to that point was very unpleasant. we've no idea what we're going to actually do tomorrow morning, but at least for now things are feeling good again.