familia-rity

yesterday:

the last hour and a half of the night was the best hour and a half of the night. i actually slept, and my alarm forcefully ejected me from a dream and got my day off to a (literally) wobbly start.

...

i accompanied gd to the hospital for her toenail appointment that she's been waiting for since april. i think we must have sat in the waiting room, surrounded by wet coughing, for about an hour before we were finally called in. i got a bit of work done, at least.

[stops writing to hunt for and then complain that the kiffness' balkan song isn't available anywhere]

the dermatologist doesn't believe the second toenail incident was fungal, just that gd is susceptible to whatever the fuck is going on. not exactly confidence-inspiring.

on our way out, we took the elevator down and as we were leaving it a 300 pound woman walking out in front of gd stopped suddenly and took a step backwards, landing squarely on gd's recovering toe. un-fucking-believable. after helping gd out of the elevator, and struggling to deal with the combination of her rage and the horror of her toenail likely being re-injured, we parted ways with me warning her to stay away from others for her own safety.

i hopped on a bus home, and was just calling my mother to update her when gd called me to inform me that some old woman had rammed into her in the supermarket - same foot, fortunately missing her toe - jesus fucking christ.

i understand why she felt the need to take a taxi home :/

...

hungry and tired, i stopped at home for breakfast instead of heading through to the office as originally planned, then crossed the bridge and went in for a couple of hours. earlier in the morning i'd threatened my teammates with an openspec workshop, and i took the opportunity to run a private training session with dx and his manager.

...

i returned home for an employer meeting, which turned out to be a presentation by the boss explaining how the whole company is about to experience a massive shift in order to realign with the market trends. i already found our division into backend / frontend / full-stack strange - i've been having difficulty understanding the distinctions since before AI became a thing, probably because i'm a sort-of full-stack engineer, and devops engineer, but not a frontend engineer at all - but now things are getting really interesting and we're going to be divided into the kinds of building we do, and our proficiency with AI and depth of experience with harnesses is going to determine whether we cut it or not.

...

by the time we needed to leave for netanya, gd was certain that she wouldn't be able to join us. she's been properly sick (her stomach, mainly) for days now, and it's really frustrating and disappointing for all of us.

we left the city in heavy traffic, and it took us about an hour and a half to get there, with mr smear complaining about motion sickness the whole way and insisting that using his phone made it better 🙄

the evening with our cousins was just lovely. the food was a big issue for them, but we were fine, and there were soooo maaaaany kiiiiiids which was loud and wonderful. we also walked down the two minutes to the beach for an incredible sunset, and just generally had a great time.

the ride back to tel aviv was quick and whineless, with all of us singing along to my driving playlist (that spans most of a century of good music) and managed to shower and get mr smear into bed around midnight. my first "girlfriend" (who's married to the guy who introduced me to my friends in matric which fundamentally changed my life's direction) finally sent me the summer camp photos i asked for back in may, and they are AMAZING. i can't believe how young we all were!

so that sent me down a rabbit hole of looking through my and gd's photos, which was a trip, and then it was after 1am and i crawled into bed for a relatively good sleep.

side quests

 i have got practically nothing done today! i accompanied my sister to her meeting with her friends, then returned home via the hardware store (for bird repellant), meeting up with gd and mr smear and doing a friday morning shopping run, which really is one of my least favorite things. it's been hot, i missed my second coffee, and i arrived home slow and tired and quite hungry. i helped gd make challah-peño to take with us tonight, started the process of locating the PSVR components because mr smear has been harassing me for a couple of days now to set it up.

then we left for the shuk, to meet up with my sister, and went up and down the market... mr smear and i feel very similarly about mall people, and shuk people are even worse. he held my hand and walked in lock-step behind me, and we came out relatively unscathed.

relatively, because our visit to the shuk began with him being pooped on by a bird 🙄

getting the bus home took more walking and time that anticipated, and i filed a complaint against the bus driver who almost injured us with his aggressive driving, but we came inside in good spirits and launched into uprising at full blast. then i set up my IDE to work with openai's codex, after which i spent the next while wiring up the PSVR.

and realizing that i, once again, had booked a car for no good reason and it was too late to cancel it without paying the full amount :(

i managed to get the PSVR set up, and mr smear got to play battlezone, and i called sailor for an hour long argument over what kind of "market research" is valid when you're trying to make a video game.

now it's evening, and we're getting ready to leave in an hour for dinner with our cousins.

subversion

 i've just gotten up after a night with almost no sleep, my usual hip flexor discomfort has been amplified severely and i was unable to stretch it out.

the first thing i saw on my phone was a notification to say that my shared ride has started, and as frustrating (and expensive for no reason) as it is to realize that i forgot to cancel my booking for this evening, it's even more frustrating to learn that my booking was captured incorrectly. now i have to wait an hour to call them and try to get them to cancel it without charge...

yesterday was bizarre. i arrived at the office, walked around setting the air conditioners to a reasonable temperature, and then found a phone booth for my meeting with the guy who'd stood me up the previous afternoon. we spent the following two hours together tweaking things and running things, and my very clear takeaway was that anyone who wants to touch their systems needs to do a full team onboarding.

also, i was totally freezing in the phone booth, and it wasn't until i returned to my seat that i remembered that i'd brought a sweater to work 🤦‍♂️

my meeting with the client: before i went up, i commented to the guy next to me that i might well be on my way out. that was the vibe i felt when i sat down across from the client, and it lasted a couple of sentences. and then everything was on its head, as he explained to me what the past half a year has been about from a leadership / business perspective and how me and my team fit in, and what changes are incoming, and how perfectly aligned my team's new mandate is with my personal roadmap.

then we closed out with a pleasant, interesting conversation about the misaligned between architecture and organizational structure and what we could or should be doing.

then i walked out with the strange sensation that either we're exceptionally well-aligned, or i'm being pranked.

i went out to pick up lunch, and ate with the guy who sits next to me, and then grabbed another booth to have a meeting with my manager. it was a different conversation, but not that different. whereas the client had been unsurprised by some of my suggestions, some of them clearly caught my manager off-guard and that was validating.

as much as i hated having to put together and deliver monday's presentation, i learned a whole lot of really important stuff while doing so and it's completely changed the trajectory of my week and how i think about things.

i spent some more time trying to make an AI agent implement metrics responsibly, then came home. i took mr smear out for a short walk, and to draw cash and pick up beers for the evening. on the way i told him all about my day, and when i got to the end he let me know that he hadn't been paying attention and had no idea what i'd said to him. then he told me a story, and when he was done i asked him to repeat it because i hadn't been paying attention. i don't know if he really cared enough to get the message :/

i walked over to my ride's apartment, and away we went to hod hasharon.

half the evening was lovely, half of it was awkward. i had some really interesting, some even productive, conversations. i met some fascinating people. the vegan food only arrived at around 10.30pm, by which stage i didn't care any more. i went deep discussing the second lebanon war, i encountered an older soldier whose sister reminded me that my bnei akiva shevet was emunah. i didn't bother a couple of celebrity heroes of mine, though i did truly want to.

on the way back, i grilled my ride for his aliyah story and was blown away by how different it was from all the other mixed couple stories i've heard. i guess the law doesn't apply equally when you're rich and influential...

i showered, had a cup of tea, wound down and went to bed. i've just got my rental charges cancelled - thankfully - and i've finished my first coffee, and i'm not sure what this morning's going to bring. i'm feeling particularly proud of myself for having thought to shut mr smear's blinds when i got in last night; it's mighty peaceful this morning :P

pre-work work

 okay, i seem to have gotten a relatively good night's sleep, even though i could have used a heck of a lot more. i drank coffee and read some more watchmen (i'm nearing the end), said good bye to mr smear, and then dived right in to fighting with the municipality and the car rental company, which so far seems like an expensive, losing battle.

then i climbed over the balcony divider and discovered that our end of the blockage from last night is rock-solid.

then i paid the electricity bill.

then i had a tiff with my wife over my enthusiasm for the news that the EU has voted to deport illegals and terrorists. then she left for her first sewing lesson in about a year 🤞

now i've had breakfast, and i've posted this, and i'm about to switch machines and hopefully finish up the work i've been trying to push since wednesday 🙄

prophesy

i left later than i should have to pick up the car (of course), and arrived at the address to find no cars, having been explicitly informed by the app that no further instructions were necessary. i tried calling the car sharing service, but their lines were down, and it took a while (and some helpful people) before i happened upon the vehicle and realized that the directions were simply wrong.

i made the pickup, and told waze to get us to the airport, and it gave us all sorts of weird directions that neither my mother nor my son were able to read. so my stress levels were kinda high by the time we finally made it onto the highway going in the right direction. when we finally arrived and parked, the signage led us astray (it's incorrect on shabbat, at least, i'm not sure what happens during the week) and sent us in circles with broken elevators before we finally entered the terminal.

at least from that point things went smoothly, and we had time to be ripped off for coffee and sit down with my mom before her flight. after we saw her to the security checks, we made our way back to the car with only one incident (i didn't realize we could only pay for parking at the exit, and made the mistake of getting out of the car and walking all the way back to the locked up pay machines), and aside from the shock of how expensive an hour or two's parking was the drive home was uneventful (fortunately, because we encountered some really insane drivers on the way home). i dropped mr smear off at home, returned the car, and on my walk home managed to get hold of the service hotline and complain and was offered a voucher as compensation.

this afternoon, after returning from the car ordeal, we watched the starship troopers movie together. i've always loved starship troopers; it's not a perfect movie, but it's a fun action film with some interesting ideas. so i'm embarrassed to admit that it took me this long to finally get around to reading the book.

in addition to what i wrote earlier, it's also surprisingly prophetic, considering that it calls out the kind of irrational 20th century ideology that's infected the west and the movie producers who tried really, really hard to misrepresent, subvert and undermine everything the author was trying to say. that's not an adaptation, it's a deeply disrespectful bastardization. thank god the original ideas hold up so well that so many people didn't "get" the "satire".

we're about to enjoy a late dinner, mr smear and i have showered and taken out the recycling, and my nervous system is bouncing up and down because i keep thinking about tomorrow's tasks.

i guess i'm really grateful for having had a couple of days off, a lot of which felt like actual days off even though i was pretty busy.

sleep journal entry

 i made a point of staying up late* even though i was really tired. i took an iron supplement during the day, skipped the magnesium. during the night i experienced intrusive thoughts and hip discomfort, though not particularly intense.

* some development, and another failed run of slay the spire 2

i was traumatized by mr smear's alarm going off in our room at top volume, i was dreaming and the dream exploded into a nightmare of violated anger, with no recollection. so that's how i woke up. i combined my morning coffee with some starship troopers to calm down. it captures the concepts and atmosphere of basic training superbly.

and then i sat down to take care of the usual morning admin stuff and received an email that i'm being fined for traveling in a public transport lane even though i'd returned the car prior to the incident being recorded. dammit.

it feels weird to be going into the office today.

the ex-coworker at the wedding

 my beard's just hit itchy phase. i'm tired. after sending mr smear off to school this morning, and making a tech support call for an issue with the new electric hob, i caught a bus to ace and traded in the thing gd didn't want after she assured me she wanted it for a perfectly-sized laundry basket, two more small trash cans and a welcome mat.

gd suggested that we leave one of the toilet brushes that come free with the bins behind the concrete block for whoever keeps pooping there.

i had just enough time for a coffee before leaving to pick up the car and drive north to the wedding.

there was a lot of traffic. i needed to pee pretty badly for the last twenty minutes.

the place was right next to kfar ha'ro'eh, where the yeshiva i lived in for four and a half months in 1996 is.

the wedding was really nice, the ceremony itself very sweet. while there were two *yecch* unavoidable hugs with people i don't like (the HR woman and one of the team leads that didn't want me on her team), and my relationship with my old boss is freaking weird, it was great seeing everyone and i'm glad i went.

the food was good, too, and i made an effort to drink responsibly (one drink, which i put down halfway through because i wasn't able to get out of a shot), and i'm pretty sure i was fine for the drive home.

i have since snacked too much.

aside from helping gd with the challah-peño, i've done very little of value. i think this is good.

the birthday special

 omg i am PAINFULLY tired. as in, i don't feel so good tired.

...

mr smear woke us up to delivery the birthday card this morning, and from there we progressed to making the following (using a combination of gemini and gimp, because the AI guardrails for images are frustrating and the generated images are mostly garbage anyway):

gd loved it, and mr smear and i had a positive educational experience.

afterwards, i spent some more time trying to get notebooklm to make the cinderella reboot comics i was working on last week. i managed to get better results, but still a lot of weirdness. i suspect that i'm going to need to copy/paste across different attempts to get it to the point where i feel comfortable posting it.

i then proceeded to built some small units (i'd promised gd that for her birthday i'd put together as much furniture as i could), while mr smear got his first screen time at home in ages (he used his half hour on oxygen not included), and then suddenly it was noon and time to take mr smear to south tel aviv.

his friend's mother did warn me that it was very far. i didn't think it was such a big deal, but in addition to it very much being a big deal it was also unseasonably warm and very sunny with very little shade. i really hope this doesn't trigger an outbreak for mr smear :)

anyway, he handled the ride better than ever before, was rewarded with his favorite drink (sprite) without even begging for it, and after riding through proper poverty and squalor (and chickens in the streets) i dropped him off in good spirits.

i took a more direct path home, straight through a very busy predominantly sudanese populated area, and the vibe was very different from the other direction...

i only stopped to pick up a desperately-needed coffee on the way home, then arrived home to begrudgingly make good on my promise and begin putting together the first of four chests of drawers.

actually, i guess i must have done something else before then, but i can't remembered anything else and i can't believe it took me quite that long... anyway, i'd constructed the body and two drawers (out of four) before i realized it was 6pm already and i needed to pick up mr smear.

there was no way i was going to ride that distance again, certainly not when it was so late and i was so thoroughly pooped, so i tried to catch a bus (or buses) and was caught off guard by the fact that they weren't operating yet. so i called a taxi. the driver was cool, and i was very grateful when he said "no problem" to picking up mr smear and his bike, as opposed to me walking mr smear and his bike to hunt for a bus stop on the wrong side of the tracks.

it was a story getting the bike into the trunk.

i almost died when mr smear excitedly started listing the contents of his friend's home in front of the taxi driver, and there was nothing i could say to stop him that wouldn't have been insulting. but his friend's family is a true gamer family, with multiple systems online, and he's now extremely excited about their tekken 3 arcade cabinet.

i can't tell you how pleased i am that he's begging me for tekken 3, which is still my favorite of the franchise by far, nor how sad i am that it's so difficult to get hold of.

mr smear has got the chorus from ticks and leeches stuck in his head, he's been singing it on a loop.

i completed the chest of drawers, mr smear helped me get all the cardboard boxes downstairs, and now it's dinner time.

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?

t-1 (shoes in the house)

 i'm sore, i'm tired, and i'm in awe of gd who's been getting through the past week and today and arguably carrying a lot more of the can the me or mr smear.

i woke up this surprisingly summery morning and booked a car for the day, which was very useful. after breakfast we began round after round of scraping walls, priming walls, cleaning, packing, taking loads of awkward or sensitive stuff to the new apartment, removing the projector shelf, and stretching because my sciatica is flaring up again - not debilitating, thankfully, but it's making things uncomfortable...

i've managed to cut myself on the tips of two fingers so far. the plasters are getting in the way and without the plasters i have two pain / infection magnets :(

some additional good news to the guy taking over our last two months' rent is that he's also taking the couches.

i think i'm ready to go to bed. tomorrow's moving day.

adrenaline dump

 i barely slept last night, and i woke up absolutely exhausted. so much so that i thought i might literally be sick. but i revisited the messages, and the advice i got from our friend, and i effectively scrapped my original, well-thought-out but ultimately combative response and made nice, and the response we received was reciprocally positive. i also got a very positive response from the new landlord, when i was being cautious because i know he's not asking anything that isn't standard.

so this morning was a huge relief on that front.

gd and i did the grocery shopping, and then i hurriedly took photos of our big belongings for the mover (i really felt like i was casing my own joint), and continued adding on to the list of things that need doing, then i had to leave for work in the rain, only once on the way realizing i needed to be working from my employer's office.

i called our kibbutz cousin to wish her a happy 70th birthday along the way, then walked in to the office with a dripping umbrella (and nowhere to put it) and tried to warm myself up with a sequence of hot drinks.

i managed to make some progress in understanding the data pipeline project, but i had a lot of trouble staying focused. eventually i got up to take a walk and pick up an early lunch, and sync with gd along the way, who'd been dealing with a bunch of stuff herself.

after lunch, and a long chat with a kibbutznik coworker who travelled africa extensively in the 90s, i finally sat back down for an hour of focus-time. that was when i realized that the chairs in our office are the same as in the wework that i suffered in a couple of years ago. it got so bad i had to move to a couch.

both before, and after, moving the couch, i was having a lot of trouble keeping my eyes open. but i did learn some important stuff. i have to say, if it wasn't for the combination of half-decent documentation and ai i don't know where i'd be right now.

then it was time for the final session of the weekly agentic courses i've been taking. i understand what was being taught, but me and the tools did not get along. when things calm down i'm going to get back in the ring with opencode and ollama and see if i can get them to play nicely. in the meanwhile, no matter what i did - mostly trying to copy and paste the prompts that everyone was doing fine with - my ai agents were playing dumb and i couldn't get anything done.

it was a relief to know that as frustrated as i was, i wasn't the only person in the class, but i think that there might only have been two of us...

my brain was cooked by the time i got on the bus home, and i put on some psytrance and tried to get in some meditation time. it was working, my mental state was stabilizing, when a bunch of big, brutish bus conductors stormed the bus to check our tickets. aside from telling myself "this is fine", i didn't think much of it and carried on being in my head, but a short while later i started hearing strange sounds (the wrong kind of strange) and i paused the track to discover that one of the thugs was having a fight with the bus driver, a big, elderly man, and for too long it looked like they were about to come to blows.

eventually their fight climaxed (to my knowledge) with the bus driver confronting the conductor to take a photo of his badge, and that almost got physical, and then when the conductor asked him his name he responded, in a heavy israeli accent, "james bond".

and then we were all treated to the two of them calling their bosses at the same time to report each other, each one telling a different story and none of us having any idea what had actually gone down initially.

i got off the bus a stop early, even more on edge than before i got on.

i came home to a pile of dishes that needed doing, and i was going to work through mr smear's history test studying with him but he informed me (and it was later confirmed) that he'd actually completed the test earlier already. so we sat down to do his upcoming literature homework, which is the story of pompeii.

it - took - forever. and i honestly felt bad for him, because the language was very difficult (lots of dictionary lookups for me) and every time he got into it he'd start talking about it in wonder, or making jokes, or going off on tangents about things in the text, and on the one hand i really wanted to encourage him engaging in the text but on the other, we had a limited amount of time to get through it :(

we paused for dinner, and then resumed after, and i'm very pleased to report that the second half went much faster. i made sure to give him some encouraging words when i said good night after that, and he seemed pretty pleased with himself.

i was falling asleep myself by that stage, but i still had to shower. so i did, and then i wasn't feeling quite so tired any more. it's now an hour later, i have a ton of stuff to do, but i have to make sure i catch up on some sleep because tomorrow's also going to be a high-pressure day.

attitude

 the electric storm last night was incredible. i'm surprised i slept as much as i did, especially considering the fact that my lower back / hips are doing their usual horrible (literal) pain-in-the-ass thing...

it was a rainy day, so i accompanied mr smear to school, coats and umbrellas and huge puddles alongside the sidewalks making it quite the mission. i was very tired and slow, and by the time i got home it was all i could do to remove my heavy rain boots and lie down on the couch... only to be immediately caught by the default ten-minute alarm for a group parental guidance session i'd agreed to come to :/

[pauses to put mr smear to bed, and have deep arguments as to why his door has to be closed. and then configures default calendar alarms]

i walked to the gathering, which was at the parents of one of mr smear's new friends. while i deeply regretted signing up for the entire walk there, once the talk got started i was relieved to find it genuinely interesting and helpful.

it was very long, though.

at the end, a couple of other parents mentioned roblox issues, triggering me into explaining how toxic it (and a lot of online games) can be, and generating some interest from a few parents in dealing with parental controls, digital content and peer pressure.

after everyone else had left, i found myself with the parents doing a deep dive into our family's adventures, and then theirs', and it was a fun social experience in spite of the heavy subject matter. while i was there, mr smear called me and asked if he could go home with another friend, which was a huge relief because for some reason i'd thought i would need to pick him up :P

i came home and rested for quite a while (including watching another episode of made in abyss), then realized that it was getting late for a friday afternoon and that i needed to pick mr smear up. i left expecting to be able to take a bus, but i'd just missed the last bus, and decided to book a car instead. i got to the car, did the inspection, connected the bluetooth (always a story), and then found myself trapped in the parking lot because the security gate remote wasn't working 🤦

i then had to return the car, walk to a different lot (it was drizzling), and make the requisite adjustments for the new car before finally heading out. i got to mr smear's friend's apartment in good time, but i'd already lost almost half an hour of the hour booked, and then mr smear took more than ten minutes to come down, and then we hit traffic on the way back; we literally had one minute left on the clock when we finally parked the car.

aside from all that, mr smear had had a great afternoon. we came home, i did a lot of dishes and helped gd with the challot and some of the lasagne preparation, and mr smear and i watched a few episodes of jujutsu kaisen together.

it's been a long day, i'm tired (and my lower back's still hurting), gd's feeling sick (it's been on/off all week), and mr smear's actively not going to sleep. but i still feel like it's been a good day, and overall a surprisingly positive week.

nature nurture

 this was a BIG weekend.

yesterday:

it was a very rushed morning. i dropped mr smear off at school, then took the light rail to the hospital mall where i picked up a bunch of stuff for the camping, especially the two bags of large vegan marshmallows. i carried the shopping home, then spent the next while helping gd knead the six large challot, including one giant challah-peño.

between rising/baking sessions, i rushed out to pick mr smear up from school, stopping at the office on the way to pick up my sunglasses which i hadn't been sure if i'd left there by mistake. i only had a few minutes to get out of there, so of course it was on me to discover that the alarm hadn't been set the night before and that there was some kind of issue with it... i managed to shift that off to my CEO before heading out again, arriving a few minutes late to meet mr smear at the station and take a walk to yuka monsters.

we picked up our copy of the day everything changed, then jumped on a light rail to return home, help gd with the last of the challot, and furiously pack everything. it was far later than planned when i finally went to pick up the car, return to load it, and get me and mr smear on our way to the "fairy forest".

mr smear was very excited about riding up front for the first time in his life, and he did a pretty good job as navigator keeping track of waze and relaying data. it's also been years since it was just the two of us in a car together, so we blasted his playlist, and overall it was a good ride.

minus us leaving the three coconut waters i'd bought for the trip in the fridge at home :/

the camp site was really nice. the tent we rented was way bigger than expected (it said "two man", but we could easily have fit four full-sized mattresses in there with space for bags). the tap water was potable, though it didn't taste very good, so mr smear didn't drink enough :/

in general, the class kids have a good energy together and for the most part mr smear gets along with them. with a couple of them better than the rest, which is positive.

one of the parents - a linguist - started telling mr smear that he didn't need to learn hebrew, which upset me... i tried to remain polite while making it very clear that she was doing something inappropriate, but she just didn't give a shit and it wasn't until this morning that an opportunity presented to share a bit of mr smear's history and make it clear that we (finally) actually have a handle on the language issue...

dinner was quite an occasion, gd's challot were a great success, and challah-peño received a lot of welcome praise. afterwards, mr smear's new friend's dad set up a gas stove so that we could toast marshmallows, which for mr smear was an amazing experience, while for me it was a mixture of excitement and trauma trying to fairly dole out a limited number of marshmallows to a swarm of greedy kids of various ages and cuteness levels.

and then, we realized that that whole time there'd been another family nearby with lots of marshmallows - non-vegan ones - so they could have handled a lot of the load instead :/

mr smear and i hit the sleeping bags relatively early (normal bedtime for him), and he was very excited to not be going to sleep alone. we both fell asleep pretty quickly.

i must have woken up half an hour to an hour later. the sleeping bags we bought are good. and warm. and i suddenly realized that i hadn't showered, and that i'd needed to shower. and then the restlessness settled in, and it wasn't until very late (i'm guessing around 2/3am according to what i heard later) when everyone else had finally gone to sleep that i finally managed to fall asleep again.

today:

so mr smear had a great night's sleep; me, not so much.

we got up with the sun, brushed our teeth, and i somehow succeeded in coercing mr smear to come shower with me. i explained to him that if there wasn't hot water, i'd be going first and have to suffer the longest, and when we entered the stalls we discovered that there wasn't any hot water, and i understood what all the previous evening's screams had all been about.

but the weather was good, so the moment i'd dried off the sun began heating me up. mr smear did not want to get in - i mean, neither did i, really - but he eventually did it and got through it, and once he was dry he also felt amazing.

great success!

i'm quite proud of myself for taking the towels back to the car and using them to ensure that the front seats and steering wheel weren't hellishly hot when we left - not only did that work well, but the towels were also bone dry by then.

he convinced me to start our day with hal's kettle-fried jalapeño chips, then it was breakfast / coffee / him and his friend inventing an activity that involved eating painful things (including the chips) that none of the other kids went for, then a pass-the-parcel game which he eventually joined (and took away a squishy-ball prize he was excited about), and then we assembled for a hike.

it was a much tougher hike than i expected, but it was good, and we got through it. it took a little while to break camp - mostly due to helping other parents and getting into a conversation about age-appropriate gaming - and then we were off.

our biggest issue on the way home was that the UX of the car radio is awful, and we couldn't charge the phone and listen to music simultaneously. so we charged it for the first half, and listened to music for the second half, and by the time we arrived home we were both exhausted, hot, and hungry.

the rest of the afternoon was spent showering, eating, and resting (or napping, in my case), dinner and more of twins was good, and then bedtime was a bit rough because last night reset all the bedtime ritual progress we've made 🤦

anyway, it was overall a fantastic first camping experience for mr smear, and an excellent bonding weekend for both of us, and hopefully i'll catch up on some sleep tonight.

cold sweats

 i think i slept relatively well last night. i got up early, read the last of the five asterix books we have (asterix and the banquet, i was amazed by how many of the names i remembered), and had a few naps throughout the day.

we played rayman for a while, mostly it went great but we had some pretty bad feelings at one point due to a misunderstanding... it's hard to explain to a kid how some yelling is okay :/

we played uno for while, that was fun.

we watched some more deathnote. the past few episodes really haven't enjoyed the same level of writing and i'm beginning to find myself over it. i hope it resolves well, but where we are it's a confusing mess.

i took mr smear (bike and rollerblades) to his friend's temporary home, it was extremely hot but it went well. the last uphill before i got home wrecked me, however, and i entered our apartment feeling faint (my neck had been giving me trouble for most of the ride home).

after i cooled down, i cabbed to meet tahoma in his new apartment. it's an awesome apartment in an incredible location! he convinced me to consider looking for a new apartment now and finding a sublet for our current one, i spoke to gd and hopefully we'll be able to make this happen.

we had a pizza at the green cat, and then walked to cassata - a remarkably tel avivi place - for ice cream, before eventually walking to the eliphelet station where it took me three tries to get on the right train because the signage is so bad.

...

having not realized how late i'd been out, i was caught mid-dinner by mr smear informing me that he was ready to go home. for the first time, i arranged for a taxi to pick him up, and he got home fine, but he called me from inside the taxi to say "dad - do you remember how you told me about stranger danger? i'm feeling that right now" 😰

we're definitely going to have to have a talk in the morning 🤣

parenting (at home and at work)

preying on my mind this morning: overhearing bigtalk (apparently) badmouthing our tech ops' manager to him while simultaneously making him feel unappreciated. i literally didn't know what to do at the time, and then later the topic came up (partially) when we were talking to our boss. now i feel like i have to take him for a walk and discuss what happened, and i feel like i need to talk to my boss about it first, and i don't want to do either of those things.

monday:

i dropped mr smear off at his therapist and proceeded to work. i presented my roadmap to a bunch of coworkers, with the sharpest feedback being how i hadn't made the timeline clear. after an inspirational quote from my boss (churchill's "plans are of little importance, but planning is essential") so in the middle of the night, i spent an hour or two making a gantt chart that was received very favorably (and with surprise that i actually did it properly, thanks free online gantt chart software!)

the largest / most important effort went into setting up an installation machine, which provided some really tricky challenges and i ended up leaving without understanding how to connect two very important dots.

yesterday:

the houthi attack in the early morning proved a very effective alarm for mr smear's first day of summer camp. it wasn't the smoothest morning, but we arrived at the bus stop on time for the shuttle - a pity that the shuttle was about forty minutes late. but that did give me an opportunity to get a coffee from the bakery on weizman, which turned into quite a weird experience (from the confused cashier when i asked about their alternative milks, to the barista who didn't understand that "barista" wasn't a brand, to the french people standing and talking while inappropriately blocking anyone who needed to get to the counter, to the barista having difficulty letting me know that my coffee was ready).

on the way to work i spoke to my mom, who sounded pretty bad (and by the evening would sound terrible). we both expressed gratitude that none of us got sick throughout her vacation here, which was a first. i'm a little concerned by her always insisting that she feels fine when she's obviously really sick - serious patient-zero vibes :/

it was a very busy work day, with a highlight and a lowlight. the lowlight was the incident i described above. the highlight was figuring out, after a couple of hours, the ridiculous process of getting the installation machine accounts sorted out and operational. just in time, too: we had two urgent installations yesterday, and if it wasn't for that machine the tech op and i would have had to spend the evening in the warehouse.

instead, i made it to my dentist appointment on time. i hadn't understood that the pain i was having was due to a new hole, so it was a standard filling that needed to be done. the procedure was very uncomfortable, and it was very sensitive last night, but it seems to be a good job.

on the way home (the bus didn't arrive, so i had to walk) i tested my connection to the installation machine, and the successful test meant that i could have dinner with my family (when the two hours were eventually over) and watch deathnote and, most importantly, grill mr smear about his first day in summer camp.

there were a few hiccups and funny stories, but overall it sounds like he's managing well and having new and interesting experiences ^_^

the installation went on until almost midnight, and ended in a weird failure. but as i was reporting the failure, we received news that the deployment has been delayed. tech ops was really bummed out, but then i reminded him that a) we just got more time just when we needed it and b) that we'd been able to work from home and hadn't been stuck in the warehouse all night.

today so far:

i feel much better since finishing the course of antibiotics yesterday afternoon, they were really making me tired. my new filling seems to be settling.

mission

 yesterday:

the surgeon advised me to return only as a last resort, and to book an appointment with a pedicurist instead.

my mom, mr smear and i took a very long walk to the beachfront and down to the shuk. we had a very serious talk about her making aliyah, and i hope she's processing it all because it was a big conversation and i think i managed to get across all the big points.

we took a bus home, then spent the next few hours resting.

in the late afternoon i picked up a car (which was a struggle, it was hot and the directions were shit) and we dropped off the watermelon at our cousins', then met up with them at the cemetery for a quick and personal memorial service.

we then returned to their place for a really nice friday night dinner. for the most part we all had a good time, including gd who'd been very uncomfortable the last couple of times. mr smear slipped back into his usual baby-hating habits, but was mostly good.

this morning:

this morning i discovered that my hip issues aren't necessarily caused by the bed. halfway through the night it got so bad that i left the couch and went to the bed, and slept better.

weird.

we had a pretty relaxed morning (i read asterix, and napped), and then we all went to the swimming pool. the lifeguard wasn't convinced that mr smear should be allowed in the deep end, but we were with him at all times and he made an effort to prove he actually could swim... but i think my mom and gd are right and that he needs proper lessons.

we were there for a couple of hours, we had a really good time, but it started falling apart as we prepared to leave when mr smear got angry with a baby for picking up gd's phone, and then messed around in the shower while i was waiting for him and while the clock was ticking on our car. and then when he finally came out i saw how badly he's scratched up his leg, and i lost patience.

and then, when i told gd that he was in trouble, she lost patience. so it wasn't pretty.

in spite of that, the rest of the afternoon went pretty smoothly (i think, i napped for most of it) and in the evening my mom took mr smear out for dinner and i took gd to south tel aviv for a dinner date. between the green cat pizza and a random hostel bar, we had a really good night ^_^

...

but we're all sad that my mom's leaving tomorrow.

mom's home

 i didn't sleep very well at all. i got up before my alarm, prepared coffee in a takeaway cup, and even chatted to mr smear, who wasn't interested in coming with to the airport but did make a point of calling excitedly every half hour to find out where she was :)

my timing would have been great had the north entrance to the train station been open. and it was almost great even for the south entrance, but i arrived just as everyone was getting off the train and pouring up the stairs in a way that prevented anyone from going down, and i ended up missing it by seconds.

fortunately the next train was only a few minutes later 🙏

picking up my mom and getting home was straightforward, and it was nice to start the day altogether.

then i went to work, where most of the day was spent setting up in the warehouse, preparing an installation and then executing. it went well, but took a long time.

i arrived home pretty late, we ordered very serious salads and sandwiches for dinner, and i didn't last long after getting mr smear into bed (the air mattress on the floor).

it was nice playing rayman: legends with mr smear before we sat down to eat - he had an eye exam in the afternoon and his vision was apparently too blurry for anything else :P

i slept relatively well last night, although my sleep was disrupted a number of times because my mother wasn't sleeping so much :P

i'm a bit nervous going into today: i have a presentation to give to a bunch of new employees and i've got literally nothing but an empty template right now.

beats

 it was a big day, it had ups and downs. big ups, with a sprinkle of frustrating downs.

it started with me waking up with a sore shoulder, and it's ending with me either being eaten by a mosquito or just imagining it.

we left reasonably on time, with only a minor mr smear hiccup along the way. the drive there was longer than i'd anticipated, but we arrived relatively early in the day. it wasn't quite what we expected - the party took place in an amusement park - but for a family-friendly trance event it was a pretty good space.

immediately, mr smear decided he was struggling with sensory overload and wanted to go home. we tried to calm him down, and make him understand that we weren't leaving anytime soon, with varying degrees of success.

for round one, we hit the main floor while he sat outside drawing, but soon the wind came up and he went upstairs to lie on a bench and watch the floor from above.

in retrospect, i feel really dumb for not having brought him earplugs or ear protectors. i'm guessing roughly half the other parents remembered and/or cared :P

between rounds, we ate the packed lunch in the car and then played foosball before returning to the main floor. something bothered him (i found out later it was people eating at the table he was next to) and he went and sat outside (reading on his phone, i let it go for today), and gd and i continued having a really good time dancing, enjoying a beer or three (i only had one :P), and being both amused by all the families on the floor and proud of all of us for doing precisely what our people fight and die to be able to do: live.

on the way out, mr smear actually joined us for a final dance on the second stage (a dj with a didgeridoo, mr smear wisely thought it prudent to step away from the bass bin because he was feeling the beats in his chest), and the long ride back was (long, but) very pleasant. coming into the apartment, gd made a comment about how we need to do that more often and my heart lifted ^_^

the rest of the evening was good, with mr smear and i playing some there is no game together. eventually, he went to bed. everything seemed fine.

by the third time he called for gd, i went to go and see what was going on. i was surprised to find him in tears, and i pushed him to tell me why he was crying... to which he responded that they were joyful tears, because gd had sung him a lullaby and he'd felt truly at peace for the first time in years 😭

i've spent a little time working on the language project, but it's late and it's been a big day and i think i should probably go to bed soon.

almost restful

yesterday:

we all went out to pick up pillows (the ones we bought a few weeks ago are expensive but shit), a bunch of nature store groceries and treats, and then "opened a table" at the hummusia. it was great.

but all the while we were on the clock, trying to make arrangements to get mr smear and his friend to cinema city to see a minecraft movie (in english with hebrew subtitles, as they instructed, because his friend's trying to learn english and they both agreed that it's always better to see a movie in its original language 🤣)

we caught the bus home just in time for me to be able to pick up the first car (our "usual" vehicle wasn't available), figure out how to start it (?!), pick up the boys and get them there just in time, and only almost taking a wrong turn once. i turned the wrong way for parking, though, and we ended up having to walk quite a way... his friend's mom had organized the tickets which were supposed to include concession stand items, and figuring that out when they were already running a bit late was stressful.

i eventually got them seated, then headed out to the car to get it back before the reservation ended feeling somewhat liberated by them being okay and somewhat nervous about them being alone (i was thinking about the off-chance of mr smear somehow coming into contact with dairy)

i drove back to the car's parking spot, parked it, and had just left the building when the sirens went off - a houthi attack.

good grief.

i managed to get into a bomb shelter nearby, one full of extremely loud neighbors, while frantically talking to mr smear's friends parents and explaining that they were alone in glilot but that it was probably okay (because the theatre should be a protected area). then i walked home, grabbed a cup of tea, and began the journey to the second car, which was much futher away.

just before arriving there his friend's mother called to say that she'd called him, and that he'd complained that she was disturbing their movie :P

i drove back to cinema city, found a closer parking, and got to the theatre just as the two of them were walking out, full of enthusiasm and joy ^_^

it took a while to get out of there, but it was all good spirits and they decided that mr smear should go to his place for the evening. the drama that followed was him refusing to take stuff for the night (insisting that he didn't want to sleep over), even though he eventually did end up sleeping there.

god knows if he brushed his teeth. i know for sure he didn't shower :/

gd and i made kiddush, ate a very simple dinner, and watched the rest of nightcrawler (meh. also, have i seen it before? but mainly meh - it's a good movie but not something i'm ever in the mood for)

today:

it's weird waking up without mr smear at home. not unpleasant, but weird. after much not-much-ing (including a fair amount of slay the spire), gd and i took care of the humungous pile of dishes, and around lunchtime i called mr smear and heard that the parents were out and that he hadn't eaten. he was "peckish", he told me, but not hungry.

i walked over there (it's a half hour walk) to pick him up, and arrived in time to find them being fed. i ended up being coerced into staying for lunch and extra coffees, while the kids continued with their screen-time marathon, and the adult conversation was excellent and ended in me passionately describing the magic of shakespeare's sonnets to people who really appreciated it.

after that, i finally managed to extricate myself and my boy, and we were off on our way home. in very good spirits.

...

right until i explained that due to the excessive screen time, there would be none until dinner (which at that point was only an hour or two away). what followed was pretty extreme, not just the fighting over screentime and rudeness and consequences, but also me having to physically drag him half the way home.

it was all just fucking awful.

there were big feelings and strong words and angry silences. also a couple of funny moments, but they didn't last. i explained to mr smear that we're going to mark today - the 10th of may - as the last day that he gets away with the bad attitude.

i didn't know whether gd would be supportive or not, but it only took her a minute to realize what he was doing and how and we agreed whole-broken-heartedly that real measures needed to be taken. so while he showered, i figured out how to block specific sites on the computer, initiated an account deletion for roblox, deleted almost all the games of the ps4 (except for my games) and unsubscribed from their plus program, and disabled his access to our steam library.

it's cold turkey time.

there was still some lingering nastiness over a very quiet dinner, but afterwards we all had a family talk and it really feels like we got through to him. in addition to everything else we discussed - and we discussed a lot of stuff - i instructed him to start working on a gratitude journal, which he did with gusto.

bedtime was smooth, and pleasant.

post-bedtime? gd and i are absolutely drained following all the drama. it was a beautiful, restful weekend that was marred by car rental issues, terrorism and a massive parenting failure, and it's pretty hard right now to focus on the good stuff. i'm going to go practice that now.