detour

 there was a lot of kitchen stress last night, and some very serious (positive) conversations with mr smear about life in general in its wake. gd had ridiculous trouble with the gluten-free dumpling recipe, but the ultimate result was much better than the store-bought frozen ones...

i did nothing of value between late dinner and climbing into bed a bit after midnight. then i woke up, restless and sore, and for about two hours lay in bed, distressed but too tired to give up on trying to fall back to sleep. eventually i got up for a couple of hours of mindlessness, then finally returned to sleep for a couple more hours.

i didn't feel great this morning. i read some watchmen, i napped a little, and then i was going to start getting into the things i'd been intending to do today* when my alarm reminded me that i was going to one of ze germans' daughter's bat mitzvah...

* i'd intended - like most people - to put down money for claude in order to have access to the fable model to do some experimentation. i woke up to the news that that wasn't on the cards any more.

i had a long chat with horseman about AI and middle east politics before and on my walk there, broken only to get dressed and make coffee, and when running into our old neighbors and learning that there're a lot of kids in the building now and they've managed to force the building management to renovate the bomb shelter. too late for us, but i'm very relieved for them!

the bat mitzvah was really simple and tastefully done, all i consumed was liquids (only one alcoholic drink, though) and a little bit of the fruit salad, and i had a good time chatting with ze other germans (irish/swedish + austrian).  i got a ride home, realizing only at that point just how late in the day it was.

i'm now having a late coffee, mr smear's just completed a second hour of "productive" screen time (making animations) and is now having a bite to eat, and then we're going to head out for a bit more rollerblading.

the alternative

a scratchy throat all day that caused trouble all night. it's still scratchy, but feeling slightly better right now so hopefully that's a trend.

i wasn't too sure that ze germans were doing the yom ha'atzmaut thing, and i made the mistake of only asking ru55 if he was going, and he didn't get back to me until this morning. so instead of going, i cancelled the car we'd rented and we had a "barbecue" hot-dog lunch at home that was really good.

a bit later, my mom and i dragged mr smear out to the beach. there was a chill wind on the beach itself, but once mr smear (mr inertia) was on the sand he didn't want to leave the beach, nor the sea. in retrospect, we should have brought him a towel...

otherwise, it was a beautiful afternoon. we took a slow walk down the beach and then up to allenby, where mr smear decided we should have hummus. that was a fantastic decision, we had a fun experience with the shifka and the meal was delicious.

then we walked up sheinkin, picking up some coffee along the way to the bus home.

unfortunately, i accidentally ordered a regular coffee instead of decaf. so it was around 6pm that i drank my fourth cup for the day.

we got home, and there was no argument from mr smear about jumping straight into a hot shower. afterwards, we started watching the tokyo ghoul series. which is really cool, but i did nap through half of the second episode...

dinner was the "barbecue" burgers, also delicious.

we got mr smear into bed, unsure of whether to expect a disrupted night or not because the ceasefire was supposed to end.

i went to bed pretty late (played slay the spire 2), and simply couldn't sleep. i estimate that it took me more than an hour and a half to finally fall asleep, after which it was fitful with claustrophobic dreams of an in-house rollercoaster with one of ze germans.

i struggled to wake up this morning, with my throat still doing a thing, but mr smear certainly helped as he made horrible noises (his throat) for the longest time. over coffee / his breakfast, we discovered that he's been avoiding going to school because he's been getting into trouble for not having his books. he's lost most of his books, apparently, and also never thought to report back that the lock on his locker is broken, and that he doesn't remember the code for the old one.

i don't know how much of any of that is actually true.

we explained to him that the books are expensive - they are - and that he's going to find them. and that all privileges are to be withheld until the situation is sorted out. on the bus to school, i explained what he needs to do and found his old lock's code, and sent a message to his homeroom teacher. on my way back home, he called to assure me that he's at least started the day off making an effort, so 🤷‍♂️...

also, on my way home, i thought some more about my work situation which is starting to freak me out. i've been trying to get a job done with AI that i have little context for, and the AI is leading me around in circles. not only do i need to change tack and focus on building the context i need, but i also *have* to  begin experimenting with AI harnesses because i'm feeling like i'm getting left behind on the most critical issue of our (engineering) time right now...

from the AI warning to the sea

 the rest of yesterday was pretty relaxed. gd and i made extra-strength challah-peño, which really just means extra-delicious, and we finished watching eddie murphy's dr dolittle which - in spite of some spectacularly lazy writing - quite entertaining.

last night before going to bed, mr smear let me know that he'd decided that he did want to finish watching the matrix after all.

today:

gd hasn't been sleeping well, and i've been kind on/off the past weeks, with last night being one where i definitely slept some. but i woke up very early, and finished reading the first percy jackson novel.

extremely underrated.

on the one hand, it pains me to think that i only just discovered percy jackson. on the other, i've just had the distinct pleasure of discovering percy jackson! this is top shelf stuff, a brilliant, exciting blend of modern fantasy and ancient tales.

the first highlight of the day was settling in to watch the second half of the matrix. with AI tech being where it is, it's never been more relevant, and seeing my boy's face light up* as he encountered bullet time and neo's superavatar powers was so much fun!

* as well as his body twitch involuntarily, he's wired different

i spent most of the early part of the day alternating between the second percy jackson book, trying to write up manacher's algorithm in a readable way, and napping.

i'd made a pact with mr smear about going to the beach in the afternoon, which he sealed by doing something that lost him privileges (he has a compulsion that causes him to scratch himself until he has holes in his skin, and that's unfortunately the only tool we have to get it to stop) so he didn't have anything better to do...

so that became the second highlight of the day: we walked across to the promenade to meet up with a couple of ze germans, enjoyed a pleasant walk with them, then separated to go into the sea. the weather was absolutely amazing all day (hot, but dry), the sea was calm (except for very small waves crossing each other), and we chilled in the water as the sun sank lower and eventually set.

it was a glorious evening.

there was - as usual - a little unpleasantness getting mr smear out of the water again, and then out of the sand, and then across to and through the showers, but otherwise everything was cool and we enjoyed a pleasant walk-and-talk until we happened to find an open hummusia.

we opened a table and ate too much, and it was excellent.

by the time we got out of there the buses were running.

while waiting for the bus, my son blew my mind with a suggestion to reinvent the question mark.

we arrived home fairly quickly, and showered, and then i passed out on the couch, as much from the post-hummus food coma as from the day in the sun. i got dragged off the couch to say goodnight to mr smear (i'm starting to give up on keeping his door closed when putting him to bed), then tried and failed to get back to sleep even though i was half-asleep the entire time.

and then suddenly i wasn't, so i've written all of this and am now going to try to tire myself out again with youtube and minesweeper...

the horror

 today began with preparing a document for mr smear (and gd) to learn the hebrew months, and getting mr smear out of bed to do math homework. there was some tension, but nothing too serious, and we got through it. i flipped our mattresses, did some dishes, (finally) checked that we had authorization for wednesday's allergy challenge, and left for work.

after a long chat with my mom about aliyah, i entered the office for a day filled with interruptions of interruptions.

highlights/lowlights:

a) finally getting in touch with a potential partner after being assured they'd been updated by their superiors, and they hadn't.

b) discovering that our outsourced security team had updated a policy without asking for our consent, or informing us, and it disconnected everyone in rnd, some of whom were engaged in mission-critical tasks. i lost my temper - i've never cursed that much or that loudly in the office*. i informed my boss that they'd crossed a line (not exactly for the first time) and we need to bring our security in-house. i think he heard me pretty clearly this time.

* and, oddly enough, in hebrew. i don't think i've ever done that before, i've always found cursing in hebrew awkward.

c) by the end of the day, after hours battling buggy docker behavior, i finally got to the bottom of our devcontainer / vpn issues. ironically, they were caused by a misconfiguration by my british coworker when he originally tried to fix them, but for some reason everything seemed to work well for almost two weeks before wigging out.

so at least i can move forward with my real work now.

...

i travelled most of the way home with our tech ops guy (there're two now, but whatever), and i was shocked to discover that he's a jewish israeli that was born and raised here but has zero connection or comprehension of judaism. i gave him a bit of a lecture on why i think it's important for non-observant jews to understand the history of our beliefs and practices, and he was totally shocked by what i had to say.

i arrived home, picked up mr smear, and the two of us went off to the mall to buy sleeping bags for the class camping trip this weekend. heavy cigarette smell in the bus notwithstanding, we had a long conversation during which i was shocked and dismayed to learn that he'd spent a good chunk of his day on youtube, behind gd's back, watching really disturbing horror videos.

i've now seen his watch history. i mean disturbing. thanks, youtube, for managing kids' content so safely. and thanks, also, for not enabling parents to block desktop youtube over family link.

on our way home, we sat down for some really good falafel (and i awkward didn't realize why ze british german's wife looked familiar until she'd already greeted me and walked past), then picked up a sandwich for gd, and came home.

another late night for mr smear (his antivirals), but thank god getting him to sleep went smoother than anticipated. i've spent most of the night playing more shadowrun, and now i'm going to bed, trying - continuing to try, at least - not to think about the war / hostage release situation. and now that i've typed that, i'll probably check the news and fuck myself up a bit :/

contemplation

yesterday:

mr smear went to school by himself again, which makes us a bit nervous but i guess it's no different from him coming back home by himself... parenting is weird.

i had a chat with urchin, who's just been laid off along with a bunch of her coworkers due to a change in management. amazing timing, right before the holidays. she's apparently interested in some of our open positions, which would be cool.

yesterday was long. lots of context switching, lots of issues that were supposed to be resolved the day before but weren't. lots of planning with my coworkers (mostly productive and positive). one emotional outburst about procedure that got me called in to a room by the rnd manager to tell me i'd made a bad vibe... i just apologize to her and the guy in question, and i've got a lesson to learn.

on my way into our apartment i picked up a second notice* for the two fluxx games i ordered a while back, which was apparently sent three weeks ago. it took so long to be delivered that they've returned the package, which is really unfair :(

* a first notice was never sent, neither were any emails or sms messages...

i came home just in time for dinner, just in time to see gd almost collapse from the sudden onset of something. i rushed myself and mr smear through dinner while she rested, wished them both a good night, and then headed out to the british ze german's shiva house.

it's always weird and sad walking past my mother and my old apartment.

the next couple of hours weren't unpleasant, the story of my friend's sister's passing notwithstanding. ru55 and the irish ze german were there too, and i alternated between conversation flow and just sitting and listening. ru55 gave me a ride home, i brushed my teeth and showered, and then sat down to do some more testing for our contractor.

it didn't take long to get stuck and stop the testing. and then suddenly there were noises coming from mr smear's room, where gd was attending to him and his suddenly sore throat. when i went in to commiserate he sent me away, but a bit later called out to me, really upset that he'd forgotten to call my mom to say good night 🥹

and then, in the middle of the night, gd decided that we urgently needed to do online grocery shopping :/

today:

i slept alright, but i've been feeling a bit on/off today. mr smear's leg seems to have healed, so we left him to his devices (ha ha) and headed to the pharmacy*, did some grocery shopping and picked up a pokémon puzzle for tomorrow.

* we left the first one in a huff because someone was drilling and there was dust everywhere while a bunch of sick and elderly people were waiting

i did some more work with the contractor, and then the new cleaning lady arrived. she insisted on wearing her shoes in the apartment, which gd eventually conceded and which i'm too nervous to discuss with her later when i get home from my voluntary exile at our favorite coffee shop. i somehow got dragged into a political discussion with her, which included a very awkward "we're not going to agree or understand each other" moment, but also her thanking me profusely for oversharing with a stranger.

i've spent the past few hours slowly drinking coffees, eating a sandwich, and trying not to fall asleep in the comfy armchair while slowly reading some more blindsight.

and spending a fair amount of time just staring into space. i guess i have a lot of processing to do.

first rain

 this morning started out alright. i accompanied mr smear to school, taking turns to carefully carry his miniature sukkah. i proceeded to the ministry of the interior offices to pick up a replacement cover for my id card, which went pleasantly smoothly.

i continued on to the electronics store with the intention to purchase a gaming machine, but halfway there realized that they weren't open yet.

i returned home, bumping into the irish ze german for a catch-up, and then accompanied gd to the hospital to make an appointment for her shoulder. we managed to get one for december :/

on the way back, we stopped by the clinic to secure authorization, and i headed up to the nurse's offices for a flu shot. i was surprised to not feel it going in at all!

almost home, the skies opened, and we got caught in a downpour. the first rain of the season was intense.

the afternoon was spent resting, and starting to read peter watts' blindsight (i had to skip the description in gomel's the end of humanism, part 2 because of spoilers), and then...

... we received a photo from mr smear, who on his way out of class found that someone had destroyed his miniature sukkah before his teacher even got to see it 💔

we never even thought to take photos of it before :(

we're trying to console him, and keep reminding him that at least we got to appreciate it, and that he did a great job. but that really sucks.

...

we all went to the dentist together for gd's scan. afterwards, we opened a table at the hummusia, and then enjoyed a pleasant evening walk home. the evening went smoothly.

i've spent the past while re-watching bill hicks' sane man. now... probably going to bed soon.

psycho-analytics

 these past two days have been very much about mr smear, and about GPU drivers.

i fucking hate the GPU driver ecosystem. for the biggest / hottest industry in the world, they're all behaving like rank amateurs and the entire experience is just shit. yesterday morning i felt out of my depth, but after hours of coaching by experts i can now confidently say that i'm both out of my depth and incredibly disappointed.

otherwise, yesterday morning began with mr smear informing me - after we left the apartment - that he'd rather walk to school alone. to have some alone time, and because he's nine.

i'm still feeling the feelings.

in the afternoon we had a parent-teacher's meeting. first, his home-room teacher was running half an hour late, and we had a severe conversation with the other mother who was waiting. i was surprised to find an israeli who considered my opinion on coalition governments being the source of our political evil to be plausible.

the irony is that the left and center of the country have consistently forced bibi to collude with the far right and ultra-orthodox for decades, which has been much more damaging to the majority than bibi worrying about just bibi.

right now, the government has cut funding to the teachers in a way that makes it more attractive to them to quit before year-end and go on welfare. we're all fucked.

as for mr smear, both teachers we spoke to said the same things, the same things we expected and have been dealing with ourselves. we've explicitly authorized them to take his drawing gear away if he doesn't comply, but we're shocked that that would even be necessary...

on the way home, gd warned mr smear multiple times to cooperate with me when i helped him with his math homework. we got through an exercise just fine, and then he did his usual thing and played dumb, trying to "run out the clock".

i lost my temper. in a bad way. as in, i'm embarrassed by how angry i got and i'm embarrassed by how long it took me to calm down again. the temper lasted most of the hour or two that it took to get him to finish the damned exercise, but by the end i felt like he'd understood the rules of engagement and that we weren't fucking around.

then we had dinner, and got him ready for bed. it was very late.

this morning began on a much better note, and for half an hour before he went to school i ran him through some exercises on paper, and it was a pleasant and positive experience. i even got him to follow basic algebra!

after that, gd had a bit of a meltdown about the psychologists demanding she see them in person, then took it out on mr smear's therapist during our parental guidance session 🙄

anyway, we had an interesting and constructive session during which i think i've understood something about mr smear's behavior, which consolidated during our evening call with my mom into the following: all of his bad behaviors - when physically changing locations, socially, and academically - all have the same common thread: not moving, at any cost.

but at the same time, he's had this issue with trying to control everything in counterproductive ways since he was a toddler, and it's only when we really crack down on him that he calms down and proceeds in a healthy way. so perhaps all of this is the same cause, and that we've been misinterpreting it all this time: it's not that he hasn't had enough control over his life, it's that he's had too much control and the lack of clear boundaries has left him holding on to where he is for dear life.

obviously we don't know any of that for sure, but it makes sense. either way, although these past few weeks have been particularly emotionally and psychologically exhausting we're seeing positive results.

...

today's highlight - outside of mr smear's progress, which included a good hebrew reading session when i got home - occurred during a knowledge transfer by the contractor who built the basis for one of our systems. he was speaking softly and the guys in the row behind us were talking loudly, so i turned around to shush them saying "please guys, we're recording". one of the guys yelled "then stop recording!" and everyone in the row - including my boss and one of our founders - immediately began calling me names as loudly as they could to make sure it's in the recording 😂

...

i'm not particularly physically tired but i'm soooo over today, and i've got work to do. i also sent a message this morning to ze german who's been consulting me to explain that i have zero bandwidth, and then an email to his contractor to explain that i can't really help her...

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.

dust in, dust out

the jackals are howling again - they've been a lot more brazen the past few days, and they've been going at it at all hours. also, very confrontational with dogs being walked even during daylight (O_o)

should we be worried about mr smear?

yesterday:

yesterday began with a fight - kind of the usual - between gd and mr smear about getting out of bed. and then mr smear stayed home again, i tried to take him to school but he threw up just outside the gate (ewww!) and so we turned around and walked back home, stopping on a bench for a good talk.

oh, yeah - and a handyman came in to clean up the underside of our kitchen sink, which entailed us clearing out, cleaning and repacking everything while simultaneously getting mr smear ready for school. the fun part was using sealant on a lifted edge of the sink :P

i started my word day cleaning the dust off everything after the workers were supposed to be done, but within a very short while it was clear that they were far from done, and all of our belongings and our lungs were coated with yet another layer of dust that i'm praying doesn't include asbestos.

it was a frustrating day of tweaking kubernetes installations and annoying the guy i'm reporting to, who was working remotely which made it feel worse. but i was also involved in some product discussions and i feel like i contributed.

eventually i hit partial success, just in time to interview another coworker and dig in to the all-hands / happy hour treats.

i didn't have another "nap attack" episode yesterday, but i did make an appointment to discuss them with my doctor.

as has become standard practice, i came home and sat with mr smear for his maths and reading. unfortunately, he got frustrated with how i explained a word to him and gd - who'd been holding on to the morning's grievance, amongst other things - completely lost it.

the day ended with a different kind of fight, or family meeting, or family meeting with lots of yelling, but it feels like we got through to mr smear and gd expressed some stuff that's obviously been hurting her for a long time. as she said - sometimes it's only when you start to heal from something that you really begin to realize the depths of the trauma.

anyway, it wasn't a fun experience for anyone but i feel like we all were in a better place by the time mr smear left the table to brush his teeth and climb into bed.

...

i passed out watching monk, dragged myself to bed when gd went, and slept fitfully through the night, dreaming a lot of very realistic dreams about returning to the army.

today:

this time mr smear actually went to school, and i went in after him to find someone to help me understand why it was so hard for him to get to his friday juggling classes. eventually i got some hints, and i sent them to mr smear on whatsapp, and i returned home.

gd went to her sewing class, and i spent much of my morning trying to do something constructive* while my stomache did flips for no apparent reason. or maybe it's related to the fact that i seem to be coming down with something - i don't think my sinuses and throat are going haywire just from the dust exposure.

* i surprised myself by actually succeeding, i published an article about apt-key being deprecated

until i received a phone call from mr smear, telling me that he'd been in a classroom by himself (he hadn't seen / had chosen not to see my messages) and was accosted by two of the bullies in his class. understanding the worst, i managed to get him to go to his juggling class in spite of how furious i was with him for giving anyone an opportunity to hurt him (not as furious as i was with the bullies, and not that i was blaming him, which i explained to him later), and on my way to the school to pick him up i consulted with my mom about whether it makes sense to go to the police when the school's clearly not willing or able to protect our children.

i think that's exactly what i'm going to do from now on.

fortunately, when i sat him down and got the details out of him it turned out that the bullying was only harassment, not assault, which was a huge relief. and aside from that incident it appears that he actually had a pretty good day.

we walked home, and the two bullies were walking across the road from us. i awkwardly gave them angry side-eye, which they noticed, with my tongue between my teeth. in retrospect, i handled that wrong and i should have been giving them an evil smile instead.

next time.

mr smear switched bags* and we caught a bus to azrieli to meet up with gd and buy underwear. and snacks. oh! on the way back from dropping mr smear off at school this morning i picked up a couple of things, one of which being pistachio-covered cashews. which seems ridiculous, but even more ridiculous is how much like cookies it tastes.

* one day, we pray, he's not going to need to carry an epipen around with him wherever he goes

the rest of the afternoon has been pretty quiet, only slightly interrupted by a call with ze german who i've been trying to help... it's not that i don't want to help him, but i'm completely out of bandwidth while he doesn't really have anyone else for what i'm assisting him with.

...

i've spent a lot of time these past couple of weeks trying to get my head around what i'm doing for work, who i'm working with, what the expectations are. it's been a difficult time personally, but i feel like i'm going to need to start opening the throttle and doing a lot more than my nine-to-five. it's also been made clear that i'm expected to go on-site occasionally, which i've assured gd won't be unsafe even though i'm not entirely confident that that's true.

...

politically it was a difficult week, or couple of weeks. between the stories (and eulogy) from the recently released hostages to the amount of disinformation online - specifically mastodon and vimeo, which make it impossible to report.

fight or flight or both

what the hell happened today?

i've been on leave for two weeks, they're almost done, and all i've experienced is being sick and loads of unexpected and heavy adulting and parenting responsibilities. i'm not even tired right now - especially after today's drama - i'm just in shock.

...

it wasn't an easy night, mr smear woke up from a nightmare and it took a round or two of parenting to calm him down again.

otherwise, the cold, rainy day started well, and i got mr smear to school in good spirits.

i took care of some stuff (including informing ze german that i couldn't commit to anything), ate an early breakfast (i think i'm putting on weight again, but i'm struggling psychologically right now), and caught a bus to the shuk. on the way i spoke to a cousin who also wanted to start a joint venture, and had to explain to him too that i'm happy to advise but not available.

about halfway there, i was asked to please stop my conversation because i was bothering everyone on the small bus. i thought i'd been speaking in an unobtrusively low voice, but apparently i was wrong so i hurriedly ended the call and apologized to everyone...

we resumed the call when i arrived, and aside from my heart skipping a beat or two during the siren testing we had a good conversation. then i went through the shuk, and was ultimately unable to locate the bag of shirts we'd bought. so i picked up a coffee, bought another set (the guy felt sorry for me and gave me a bigger discount than before), and then walked up king george, picking up fingerless gloves for myself and mr smear and ordering inserts for my too-large rain boots.

i bussed home, relaxed for a bit watching mostly political videos on youtube with gd, then walked to the school to pick up mr smear.

on my way, a group of bigger kids went past with two of them literally in the middle of a fist fight, and it was only afterwards that i realized that i should have intervened. then i picked up mr smear, and learned that his bully had kicked him twice in his sprained foot and he hadn't been able to defend himself.

what followed was in two parts: part one, losing my cool and my "appropriate parenting language" and giving him hell for how he mishandled the situation (in particular, how he got into the situation in the first place by behaving precisely in the way his bully wanted). i wasn't communicating appropriately, but it appears (based on how he responded both immediately and later) that i was communicating effectively.

part two was me, after getting through part one, becoming absolutely enraged to the point of trembling and considering heading over to his bully's home (i have the address) to threaten his parents in person. or just beat the shit out of them. but i was also very aware of the potential consequences of doing that, and i know that if i start down that path that i'll almost certainly end up in jail, and i wouldn't do that to my family (or myself).

so the next hour or two were spent getting in touch with orgs who are now helping me file complaints against the school and move mr smear to a different one. 

all while trying (and failing) to help mr smear do his homework :/

then i rushed mr smear to his evaluation, which was apparently the second last session. the bus there got stuck in traffic, but we didn't notice because we were heavily engaged in a variety of topics - i got into the weeds of explaining what we're dealing with politically and historically, which he appeared to follow.

while he was there, i grabbed a coffee and wrote up the complaints for the two orgs. i had just enough time before being called back to pick up mr smear.

gd was at her second acupuncture session, so i decided to treat mr smear and take him somewhere in the sarona market. we ended up at mexicana, which may be fast food but it really got mr smear excited. we both loved the food, and he invested himself in experimenting with different combinations of foods and sauces which was very cool.

i was very proud of myself for stopping when i was full, and he continued on a loooong time before he was ready to pack up and go home. at that point we entered into a discussion about judaism vs christianity, which got surprisingly philosophical!

while mr smear got himself ready for bed (he's still into the hobbit ^_^) gd and i spoke to my mom, sharing the days trials and tribulations and hearing some things (specifically about my niece and her kid) that made us rather upset.

...

as i just said to gd: while mr smear's got issues that we need to work through, while he drives us crazy on all sorts of little things, if i think about the big stuff he's facing and how he's facing it his resilience is nothing short of miraculous. he's a good kid, and he's tough in ways i can't wrap my head around. his last few years have been immeasurably hard, and he deserves so much better.

i fucking love my boy. i'm fucking proud of my boy. and i'm fucking grateful that our relationship has improved so dramatically over the last year or two. he's learning to trust us, to let his guard down around us and let us in (including taking criticism well, and trying to incorporate it), and it's an amazing feeling.

...

anyway, mr smear went to bed without too much fuss, i've now finished this and am about to try help gd with her neck. for tonight, everything else is just whatever (including messages waiting for me that i'm deliberately ignoring).

the night owls

 as i begin writing this post, it's 2.20am and everyone's awake. me, because i woke up an hour or two ago with indigestion (we had pizza for dinner, and every day since wednesday has been a celebratory cheat-day), mr smear because he woke up thirsty and coughing, and gd because i went to pee and him calling for me woke her up...

anyway. it's been a crazy couple of days, now seems as good an hour as any to get it down.

wednesday:

i walked home, furiously messages everyone who needed to be updated with my news. on my way, i picked up some rum. well, i picked up a bacardi mojito, to be precise, and the cashier expressed her disgust which reminded me that gd had asked for whiskey. but the whiskeys there were way overpriced, so i ended up taking the bacardi while she muttered "disgusting" under her breath 😂

gd had ordered from our favorite vegan burger joint, and i ate my entire meal which was twice as much as i should have :P

as part of my celebration, i also picked up a copy of final fantasy vi (pixel remaster) and car mechanic simulator 2021, but unfortunately the latter proved unplayable after mr smear and i enthusiastically gave it a go this evening after talking about it for almost two days :/

thursday:

i dropped mr smear off at school and then continued on to our clinic, where i finally received the authorization that gd's been waiting on. i walked through to the hospital compound to deliver it, then returned home.

by the time i entered the office i realized that i hadn't received any sign of my contract, so i signed in to the signing app and found it waiting for me - it had been sent immediately after i'd approved it the evening before, and gmail had filed its notification as spam :/

i immediately skimmed through it to ensure everything was as expected, signed it, and it was done.

HOORAY!!

nystire called and we had a quick chat, which began with us trying to remember the name of the ultra-orthodox guy we'd served with that i bumped into on my way to the office, and resulted in him suggesting something that bolstered my confidence that i was making the right decision.

for a while i had a live-stream open of the hostage release, though eventually i realized that it wasn't constructive and i just waited on occasional live updates instead.

everything about how hamas is behaving with the hostage release just seems completely unhinged. who is their footage aimed at, and what kind of bizarre narrative are they trying to convince people of? what the hell do the goodie bags and framed certificates even mean?!

and how does it help them to show such cruelty to an old man while releasing him?? make it make sense

two of my coworkers came in, and one of them is interviewing for the same company. i enjoy working with him, but he's a particularly quirky developer so i'm intrigued.

[half an hour later and mr smear's really struggling, gd's taking care of him but it's unsettling]

...

i received a dramatic message from mr smear's homeroom teacher informing me that the kid mr smear hit with a rock, and whose artwork he's torn up on a couple of occasions, was very upset because mr smear had insulted his mother by calling her fat and saying she was unable to move. made worse by the fact that those statements are true 🤦

he claims that he and this kid were playing a game that involved generating drama, and that he immediately recognized and regretted his going to far. considering the fact that his teacher told me she had to give him a talk and ask him to apologize, i have my suspicions.

to add insult to... insult, he took a pack of oreos to school today to give to the poor kid as an additional apology, and then ate them himself :/

...

while i'd already signed the new contract, i put a lot of effort into making sure that i rejected my other offer in as constructive (or, non-destructive) a way as possible. while it was true that i'd made up my mind before i got the one i signed, it was surprisingly easy to honestly express the aspects that i'd had to weigh (especially as it wasn't an apples-to-apples comparison) and how much i valued their offer and would enjoy working with them. 

it was a relief to get back warm, sympathetic responses from the three people i emailed my letter to and it feels like they're keeping the door open too, which is comforting.

...

i'd intended to get my chair and monitor home before taking mr smear to the second part of his evaluation, but it proved too tricky, so i walked home, fired off the aforementioned email i'd been preparing, and the bussed him to the evaluation. i enjoyed a decaf coffee while waiting for him, resuming learning about the dangers of localStorage and coming up with a potential mechanism for using it securely. 

while there, gd went to the dentist and finally got her first crown sorted out! it's a huge relief.

i picked mr smear up, we grabbed hummus at a hummusia close by, i showed him the building i'm about to start working in and we took the light rail home.

i didn't need to eat so much of the pita, but it was delicious.

...

it having been unseasonably warm the whole day, i left the apartment after dinner without a sweater and barely regretted it. i took the train to the office (i'd been misled by a bus stop display to believe that there was a protest causing traffic), picked up my chair and wheeled it out, then called a taxi. fortunately, the taxi driver not only had no issue with transporting a chair, but was able to jimmy it into the front seat in a way that i definitely wasn't capable of.

i'd originally intended to use an hourly rental, and i think i would have deeply regretted it.

yesterday/today (friday):

i got mr smear to school, and from there caught a bus to the office to pick up my monitor and drop off my key and keycard.

i was amused by my reflection in the elevator mirror when i realized i was taking office equipment out the building wearing a hoodie that says "pirate king" on the front 😅

i took the train home, and set up my workstation, which i'm happily using now and it makes an ENORMOUS difference to the experience of using my shitty windows machine!

i kinda regret not setting something like this up before.

i picked mr smear up from school, came home, helped a woman pick up a whole bunch of mr smear's unwanted books and toys, then walked with mr smear to one of ze germans' son's street exhibit on ben gurion, which was simply astonishing. what's just as astonishing to my mind is that most of his artwork was sold by the end of the afternoon!

amazing kid. even mr smear found his work riveting, and at some point told him "i'm good, but you're waaay better than me" 😅

...

we were supposed to meet up with the mongoose but hadn't heard from him, so we walked around until we discovered market vegan and stopped for lunch. i had a thai curry soup that came with glass noodles, mr smear wasn't a fan of the soup but enjoyed the noodles, then decided to try adding soup to the noodles, and at that point decided he could enjoy it properly :)

we also picked up one of their desserts, which was delicious, but mr smear looked like a chocolate version of heath ledger's joker so we stopped in at a bar/restaurant to clean up. on our way out, we stepped on broken glass that had simply been abandoned while whoever dropped it went to get something to sweep it with, and we were about twenty meters away when i realized that mr smear's shoes had a massive glass spike in it that almost went through to his foot :/

...

we met up with the mongoose and co. (wife/daughter/some friends), his daughter's really starting to speak! and i just realized that i never put her birthday in my calendar and we just missed her 2nd birthday 🤦

it was nice seeing them, but mr smear really got in my face and wouldn't let me talk, which not only infuriated me but also lost him a chunk of privilege time - it took three increments of 15 minutes to finally get him to stop. on the walk home i explained to him how bad that was.

we were almost home before he realized that his punishment was going to be carried out immediately, and we sat on a bench and had a massive fight about how punishments work, and how the punishment itself is his fault and not mine, and how what he was doing to me was assault and if he wasn't my kid he could get into real trouble for it.

eventually, with only an additional 15 minutes added on top for rudeness (he did try hitting me a couple of times, but i responded in kind so that stopped quickly), we returned home in surprisingly calm spirits.

...

we tried out the new vegan sachlav that's being advertised everywhere, and it is good! it's one of those things that i've missed every winter since i went vegan (so... almost 15 years now) and i really enjoyed it :)

after doing some dishes while mr smear served his sentence (some sentence, he just chilled and read for an hour), we headed to the synagogue. along the way i talked to him about prayer, that there are different forms of it, and that there's power in communal prayer (whether in synagogue or on a dance floor) and power in being connected to our ancestors and our history.

the chazan was in a bit of a droning mood, so it wasn't as vibrant a service as usual, and there was a weird choir thing as the end, but otherwise it was a pleasant experience and i'm glad that mr smear's going with the flow.

...

between getting home and saying kiddush, we had time to try out the mechanic simulators, and sadly our windows machine just isn't up to spec :(

at least i could get a refund.

[gd just went to bed, and mr smear's now up and reading todd strasser's the wave on the couch behind me]

we enjoyed the pizza dinner and the simpsons, and then mr smear got an extra half hour to play an FPS during which time i taught him how to strafe and not stand still when engaged in a fire fight. i then jumped in the shower, where i heard him yelling excitedly from the living room after he won his first game ^_^

after getting him into bed, i played a bit of final fantasy vi and then went to bed myself. it's 4.15am and i'm not feeling particularly tired myself...

communities

define irony: i just got permanently banned from the southafrica subreddit for commenting that the southafrica subreddit has become an echo chamber just like the rest of reddit. 

apparently saying that violated their community rules 😂 

...

getting to ra'anana was straightforward, apparently i got lucky finding parking as easily as i did. i got a little bit lost getting to the synagogue, but i made it time to witness ru55's barmitzvah boy doing his thing. all in all it was a great being able to be there with the gang, especially as it's the first simcha for one of ze germans' kids that i've been able to attend. it was also interesting to run into a couple of my aunt and uncle's friends that i have seen in about 25 years.

the evening was pleasant. i passed out on the couch again, and then struggled to sleep once i eventually moved to the bed... i think? last night's a blur.

...

today started off alright for me, but gd's neck was still in a bad way (and it still is). i got to work at a normal time, spent a little while with the exercise again, and finally sent them a message apologizing for the last week being a wash and including the following (translated):

i have to say that up close the code looks pretty clean and tidy, but without a real familiarity with everything it's pretty hard to understand how everything connects and who is responsible for what. i would be happy to sit down with you to get some guidance.

at that point i had some ideas about what needed doing, but i was missing some pretty big pieces of the puzzle. before i clicked send i thought about it, and i figured that either they'd be willing to walk me through what i needed to be able to do the exercise, or they'd reject my application, and either action would give me important information as to what kind of people i was dealing with.

well... a while later, i got the rejection message. i took it politely, but it did sting. it bothers me because on the one hand, i don't think what they set me was a reasonable task and i don't think their code is well organized enough to expect an easy onboarding. on the other hand, i'm plagued with that voice inside my head: "is it me? am i not good enough?"

i really hate interviewing.

...

after lunch with my now ex-bosses i received an urgent call from gd to inform me that i needed to take mr smear to his therapist, which was very last-minute. i grabbed my gear and walked home, met him outside and bussed to the therapist. had coffee, had a chat with my insurance broker, picked him up and took him home.

walked past our apartment to a nearby park, dropped him off with his friend (chatting with his friend's mom for a few minutes), and the returned home. followed, shortly after, by the two boys.

the next couple of hours were a mix of messaging recruiters / headhunters, doing dishes and (healthy) snacking, while the kids played nicely. that went on until we had to rush to get to the school for mr smear's two parent-teacher meetings, dropping his friend off at home along the way.

the rush turned out to be for nothing, because both the teachers were behind schedule.

between the two meetings, we learned that, by and large, mr smear is doing relatively well academically and socially. unfortunately, we also learned that he's being totally uncooperative with his hebrew teacher to the point where she doesn't believe he can read 🤦

so that's a fucking thing. he's promised to start playing ball, but we'll see... we'll see...

gd wasn't up for making dinner so i took mr smear for falafel, which was a great experience. we got home quite late, though, and it was a rush to get him ready for bed in time because we wanted to log in to a private Q&A with an ex-mossad agent who was involved in captured eichmann, and was a consultant on the netflix movie operation finale.

he told us some stories that aren't in the movie, as well the fact that the doctor in real life was a man, but apparently the movie's an extremely faithful adaptation and the true story has some elements that are completely nuts, with truth truly being stranger than fiction.

the last couple of hours were spent chatting with my mom, playing a bit of inscryption (act ii), doing random things. it's now 1am and i have an exit interview in the morning and an important double interview at noon. and i'm nervous about going to bed because i haven't been sleeping well.

wish me luck.

happy new year!

hopefully 2025 will be decent. if it's even halfway decent it'll be infinitely better than the last one.

having said that, this last one has ended on an extremely good note. one of ze germans (the irish one) asked if any of us were interested in coming to the science museum in haifa, and i've been wanting to take mr smear but i thought it was closed due to the war. and it wasn't.

so, very last minute and to gd's chagrin (initially), mr smear and i very spontaneously jumped on the train and headed north. the train ride was cool - mr smear expressed his amazement that he wasn't on screens but also wasn't bored, though he now denies it - and we arrived there in good time.

mr smear was throughly engaged for most of our hours there, and he also got along really well with our friends (two kids, ages 4 and 6), and we all had a really good experience. after they left, we ran through the maze and then headed into the "behind the screens" exhibit, which was highly entertaining and very interesting for both of us, and we had to be ushered out at closing time.

the bus and train rides home were pretty uneventful, mr smear got his "rewards" of sprite and screen time, and we've had a pretty good evening overall.

...

in addition to the two of us enjoying a really fun day at madatech today, there was another momentous occasion we have to celebrate. this morning, i received an email informing me that my south african chequing account had been closed. this was good news!

but when i signed in in to check, i saw that our credit card account was in minus. this was bad news :(

partially because without a chequing account i've no way to pay it, but more so because two days ago, i asked them to make sure everything was clear for us to close our accounts.

so for me, the train ride (~1 hour) and the taxi ride (~5-10 minutes) were consumed with messages to my bankers. i had to explain to the first agent that i wasn't interested in paying, and that whatever it was he was telling me i should have asked for was their responsibility to have told me two days ago. he eventually transferred me through to the credit card people (this was about 45 minutes in), who took forever to respond and then closed the chat because i didn't respond within a couple of minutes. so i had to start again.

for the second agent i got through to, i explained that i wanted them to reverse the charge and close the account, and i was (and still am) literally stunned by her rapid reply that the charge had been reversed and the account closed.

so here we are, ushering in a new year with our only remaining debt to my mother, and nothing more being held over her and her apartment.

...

yesterday was a wonky day. the two memorable events were mr smear doing homework - fighting about it and subsequently doing it well - followed by me taking him to his jiujitsu class in the rain and realizing along the way that i'd misunderstood the hours update, so we arrived in time for the next lesson which simply wasn't appropriate ages for him.

*sigh*

anyway, it was a pleasant and interesting little adventure.

...

happy new year. may 2025 bring israel military success, peace and stability, both in the middle east and worldwide. the entire world deserves a break.

someone's on vacation

 a pity it's not me. mr smear's off for the yom kippur / sukkot vacation, and i'll be joining him from wednesday next week. in the meanwhile... at least i'm off for the weekend.

work-wise, yesterday and today were punishing, and i'm still not out of the woods yet. and it's all css bullshit. i told my boss today that i'm willing to bet that backend / application developers will be replaced by AI long before frontend devs, primarily because none of that shit has any sort of logic to it and there's no way to know which signals make things work and which signals interfere.

i have made progress, though, but it's been really, really slow. otherwise, between my manager and my boss i kinda feel like things are good. i hope i'm right.

gd's been in trouble, pain-wise, much worse than usual. she's managed to pick him up from school, but both yesterday and today i've taken him to mma. the travelling together has been fun. he's been mostly good with his classes, but not very focused and not particularly well-behaved :/

i'm sad that the fight camp has been cancelled due to insufficient numbers, but he's happy about it, and it certainly uncomplicates our holiday times.

...

one of ze germans posted about notebooklm yesterday, so i took a stab at it and it's the first time i've used an AI tool that has absolutely blown me away. i spent a good chunk of yesterday evening making "podcasts", interrogating sources, and writing up my experience, and this evening i've been throwing more stuff at it, mostly with superb results!

...

i'm not sure about what i'm going to do now, but i don't want to go to bed too early. speaking of sleep, mr smear's been going to bed without a night-light the last week or so, although he's been asking for the airconditioner on which serves as a very dim night-light, but i guess it's a win. he's definitely going to sleep faster, that's for sure.

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 🤞

light-headed

 this has been a *really* hard week. i've been feeling shit, and i've been getting really nervous about my mom arriving soon, because after the last two visits i *really* don't want any of us to be sick.

now it's thursday night, mr smear is in bed, and i'm trying to remember what happened.

i also should point out that i've been having trouble with keeping up with the world politically, and i've been kind of taking a mental health break. not properly, and not enough, but kind of.

diet-wise, i've been all over the place this week. but i have been rollerblading a lot, and the days i've failed i've made up for it, i think.

i've really been having trouble sleeping.

monday:

for months i've been unable to work from home with my home network, and it's been very frustrating. after a few hours on calls with tech support - especially the shift manager - along with a helpful hint from my boss, we finally figured out the source of the problem and i can work from my home network!

(it turned out my router had "dns rebind protection" enabled my default)

the climbing wall session in the evening was pretty good. as much as he's getting stronger and better, he's also beginning to get it through his head that "this is happening". 

tuesday:

i had an early breakfast, and arrived at work early to donate blood. they weren't set up yet, so the morning was weirdly shifted. and the nurse who took my blood was fascinated by my being vegan, so i ended up giving advice on both veganism and her son's career progress :P

one isn't supposed to exert oneself physically after donating blood, but our sprint meetings ran a bit late and i had to run to catch the train (i barely made it before the doors closed). i found ze germans without too much trouble, and we had a great lunch while talking about some of my ideas. they seem pretty enthusiastic. i have homework to do.

in the afternoon i had a long, difficult conversation with mr smear's teacher. it wasn't all bad, and it felt constructive, but i'm left praying that she's his teacher next year as well...

wednesday:

resolving an issue with stripe payments, that turned out to not be a real issue but just a UX fail. i'm super impressed by their tech support, both in how professional and helpful, and in little things like enabling me to verify that their call wasn't a scam, and the agent agreeing to forward the recording of our conversation to their product team.

we've had a contractor working with us for the past month, and yesterday was his last day in the office. he's very sweet, and it was an emotional sendoff. with whiskey, after the wework "crème brûlée" happy hour.

today:

today started off alright. i woke up from a bizarre dream where i was in a meeting with elon musk and suggested using the "right hand rule" to employ magnetic force to help launch rockets. mr smear went to school with a pretty good vibe and gd went to her sewing class. i did dishes and listened to podcasts and youtube videos until about 10am, then took the bus to work.

first order of business: a bit of a fight with my coworkers. by the end of it, none of us were sure who was in the right or who was in the wrong but we were clearly all uncomfortable with ourselves and our behavior. the rest of the day was quite positive. and we went out for lunch together and it was really good (i remembered to take my vinegar bottle).

by the afternoon we'd all agreed on what i was doing and that i was going about it in the right way, but there was a significant amount of bashing my head into walls until i achieved a minor success and launched myself home.

i picked up mr smear, put on my blades, and we went to the climbing wall. it was a pretty good experience overall.

bedtime, not so much - mr smear needs to see a doctor for the hole he's managed to scratch in his leg. he's lost all privileges until it heals because he hasn't been able to get over his compulsive scratching, and he's properly damaging himself.

...

i'm VERY happy we're entering the weekend right now.

sad - hopeful - sad

monday:

it was supposed to be a half day, but ended up being more like three quarters because one of my coworkers and i were stuck investigating sunday's mystery. we managed to narrow down where the mystery is occuring, but it's still a mystery. at least we could put a plaster over it in the meantime and our boss has prioritized root-causing it.

it was a quiet afternoon, mostly just listening to galgalatz and contemplating the hostages, the victims, the fallen soldiers...

... and experiencing a flood of political discussion in a group of apparent "movers and shakers" that gco introduced me to.

the switch to independence day was somber. we ordered burgers (delicious, but i really shouldn't have eaten all the fries), and then i took mr smear for a walk.

it's hard to say "chag sameach" right now, and it feels like most of us are feeling that. but i'm overflowing with gratitude and hope nonetheless.

we went for a walk down to what's now known as "hostage square", and saw thousands of people packed tightly in support of our hostages and their families. then we walked through a huge park filled with kids doing that annoying foam thing that they always do, safe and laughing and living their best lives.

the streets are slightly more somber than they should be, but we're here. we're not going anywhere. we made it out of egypt, we made it through the desert, we made it through short exiles, and we made it through thousands of years of exile. we made it through inquisitions, we made it through pogroms, we made it through the holocaust, we made it through 76 years (and counting) of intense wars against enemies who have never stopped seeking to destroy us.

we'll make it through this tragedy, this pogrom, this war, this torture, and we'll make it through whatever else the world has in store for us. there is no part of this story that is anything less than miraculous, and if we stick together and work hard, there's no reason for the future to be any less so.

🇮🇱 am yisrael chai . עם ישראל חי 🇮🇱

mr smear and i also picked up vegan donuts on the way home for yesterday's breakfast:

yesterday:

we managed a good start to the day, and left more or less on time for ze germans' barbeque. it was a really fun day, and good to spend time with the whole bunch (including mmf), but there were some highlights: mr smear trying to learn how to operate the grill from one of the older kids, enjoying the swimming pool and figuring out flippers, and ru55's eldest catching him vaping weed and deciding that his dad's a criminal (fortunately they resolved that by bedtime, but goddamn his kids are smart and had loads of good arguments).

we got home early enough to have a pretty easy evening.

today:

i've been struggling with allergies rather badly today.

the morning started off well enough, but the conversation i was having with mr smear on the way to school took a bad turn and we said goodbye on shaky terms. then i came home, did grocery shopping and fretted about finances, and was busy with banking when mr smear's teacher called and asked us to pick him up (he apparently wasn't feeling well, but we smell bullshit). at least gd was able to handle that.

they weren't back by the time i was ready to go to the office, but when i saw i caught them by surprise on my way out i mean that i saw them a way off, hid behind a bush, and scared them so badly that gd proper screamed and mr smear lost his footing. i mean, they do that shit to me all the time, so it's fully deserved, but it also appeared to make mr smear's day much brighter :P

the work day was long, but ended well. i ate too much, though (falafel for happy hour) and i had a hard time (as usual) keeping my eyes open during our meetings.

i got home in time for the first in a series of talks about the state of the middle east by people from all over: it was a lot longer than i anticipated (two hours), and some of it was hard to get through (in particular, a lecture in arabic via an interpreter), but there were some fascinating things said (assuming that what was said was true) and overall it was an intriguing experience.

i spent the rest of the evening (until recently) translating a video about adi kaploun into english for it to be shown in canada; gd agreed to try translating it into québécois french but i'm not sure if she can stomach it...

small miracles

 saturday:

i managed to drag mr smear out on the bike, which ended up awesome - he "remembered" that he actually enjoys riding his bicycle, and now that the puncture and gears have been repaired it was much more fun for him :)

we finished watching american splendor, and it's really as great as everyone said it was. what an inspirational film! and it answered a bunch of questions i had from reading our movie year.

yesterday:

one of ze germans decided to bring his family to tel aviv yesterday morning, so a whole bunch of us rocked up and had a great walk about! it's very rare to be able to get my family out of the house spontaneously and quickly, so that in itself was amazing, and when mr smear was being relatively antisocial (he was actually pretty cool most of the time) he found a quiet seat to read the copy of naruto that scrapper gave us years ago, and he's really digging it ^_^

we left the group in search of breakfast, and finding pesach-friendly vegan food was quite a mission. we eventually settled on hummus abu dabi, which was just fantastic. we all ate too much, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

the afternoon was pretty chilled, and although there was some unpleasantness surrounding mr smear getting his homework done he did eventually get through it before sundown. i had to re-learn long division in order to teach it to him, which i must admit was kinda fun :P

netflix's baking impossible is a really great show. after getting mr smear into bed, gd and i watched an episode of the boys to remind ourselves (the warmup to the 3rd season finale), and then the first episode of invincible because neither of us really remember much.

...

gd and i both slept badly last night, for different reasons. i've now spent two nights on the couch again. this mattress topper is not doing the trick :(

...

my first on-call with my new employer is over, and it was fine. now i've got a proper day off for the holiday, and tomorrow's back to "normal".

...

oh, i tried to watch the mgmt - kids video with mr smear this morning, and that was a really bad idea. i don't know how i'd forgotten just how scary it is, and here i was trying to show him how scary it wasn't :(

speeding up before applying the brakes

 so... i didn't just feel that inspiration and go to bed... i ended up starting the original fallout game and realized about halfway through clearing out a cave full of radscorpions that it was 2am already...

whoops :$

the day started really well in spite of waking up from a bizarre and disturbing dream about cartoon depravity. i woke mr smear up, explained the expression "the carrot and the stick" (which already got him in a good space because that's how you ride pigs in minecraft), and informed him that the stick was no screen-time if he didn't participate in the fight camp and the carrot was a homework-free afternoon doing whatever he wants if he did.

he did. and not only did he, but gd quietly called me after picking him up at the end to tell me he'd said he had an amazing day! he wouldn't say anything other than "it was okay" when i eventually got home, but that's just how he rolls...

between dropping him off at fight camp and getting to the office, i spoke to dod who's not just interested in a project i've been cooking up for about a decade now, but who presented an interesting re-focus that makes it much more likely to get off the ground. he (digitally) introduced me to someone he knows who's in the industry i've been dreaming about disrupting, and i'm excited to see if we can push this forward ^_^

the work day itself was manic. by the time we'd safely tested my previous evening's fixes it was already thursday afternoon, which is a not-good time to deploy to production. the deployment was a bit tricky, though it went smoothly, but it took hours of general disarray to be confident that the patch had been deployed safely and successfully.

for our weekly end-of-week happy hour, i convinced my team to order from mr donuts. four vegan donuts and one not (i feel confident they got it on principle), and everyone agreed that a) they were great and b) the not-vegan option was the least successful :P

i ended up leaving the office late again because i wanted to finish up our first official runbook.

it was a pretty peaceful evening (arguments over what to watch during dinner notwithstanding, mr smear doesn't like giving us a turn to choose and we wanted to continue with baking impossible). i was soooo tired after putting mr smear to bed, but we started watching a little more fallout and then stopped when i passed out on the couch.

today:

i didn't sleep well, but i did sleep. i woke up with a sore neck and shoulder, which followed me around all morning. it's still not great but it's much better, at least.

i began the day trying to figure out what the attack on iran means - i still don't know, to be honest - and wondering if ze germans are going to get together or not while SxS is in town. after a quick breakfast, we took the bike - i mean, mr smear walked his bike alongside us - to be repaired, and i had a coffee while gd and mr smear enjoyed sandwiches at cafe eva. the woman i asked for a chair was extremely rude to me, in english - "take the chair and GO!" - and i think she thought we were tourists. what an asshole!

afterwards, we hopped on a bus to the ichilov mall, where i figured out our next steps in getting mr smear a cellphone and we did a grocery shopping. then we walked home, dropped gd and the groceries off, and mr smear and i walked back to the bike repair shop.

eighty shekels for a new tire, gears examined and a new rear brake. nice :)

we picked up a really nice wine for our cousins' seder on monday evening, and we came home for a lazy afternoon. mr smear's been human fall flat-ing, i've almost cleared my daily quests in bloons adventure time, and i even killed all those damned radscorpions before doing most of the dishes so that gd could bake a challah in time for shabbat.

so far, it's been a good day.

bbq bailing

 last night was rough. today was rough. gd and i were both suffering from much worse coughs than we had been before, it's now been about two weeks of feeling sick and almost a week of that with a sore throat and speedrunning through the facial tissues.

it really sucked bailing on ze germans' barbeque, we were all looking forward to it :(

we did go vote today, though. i'm praying that we made the right choice, because it's really impossible to tell. and it's very hard to not be nervous about all the religious groups trying to wrest control of our city by any and every means.

managing mr smear was a full-time job today, although i guess that's not entirely true because i did manage to complete and publish the article i was working on. as the days go by, i'm becoming more and more convinced that he's... neurodivergent, i believe the kids call it these days.

i don't know how i managed to get him through a homework exercise that he clearly didn't want to do. nor how i managed to figure out the reason why he was confidently arguing with me about how many hours there are in a day and find a way to explain day vs daylight hours to him.

good grief.

i've been managing my bloons adventure time addiction better. and my emotions, too. i'm still feeling pretty dysfunctional, though, i've been having a really hard time doing All The Things that need to get done. and tomorrow's mr smear's bi-annual (twice-yearly) allergy update appointment...