success

 today went well. mr smear slept at my mom's last night, so i got to wake up with no harassment (although not that much later than usual). i started my day diving into the calendar package i've been avoiding for months, and the deeper i got the more broken it turned out to be. so i tried looking for alternatives, and found one that works on all my platforms and is made for sane people! it still needed a little bit of trial and error, but by the time we were ready to go out i'd achieved what i set out to do and was feeling pretty good about my day.

my mom took me and mr smear to newlands forest - too cold, he said - so we continued on to kirstenbosch - too hot, he said. we all enjoyed a really nice walk.

i picked up a copy of prison architect and played for a while, then had a bath (i didn't know i needed that), then played some more until dinnertime. we continued watching gravity falls, then had some trouble with mr smear before bedtime... it may have taken a while, and lots of patience, but things got better and even though he didn't get story time we all said good night in good spirits.

our plan for this evening was to do a "watch party" of dune with shadowslight and muadib, but muadib was hit with loadshedding so we've postponed and i spent the evening tightening up my mobile app changes and fiddling with dependency versions. now i'm finding excuses to not go to bed while my macbook updates xcode which is taking forever.

another 6 days

our isolation began on the 12th of march, it's now (technically) the 8th of april and we're hearing talk of this lockdown being extended for longer than the next two weeks. we're doing okay. mostly (gd's neck's been causing her a lot of pain for about a week now). in general, we're very fortunate.

work-wise, i've been very frustrated, working with a co-worker who's tough to communicate with and dealing with parts of a system i've no experience with or context for. these three things are coming together to make me feel pretty slow and useless, which is not good. another potential concern is that due to the coronavirus pandemic my employer's dropping our maximum hours to 80%. i guess i'm going to be filling the other 20% with my own projects, which is more of a benefit than a stressor.

on friday evening i got into my sound-engineer neighbour's car studio and recorded three poems i've been trying to get out of my head for years, but the last few months in particular. it was a really cool experience! and humbling. and generally a lot of fun.

i don't know how we'd manage these weeks without toy story 3 (ps3). absolute godsend. and we've been gearing up for our first online pesach seder, which is going to be strange. mr smear's been struggling this past week or so and doing a lot of acting out - mostly towards me, which has felt awful. but between yesterday and today we seem to be getting through to him and this morning i scored a "good morning" in addition to a lot of other nice moments.

i've been investing a lot of time in transferring money again. it saddens me that there's so much incompetence in the financial world. every digital institution i've come across makes the traditional banks look more and more attractive, and i can't stand how useless and backwards the traditional banks are.

con man is bloody brilliant. watching the 2014 teenage mutant ninja turtles with mr smear was a trip. watching willow with him was pretty cool, too, and then suddenly it became insanely violent (i was fine with the troll scene, but then watching people getting shot in the chest with arrows and realizing that... perhaps not so good for a four year old...

his response to willow was to make a sign for his bedroom door that says "no evil queens allowed". i haven't the heart to tell him that if his existing signs that say "no mommies or daddies allowed in the morning" hasn't worked...

oh! on sunday morning vfmp and i spent an hour or two setting up thunderstone on tabletop simulator, which was fun. on sunday night his brother, shadowlights and shadowslight's brother joined us for a thunderstone game that went on until 2am and was great fun!

farewells

since sunday's trip up platteklip, my legs have been as sore or more than my attempt on the elliptical. so i'm feeling like an old man and i'm satisfied with myself simultaneously :P

the "saying goodbye" phase of this visit is both depressing and comforting! my head's spinning with all the last-minute information, such as a job offer and connections i've received which would cushion my fall if i had to leave montreal, the rediscovered family and some exposed familial skeletons that have fallen out the closet; on my way here i was consumed by thoughts of mail-order husbandry, on my way there it'll be by thoughts of french and work and backup plans.

monday:

getting lost in obs treated me to an excellent vegan sandwich and good coffee. protoplasm's workshop is very cool indeed, i know he's not in full swing and profitable yet but it's great to see that he's on his way :)

he completely blew my mind when he informed me that he was recovering from food poisoning - which he'd gotten before the party on saturday! he was horribly sick and had to be so in chemical toilets, but he wouldn't leave or say anything because he didn't want to ruin our fun! that's insane, even if he did manage to enjoy himself and the music in spite of how he was feeling. i will never be more impressed by a designated driver in my life.

neil gaiman's commencement speech which i watched on airplane's insistence - okay, he didn't have to insist too much - is brilliant and funny and validating; he's saying what i've been saying for years but in a much better way and with more authority :)

my mum and i went to say goodbye to my niece and her husband, my sister's husband and kids and the new sisters-in-law, then returned home for dinner with my aunt and uncle puberty. i then headed off to visit an old friend i haven't seen in years, met his wife and glimpsed his daughter before settling in to chat until it felt pretty late.

---yesterday:

i went to the cape quarter early to look for a specific piece of jewelry for shadowslight's mother's birthday, and walked in to a store manned (or womanned) by a girl i went to school with and who claims only recognized me because of facebook. it's funny, she wasn't good-looking at all as a teenager and has become quite attractive; we chatted for a while and then i left to meet my mother for coffee and be introduced to two of her co-workers.

there's something deeply entertaining about hearing my mother referred to as "battle-axe" :D

i filled the car with petrol and returned it, then walked to the comic / game store to spend some time with another old friend before hyperviper picked me up and we went to the wellness center for lunch. i thought we were going to eat together, but he disappeared and i ate alone. the food was really good, anyway, and i ran into a guy i knew from the dance crew who i'd seen on saturday night.

i went to rick's for a couple of drinks with hyperviper, who then drove me back to sea point to have coffee with my brother. i walked hom from there along main road, my mother picked me up and we went to the golf course (metropolitan is gorgeous) for shadowslight's mom's birthday party. i was introduced to a woman who's apparently my first cousin once removed, who was very excited to meet family she likes. i jumped in on a conversation about psychology not knowing that the woman speaking holds a chair in a psychology department; i told her about my zombies thesis and she was so excited she invited me to teach a seminar. hah!

after a great dinner and more alcohol, we went home and my sister picked me up and we went to call-a-pizza. the pizza was delicious and the music was great (though i expected to purchase more than one disc, but whatever), and we talked about a couple of things that really upset me.

1. my niece's new husband did and does things that are deeply disturbing, and unfortunately my niece is so stubborn that nobody can advise her. all we can do is hope for the best, or at least that if she gets hurt that it's not too badly, and support her as much as we can. i really, really hope that our fears aren't realized and that they're happy together.

2. my brother's behaviour has been even worse than i thought.

in other news, my sister's had some interesting paranormal experiences since her mother's passing that are inexplicable, i don't know how much is coincidence and charlatanism or how much is for real, but if it's the former nobody will ever be able to prove it and if it's the latter it would destabilize my world view. fortunately for me i don't need to worry too much about that right now.

protoplasm rocked up and we went to rafiki's for drinks after deciding that heartache & vine wasn't the place to be. amongst the other topics of discussion he proposed a stupidly simple way to get around the infuriatingly silly laws about working for compensation without a permit*, so if things get interesting i might have an option to earn.

* working for entities outside the country, that is

---today:

languishing in bed, enjoying my last proper sleep until i get back to montreal. walking to my niece's mother-in-law's salon for a pedicure after which i barely recognize my feet, they're not so hippie anymore. getting a cheap (R45) haircut at adelphi center (not very professional, but decent enough) and then lunch at xiang yuan (what an insanely dodgy place!). i shaved my beard for the immigration officials, showered and am now about to make a couple of calls and pack my bags.

aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

ending 2013 - part i

it's now 2014: happy new year! i'm a bit behind on posting, and for an exceptionally good reason - this new year's saw me off the grid, it was insane and magical and a description of it, however vaguely rendered, is deserving of its own post. so as i sit here on this beautiful afternoon, a little too tired and sunburned sore (don't worry, i managed to be responsible and it's minor... and in odd places...) to be out enjoying the sun i'm going to catch up on the run-up to new year's. so without further ado, i present the tail end of 2013!

---after the travelling covered by my previous post, my internal rhythms were totally buggered and so i experienced no jet lag whatsoever! in fact, it startles me that i've been running so well on so little sleep - i've been feeling better than ever over the past week and i've managed not to enter any sort of sleep cycle. my body operates better when it doesn't know what's happening, it appears :)

the only contact i've had with french since i've landed has been demonstrating to french speakers here that i'm not ready to communicate. i desperately need to rectify this.

---friday:

dis-chem is an awesome store with extremely helpful and knowledgeable employees. within no time we had vegan protein powder, creatine and vitamins b12 and d, and all for less than protein powder costs back in canada :)

visiting my aunt:

1. the local single kiss on the cheek versus the montreal double? leads to awkwardness.

2. uncle puberty and biggles were on a roll, things got ridiculously funny and that was very welcoming :)

we returned home, i hurriedly dressed nicely for dinner and we were off.

dinner:

1. there were a lot of people, half of whom i hadn't met before and had trouble keeping track of. that's been a theme, actually, over the past week. what's terrible is that i've had trouble recalling people i met years ago when they remember me. awkward. and then trouble keeping track of people's names when i've spent hours on end with them. super awkward.

2. nobody told anyone that i'm vegan. whoops! good thing there was another vegan!

3. it was great seeing the people i care about! not on that list is my ex-brother-in-law. i'm very glad he didn't make more of an effort to talk to me. his sisters are nice enough, though, and i was pleased when my opinions on israel (which they asked for) were accepted without offense.

4. i almost didn't recognize my uncle, he's been struggling with cancer for years but it's the first time the effects have been so visible.

even though i was really tired, when i got home i checked for messages from sq and she'd sent me a way to find her online presence. this accidentally (using google to search instead of going directly to the page she's set up for work) led me to yelp reviews, and i figured that if she'd checked me out on facebook then i could do the same using yelp. lesson learned: yelp is a dangerous source for online stalking and should be avoided. the negative reviews are stacked towards the top and they can paint a pretty ugly picture - you have to be patient (fortunately, i was in spite of my exhaustion) if you want a balanced view. sq explained that yelp uses that as leverage to get small businesses to pay for better control. i think that's disgusting both because it's essentially blackmail and because that skews the reviews and is a corruption precisely of what yelp is supposed to be offering that nobody else does.

---saturday:

i slept amazingly well - surprising, right?? - and got up early to shave and go to the synagogue in honour of the wedding. as it's been years (probably about three or three and a half) since i last shaved with a razor, i posted a photo to facebook that my mum took. i was disappointed to see later that that photo received more likes than anything else i've posted in seven years on facebook! because it shows that most people do not share my taste in how i should look. i mean, i knew that already, but i didn't have actual evidence in hand :(

shaving wasn't a problem at all, but the days after i remembered one of the main reasons i don't like doing it. in-grown hairs and general skin irritation. nothing visible, but very annoying.
*sigh*
i'd laser my beard if i didn't enjoy having the potential to grow a solid beard. just in case, you know ;)

the synagogue experience was really weird. i was surprised at how many old faces and names i remember (in contrast to the rest of my week's experiences cited earlier), specifically of the choir members. it occurred to me that i sang in the choir almost exactly twenty years ago, and aside from one or two guys (like the choir master) who've since passed away half of the current members were already ancient then. also in the synagogue were a few guys there that i went to school with, too, but they're people i have even less connection to.

picking up my rental was a good excuse to leave early :P

---i'd reserved the cheapest class possible and got a little fiat for my troubles. it's a cool car, but there's something bizarre about constantly being complimented on how cute it is. it's a *car*, people, it's not even mine. i loved my opel kadett, and nobody ever said anything nice about that one :(
when i gave the agent a dirty look after discovering that the car had gp plates (gauteng province, notoriously shit drivers) he told me that everyone will think i'm from out of town and chill.

buddy, you've never driven in cape town, have you?? the hate you get when you drive with gp plates is palpable!

no matter, it's a stick shift and it's taught me something about my driving. i haven't enjoyed driving in many years, and i now understand why: firstly, because overseas everyone drives automatic and i've never liked not being in full control of the car. i like to DRIVE, man, i like to really drive. secondly, there are few places as enjoyable to drive as cape town simply because there's no grid and everything's on or around the mountains, so it's *interesting* to drive. when i drive over to camps bay side i feel like i'm on a rally course, and i drive accordingly ^_^
thirdly, i drove a lot in cape town in the two years before i left - far more than anywhere else - and knowing the layout and the local behaviour so well lends a level of confidence i don't think i'll ever have outside.

---my mother and i met up with godmother and yang at canal walk. i can get lost in canal walk because it's so big, i don't like malls or shopping in general and i couldn't find anything i liked that wasn't marked with american prices. wtf?! it's been two years since i was last here, i'm perpetually shocked that the rand has devalued so much. everything's still cheap by tourist standards, but by south african standards it's unbearable :(

anyway, my mom and i were both stressed and out-shopped by the end of the day. she doesn't like shopping either. that means we both left with nothing after all that, and we'd been in the busiest mall on the first day of post-christmas sales. ugh!

we headed off to jou ma se comedy club to celebrate shadowslight's birthday. in addition to it being a fun evening spent with nice people, they had a vegan meal on the menu that wasn't bad and the comedians were all really good. piet potgieter had us all in hysterics!

...

it's strange to find a breeze at 19 degrees chilly when i've gotten used to -15. it's all psychological, i'm telling you!

[continued...]

quietly now...

shhhh... the mongoose just passed out, don't wanna wake him.

i lie, i do wanna wake him, but my mommy tells me it's not polite.

last night: shadowslight and i went to stones (what used to be ballroom). closed.
CLOSED???
CLOSED.
my word. so much history in there - my first cigarette, the first (only) time i ever got my lights punched out... actually, maybe it's not so bad.

we went through to the camps bay strip - DEAD. so we had a couple of drinks, and chatted for ages. there were some nice girls, but i was completely apathetic. the only chance of anything happening was if one of them had jumped on my lap and begun trying to seduce me.

today:

i slept until twelve. i went shopping, which was a bit of a mission really - it was the day before christmas eve... and then returned home to work on those undisclosed things. visited my brother and his son at my sister's place, and then a bit of getting-sorted-out before dropping her and her boyfriend off at the airport, sitting down for a beer, and then picking up the mongoose.

it's strange, and very cool having him here.

straight back to my place, he showered and we got ready and then rushed off to the dinner. awesome place. good food. quite fun. unsurprisingly, he's completely taken by tgtbt, i think it might've been better if he'd met other girls first :P

tried the camps bay stretch afterwards, even deader than before, so we came back here and he's just crashed. i'll be following suit shortly.