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.

moving day

moving day was yesterday , and a bit of today as well. it began with a long walk to the (actual) 24/7 for mr smear's breakfast and lunch that should have been a bus or a taxi ride. then coffee, saying goodbye to mr smear and launching into a day that was full madness.

- finally getting to the van to find it with a flat tire just as the movers arrived

- the movers finding half the furniture they needed to move covered in items

- giving the movers a run for their money, i'm in better shape than i thought i was. but i am *really* tired and sore

- being dehydrated and particularly dry all day (i suspect i'm cooking something.

- dealing with cuts on a prominent finger of each hand all day

- lots and lots of stresses and fighting but also lots of calming things down and reconciliation

- the new mattresses arriving in time

- losing 100 nis but covering both movers somehow

- getting the paint mixture right the first time, but failing the second. doing a lot of painting. a lot.

- and mold cleaning. a lot.

- our favorite vegan cafe doesn't deliver to our new apartment, so delivering to our old and taking it back with us.

- gd discovering some horrible things about our bathroom. all the bathrooms have real issues. our plumber is an asshole.

- the electric hob never arrived, i called and they never called me back

- having trouble finding the next van at reading. GPS getting lost in all the detours at 00:55 with 10% battery and me miraculously recalling / figuring out my way without it

- a complicated shower, finally getting into bed after 2am.

now it's 6.30am and i'm about to arrive at the parking lot for today's van, we still have at least a full load to take care of before handover.

and gd hasn't slept a wink, in spite of her pain and exhaustion, because in addition to horrible bathroom smells we killed two... silverfish? millipedes?

double onboarding

 i'm exhausted, psychologically as much as physically, but i have to get this out before i head to bed.

yesterday:

the mold treatment needed was much bigger than anticipated, the bloom was unexpectedly large.

i left for the session later than intended, arrived later than i should have, and struggled throughout because i kept distracting myself with my side project. the guy i'd partnered with the previous week told the boss he didn't want to work in pairs, and later the boss caught me out with a question while i was typing furiously at an AI agent...

we ended earlier than planned, and i came home in time to deliver the lovely flowers my new employer had sent me to our very sweet elderly neighbor, and discuss mr smear's new school with a single parent whose kid's apparently in a worse school than mr smear's old one.

mr smear had reading homework, it was really hard but i worked through it with him. i've only now discovered that the reading was only part of it :(

dinner was delicious, it was late but mr smear had helped prepare it. my shower was almost cold, because gd had turned off the boiler at the mains instead of putting it on the timer :/

i went to bed early last night in anticipation of the big day today.

today:

i got up alright, finished the epilogue of the ocean at the end of the lane with mr smear, and after seeing him off spent the rest of the early morning keeping an eye on the news and taking care of the dishes.

i arrived on time to my new office for a few hours of onboarding, very positive. then i raced home, dropped off my swag bag (and second-hand computer that apple won't let me use without a fight), pick up a sandwich (gd won the day with her black-salt avocado toast) and walk across the bridge to the new office.

where i found my new boss waiting for me, having waited more than an hour for me because (i discovered this evening) our sales guy had forgotten to tell him i'd be in later than originally agreed 🤦

so not the greatest first impression, but the rest of the afternoon was pleasantly smooth. it's a massive corporate, though, so there's looooooooots of onboarding bullshit to wade through and i'm somehow expected to already be contributing on my first day 😩

i got home just in time to set mr smear up with his math (revision) homework while i jumped in the (hot) shower, then get through hebrew harry potter reading, eat dinner starting the third episode of the a-team (what happened to the second?!), a whole ordeal getting mr smear ready for bed and into bed, then (after some procrastination) dabbling in a bit more onboarding, and now drinking a final cup of tea before crashing and praying for a simpler tomorrow.

sleeping beauty and the last of the workday naps

i didn't sleep much on friday night, but i got up earlier than everyone and got to enjoy some "me time" catching up on newsy youtube videos over my first coffee. between the news coming out of iran and venezuela, these are insane, but insanely-exciting, times!

mr smear waking up, getting dressed, making his bed and brushing his teeth on a saturday morning because he wanted to go to the comics library

...

heading out to the library with him, giving me some focus time on my side project. oddly, the comics library was open but nobody was there, so mr smear initially sat down on a comfortable couch outside to wait for them to return. a bit later i checked on him and saw that he'd been using his phone, so i disabled his phone expecting him to come find me... i had been in the middle of updating something on my phone control solution, so i used a phone call to him to test that it was working. 

he initially told me that he was just sitting on the couch, then admitted that that was a lie and that he was in the unmanned library reading comics. i told him to at least turn the lights on :P

a little later, i dragged him out of there to go find lunch. he really didn't want to - he wasn't hungry, apparently - but it was a beautiful day. we walked to a couple of places, ending up at miznon. he still didn't want anything, so i thought i'd get myself something and let him try it.

i tasted their lavan. he tasted their lavan. he decided that he was hungry, after all. i let him have it and ordered myself another, and then spent the next far-too-long stalking up and down desperately waiting for it with its taste still on my lips.

omg it was delicious.

we returned to the library for another reading/focus session, eventually going home when they started closing down for the day.

we were almost home when mr smear thanked me for the awesome day, and told me he wanted to get me back - i didn't know what he meant at first, but then found myself explaining that he didn't owe me anything, because i'd really enjoyed my day with him too ^_^

...

finishing the first a-team episode over dinner, finishing the main story of the ocean at the end of the lane at bedtime, revisiting con man with gd and getting through six (very short) episodes before passing out.

a long night's sleep, though not a good one

starting the ocean at the end of the lane epilogue over breakfast.

discovering mold blooms (we've had a lot of rain the past week or two)

between taking care of a bunch of admin stuff, developing AI agent fatigue from my side project. it's discouraging. i was hoping to be ready to roll by tomorrow, but i'm not so confident any more...

general sleepiness and taking what might be my last workday nap for a while on the couch.

now i'm finishing my (only) second coffee, and then gd and i are going to do a mold treatment, and then i'm going to be off to our offices soon for the second session of our agentic course.

strangeness

 everything feels weird. i feel like i'm in some kind of routine of routine-less restlessness. each day different, but the same, and that's highlighted by the early sunsets and evening homework / dinner / bedtime rituals.

and the constant in-and-out of anxieties, some job-hunting related, some apartment-and-admin related, some apartment-hunting related.

...

the interview went very differently from what i expected, and i hope he follows through (he said he'd push me forward to the next step) because i might have been overly-enthusiastic during the goodbyes. it's an outsourcing firm, and the more he talked the more confident i became that it's a great fit for me. working freelance, essentially, but with a constant salary, and it being in the job description to focus on technical problems, develop domain expertise and not really have to worry about whether the client is actually successful or not.

mercenary, yes, but career mode mercenary.

...

after the air-conditioner cleaning, i informed the landlord who's now claiming that it's a cleaning problem, not a mold problem, which is completely insane. we're running the one in the living room at the moment, and it seems alright, but i'm nervous about mr smear having another breathing issue in the night.

at least i seem to have found a professional to do a proper clean.

...

i hopped on a bus to meet with my ex-boss. on the way, i snapped a photo of mr smear across the road, face buried in his phone screen. he's now been warned that i'm going to be trying to ambush him, and his privileges are on the line...

the meeting with the ex-boss went as well as could be expected, i suppose. he stuck to the lines he fired me with, but he did frame it a bit differently, and we discussed a whole bunch of uncomfortable stuff. at the end of the day there are some things he misunderstood (both in terms of what happened in the office, and in terms of what i actually do for a living), though it's too late for any of that to make much difference. and i do feel like he heard me regarding the impact of their bungling of the firing, and i got some clarification into some of the others' situations (it doesn't make their decisions better, but even if i think they're wrong at least i understand why they thought it made sense), and before we got up he offered himself as a reference.

i walked home, helped mr smear with his math homework (he's finally caught up to where he was originally pretending to have got to), we had a great onigiri / lasagne dinner followed by a chat with my mom, and then it was some more of the neverending story and me sitting down at my computer and having no idea what i want to be doing right now.

i should probably turn it off and read.

contamination

 i went to bed pretty soon after posting last night (i had one more cup of tea and read some more percy jackson).

around 2am, mr smear woke up coughing and choking, and it took a while before he was able to breathe normally and go back to sleep. i suspected it was related to the mold and the dusting we've been doing :/

the morning started off pretty well, and mr smear essentially handled the bus ride by himself. it was particularly nice watching him being responsible and putting his phone away after paying, and actually observing the world around the bus for once.

since i got back home, gd and i have been having a proper go at two of the airconditioners, and what we've cleared out so far is horrific. and never-ending. i hope i didn't get any of the cleaning stuff in my eye (i'm not sure). i hope it's now actually safe enough to run for a while...

i'm not sure whether i'm ready for the technical interview today, but it'll probably be fine. i have one goal for today: to try and find a way to explain manacher’s algorithm in a way that normal people can understand.

leftovers

a lot of today was taking up by multiple rounds of doing the dishes from yesterday (almost done), and eating multiple rounds of lasagne and onigiri leftovers (still plenty remaining).

gd and i cleaned the filters of mr smear's airconditioner, but then discovered too late that it needs an additional mold treatment :/

most of the rest of the day was spent doing interesting python questions. with a break at one point to read some more percy jackson and nap.

i took mr smear to school this morning, and he more-or-less handled the bus ride by himself (he needed a reminder from me not to get distracted by his phone). after school, he hung around with his friend for an hour and a half*, so long that it was dark by the time he got home and i was sent out to the station (*ahem*, the married "we" needed to go meet him). where i ambushed him, as he came out of the station with his eyes glued to his screen 😒

* it's a loophole he's using to get out of homework. but it's not really working.

...

he's in bed now, it's been a day. tomorrow's my interview, followed by a chat with my now-ex boss. i wonder if he'll surprise me with a real reason for stabbing me in the back and cutting me out of what should have been enough options to buy an apartment.

preparation

 yesterday:

i did a little bit more work on my side project, but spent a lot of the day on leetcode practice questions, when i wasn't just reading or doing chores (gd and i spent a good chunk of yesterday dusting and de-molding mr smear's room)

i picked mr smear up from school again, and we walked to the center again, and we picked up his friend's mounted poster, which looked amazing.

we got it home, the homework went well, and we ate way too many pastries for dinner.

bedtime was a bit rougher than the previous two nights. of course. but it could have been worse 🤷

i started falling asleep during jujutsu kaisen, but then woke myself up as i getting to bed :/

today:

i got practically no sleep last night. i didn't feel terrible this morning, but i didn't feel rested, either. but the entire night was a combination of mental restlessness and the usual lower back / hip pains.

i took mr smear to school by bus this morning, demonstrating to him that it's considerably faster than the light rail. i took a walk through the mall on the way home - by accident, really - and then spent most of the day doing practice questions on leetcode again.

this evening's planning - which was originally for me to go to a job interview - became complicated by mr smear's friend's availability... after a "discussion" with gd about mr smear travelling by bus on his own, it was decided that he would come with me to the interview, and we'd go together from there to his friend's place.

on the way, i decided that if bringing my kid to an interview was a problem, i'd consider that a red flag. fortunately, it wasn't a problem at all, everyone was cool (including mr smear!) and the biggest concern was that he wasn't impressed by their snack selection :P

the interview went on much, much longer than anyone expected (2.5 hours), but by and large i got a good sense of how they operate (i like the approach) and i think they were happy with my performance (in spite of my arriving with no idea of their tech stack or what they really do), and i feel a good culture fit overall. i hope the feeling was mutual!

mr smear and i caught a bus to his friend's, who was delighted by the gift, but disappointed that mr smear had to leave directly (by this point it was 8.30pm already). we then raced to catch a bus home, wolf down dinner, and get mr smear ready for and into bed.

fortunately, bedtime was smooth tonight.

oh! and we had an entertaining chat with my mom and sister, who's just announced to the family that my niece is pregnant again. none of us know quite how we feel about that :P

...

right, these past two days have felt a bit nuts, and i can't quite decide what i'm going to do right now. on my mind: praying that these guys are excited about me and that i get an offer soon, and hoping that tomorrow's HR interview with a well-known outsourcing firm goes well.

today felt like a good day.

fatigued

 today was a struggle. i was exhausted for most of it, and that was pretty much from when i woke up in the morning.

...

the trump and netanyahu press conference from last night was bizarre. half of what trump said seemed incoherent to me, but in the grand scheme of things what he's proposing is pretty much the only reasonable way to make peace... send the "palestinians" back to their original homelands (egypt and jordan) and make sure that we don't have any threats living on our borders.

...

i took mr smear to school, saying goodbye before the big intersection to see how he handled it, and i think he handled it well. then i returned home and put together shelves, which took quite a while and saw me stripping one of my screwdriver heads :/

gd and i had some moments battling some more mold. and it was a rainy day, too.

gd had a consultation with the alternative medicine clinic, and they immediately made her an acupuncture appointment for the evening!

i rested a bit and watched some cowboy bebop while gd made use of the new shelves and cupboards.

i picked mr smear up, and his friend / our friends' kid asked if she could come over, so she did. the two of them watched minecraft videos on youtube until it was time to take mr smear to his evaluation.

mr smear and i were standing by the bus stop, i was facing him while standing between him and the road when a bus careened past the stop and sprayed water at us, soaking the seat of my pants and backs of my trouser legs. it was cold and rather unpleasant.

i dropped him off and found myself a (decaf) coffee, then (uncomfortably) sat down for an hour and thought about the database design of one of my side projects.

i picked him up, and he'd apparently been tired and had a difficult time with some of the tasks, but pulled through. i don't know how that makes me feel.. kinda proud of him for not giving up, i guess. which reminds me, i got a message from his "integration teacher" and complained about his hebrew teacher, and later saw that she'd responded with denial.

i'll have to deal with that in the morning.

we came home, had a bit of a fight about his hebrew reading, but managed to do a fair amount before accompanying gd to the clinic. once sure she was fine, we went to the mall for a falafel dinner, which was pretty good even though i had my eye on the family behind mr smear because i didn't trust their open coughing or waving ice creams around...

we got caught in the rain on the way back to the clinic, which fortunately stopped when we arrived because we had trouble getting a cab and ended up walking home.

bedtime went quickly (and smoothly, in spite of the fact that it's half an hour earlier than he's used to), and while i started putting together a bedside table for gd i got stuck when i realized i'd need to do some hammering, which i wasn't going to do after 9pm.

i've since spent a while playing inscryption, and now i'm enjoying a final cup of tea before hitting the hay. it feels like it's been a day.

blooming mold

tonight gd and i took turns being right. i was right to say that we need to check properly for mold at least every couple of days. gd was right to say that we needed to replace the bedside tables *today*.

we managed to get mr smear into bed around 8.40pm, which is amazing. we’ve now spent more than an hour frantically trying to clear the mold and protect our things without spreading spores everywhere (god knows how we’ve fared) and we’re *still* not done.

the price of living in tel aviv is a different kind of eternal vigilance.

...

gd has decided that mold is "home herpes".

unemployment vibe

 i got up early this morning and began looking over the job application exercise i've been given. it's interesting, and meaningful: they took my request seriously and i'm to contribute something real to their open source project. this is good.

the rest of my time at home was spent fighting mold blooms with gd. we had a little left to do this evening, and i'm hoping that we're going to be okay for a while.

we tried calling her OB/GYN, but there was no answer. we'll try again tomorrow.

...

i arrived at the office, our reservist was finally back after some months stationed in gaza. we filled him in on what we've been working on, and then it was time for our all-hands.

as this post's title suggests, it wasn't great. we're officially shutting our doors. we knew it was a possibility, but it doesn't stop it from being a sad surprise and a real bummer.

it's also a tiny bit scary, but intellectually i'm pretty sure we're all going to be okay.

we toasted the company, then headed out to catch a bus to a restaurant for our "last supper". there wasn't much for vegans, but one of the modified salads was nice and it was a great excuse not to break my diet. speaking of which - i'm down more than a kilo since i panicked over the weekend, which is encouraging.

after that, most of us went for coffee in the unseasonably warm afternoon, then returned to the office (well, there was a back and forth and an opportunity for me to sync with gd and my mom) and talked a bit more.

then i gathered all my belongings, including the m2 macbook i'm about to buy for about half price, and walked home.

...

i guess the most apt description for me today is "all over the place". i'm fine. but i'm not. i'm praying i do well with the exercise and get an offer, because that's the optimal path. i'm looking forward to investing some time in my side projects.

ultimately, i'm going to continue to take each day as it comes and hope for the best.

the (slip) knot

 "i push my fingers into my eyes..."

i need to breathe out this rage, slow my fight response, and get ready to face the day. last night on my way home i was plagued with fantasies about how to deal with mr smear's bully and his parents, some of which involved things that would most certainly get me imprisoned. eventually, i settled on composing a farewell to the class parents and publishing it as an open letter, which i guess is becoming a thing for me, but after gd and i just talked about i think the best way forward is to post it privately to the parents' group, give it to the school team, and then if any of them decides to share it then the blowout will be on them, not us.

there were things in the letter that i put together that gd hadn't even realized was going on, and she's been angry enough without those details.

i'm torn between rage at the situation, at the bully parents, and the bullies, and a deep pride in my son and how he's been handling all this. and gratitude and admiration for his friend, who has been no less than an angel in disguise.

...

tuesday:

the past couple of days have been intense, and it's been difficult to Get Stuff Done. tuesday was all about managing gd's anxiety before her dental appointment, which ultimately turned out to be a planning session for the series of upcoming treatments. honestly, the receptionist explained the plan to me no less than three times, and even wrote down a summary in illegible handwriting, and i still haven't a clue what's going on. what i do know is that we were able to separate the costs into two phases, and each phase can be made in installments, so it's an enormous cost but we can get through it.

after the dentist, we went to hummus ashkara and "opened a table". it was a really good experience.

yesterday:

tuesday and yesterday's workdays were hard. and long. and full of discomfort. my manager and i had a talk, and while he understood the concern i raised about our team culture (a couple of us had had a pretty serious disagreement on sunday evening, things were mostly respectful but still uncomfortable), he made a good point that in some things i need to remember: "when in rome..."

then yesterday, one of the "big boys" in the team announced that he's leaving, hot on the heels of the other one, apparently because he disliked the bosses' choice of manager promotion. what's really got me gobsmacked is that he doesn't have anywhere to go, no specific plans, he just decided he was done and that's it. during a time when the hi-tech job market is a complete shit-show.

the man's got balls, i'll give him that. and the loss of the two of them is definitely going to hurt.

...

after a nice dinner completing the second men in black film and getting mr smear into bed, i sat down and churned out the letter. then i played some crying suns until my eyes started to shut, and then i read a few paragraphs of count zero before turning in for the night.

today so far:

i guess - i'm afraid to type it - i've been sleeping relatively well lately, when i've been able to. we had a pretty good morning, but after dropping mr smear off at school and getting home i read the letter to gd and that's what set off all the feelings again. but the letter's done, and i've posted this now, so i'm feeling calmer and i'm ready to do a mold sweep and airconditioner clean and then head back to the office.

...

my mom's in the hospital already, i really hope her day goes smoothly.

weekend shift

 none of us wanted to go outside yesterday, it was miserably wet and cold. gd and mr smear weren't feeling great, either, it seems like they picked up some kind of tummy bug...

i spent the day alternating between napping, and working on the simple-regex-builder package. in the evening i felt it was ready to publish a v1, and then write it up and go to sleep. today, someone with a similar package got in touch with me and asked me if i might be interested in collaborating.

i just might :)

it was a bit of a struggle, but mr smear completed his "dear buggy" homework last night. not gonna lie, the "graffiti" dinosaur he shouldn't have added was really cool :P

this morning it was decided that mr smear wasn't well enough to go to school. and as usual, this turned out to be an incorrect assessment... but i digress. he had plenty of homework to do, and for most of the day he apparently did quite well.

for me it was a busy morning, dealing with another outbreak of mold, and a suspected ceiling leak, and a grocery shopping, and a pile of dishes, and something else i can't quite recall at the moment.

then i went to work, to resume the battle with the github fails. a couple of hours in, and a coworker and i ascertained that the damn things had been broken the whole time, and a relatively short while later i had everything up and running. the stuff i was deploying (surprisingly) mostly worked the first time, but now i'm in the thick of the cloudformation jungle and every issue i resolve is raising another one right behind it...

i came home in good spirits, tried to help mr smear with his homework and that triggered a very unpleasant and ugly tantrum on his part - at the same time, gd hadn't been feeling well and the expensive meal we ordered wasn't delivered - as in, the delivery guy marked it as delivered without delivering it - so it was all very dramatic for a while. then gd asked him to get out of the bath so i could get in, and he refused, and the two of us had a very serious and constructive conversation about my role as a parent taking precedence over being his friend; the evening went smoothly from there, but a nagging little part of me is wondering how much of it was staged just as an pretext for homework avoidance...

gd and i watched some more freaks and geeks, i finally published the hi-res pages that mr cat delivered two weeks ago... and played some more bloons adventure time... and i think i'm past ready to go to bed.

stormy

 something in my shoulder just went. it's very uncomfortable. also, it appears that it's cold enough outside that so much moisture has condensed on our windows that my hands seemingly-instantly went super dry. we're still struggling with mold - and wetness over our fridge - and this morning gd alerted me to a growing leak from a poorly-maintained pipe in our bathroom so we have a plumber coming in early tomorrow.

a detective got back to me this afternoon about yesterday's incident, to ask if i was willing to testify in court and to explain how easy it would be for the driver to get off on a technicality. i realized that i'd lost my temper the moment i registered that i was yelling expletives at a policeman... he seemed to be understanding, though, but the telephone booths in our building haven't got a bit of sound-dampening so i know that our whole floor heard me :$

otherwise the work day went pretty well. my boss is now referring to apples as "vegan croissants".

i came home early intending to take gd and mr smear to the parent-teacher meeting, but the storm broke just before we were due to leave and i said nuh-uh. so instead i helped mr smear with his reading comprehension practice, which was quite positive until he decided to try running out the clock, a strategy that solidly backfired on him.

oh, and mr smear drew a very disturbing, very gory series of sketches at school today. it doesn't look like there's any malicious intent, he claims he wasn't feeling anything in particular and just wants to freak people out. we explained that it's not appropriate at all to show that stuff to anyone other than us or his therapist. fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

bath-and-bedtime was going well until he got into a mood, and as soon as he began regulating his emotions i somehow made it worse by praising him. that triggered a downward spiral into a shitty bedtime.

now i've had some chill-time, and i might well go for some more. or go to bed. or somehow find the will to figure out how to reconfigure my email service because after everything i went through to get my code working, my emails are now being dropped due to an updated policy by my service provider.

winding down

just watched the icj ruling. the live chat on the icj ruling: i'm absolutely fascinated by how many south africans and pro-palestinians have completely misunderstood what the judges are saying. aside from instructing us to take harsher measures against any idiots who make genocidal statements, they're telling us to continue operating as we have been, and have even called out hamas both for not following international law (not that they'll care) and for continuing to hold civilian hostages.

i'm relieved that some semblance of sanity still reigns.

what the fuck is up with the watermelon?!!?

...

tuesday:

i don't remember much about the day itself, but i remember coming home exhausted, straight into a bullshit fight with mr smear. he was rude to both gd and myself, and ultimately ended up eating alone and putting himself to bed early in spite of our attempts to fix things.

wednesday:

the day started sensitively, but i managed to have a productive conversation and get us off to a good start.

work was all about implementing PR feedback. some of it was actually fun. the evening went much better than the day before.

yesterday:

a really nice start to the morning, even if gd hurt herself again (not as bad as the last time, hopefully she'll recover quickly). 

i had one job to do on wednesday (upgrade a react admin project), and i managed to get it right just i needed to leave. i ate too much delicious curry for lunch.

after accompanying mr smear to his mma class, i had a half-hour chat with a journalist who might be interested in an aspect of our immigration story.

over dinner we finished watching the new wonka movie, it's pretty cool and a great excuse to go back to the original charlie and the chocolate factory.

falling asleep at mr smear's bedtime and on the couch, though getting through another episode of freaks and geeks with gd. a part of me is in a hurry because i've convinced her to give futurama a try afterwards, but mostly of me is happy to drag out the rewatch because it's so freaking enjoyable.

bloons adventure time to bed.

today so far:

as i started writing this, my son was next to me dancing madly to spiderheck music (that's two weeks of not picking at his lips or his fingers, this has been great value for money so far), and i've just finished another once-over of mold spray, leaving the windows open for a little and hoping it doesn't resume raining just yet.

aside from taking mr smear to school and picking him up afterwards, i've had no energy for anything other than freaks and geeks and bloons adventure time. we're two thirds of the way through the former, and omg the writing is amazing and gd and i spent a lot of time hiding our faces in cringe.

as i finish writing this, i've just closed the windows and i feel (i hope) i did a good enough job to keep us for the weekend.

the middle

i've been really struggling to get shit done. between the war's news and politics, the weather / mold situation*, parenting** and the daily grind***, i feel like i've got a huge backlog of tasks even if i don't really and i don't feel like i'm getting much done.

* we keep finding little surprises, even if overall the situation is much improved.

** mr smear's doing great in some respects, but not all respects. it's a process.

*** okay, that's not fair. i'm just tired and worn out from endless things to do, but at least the work's going well and i'm quite happy at the moment.

...

 sunday:

gd was okay enough to pick mr smear up from work, but not take him to mma. i got so into my work that i didn't leave the office until gd called to ask where i was...

yesterday:

it was threatening to rain in the evening, so i decided to use my remote-work day and stay home. but then i remembered that i'd booked a blood donation in our office building. and in any event i had to take mr smear to his jiujitsu class in the evening.

the blood-drawing went smoothly, but i took the thingy off as instructed and it started bleeding and swelling... fortunately, i registered it quickly enough and went back to the nurse, and by bathtime it was fine.

speaking of bathtime, i think i know how to do the curtain rail myself. fuck the handyman who didn't get back to me after whining about how complicated a job it is. as soon as it's dry weather i'll go get some hacksaw help from the hardware store and git 'er done.

fortunately, we didn't get rained on, but i was feeling surprisingly shit after the donation. like, for hours...

...

on sunday evening i sat down and put together a summary of disturbing points exposed via our aliyah process, which will hopefully find its way into the hands of a relevant journalist. my mother went to the department of home affairs yesterday afternoon to try (once again, it's been three years now) to get a copy of her marriage certificate. she was then directed to the archivist, where they're going to have to dig because the copy isn't filed on the correct date. or maybe it was never filed - my mom  *just* called me to tell me that that's actually a possibility. she seems to have upset the woman she was talking to by responding with "you mean i spent all that money on getting divorced for nothing?" 😂

...

mr smear's bully situation has been resuming over the past couple of weeks, but i talked to his teacher yesterday and it sounds like he's following the strategy we've been describing for years and it's paying off - it's clear to everyone that the little shit he's been dealing with since he arrived is at fault, and his shitty condescending parents have been called in for a talk.

good.

we're also repeating the mantra of "ignore him. get away from him. but you're allowed to hit him as long as you're not throwing the first punch."

the last kiss

thursday:

on thursday morning i took mr smear to school. while waiting for the school crossing guards he turned around to kiss me goodbye, but when he turned back he found that all the kids were watching him and he covered his head with his jacket as he crossed the road. i checked in with him later when i picked him up from school, and being seen kissing me was indeed the source of the embarrassment. i was wondering if this would be the last kiss i get, but his proposed solution? next time we put the jacket over our heads so nobody sees 🤣

(i explained to him that that would make it worse, and proposed we come up with a secret code for "i love you" instead)

thursday's work was challenging. in the morning i learned that my boss has the same network problem i had on wednesday, and he has the same provider, so it may well be an issue on their end. although it's very strange that i don't have the issue with my mobile phone, when that's the same provider too.

thursday ended badly: due to the mold situation, showertime should have been bathtime and we all messed up.

friday:

friday morning was me fighting with mold again, and trying to find a shower curtain rail. then i tried to relax before heading out to pick up mr smear and meet with the mongoose, but our morning got turned around by someone-who-isn't-me's bad planning. and then someone-who-isn't-me wasn't able to join us for lunch as a consequence, so that kinda sucked. but the good news is that gd seems to be recovering very effectively from tuesday's nerve block, she's attributing that to our new furniture.

mr smear and i bussed through to the hummusia and were just in time for us all to be seated. the mongoose's daughter is so bid already! and so freaking cute!

we had a delicious lunch, and we all ate too much. then we all walked back to his place, where mr smear played unusually nicely (he doesn't like babies), and the mongoose introduced him to spiderheck.

after days of talk about what mr smear was going to do with the minecraft tokens he "earned" by not picking at his lips (or fingers), now we were purchasing a game that's at least a few weeks of bribery. i set the terms and conditions and he agreed, and he continued to agree when i asked gd to step in and act as witness.

that was a brilliant idea, because a few hours after that he'd decided he didn't like the deal any more.

them's the breaks, kid.

today:

our shabbat started out pleasantly enough, and i was happy to sit down and play spiderheck with him; it was all fun and games until he hit a level that he found frustrating, and bailed without letting me have my turn. and then we were right back into the thursday night cycle.

it took a while for things to calm down, and it took a lot from our end to keep the consequences natural and give him a chance to work it all out. it was a big relief when he finally did, though, and the rest of the morning was chilled.

around 1.30pm we headed out on wheels after oiling his bike, and we went through park hayarkon to the port for ice cream. it was a good ride, a beautiful day, the ice cream was delicious, and the only fly in the soup was an incident that mr smear didn't seem to notice - some girl tried to cut us off in the queue, i called her on it, and she then lied about having been there the whole time.

what a stupid thing to make shit feelings about.

both the rides there and back were great, with mr smear thoroughly enjoying some excellent speed moments. and a dog-petting moment while i picked up a coffee. and bumping into pg's parents and one of my coworkers (positive) and mr smear's 2nd grade teacher (not so positive).

so all was good, and we were about a block away from our apartment when mr smear lost control and slammed into a parked car. he was very sore, and in the initial minutes i was actually quite worried that he might've torn a ligament (he can be very dramatic), but i got him home and into a hot bath and he's been just fine since.

he's still speaking about the ride enthusiastically, so here's hoping his first fall doesn't color the next one... interestingly enough, he said something funny before we left: he initially told me he didn't want to go, because he never likes leaving (his words, not mine), but afterwards he told us that it hadn't been smart to say no because he enjoys riding the bike.

this seems good. and it seems like progress, too.

the evening was pretty relaxed, i did dishes while mr smear played more spiderheck, we finished watching the incredibles 2 (which we'd started a few nights ago), after which mr smear asked me to please ask the producers if they could make a third one. so i laughed, and searched youtube, and found number 3's trailer that was just released a day ago.

aaaaaand then just realized that it's not a real thing :(

...

we have new neighbors next door, one of whom has a rather nasty, persistent cough. we're also hearing rather a lot of bed-banging-into-the-wall sounds lately (not sure from which direction), to go with the frequent jackal howls. and today we had to close windows because we were getting cigarette smoke in our living room.

good grief.

the sting

 yesterday:

our first non-rainy day in a week.

i woke up with a literal pain in the neck, something that felt like a cross betweem a rash and nerve pain, and couldn't get back to sleep. i still have no idea what happened.

my fingers have been hurting, i think it's severely dry skin.

we had another mold scare yesterday. between my efforts last night and this morning, and our bi-weekly (every two weeks) cleaner this afternoon, it feels like we're treading water, but we're not doing better than that.

yesterday's workday was solid, it felt very productive.

gd had another nerve block last night, it was very rough for her and between hearing her cries, and getting her home, and getting mr smear showered and settled and into bed, i was completely drained and exhausted.

today:

i worked from home, and it was rough. mostly because of the hundred and one distractions*, but also because it took ages for me to understand what my opening question to my coworker needed to be and then ages struggling to reach the starting point. it was only because i had to connect via my mobile hotspot when i took mr smear to his mma class that i learned that the struggle was due to a misconfiguration in my home network, but i haven't the foggiest idea of where or what that misconfiguration could be.

* one of which being the finalization of the latest comic pages!

mr smear's mma class was good, except that a parent brought in an obviously sick child and now i'm praying that being openly coughed on didn't "stick".

money situation: i was freaking out monday because i thought i'd miscalculated and messed things up, and the more i've checked the more certain i've become that we're fine. now (as in, a minute ago) i just learned that they've collected transactions in a way that their default view makes very difficult to parse, but if i switch the sort order makes perfect sense. and all is good ( ˘ ^˘ )=3

i'm tired. mr smear and i watched more our universe and star trek prodigy over dinner, both great. and we had a really interesting conversation at bedtime about right and wrong vs legal and illegal.

maintenance

 the mold situation seems to be at a stalemate for the moment. it seems like we always need our airconditioning to be one in the wrong ways to dehumidify, which is frustrating.

speaking of frustrating, we had a shitty morning this morning, but for a change it was gd and not mr smear. at least mr smear got off to a good start in spite of the noise around him.

related, we've been having an issue with mr smear picking at his lips. we've told him how bad it is and what the risks are, and we've tried threatening negative reinforcement, but i didn't feel like that was going to be a successful strategy so i turned to bribing him. his face lit up at the idea that i'll buy him minecraft tokens if he'll let his lips heal.

last night after posting, i crashed. and with all the chores that needed doing this morning, i didn't catch up. fortunately, the workday went well in spite of that, even if it did feel really long.

i freaked out about money this morning when i looked at my bank account, but now that i've looked again i think they're just showing the numbers in a really dumb way. and my "personal banker" is a buffoon. just like the other ones before him, so i've no idea if he knows what i'm asking him when he answers. and it's really not clear if we actually have money for rent this month or not.

the ra'anana attack today was shocking, but i'm not going to lie: i've been nervous about ramming attacks for weeks... every time i wait to cross a busy intersection i half expect to be run over...

this is just awful. and the hostage situation is awful. and our soldiers still in danger is awful. and our political shenanigans are awful. and the anc literally selling south africa to the devil is awful.

...

my neck's been griefing me since the weekend. 

...

we had a pleasant evening, watching our universe over a good dinner, and since bedtime (we resumed the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy) it's continued to be pretty chilled. i feel like i should be doing stuff. or maybe not. 

a (re)new(ed) hope?

for months, ignorant and brainwashed idiots (and smart people, too) all over the world have been calling our attempts to defend ourselves against genocide: "genocide". when, ironically, we're doing everything in our power to *not* harm innocents, which would be far easier and safer for us (we could have literally flattened gaza in a couple of days if that had been our intention).

because nobody can police stupidity on the internet, these ridiculous assertions have run wild and there's been no real platform for defending against them.

i have a feeling that we should be grateful to the criminally negligent and morally bankrupt south african government for taking us to the ICJ. it looks like all eyes will be on the proceedings and it'll give us an opportunity to defend ourselves in an actual court, as opposed to the court of public opinion.

...

this morning was really rough. mr smear continued with the awefulness of the past couple of days, crossing a line with his rudeness and trying to punish us for telling him what to do.

on the way to school - and considering the mood he was in i honestly don't know how i managed to get him talking - i asked him what it is that makes him think we're bad parents. he informed me that it's because we make rules he doesn't like. so i asked him what good parents would do, and he confirmed that they'd let him do whatever he wanted. then i asked him how he knows this, and he didn't want to think about it.

so, with that minor success but still heavy shitty feeling, i came home and gd and i had a go at cleaning the cupboard in his bedroom. it was an awful experience. i don't know if i got spores in my eyes, or bleach, but either things got rough. and i lost a good pair of socks, and had to shower and switch clothes before i left for work.

at least i managed to make the forex orders today.

the first order of business today was ordering a car and setting up a chair evaluation - a couple of my teammates joined me and we got the job done; i'm excited about the chair i'm going with and i'm pleased that it's only half the budget.

the work day itself was productive.

at around 6.30pm everyone in the office scrambled to get home before the weather turned - apparently their was a storm warning from the municipality. i'd taken an umbrella and worn my rainboots to work, so i was okay, and i even managed to pick up a couple of groceries and run an errand for gd along the way.

when i got home, we had a family meeting. it was less a family meeting, and more me telling mr smear how things are going to proceed, but he had a very important role to play and he played it surprisingly well: he didn't argue, he assured me that he understood, and by and large it felt like all three of us were clear and in agreement.

god knows what tomorrow will bring, but it gave me hope regardless.

dinner was nice (we watched carpet cleaning ASMR videos), mr smear's shower/bedtime went smoothly. i started falling asleep while reading to him, then crashed on the couch, then (around 10.30/11pm, i think?) jumped in the shower and got stuck into bloons adventure time. for a while.

i think i'm almost ready for bed.