saturday morning eye of the storm

 i just sent scrapper an overshare response to "how are things on your end" and i feel it's worth recording for myself:

from my side, i guess these are the times the chinese always threatened us with (“may you live in interesting times”)…

mr smear managed to close out his first year in the arts school without getting kicked out (though he managed to come close on a number of occasions), and in general he’s been maturing in front of our eyes and he’s doing infinitely better than this time last year. he just started learning to rollerblade this past couple of months, and he’s enjoying our rides much more than he was on a bike which is awesome. also, he’s joined one of his friends at a keitana which turned out to be a survivalist school-themed LARP where they learn how to construct and use weapons and have lectures on pyrotechnics 😛 

gd’s been having a rough time, we discovered recently that she’s either been celiac or has had a really intense reactions to gluten* for a long time and it just got much worse the past year or so. the good news is that a couple of months gluten free and her mind and body are in a much better place than they’ve been in years.

* this is obvious karma for us describing ourselves as “allergic to gluten free” for most of the last decade 😅

as for me, 2026 so far has been pretty wild. i’ve been getting deeper and deeper into AI both at work and in my side projects, and i can tell you that the entire industry has completely lost its mind. the tools are at the same time amazing and utter garbage, everything is hype and we’re watching tech leaders making the most ridiculously foolish plays right in front of our eyes. it’s mass psychosis and it’s disturbing as all hell. 

aside from that, i’ve been struggling on and off to figure out how to print my comics and i'm becoming more and more frustrated that none of the indie comic creators in israel seem to be interested in banding together and making it easier for everyone…

otherwise, the financial strain of living hand-to-mouth in tel aviv is “business as usual” stress, and so far the summer weather has been relatively kind, and i’m sitting on a balcony in a cool breeze and life is, somehow, pretty damned good.

...

last night was rough. emotionally and psychologically, gd and i had an argument about how we each see the world (when it comes to defining "normal" behavior in other people after the very upsetting start to season 3 of infinity train) which resulted in the always-uncomfortable "agree to disagree". that was followed by a particularly rough night, first with the hip flexors and then with indigestion that forced me upright when i desperately needed to be horizontal and took about two hours to calm down enough to let me get back to sleep. then it was morning, and after about half an hour trying to sleep in i gave up and got up to make myself coffee and sit on the balcony and make peace with my life.

...

rough night or no, rough times or no, in this moment right here and now i feel particularly blessed. the weather is beautiful and calm, the birds are singing, and our highway intersection and its surroundings are full of greens (and bright yellows), and interesting tall glass architecture (which i love because it almost makes the buildings camouflaged against the sky), and in spite of all my anxieties i seem to doing okay right now.

rolling two rocks uphill simultaneously

after a night of being wired and getting very little sleep, yesterday was a bit rough. the first thing i did, after mr smear went to school and i'd already done a little more AI harness work, was head across the road to the supermarket to buy some more containers.

i'm still feeling stupid for having bought one that was clearly broken, and removing the stickers before i noticed.

but the walk itself was nice. the weather was pleasant, and there was a certain... tel avivi something... in the air.

i did another hour or so on the harness, then finally - and unwillingly - sat down to work. i spent the rest of the day doing the dual sisyphean tasks of babysitting PR review / fix loops, each pass trying to update my agentic skills to avoid the next, and each time failing more spectacularly than before. my first omgihavetotakeabreak was spent washing the containers, the second vacuuming the entire apartment*, and the end of the day i was so antsy that i did something i haven't done in years - i got dressed and went for a long walk.

* i asked gd if she knew why i was vacuuming the apartment. "to help me?" she innocently responded. "hell, no!"

i walked up to the park, crossed the river, and stopped to try and get a photo of a really weird, interesting-looking bird that might have been a white-throated kingfisher. then i passed a pond, and noticed a crow and an egyptian goose parked on the side, with another crow sitting on a sign behind them. i walked up a little distance away to join them, as we all watched the pond in the bright sun on its way to setting behind the trees. moments later, what appears to have been a little egret landed right between us, and we all shared a lovely moment together.

i got home feeling a bit better, but still frazzled. we finished watching spaceballs over dinner, mr smear had been really cool all day (he did his chores without complaining, even though it took him a long time), and bedtime was pretty smooth.

gd and i coordinated and i took a photo of the water meter at 9.45pm, and we stopped using any water until i got up at 5.45am to take another photo, and i'm relieved to see that we don't have a leak. unfortunately, though, it made the night a little more stressed than it needed to be and i couldn't get back to sleep after waking up, so 🤷‍♂️

i began my day with a coffee and stranger in a strange land on our balcony, and it's a beautiful day. mr smear gave star birds a try after making the case that he'd gotten up at 6am and taken care of all the things he needed to, so the one-hour-after-brushing-teeth rule applied, and it seems like he's enjoying it.

i've paid our rent, and i've typed all this up, and now i'm going to sit down for breakfast before heading off to pretend to be a professional adult.

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?

the big stuff

 i'm seriously on edge, feeling psychologically overwhelmed, and each step through my day feels less real than the one before.

at least my morning procedure lends some sanity to my days. i wake up, do dishes, then drink my coffee while reading a physical book. i'm about halfway through ping pong and it's getting interesting.

after mr smear left, i took care of the work i *should* have done last night (it only took twenty minutes, but it needed my brain to be online), and the rest of the morning was all about finding a new apartment to rent.

i was cold before i left our warm apartment and headed out into winter, walked across the bridge and arrived at the office just in time to make myself a hot coffee before meeting with my teammates and the manager i've now seen twice since he interviewed me.

aside from a couple of distractions - not least being a potential landlord who's understandably quite nervous about leaving his apartment empty - i spent most of my day on my bum, working hard, actually coding.

i feel pretty confident that the changes i pushed before i left the office were good. i really hope so. it's my first real java coding since 2019...

i've been developing a bit of a tic over the past few months, so i was embarrassed when the team i'm embedded in called me to the all hands and my automatic response was a loud, honest HAIYAA...

on the way home, i had to stop for a driver rolling forward with his eyes on his phone, and then i literally almost peed myself crossing a highway (with the light) wearing my hoodie and my coat hood up, so nervously checking behind me, when a car zoomed by honking full blast because someone in front of me went through the red 🤦

the evening went pretty well, although mr smear was moving in slo-mo for a lot of it, as was the poor delivery guy for the hummus (gd was struggling this afternoon), and then i ate too much, and then mr smear and i had a series of awesome moment listening and singing along to tool (lateralus - he informed me that he's now old enough to really appreciate it), and then at bedtime he refused to say goodnight because he was upset with me, which he relatively quickly explained was because i'd said (while treating his ingrown toenails) that i obviously didn't beat him enough as child, but then he (miraculously) gave me a chance to remind him that the words following that were "so you didn't learn to be afraid of not listening to me which would have saved you this horrible story with your toenails". and then we were cool, and he explained to me that as a consequence of me not beating him enough we have a good relationship, to which i agreed that that was an upside, though there are downsides. and then his humor and energy levels rose (this was after 9pm) and i had to pin him down to say goodnight, and that turned into a short bout of roughhousing, which fortunately ended without any further bad vibes.

i've been writing this post for a long time now, but mainly because that HAIYAA turned into watching hot ones with gd, and i think i might be going to bed soon.

i can't shake the feeling that i'm forgetting a whole bunch of important, urgent things somehow, but i can't and shouldn't do more right now other than put one foot in front of the other and focus on the big stuff.

social

a couple of days ago i bought a couple of games that seemed like they would be fun to play with mr smear. unfortunately, mr smear tends to be contrary when it comes to game time - he complains that i don't play enough with him, but he usually only wants to play games with me when he's on downtime. he straight-up refused to give the night of the rabbit a try, and while i didn't want to give him shit for not wanting to play a specific game, i was frustrated with him for approaching it with a negative attitude.

while he played something else, gd walked in and sat down next to me to make a show of taking interest in it. i thought it was a bit too obvious, but as soon as his screen time was over he was hovering over me, getting very involved in the puzzle solving and eventually insisting on taking a turn at the wheel :P

gd invited our friends over for late lunch / dinner, and that entailed a shopping run and a lot of dishes. it also resulted in mr smear getting a lot more screen time than usual... but he did a pretty good job of playing host when they arrived, and after everyone had enjoyed a good onigiri dinner and he'd entertained everyone with goat simulator, he pulled out goodcritters and three of them settled in for a very serious game.

i cannot overstate just how big a deal that is!

the kids played until i was past everyone's bedtime, and they rolled out in a hurry to get home before the skies opened.

unfortunately, the incredible downpour began a minute after they left...

mr smear got ready for bed and went to sleep without further incident, which was pretty impressive all things considered, including the fact that he's still a bit traumatized by a scene from jujutsu kaisen (yuji's fingers being burned).

...

i feel like it's been a good weekend, and i feel relatively rested. regardless of how i feel in the morning, though, i'm going to have to do some serious interview practice tomorrow 'cause i need to impress a professional python expert (as opposed to a regular developer who uses python professionally).

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.

the perfect beach day

yesterday:

we all went off to dizengoff, which was a lot less festive than anticipated. having said that, there was plenty festive outside, and it was a gorgeous day. we took care of a couple of minor things, including picking up a bunch of hebrew comic books, and then took a slow meander up to dizengoff square, where we stopped for a very nice lunch.

we all enjoyed the food, and we all had a good experience.

then we caught a bus home and had a pretty relaxing afternoon.

in the evening i took mr smear to the synagogue, he came without a fuss and in addition to some generally pleasant talks along the way, we had a pretty serious conversation about the weekly portion (which includes the story of the golden calf), why we're supposed to pray so often (specifically, the shema), and how those two both ultimately have the same moral: no matter how smart we may think we are, that we *get* the lessons from the torah, we're descended from the same morons who *forgot* about god after witnessing his miracles directly, after hearing his voice directly, and we need to keep playing our history on repeat so that we don't forget it and lose our way.

today:

i slept horribly last night. i hadn't taken my new nightly pill (alpha lipoic acid) and my hips hurt constantly, so i was in a lot of discomfort and i barely got any rest.

i started the day a bit antisocially trying to catch up with private instagram messages - the result of ignoring them for most of the week - and then i put down for satisfactory which is on sale right now and sat with mr smear while he got into it. so far, pretty damned awesome.

without a fight - remarkably - we began moving out for our ride to the beach around 10.30am as planned. it did take us about 45 minutes to actually start riding, but there were no bad feelings and it was turning out to be another beautiful day.

we enjoyed a good ride to the beach, which was easier now that half of arlozorov is open again and with decent bike lanes, found a good shady spot, completed the sunscreen ritual and headed into the water. the side of the beach we were sitting on was too rocky and cold, so we went to the other side which was easier on the feet but absolutely freezing.

we had fun in the water for a little while, then returned to our spot where mr smear insisted on me burying him a couple of times (it's his favorite thing), and after a lot of time trying to convince him to come into the shade i got to lie down for a bit. after we had agreed that it was a good time to go and find food (and coffee for me), it took about an hour to get him into the water to rinse off some of the sand, then out of the water, then through the showers, and eventually we were ready to ride again.

we tried a very busy coffee shop near the corner of dizengoff and ben gurion, but the service was shit and the menu vegan-unfriendly so we pushed on to eazy cafe, for our favorite salad and a generally good vibe.

we eventually got home quite late, took turns showering and then chilled the remainder of the afternoon away. the evening was pleasant, dinner was good, and after getting mr smear into bed gd and i watched a lot of andrew schultz - life, which is mostly just amusing but does has some really good stuff in it. we're a bit disappointed that monk's been taken off...

...

i'm on a water-only fast now for blood tests in the morning. i hope i sleep alright.

purimon haul

i'm feeling absolutely exhaustipated. probably going to bed soon.

...

today started off well. i helped mr smear get himself and his mishloach manot to school, he was very happily dressed up as a knight. i helped gd with the dishes, and then left for work early because i knew i was going to be out of the office for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

a lot of my work day was dealing with a broken machine and some software issues, but i did make a little progress by the end, and i did help my lead get his work done on time which was really important.

gd went to her sewing lesson today, and we'd planned to meet at home and then pick up mr smear together, with her carrying his mishloach manot home and me taking him to the orthopod. what actually happened was that mr smear called me much earlier than expected to inform me that school was out already and he needed help getting everything home, and on my way to get him i realized that with all of yesterday's drama i'd missed the memo informing us that school ended early :/

he had to wait for me for about half an hour, but he has a phone so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i found him and his impressive haul in very good spirits. i've seen photos from the day, and it did me a lot of good to see him full of smiles and having a good time ^_^

we carried everything home together, and at that point the day had become hot enough that i needed to switch to shorts. while we waited for gd to return, i talked to him about some things. some dealing-with-life things.

when i came home, i tried to help him with his homework but he blew up over a misunderstanding - those dealing-with-life-things became immediately relevant, but he didn't give a fuck and he refused to throw away the spade he was digging himself a hole with.

gd and i must have fought with him for at least an hour before he finally returned to his senses and could be reasoned with, and the experience was not only utterly insane but also thoroughly exhausting.

i helped him with a couple of homework questions, and then we ate dinner, and by the time he finally climbed into bed it was already 8.25pm and i had a meeting with gco and a potential partner at 8.30pm.

holy shit.

we went in to the meeting with little in the way of expectations, and i'm excited to report that it was a very constructive meeting. hopefully they'll start making some magic happen, and if they play it right there'll be exciting steps to follow.

the good place

i think i slept okay last night, but i was a bit too warm under the duvet (spring is coming). my sinus situation seems a bit better, but it's still not great. i don't know what this means, but whatever it is it's been going on a ridiculously long time now and i'm quite over it.

i know mr smear can get himself to school now, but i quite enjoy walking with him. on my way home, i picked up some stuff from the grocery store. then i ran into one of the parents - i still don't know his name, but it's way too late to ask - and we had a quick chat during which i learned that he works in an adjacent field to mine, which was interesting.

[i've just spent about half an hour trying to find out his name on facebook and linkedin, and i've got nothing to show for it]

once i was back home and mr smear was at school, i discussed last night's shenanigans and gd and i are in sync about how it went down.

i saw that my coworkers were all busy for a lot of the night, and i made a point of enabling work notifications around the clock because i feel bad that i wasn't online for them. i fiddled around with my cibus card, and managed to write up some stuff for ze german, before leaving for the office. it felt good to get that off my to-do list.

the work day was busy, and pleasantly successful. my lead blew my mind describing how he worked around the bugs we'd been seeing - our code was fine, the tools we're using have some issues.

lunch was amazing (pasta via's "mythological vegan").

in addition to achieving another milestone on the project i'm working on, i've just (like, an hour ago) finished up two pieces of "side quest" work. it's fair to say that the lion's share of the work i did today was implemented by AI, and most of that was pretty good and only needed some minor tweaks.

mr smear's class went on a field trip today, and on the bus ride back he FA'd with his phone and FO'd when his teacher confiscated it. he was very, very upset - hopefully he'll learn from the experience :P

i came home "on time" today (for the first time this week, i believe) and helped mr smear with his homework. in general it was a great evening, and my absolute favorite part of it was during shower / toothbrushing time with the three of us singing along at the top of our lungs to kiss' i was made for lovin' you and queen's bohemian rhapsody.

mr smear went to bed without any drama, and then gd and i enjoyed another episode of monk before she went to bed and i got back to business.

narc-olepsy and hydra-tion 1

[part 1 / 2 because of the label limitations]

i spent longer on my cdktf repo last night than intended, but i hit the hay with a sense of accomplishment. i managed about two sentences of of mice and men before realizing that i was too tired to understand anything, and promptly went to sleep.

mr smear woke up coughing this morning, he was doing a bit better but definitely wasn't ready to return to school. instead, he pulled maus off the shelf and started reading it, and he appears to be really getting into it, both in content and in style.

i was sad to learn that art spiegelman has been turned by pro-palestinian propaganda, and - like gabor maté - i suspect their trauma has made them hypersensitive and vulnerable to our enemies' cries of "genocide".

while he read that, i read the first chapter of of mice and men. so far, highly enjoyable.

it was bitterly cold this morning, and i was dressed in a double layer with gloves and my hoodies up for my walk to the post office to pick up gd's new purse.

i asked mr smear to "fix" my water bottle that he did a number on the other day. i'm not sure he followed any of my requests / instructions, but the overall effect is cool so i took to it work anyway :)

i messaged mr smear's hebrew tutor and told her we were taking a break, he's doing well enough now and it's a huge amount of money that we can't really afford...

on the way to work i stopped by the clinic, almost getting run over again by a taxi at the same intersection. after yelling and chasing down the driver - who actually apologized - i decided that instead of filing another complaint about him personally, i need to take this up with the municipality. so now i'm being bounced between departments trying to get them to do something to make the intersection safer.

i had a good meeting with my boss today. he wants me to go on-site sometime soon, so i warned gd and tried to reassure her that i'll be safe...

static electricity and spontaneously bleeding hands: i actually had to run off to find hand lotion for the office, i've never experienced that before.

speaking of surprises, i spoke to our landlord who offered to send a handyman to help us with the flaky sink, which is quite something!

[continued...]

out of it

 the weekend has come and gone, and i'm... tired. and feeling dramatically overweight - i have gained a couple of kilos, but it's less about that and more about how i've been consciously eating too much in general, and generally too much stuff i shouldn't be eating in the first place.

yesterday:

mr smear seemed pretty much fine by the morning. while he was at school, i strapped on my rollerblades and skated across the city to pick up his new rain boots, which happened to be at a place that makes great shakes. my coffee shake was excellent, and i enjoyed just sitting with it in the sun on the sidewalk.

gd hurt her back in the morning, and her cough is getting worse. it would be really nice if things could be boring for once.

after picking him up from school, we did a grocery run, and i was definitely ready for a nap by the time we returned home... only i was sent to the pharmacy to pick up something urgent. that took forever, but in addition to the meds i also picked up a couple of graphic novels translated into hebrew: spider-man: quantum quest! and amulet #1.

and some edamame, which looked really good but turned out to be bland and yucky. and a bagel, which turned out to be really heavy and didn't taste so great. and then, after finishing the bagel on the way home, i discovered that gd had made ramen that mr smear didn't want, so i garbage-bin-dadded and felt awful.

after an unsurprisingly urgent nap, i coffee'd up and did the dishes and helped gd clean the apartment. after that i read through spider-man: quantum quest!, then we had dinner, got mr smear into bed - just as the massive thunderstorm began - and then i passed out on the couch.

today:

i eventually managed to crawl into bed, with the thunderstorm still raging on, but i slept rather poorly.

in the morning, when the world had calmed down a bit, i got up and completed what remains of edith finch:

the mechanics are excitingly clever... the story is tragic. the game does an incredible job of making the experiences wonderfully vivid and disconcertingly real.

this is a masterpiece.

mr smear saw a couple of scenes over my shoulder, and he wants to play some of the stories, but avoid the really sad ones. i think that's fair.

i read some more mona lisa overdrive, then fell asleep on the couch for a while. after i got up, we all settled in to watch thor: ragnarok. we have now seen all of the great MCU movies together (minus guardians of the galaxy, that's for when he's older), and it was a great experience.

i did, however, eat too much popcorn on top of the pastry on top of the definitely over-the-top challah with peanut butter and chocolate spread that i'd had for breakfast. i'm now officially on a reduced carb diet - not low carb, but just avoiding all the obviously unnecessary ones.

i took mr smear out for a walk, which ended up a very pleasant three hours past the museum (mr smear walked into the replica terror tunnel, then immediately bolted out), sat outside habima, walked up rothschild to legenda where he had a sorbet (i'm starting on the right foot), then walked all the way back home without barely any complaining and lots of good conversation.

we arrived just in time for dinner - gd had a squash alternative to the pasta for me, which was good - and mr smear has just gone to bed after a slow but mostly pleasant bedtime ritual.

i have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but i'm once again grateful for the weekend pause.

the storm

 we've been experiencing a particularly dramatic thunderstorm since last night, it's quite something. it's also a great excuse to be indoors in pajamas with the heaters on.

the evening mostly went smoothly - although mr smear did push past some boundaries, he responded relatively well when called out / punished and that's quite comforting. we ended up putting him to bed with a good feeling, which counts for a lot.

i think about "launches" and "landings" a lot, lately. it's always important to make people feel good when you greet them, and when you leave them.

gd and i watched the first half of dark city for the first time. i was tired, and i missed a few beats along the way, but so far it's really intriguing and atmospheric.

i slept pretty well for most of last night. i woke up earlier than intended, did some dishes and made some coffee, and was mindlessly watching youtube videos when mr smear came into the living room.

i suggested that we try hogwarts legacy together on the playstation, which i picked up a week or two ago on special. i sat through the intro/tutorial with him, and it's amazing. so that's what he's doing right now, while i'm chipping away at chores and wondering how the day's going to go.

calm through the storm

 around 3.30am i was awoken by what sounded like combat aircraft flying overhead. it turned out to be very dramatic thunder, and the storm that ensued continued until noon. mr smear tried to weasle his way out of school again, but aside from it being friday (their electives day) i think he enjoyed splashing to school in his galoshes as much as i did.

i took care of the emergency shopping on the way home, gd and i finished watching the original beetlejuice in preparation for its sequel and i took care of some more of the dishes.

gd went to her dental appointment, which once again turned out to be different to what we expected. i picked mr smear up from school while it bucketed down (i got really irritated with the other parents jostling me with their umbrellas while i was waiting at the gate), then mr smear and i made it to the bus stop just in time.

we arrived at the dental clinic just as gd came out, and it took a little while and a lot of confusion to get an understanding of what the rest of the plan is. then we walked to the hummusia and gd watched while we ate an enormous, delicious breakfast. we then picked up hers to go, which she was able to eat by the time we got home.

aside from us finally cleaning the apartment, the rest of the afternoon was very chilled, shadowrun: hong kong and napping.

we had a great dinner (the simpsons stealing cable*), mr smear just went to bed, gd is on her way to bed, and i might very well be doing so myself soon.

* my son to me: i do honor you! just barely enough to satisfy the fifth commandment.

i'm feeling much more relaxed today than i have in a while.

circling the drain

jesus h. f. christ.

today's report from the teacher, after a morning with a "doesn't-give-a-fuck" nine year old, described multiple instances of mr smear being verbally abusive and violent with kids in his class, and ripping up another kid's drawing, the same kid he threw a rock at a year and a half ago. and, when looking that up, i discovered that this isn't the first time he's torn up his artwork, either. he remembers the rock incident, he doesn't remember the torn artwork.

this is literally in-fucking-sane.

gd and i confronted him and made it abundantly clear to him that in addition to his behavior being unacceptable and gross and disappointing, it's also going to directly affect his chances of leaving the school. it was at that point that he finally seemed sufficiently contrite (and apparently embarrassed) that we left him alone for a while.

once he'd calmed down, i had a talk with him, and gd joined in, about how he can't change what he's done but he can change how he behaves tomorrow. in fits and starts, the rest of the afternoon went better, but goddamn i'm not sure if we're getting through to him at all.

yesterday:

yesterday was cold and wet. gd was sick. i went to our parental guidance meeting alone, and i feel it was constructive - in part because i think the therapist is beginning to understand the scope of the issues. i went to the office for an hour or two, then caught the bus to pick mr smear up from school and take him to his therapy session. i sat and worked in the shitty aroma coffee shop, then picked him up and we caught a bus back home.

i worked hard yesterday, for zero results.

today:

today was very cold, and threatened to be a lot wetter than it was.

i woke up early from a strangely comforting dream including badger and hyperviper. up until then i think i slept pretty well. oh, and i'm making slow progress through count zero, but it's really been off-and-on.

the walk to school this morning could have been worse, considering how things had been before we left. i replaced the water filter, which became somewhat dramatic and required a call for technical support, and did some other minor chores, and then tried to continue my ticket.

i worked hard today, for almost zero results.

it looks like the "product" we're using is broken somehow, so i've created an issue and hopefully i'll get something useful in return.

i picked mr smear up from school, took him to his hebrew lesson, and sat down outside a different coffee shop because they had a toilet and didn't have a bad attitude. so much for being "my new place".

at least i got something constructive (something else) done while i was there.

the afternoon was mostly overshadowed by the bad report, i'm not sure how much real work i managed to get through but i was making an effort while simultaneously making sure that mr smear was doing what he was supposed to...

i haven't not been emotionally drained in more than a week. i'm tired.

enter the wet season

what. a. day.

i dropped mr smear off at school with the usual pep talk, and it began raining just as soon as we said goodbye, as it almost always does when it rains. fortunately it was brief, and i had an umbrella, and i made it home pretty dry.

gd and i moved everything out the way for the delivery. the poor guy who wanted our old machine was upset that we couldn't wait, and i was upset that he couldn't make the arrangements in the (unreasonable) amount of time he'd been given. so that was a sad experience for all parties.

the delivery guys eventually arrived, and boy, did they charge us. but, to their credit, they handled everything from A to Z and left us with a combo washing machine/dryer ready for its first run. so far, so good 🤞

shortly after a bit of a breakthrough - i've been doing annoying work this sprint so far, and with all the distractions it's been harder to do the shitty things than usual - i picked mr smear up from school and took him to his math tutor. it began pouring down on our way there, and it was a joy to see him tooling around and enjoying the rain while we waited.

my usual coffee spot was washed out, so i went to a bakery and sat inside, warm and cozy, free wifi, nursing a really good latte that was significantly cheaper than the other place. i've think i've found my new place.

by the time i was ready to pick mr smear up, it had been bucketing down for a while and i struggled to get there without getting my feet wet.

it was wellington boot weather, and we were in our sneakers.

i made it just on time, mostly not soaked, but when crossing the next road with him we both stepped right into a deep puddle :(

the afternoon was a cross between me eating and snacking, trying to get work done, and being entertained by mr smear doing his keyboard practice.

and then his homeroom teacher called me.

...

it was such an emotional call that i had a hard time not crying on at least three occasions. it turns out the woman i wrote to yesterday wasn't the right address at all, but she did forward those messages to her and that saved a lot of time. it was a massively affirming to hear her confide that mr smear's class is a known problem case, and that the school's experience with the problem parents is the same as ours.

we don't have to prove anything to anyone.

it was also hugely affirming to hear that up until these past two weeks, during which mr smear has been making a concerted effort to improve his record, she'd been worried that he had an undiagnosed learning difficulty; but now, two weeks into him actively participating, it's clear to her as well that his only issue has ever been a motivational one.

i'm so freaking proud of my boy.

i asked her for her help in understanding the process of moving him to a different school, and while she's not happy that we want him / he wants to move to a different class in the interim, she's on the same page and is willing to do what she can. i think i made it pretty clear to her how appreciated she is personally, even while i expressed how little faith we have in the school as a whole.

...

i barely got any work done after that.

...

after dinner and most of the second men in black movie, but before mr smear went to sleep, my mom called to inform me that she's going to be hospitalized on thursday while they do some testing, it looks like the cholesterol problem she's been maintaining is starting to get worse.

her diet's been better than western standard, but still quite far from plant-based, and i really, really hope i can help her shift it further towards healthy. i sent her links to food choices and what the health, and i'm praying that she actually gives them a chance.

...

our conversation was interrupted by a rocket attack, which caught us out completely - mr smear and i only arrived at the shelter just as we heard the unusually loud explosions. we had a full shelter and it was raining, which was oddly cozy.

...

i'm tired, but overall i feel pretty good about how today went. tomorrow's the day gd's been afraid her - she has her dental appointment in the evening - so i'm praying that everything goes smoothly 🙏

pivot

yesterday:

mr smear's cough was better, and he went back to school. but he was having and sharing a remarkably shit morning. so that sucked.

i continued on to drop gd's shoes at the post office to be returned, then walked back home.

my neck and shoulder gave me trouble throughout the day.

it was a slow work-from-home day, and i was on-call, and most of the work i did was on-call stuff.

around noon i picked mr smear up from school to take him to his hebrew tutor, and he was in a much better mood. on the way back from the tutor we picked up a few bags of walnuts, because i only just learned that they're a viable source of omega3 and we haven't been eating gd's flax-seed pancakes for a long time...

...

during a conversation with our product manager in the afternoon, i saw something in our designs that bothered me and i asked him if i was reading it right, and if we were actually pivoting as a company.

"100%," he told me, "this is the direction we're going in."

i was disappointed, and i told him so, and after the call had a bit of a crisis because the new direction really doesn't interest me. i discussed it with gd, and came to the conclusion that i'm happy with my team, and i'm happy with my bosses, and i'm happy with my role and my employment conditions, so if i'm less happy with what the company is doing it's not the end of the world, but it will mean refocusing on my side projects for my source of meaning.

...

gd made vegan-shwarma tacos for dinner last night, and we really enjoyed them!

after everyone went to bed i started looking into rewriting my mobile app, and dived in to a rabbit hole around security issues with local browser storage. at about the point i started finding useful material to peruse, my eyes started shutting on me.

today:

last night was our first night sleeping with a duvet since spring, it was cozy and i slept pretty well.

we all had a much better morning, and after dropping mr smear at school i replaced the lightbulbs in his room and then spent some time reading about secure storage while gd left to have coffee with a friend.

i didn't make much progress then, and i'm starting to become drowsy now, so i don't know how long it's going to take me to get a handle on this stuff...

while i was trying to read, i got distracted by the fact that the "palm rest" of my very expensive dell XPS was - and has been for a while - feeling annoyingly sticky. i tried cleaning it in a number of different ways, and eventually ended up (unintentionally) removing some of the surface. it clearly wasn't meant to be removed, so later on i'd look it up and discover that it's a known problem.

i regret purchasing a dell computer.

i found a couple of recommendations to purchase stickers that are cut specifically for my model, so i found some on ali express and i'm hoping they'll do the trick.

...

it was a slow day in the office, and i wasn't the only one feeling the particularly relaxed vibes.

the day began with me learning about my new task, and syncing with the coworker who's leaving soon to understand how all the pieces of the puzzle are meant to fit together. at some point - because it was relevant to what we're working on - i mentioned the pivot, and his response stunned me: our project manager was describing his personal vision for the company, but he's already pitched it to the bosses and they've already explained to him that they're not interested in leaving the (awesome) core business they've built.

firstly, what a relief! secondly, what a shocking revelation, that i literally can't implicitly trust my project manager and that he actually caused harm with his delusion.

...

i started the task without a clear idea of what needed to be done, and it had been assigned six working days. i started making slow but steady progress, and then all of a sudden pieces of the puzzle - especially pieces that i'd put in place a few months ago - started coming together and by the end of the day i was effectively done!

it's a great feeling, but also rather unexpected.

i walked home, arriving just in time for dinner and some x-men. then my mom called, finally ready to try out the account i created for her a month and a half ago.

...

good grief.

it was impossible for her to log in without me signing in first, and it kept not sending us verification codes until i signed in, set up her phone number, and flagged her sign-in attempts as recognized. that got her into her account on her computer, so i wanted to set her up on her phone as well to make sure she's not dependent on me. but she's an iphone person, and apple makes it ridiculously difficult to configure new accounts and know if they've been configured correctly. so, after more than an hour and lots of feelings, we decided to leave it at a hope and a prayer and deal with any issues that may arise.

it could've been worse. we could've not succeeded.

...

as i said, i'm feeling drowsy - i think i'm going to go to bed now.

back to school

yesterday:

mr smear's first day back at school (albeit fridays' "school lite")

a shopping mission gone wrong (gd panicking, and then feeling bad for not checking in with me before paying)

picking up mr smear and continuing on to a shoe-shopping mission down dizengoff just as the dust storm started.

trying out the 3D movie with the PSVR and being blown away, and ordering a bunch of 3D glasses on ali express.

another not-great experience getting mr smear to do his homework, but gd sitting with him and coaching him and getting through it.

replaying celeste all the way to where i gotten before. that game is hardcore!

sailor coming over for dinner with a lot more dietary restrictions than we were antipating, but gd managed to rustle something up and we had a great evening anyway. mr smear suddenly developing a pretty hectic cough.

today:

waking up to learn about our attacks on iran, and feeling disappointed that we've left the ball in their court again.

a VR start to the day, with a very enthusiastic mr smear. afterwards, i discovered a way to watch downloaded 3D movies using rad tv and the result was awesome!

spending most of the day reading articles and playing crying suns, with my family reading behind me - i think gd's just finished the wave, and mr smear's deep into the bone comics collection.

we had the usual fight about going out in the evening, but gd and i managed to get through to him eventually and we took the basketball to the high school courts with adult-height hoops. he didn't shoot a lot, but he got the ball in quite a few times and we were both very excited ^_^

then i had a turn, and i didn't do so well but i definitely got exercise. i didn't do so badly, either, but mr smear wasn't watching and decided that, absense any evidence to the contrary, that physics was against me and that i hadn't succeeded at all :P

overall, the outing was good and the evening went well. we started watching men in black over dinner, and after putting mr smear to bed gd finally watched the rest of demolition man while i passed out on the couch beside her. i woke up a couple of hours ago, groggy and sore, and have finally gotten up from either trying to stretch or doom-scrolling to make myself a cup of tea, post this, and play something before heading to bed.

i'm disappointed that my vacation's over, because i could definitely use a couple more weeks off, but i think it's been good for me. if nothing else, i've had less pressure and less juggling and that's made the world seem less overwhelming. and i think i've done a good job of not stressing about not Doing All The Things, while still doing a whole bunch of things.

next

yesterday:

the mma class was cool, and i spent it learning about atomic crm. mr smear decided he wanted to go over to his classmate's afterwards, so i joined them and spent a pleasant while chatting with his dad while the kids played fortnite together, kind of.

it was dark by the time we left, we caught a bus home, and we learned that mr smear can literally get himself lost less than a block away from our apartment :P

i spent some more time after bedtime with the app, and eventually went to bed.

today:

i slept much better last night, even though there were a couple of rough moments. then i got up, had a cup of coffee, and left to catch a bus to afeka to pick up another pair of gd's shoes. it was a brisk morning, and the bus had its airconditioner on full blast, and i felt like an icicle by the time i got off. after picking up the package and waiting ten minutes in the sun for the next bus home, i was *just* beginning to thaw out a bit; fortunately, the bus home wasn't uncomfortable.

i ate a hearty breakfast, then we all cleaned the floors, pausing occasionally for shenanigans or reading bits of pain & gain: this is a true story (holy shit, the movie is not faithful). now we've finished lunch (and i've overeaten considerably) and it's time to head to his mma class again.

sky cry

 yesterday morning we learned that six of the hostages were executed. on our way out of the apartment, mr smear told me that he could smell rain coming.

"i PROMISE you it's not going to rain", i said.

on his way to school he informed me that it was the first time in his entire life that he was excited to go to school.

after dropping him off at his new class, i walked straight to the pain clinic to accompany gd to her appointment. the appointment was positive, and she's (amazingly) scheduled for a nerve block for tomorrow evening.

we left the hospital and went straight to the clinic to organize authorization. and that's when the skies opened. and they opened for a long time. and they opened *hard*. it bucketed down on us. and even as it raining down hard on us, the weather app continued to suggest a 2% chance of rain.

so mr smear was right, and we're taking it as a sign of the world's heartbreak.

we tried to walk home, but got trapped between rivers and had to call a taxi.

by the time i left for work - minutes after getting home - the weather was mostly back to normal.

work: another long, painful day dealing with frontend shenanigans. to my relief, my changes we merged by the evening, and i managed to push a fix for a mistake we'd missed before leaving the office.

in the evening, i had a meeting about a project, and it was way longer than anticipated. it was also considerably more productive than anticipated. additionally, i have a meeting with a VIP scheduled for wednesday evening 🤞

today:

i woke up from a weird series of dreams into a relatively subdued morning. the biggest issue of the day was the general strike and protests. i fully identify with the frustration and anguish that everyone's feeling, but i also feel confident that everything that's happening is just dancing to our enemies' tunes.

it took a while to get into work - partially because of an argument with some of ze germans about the situation - and shortly after i had to go pick mr smear up early from school. i made it home in time for a zoom meeting with the same guys i met with on thursday, this time they managed to resolve the issue (or at least give me a workaround while they acknowleged and promised to fix the bug). afterwards i uncovered a different bug, just as weird.

i hope i'm not the one who introduced it.

i took mr smear to his hebrew tutor, worked while i waited, then came home and dove in to the biggest ticket of the sprint that i've barely touched yet. i mean, i tried to, but i must've eaten (or drank) something that disagreed with me and i estimate that i spent about half the afternoon on the can. 

it was very frustrating.

the work i did get done is a move in the right direction, but everything about it is complicated and unpleasant or weird and broken. i'm not going into tomorrow with good vibes, but i do need to go in with a more professional tone than i've been expressing since i started working with css again.

it's been a weird evening, now i'm going to read to mr smear and try to figure out where my head's at.

...

oh! and i did some banking this morning. we're not in a good place, but i feel like we're in a better one than last month 🤞