wonder no more

good grief, that "exhaustion" from last week? we got covid. like, this week was really tough, and in retrospect i should probably have taken a sick day or two - i only realized this morning that i'm still in "contractor mode" because i've spent so long not getting paid for not working regardless of the reason.

gd and i have both spent the past week perpetually exhausted and frequently faint (not getting enough oxygen), but i've been powering through, in particular so as not to let my team down for my first company hackathon. we failed to demo, unfortunately, but we generated a lot of enthusiasm for our idea and we *did* actually get it to work at one point... i'm amused that so many people enjoyed my voiceover for our presentation :P

for me the biggest struggle this week was that aside from one night (wednesday night) i've barely been able to sleep. even last night, when i'm clearly done with the main symptoms. in the aftermath of the first time (and last time) i got covid i suffered weeks of sinusitis,  and it looks like this time around is much of the same :(

...

otherwise, two big events happened this week. the most important one happened yesterday: we finally received our judgement, the state officially recognizes that mr smear is my son! we're expecting him to be entered into the population registry within the next couple of weeks, and as soon as that's done gd can make aliyah and we can all have access to all the rights and services that we should have been entitled to half a year ago...

and there was much rejoicing ^_^

secondly, the past couple of weeks have been extremely financially strained and as of this morning i finally have money in my account. it's particularly comforting to know how much i can expect each month (the tax consultant wasn't kidding about them hitting me hard), and i'm finally in a position where i can make plans and budget and so on.

...

finally, mr cat has produced the latest couple of pages and i'm looking forward to posting them over the weekend. which for me, has already begun. and in the wee hours of tomorrow morning i'm off to pick up my mom from the airport! exciting times ^_^

halfway through the weekend

 right, so it's shavuot tonight, and i'm exceedingly grateful that we have a long weekend because this week *really* took it out of me. gd's been sick the past couple of days, and i'm not sure if i was sick myself or if i was just so thoroughly exhausted that i felt sick (i almost fainted last night). i've spent most of yesterday and today just resting, and trying to turn my brain off.

that hasn't been easy, but i can thank the boys (re-watching season 1), deadpool (re-reading volume 1) and a mindless mobile game called alien shooter for helping.

[pauses to play another round or two]

there are plenty of things to be stressed about, but i'm already feeling better for having rested and done a lot of nothing. mr smear has been taking an interest in the fitness videos i was watching (browney) and not only was inspired to do push-ups, but i took him out twice today and he was as excited to impress me with his outdoor gym efforts as i was!

we also played some command & conquer and don't starve together, which was great :)

between yesterday and today i managed to get one of my unifi network appliances hooked up, and my computers are finally able to connect properly which is a huge relief.

rough stuff

 yesterday afternoon was first heartwarming, then heartbreaking. i finished my work day on a good note, managing to get out of the office just in time to make it to my boy's first "performance" - his class did a dance for shavuot. he was great, we were super proud.

and then he had a run in with the kid he calls "his nemesis", and it was clear as day that he was the antagonist. and not just to that kid. i tried to find a good opportunity to apologize to the parents but they wouldn't make eye contact. when i told his teacher i was concerned, she told me this is a daily occurrence.

talk about letting the wind out of my sails.

so yesterday evening was ghastly for all of us.

...

i've spent my last two mornings dealing with insurance brokers, and tomorrow morning will be more of the same. also, we've pretty much hit our debt ceiling. that's really scary, but there's really nothing to be done until i get paid...

...

today seemed to be a bit better for him. for me, i spent all day bashing my head against a wall of dependency resolutions. i finally got things running - not working - at 5pm and desperately wanted to check in my changes and walk away... but it would take another hour / hour and a half to further disentangle the dependencies for the pre-commit hook that refused to let me do so.

i'm emotionally depleted at this point.

...

last night was a struggle, so i installed some mind-numbing games (bacterial takeover is one of them). this evening: same. although i did pick up the remastered command & conquer collection and i think mr smear is ready for them... i'm really looking forward to introducing him :)

goods and bads

 i'm really tired. today was a good day, i guess? work was successful with some exciting things to look forward to, and i took mr smear out for dinner because gd isn't feeling good and we found ourselves at alegria: the food and experience were both excellent.

it was my mom's birthday today! we're really excited about her coming her in the next couple of weeks, but hopefully next year we'll be able to celebrate the actual day with her here...

yesterday was pretty awful. work was mostly good, but on my way home i spoke to gd and she filled me in on a deeply disturbing event that she witnessed when she picked mr smear up from school - we're praying to all the gods that he's acting out because of all the unsettling immigration things, and not because of something more dramatic...

saturday was... complicated. we would have had a really nice day with urchin if it wasn't for mr smear constantly pushing boundaries and gd's shoes ripping her feet to shreds. we walked a lot. in the evening we drove through to our cousins for a lovely evening with the family.

the groom's father's toast included a story about dolphins having large clitorises. one of our cousins had a cold and when they gave him the cup of wine to saying a really long blessing, a drop of snot splashed into it.

...

okay, i'm off to bed now.

weak end to the week

 yesterday:

yesterday saw two advancements and two setbacks.

advancement 1: we got a water filter system installed which replaces bottled water and the kettle.

advancement 2: the handyman came in and fixed the kitchen cupboards. he also did the prep-work for the bathtub, which is going to be a story when he comes back for it.

setback 1: i deployed code (that had been tested and vetted) that broke our ci/cd pipelines. all of them. i was working from home and my team lead and i weren't as in-sync as i thought we were, because our head of r&d sent me urgent voice messages at one point. fortunately, i managed to figure out the issue and fix it... by the end of the day. not a great experience.

setback 2: mr smear and i had a fight in the evening that was ridiculous and horrible. gd declared our relationship toxic. things may have been much better today but i'm still heartbroken from the entire ordeal.

[setback 3: mr smear did something really naughty - not maliciously, but that's not the point - and has been given a suspension warning. jesus.]

today:

gd and i started our day with a group of parents talking about a programme for the next school year. i translated as much as i could while still following. our take-away from this morning, which we'd agreed on before the meeting, was that we really need to sign mr smear up to the aftercare / extra-mural activities.

my local credit card has been blocked, and my bank a) didn't inform me and b) has not been reachable. on sunday, i'll be going to find myself a new bank.

otherwise, we managed to find me some clothing, pick up our kid on time, unpack most of our books and arrange them on shelves, get gd's contact lenses just before the place closed, get kiddush wine (and beers and a couple of breezers), finish watching charlie and the chocolate factory, rest, watch some star trek tng, chill and have a pleasant entry into the shabbat.

mr smear has just gone to bed, we're about to continue watching ricky gervais' new special. i didn't know about it until someone i know posted that i should unfriend myself if i find it funny. i didn't laugh at the transcripted parts, but i do think he was completely on point. otherwise, there's some really hilarious material in there.

the big day

yesterday: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

we managed to get out on time with all our stuff, we didn't not forget to bring a towel. we navigated the buses and found the laboratory. we all got our blood samples taken, and mr smear handled it just great.

and then it was done.

an enormous relief washed over us as the unstoppable ball began rolling, in a couple of weeks our results will hit the courts, in another misrad hapnim, and as soon as mr smear is registered gd will get her citizenship status sorted out, and anyone who interferes at this point will be doing so illegally.

...

we celebrated by going out for a delicious lunch at a coffee shop on yehuda hamaccabi, then came home where i spent four hours playing around with testing until it was time to get ready for the wedding.

...

1. omg between the wedding gift and the babysitter, last night was expensive. and when we arrived and everyone wanted to know where mr smear was, i felt like a right idiot for not having asked about kids before.

2. neither gd nor myself realized that i didn't have any button shirts until half an hour before we left.

3. the drive there was fine, i'm very glad i made change by buying a coke on the way to the car because i needed it to get home.

4. the wedding was beautiful and fun and we had a great time!

...

we arrived home around midnight to find two big puddles left by the babysitter's dog. by the time we'd sorted that out and i'd showered and brushed me teeth and fallen into bed, it was pretty late.

...

i woke up this morning with a hangover. today's going to be a milder "big day" as the handyman's coming to fix our kitchen cabinets and we're getting a water filter installed.

sun-tues

we all made it on time to meet the lawyer at misrad hapnim on sunday morning, and we were lucky to land at a desk other than mrs professor quirrel's. still not a great experience, but much, much saner and we were able to at least apply for the visa extensions.

money well spent.

sunday evening we had a team barbeque to celebrate last quarter's achievements (which i was obviously not a part of), it was really nice!

i promised to go shopping with gd yesterday evening, not realizing that it was our company's board-game night, so that sucked a bit. i did, however, manage to get a great pair of summer shoe-sandals (it's what i was looking for, really, but i didn't actually expect to find them!).

over the course of sunday and monday i finally lost patience with the incompetents at the cargo company, they failed to inform me that while i spent two weeks trying to get my status sorted out to avoid paying the customs duties i was wracking up significant storage fees. so i ended up getting everything released for 1.5 times what i should have paid - which was stupidly expensive to begin with - and then to top it all off they refused to do the front-door delivery that we'd specifically paid for. it's very hard to be professional for my coworkers while being furious with fools. (i managed, but it was hard)

gd and i finally hashed out the leftover feelings from friday evening, and although the process wasn't pleasant i think we're in a much better place for it.

this morning our shipment was delivered and left outside our building, i managed to get 280kg up about 1200 stairs in just about an hour, at which point my watch showed me that i had almost reached half of my step goal: i briefly considered throwing it out the window.

work-wise this has been a great week. the highlights were receiving very high praise from my team lead yesterday and today being asked to take over a task as a favour because i'm now The Guy in the team who they trust to tool around with the CI/CD pipeline and git 'er done.

we're all nervous tonight because tomorrow is The Big Day. we're off at cock-fart to get our blood drawn so that they can finally sort out mr smear's population registry entry so that we can get on with our lives.

wish us luck!

the week and weekend in brief

it took me a day to breathe better, two to relax a bit (our lawyer helped).

for most of the week gd struggled with a terrible migraine and was effectively incapacitated.

i spent yet another week trying and failing to get hold of someone at customs to get them to release our personal effects without taxing the shit out of us. we're getting desperate enough that we might pay the tax just to get this over with, and that's another lovely few hundred dollars.

i started wednesday with a personal visit to misrad hapnim to sort out my id and passport, and the contrast in treatment was refreshing / jolting / insulting all at once. the woman who dealt with me was kind, helpful, caring, human. she sits no more than two metres away from the evil **** who's putting us through hell. afterwards, i joined my company at the AWS summit, instead of enjoying a few talks and checking things out i spent the entire day on my feet pitching and demoing. i won't lie, i kind of enjoyed it.

in the evening i took mr smear to his class treasure hunt in the park for lag b'omer. it was a very pleasant evening, he had a great time, and i ran into grootbek and we chatted for a while until my boy finally came back into view.

thursday morning was a mixed mess of work and bureaucracy, but i went into the office for a productive afternoon and finished the week on a good note.

friday: friday was a perfect day, right until dinner time. gd joined me after i dropped mr smear at school and we went into town for a haircut and to find stickers for our postbox and front door, and we made it back to the school just in time to pick him up again. i then took him for a walk and we ended up at the beach, with plenty of playing on the way, at the beach, and on the way back, and i even enjoyed a beer on the beach while waiting for him. we really had a lot of fun together, it was awesome.

we then had an incident at dinnertime that was caused by something really ridiculous, and we all had a horrible night after that.

i was still feeling raw for most of today, we spent most of it doing not much (although i had some good times with mr smear playing video games and watching fun videos) and we sadly missed out on my cousin's pre-wedding family gathering as well as a birthday party for a bunch of the kids in mr smear's class.

everyone's gone to bed already, i just needed to put this all down before i go myself. according to our lawyer we have everything we need, now we just need a bit of luck. praying and breathing. praying and breathing.

one abusive ****

gd actually called her a very rude name out loud because she was so mean to us, i've understood from nystire that in his family's experience this is really her thing.

so we made it this morning! we were on time, we did everything we were supposed to, and this abusive "religious" woman made our lives miserable until we left, frustrated and stressed out and devastated. now we have to go back again in a week accompanied by our lawyer - which will cost us a very pretty penny - and pray that we're able to avoid having to leave the country next month.

...

it's very hard to be focused on work with this shit rolling around my chest. i'm pretty sure i overshared with my coworkers today.

...

i'm tired.

trepidation 2 (double)

the good stuff:

a really nice day out with cm and his family, gd made it as well and we all had a good time.

the latest double-pager of the comics is done! i haven't got the final hi-res copy yet, but it's come out fantastically well and i'm excited to put it out there ^_^

the nerves:

i know what we have to do tomorrow, and i'm worried about getting there in time and about gd and mr smear getting there in time after me. i'm worried about landing on bad bureaucrats or not having everything we need. i know (intellectually) that everything should be fine, but i can't help being stressed.

additionally, we realized this afternoon that the massive mounted cupboards in the kitchen are coming off the wall - and have been doing so since before we moved in. there's SO much work to be done in this apartment...

friday morning breath

 i have Things To Do but i've been chilling the past hour or so and really feeling like i've needed to.

two stressors at the moment: first, the shipment of our personal goods is supposed to arrive tomorrow and figuring out (even with my mother's assistance) how to get it to clear customs has been horrible. second, i'm rather nervous about sunday morning, when we go to misrad hapnim to attempt to extend gd's and mr smear's tourist visas...

the new guy at work seems cool, but i'm having a hard time evaluating him. so far i've had to rescue his new macbook from being very close to bricked and he generally seems a bit... institutionalized (he's been working for a massive corporate for the last decade or two).

anyway, the past two days at work were wildly successful, my first "real work" PRs are opened and i discovered that visual studio code works beautifully when attached to a running docker container which simultaneously blew my mind and enabled me to work comfortably on my new m1 macbook architecture that doesn't play nicely with others.

also, i passed around a link to an older article i'd written about regex (after hearing that there'd recently been an incident due to a misunderstanding about a misbehaving regular expression) and my boss has asked me to write a piece about our product, which i'm actually quite keen to do ^_^

on the way to work yesterday i stopped in at a pharmacy hoping to quickly pick something up, but the pharmacist was nowhere to be found. after taking a number and calling out twice for assistance, i knocked on the glass - at that point he finally decided it was worth communicating with me, but instead of apologetic or understanding he was aggressively rude. that pushed me over the edge and i lost my temper, threw the queue number through the gap under the glass and stormed off - the cashier, who had witnessed this (along with a bunch of other people there), told me that i should be more patient... i was so disgusted and upset that i told her off about how patient i'd been and what terrible service they were providing, but it was only after i'd left that i realized i hadn't said anything about how rude the pharmacist had been and *that* got under my skin almost as much as the bad experience itself.

so i ate my feelings with an early breakfast in order to be able to focus on work, and the irritation has been rising occasionally since.

although my work day yesterday included two exciting successes, the highlight of my day was getting home and taking mr smear for a walk to get falafel. i miraculously managed to convince mr smear to tell me how his day went - he was super excited about the obstacle course they'd run - and we arrived before the place closed and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. it was a great evening with no "but"s, i had a goofy grin on my face for half of it and was filled with non-stop gratitude.

...

i spent my morning either being mindlessly entertained or performing minor upgrades for my side project. i'm super excited about the latest double-page that mr cat has produced, and i can't wait to put it online! i've also just started playing a new game we picked up recently, labyrinth city: pierre the maze detective, and it's really beautiful :)

...

i feel like i've achieved stuff, and i also feel like i need to lie down, so i'm gonna do that now.

busy

. dropping mr smear off at school

. getting in an hour of work

. arriving at ikea just after they opened

. a quick and painless ikea experience

. getting in to work in time for a "linkedin party" - good food, but a very awkward experience

. a positive and productive day

. accidentally mistaking someone else's dinner for mine

. going deep with my first (official) ticket and leaving with a strategy

. arriving just in time to wish mr smear a good night

. rotating wheels and arriving at habima with a few minutes to spare - seeing pg's mother and cm and a bunch of other familiar faces

. tehina ice cream flavour is my new favourite

. an easier and more fun route

. a pleasant bath and posting this and going to bed feeling pretty good

trepidation

today was a mixed-feelings kind of a day. the highlight was a failed walk with mr smear to find a pharmacy - the failure being that we didn't find a pharmacy, but the walk with him was nice.

i'm stressing about money, we're so deep in debt again it's ridiculous. and tomorrow morning we're off to buy chairs at ikea.

joy.

considering the amounts / types of foods i've been eating lately i will be concerned if i *don't* put some weight back on.

a successful start to the new week

 i was already excited enough by my achievement before leaving the office with a sense of having dropped a mic, but the other guys' enthusiasm for my win really took me over the top ^_^

that problem that i woke up in the middle of the night fretting over? we kind of solved it, but i managed to work around it in a way that'll make our dev environments better in the long run. my onboarding hasn't been as quick as i would have liked, but i feel really good about bringing in some value before i've even had a chance to look at the code itself.

...

saturday morning went mostly according to plan, and i picked up a car from ramat gan and drove us down to bitzaron for a lovely day with our friends (mr smear's friend from pre-primary school's family). his friend was a bit miserable and unfriendly, apparently in large part due to having a sprained arm in a cast, but he really got along well with her siblings and we all enjoyed each other's company, great food and a few drinks... and their five year old's utterings.

my goodness, this kid has the cutest israeli accent when he speaks english and one of the highlights of the day was me telling mr smear to say "excuse me" after burping loudly to which he responded "mah slicha?!" (what's this "excuse me" nonsense?!) 🤣

anyway, we had a great afternoon but eventually had to rush home to return the car, my cousin dropped off a prescription for mr smear (he's a paediatrician and mr smear and gd don't have medical insurance yet) and the watched most of the jack black version of gulliver's travels before hitting the hay.

this morning, after dropping mr smear off at school, i enjoyed a battle with the vehicle licensing bureau (they took my money to renew my license but have no record of me paying), and then walked to work for a busy / frustrating / ultimately fantastic day.

...

i'm anxious about applying to renew gd and mr smear's visas next week. i'm praying it all goes smoothly, and i'm excited about the prospect of their status being updated soon, possibly within the next two months. my neck has been giving me trouble and gd just gave me a neck / shoulder massage that's made me faint, so i'm going to bed now.

2am saturday morning

 there's something magical about deliberately not working on shabbat, but having my brain serve up a nightmare that demands making progress on the issue i was unable to solve on wednesday.

thanks, brain.

anyway, yom ha'atzmaut started off with the emotional discomfort left over from some unpleasantness the day before (gd and i had had a confusing fight about walking distances and her health while trying to find furniture the day before), and when we left (late) to pick up the car on the other side of the city we had another one that threatened to stop the day in its tracks (apparently, it was a bad call on my part to actually follow her explicit instructions from the previous day's fight). fortunately we managed to resolve it, but not without thoroughly disrupting our scheduled timeline...

i got on my blades, found the car, picked up gd and mr smear and drove straight into the traffic jam leaving tel aviv. so we were stuck in the car, mostly not moving, for at least half an hour, and it was miraculous that gd didn't have one of her usually perfectly mis-timed panic attacks...

... we finally arrived at ze germans' residence with much less time to hang than we'd have liked, but it was really great reconnecting, and the people i was specifically nervous about running into were there and everything was good. it was crazy how many kids we all have between us - and a few of the kids weren't even there, teenagers too old to spend the afternoon with their families - and both gd and mr smear had a blast.

we managed to get the car back to its spot just in time, i rollerbladed back home and the evening was spent relaxing (see the end of the post for the bit about the raspberry pi).

...

yesterday (friday) morning i dropped mr smear off at school and settled in to work, and gd convinced me to continue furniture hunting with her. we ended up a bit south of the central bus station looking at very nice but very expensive chairs that convinced me to give ikea another try (on condition that it's on a weekday morning). we hopped on a bus, split up on the way home and i arrived in time for a meeting with sailor that somehow started an hour earlier than i was invited for.

the meeting went really well, and i dropped out just as gd returned home and we needed to go pick up mr smear.

his "tom cruise" tooth, which he'd prematurely loosened a week before and had been "flapping in the breathe" for a couple of days (it was so distracted that it had become impossible to look at him *and* listen to him at the same time) finally came out! as i type this i realize that the tooth fairy hasn't done her job yet...

[the tooth fairy makes an appearance]

... anyway, we walked through to tel aviv proper, had a brilliant lunch of lafot at "the congress" (we've been here almost two months and they've never had those!) and then moseyed on over to the mongoose's, because they finally moved in this week - their renovations made a lot of sense and it's even nicer than when we slept on its floor!

on the way home we picked up a bunch of things for the house, and then i tried to use the last hour before shabbat productively but... meh. i was pleased to see that my final payment from my previous employer had arrived and between that and both gd and i being extended more canadian credit we're at least able to get through our "adjustment period" with a little more air to breathe. and this week my mother sent off our freight, so hopefully that'll arrive soon and in one piece - or, at least, the same number of pieces it left in - and our new lives will be coming together nicely.

[sets a reminder to start the process of renewing his family's visas]

...

on thursday evening i finally opened the box of my raspberry pi pico: mr smear definitely didn't have the patience for figuring out how to put it together, and his enthusiasm for me showing him the light flashing when i pressed the button lasted all of five seconds. it would have helped if the instructions had been clearer. last night, after friday night dinner, we watched an episode of battlebots and he was into that stuff. so much so that he threw a wobbly when i tried to get him washed and brushed for bed, he was literally falling asleep in my arms and then indignantly tried to convince us that he wasn't tired...

but i was tired. i didn't last more than a cup of tea longer than he did.

...

*sigh*

it's been an hour, i wonder if i'll be able to go back to sleep now.

bittersweet celebrations

after all our experiences trying to come home, i have some mixed feelings about independence day this year. by and large i'm proud of my people and my country and i'm *really* pleased to finally be back, but every time i hear someone talk about "a home for all jews" i think... it's *supposed* to be, but misrad hapnim isn't honouring that at all and we're either turning away thousands if not tens of thousands of jews, or frustrating them so much that they leave.

...

anyway. this first (short) week at work was mostly good, with minor but to-be-expected awkward moments every now and again. onboarding is a process, but i'm absolutely certain at this point that i'm in a really good place and working on really interesting technology.

...

yesterday was a bit complicated, but i managed to rent a van and pick up a table from urchin, and after a long and somewhat unpleasant walk we managed to find a temporary chair solution so we're all sitting at it right now.

this is good.

...

we're joining ze germans for their traditional independence day barbeque. i'm feeling a bit disconnected so i'm curious as to how things go down.

endings and beginnings

 this past month has been ridiculous, and the past week more ridiculous than the rest. i burned through to 130% of my hours and yesterday, after a really nice farewell call with the department, i finally managed to deploy an almost-complete (one last bug, but my co-workers can handle it) version of the software.

it was an exciting and momentous occasion.

i've now (an hour or two ago) sent off my final invoice and am gearing up for a very busy first day with my new employer tomorrow.

...

mr smear's first week at school was mostly excellent! the highlight of the week was the moment his teacher explained to us that he has sport on tuesdays and fridays, because up until then we hadn't known that israeli schools operate six days a week.

holy shit.

otherwise, we prepped him for holocaust memorial day and apparently he behaved impeccably during the siren. unfortunately, he subsequently sat down and removed his sandals in order to smell his feet. not the most appropriate of follow-ups...

...

today was mostly good. i began it with housekeeping (physical and virtual) while listening to greta van fleet (this article on their trolling is fantastic). then mr smear and i took gd to meet urchin, the two of them went in one direction and mr smear and i headed off to find food because he was "famished". so i bought two decent-sized and delicious poké bowls, i finished mine and he barely touched his.

funny how he had plenty of space for the frozen yoghurt afterwards. and then complained dramatically to gd that he was "famished" again after we met up...

the only thing that wasn't nice was the sudden, painful gas in the evening that lasted an hour or two and made the walk home... unpleasant. i don't know what specifically it is that i ate that caused it, but it was most unwelcome.

anyway, we generally enjoyed our mission around town this afternoon and it was nice to be able to stroll around without any kind of time pressure!

...

now, to bed!

a little thing

i left something out from the "good" section earlier: there's something really powerful about being where you know you're meant to be. it feels *good*. i don't recall when last i really felt like this. 

the good and the bad

the good:

mr smear loved his first (actual) day in school, he made some friends and he demonstrated familiarity with the hebrew alphabet (that's thanks to gd). his teacher and the other kids are really cool and made a fantastic first impression.

and it was a bit *weird* coming home without him and working in quiet for a few hours.

we did find a proper supermarket next door to the school, and i broke my fast early today on a new vegan flavour of my favourite cereal of all time.

metal lords is pretty damned metal.

the frustrating:

losing my cool when being "helped" by a representative of the transport ministry; it was shitty and unprofessional service, but i was honestly more upset by the sheer stupidity of the design of their website forms.

we have mosquitoes in the apartment and they're real assholes.

both good and frustrating:

as i posted last night, i got hit with sdk bullshit when working directly with aws resources that didn't happen when working against localstack. i very luckily figured out where the problem was quickly even if it didn't actually make any sense, but it took a few hours to refactor everything to use lower-level calls.

then i made a change in one package not realizing that i was breaking something in another, and i needed them both to work and it took a least an hour or two of insane debugging efforts to put the pieces of the puzzle together. it was a long day, but getting everything running and successfully tested was rewarding and i'm keen to dive back in to the next thing tomorrow.

otherwise, it's my last week with the company and a bunch of "lasts" have been going well. and in general, i'm excited about starting my new gig next week and feeling pretty good about the state of the world. i guess it helps that i've managed to make up so many hours in the past couple of weeks.

first and last days

 the past week was dominated by my scrambling to complete my final project. it's stressful because i keep hitting walls and i get the feeling that my "replacement" (a coworker that i generally get along well with) really doesn't seem very invested in its success... not entirely unfamiliar, i'm reminded of my last team-lead role in montreal...

having said that, i am enjoying the work itself.

over the weekend we rented a car2go for the day and drove up to visit kibbutz cousin, her son and his daughters were there and we generally had a lovely day!

today we took mr smear to his new school, talked to the principal and counselor, then hung around with the teacher who's pretty much the school's answer to hagrid. the school feels kinda like a real-world analog to hogwarts, they're got a bunch of animals and an urban farming section that the kids are responsible for, a "junkyard", and plenty of facilities.

after that, i took a bus to the licensing bureau. i had to wait two weeks for the appointment, then more than an hour. i was falling asleep by the time my number was called, and i was out of there less than five minutes later with instructions for renewing my license that i'd discover later are impossible to follow :/

anyway, i've just spent four hours figuring out and coming up with a workaround for the fact that the C# aws sdk's dynamodb object persistence model manipulates datetime strings under the hood which breaks all our contracts :(

anyway. let's see how tomorrow goes!

to this year in tel aviv!

it's passover, and easter, and i'm working while everyone else is on vacation... this is fine.

my neck's in better shape since last week, but it's still not good and giving me a fair amount of trouble.

work last week was pressured but good, friday we took gd to get her nose ring "fixed" *again* and otherwise had a very nice day.

the biggest stress from last week was getting to our cousins' seder table on friday evening, of *course* all the car2go cars had been fully booked for the holidays months in advance... kc's parents picked us up and then we had additional drama because another family had been abandoned by the taxi driver they'd actually booked :/

anyway, everyone eventually made it and it was a blast. it was so great to spend an evening catching up with all the cousins, everyone had an amazing time and even mr smear enjoyed himself immensely ^_^

yesterday was recovery day, and today's... well... mr smear has been all over the place (now finally off screens after being banned from touching my macbook because he punched the screen in frustration).

*sigh*

going to bed with anger

not me, i'm going to bed with sadness. mr smear is full of anger, it's mostly directed at me and it's very unclear precisely over what.

... 

my neck is slightly better, but still bad enough that i was disfunctional for half the day and had to skip yet another rollerblading group. i managed to drive to and from the wedding last night, though, and it was lovely seeing the family!

turning over the stone

[started writing this as i got up, then got distracted] 

it's bad enough i just woke up from a horrible nightmare in which i went into impossible debt borrowing from the mafia and was still unable to take care of the things that brought me to borrow in the first place, but i messed up my neck while dreaming it. i can't look left and i need to drive tonight.

that nightmare is definitely a reflection of reality, in one month (tomorrow we'll have been here a month!) we've amassed way more debt than we did in many months when moving to cape town and are precariously close to maxing out our credit cards... at least the job i'm starting soon pays well enough to start reducing that debt, that's something i didn't have for years after moving to cape town...

i finally got in touch with the licensing bureau yesterday and learned that i can drive temporarily on my south african license, and this evening we'll be using car2go for the first time. i'm trying not to think about how much money this would have saved us over the course of the past few weeks :p

over the weekend - we had a generally quiet and relaxed shabbat - we met (and approved of) the babysitter and i put on my rollerblades and did a circuit for the first time since we arrived. i was out of breath when i got to habima, but otherwise it was good and i'm mostly impressed by all the new bike paths.

[resumed] 

we had a fun time meeting up with my old neighbor yesterday (even if mr smear was bored), and sammy called to catch up in the evening which was great! 

also great: we received a phone call from the municipality this morning, and mr smear is going to school after the holidays!! 

mr cat has finished the latest page of the graphic novel, our couch has arrived, our mattress is on the way, i'm slightly nervous about driving this evening. back to work. 

things are looking up but i need to sit down

 the sofa's being delivered on monday. as is the replacement mattress.

my feet hurt.

this has been a really crazy week, and it's amazing to me that it's thursday evening already.

...

on tuesday, around lunchtime, i had a chat with the CEO. it was a pleasant chat, and he told me a few things that made it clear that we're even more aligned than i believed. either that or he's a *really* great salesman. either way, i made a decision and signed on the dotted line(s), a little while later i saw that they'd signed the contract too, and gd says that my face literally changed colour and my freckles came back.

...

[breaking news - i passed out while posting this, then woke up to phone calls checking in because there's been a shooting in tel aviv. a cousin is locked in a restaurant while the police/army searches for the attackers. jesus.]

...

the rest of the day and the following day were filled with easy conversations with recruiters informing them that they could leave me alone now and hard conversations with the other companies, one of which was about to make me an offer that i could have waited for, but didn't. the VP that called me up has a bit of a speech impediment which made the conversation even more difficult...

but i'm really feeling confident that i've made the right call.

...

i'm trying really hard to have a good relationship with my son, the past couple of weeks have been hard on all of us and i've been forgetting to just let go of a whole bunch of things. i think today was better.

...

finally, we received an important update today from our lawyer: we officially have the court order we've been waiting for! it's going to take another ridiculously long time to get the blood tests done (the earliest we could book was the end of may), but at least things are finally moving.

hmm. i wonder if perhaps we wouldn't have better luck at a different lab. i'll check on sunday.

...

[damn, they still haven't caught the shooter(s) yet]

bad feelings

hoary sheet.

so aside from working frantically until after 1am this morning, i've (so far) done a ten-hour day and we've all only managed to go outside for a short while in the evening.

i have been having real trouble making up my mind, and i surprised myself by telling my potential boss that it'd be much easier to make a decision if the two offers weren't practically identical. now i've got a meeting with the CEO tomorrow at lunchtime and i guess i'll be making a choice at the end of it, one way or the other.

the relief is that it looks like i may have a third offer on the table by then, which will make things less stressful for me. but no matter what happens i'll still feel bad for at least one company that didn't get me when the market is feeling so worryingly dire.

...

i announced my leaving to the department this morning.

what day is it?

 this past week was absolutely nuts, even if i could write down all the highlights i'm sure i'd be missing important stuff.

• i don't even want to go to ikea again. we went at the worst possible time, thursday evening in rishon le'tzion, and it was horrific.
  at least mr smear got to ride on a real train.
• we still don't have furniture. but i have managed to pay rent / the real estate agent / legal fees on time.
• work has been good, but it's been hard making up hours. my phone now makes me nervous.
• i've now got two job offers that i'm excited about, but the mongoose is telling me things that i'm not convinced are correct and trying to decide whether these offers are good or not is a confusing mess.
  i have had some very interesting conversations, some of them with the wrong people.
  i've officially given notice on the last day before i would have been contractually obligated to continue for an additional month.
• i've been declining interviews for companies and one of them has been desperately trying to guilt me into coming in anyway. they even tried to convince me to come in during their "happy hour" for whiskey.
• we still don't have furniture.
• mr smear enjoyed two playdates with kids his own age on saturday, and they were wildly successful!
• mr smear has lost his second tooth in two weeks, the tooth fairy had to go out after bedtime to make change...
• we're still struggling to get mr smear into a school, but it does kinda feel like we're making progress.
• while our washing machine was disconnected we used a laundry service called "kvisi", and they destroyed four of gd's garments. then they took them back to fix them and they returned them even worse. then they called this evening to explain to us how we should be satisfied that they've done the best they could, and that they're willing to offer us a discount for the next time we use them. 
• summer is coming.
  

tired but... almost hired?

 the announcement to the team today went over about as well as could be expected, everyone is cool. and this evening, when i asked my manager and a coworker if they would be willing to serve as references, they both agreed without hesitation and i'm really grateful for that!

my phone rang non-stop today, i'm being hounded and harassed by recruiters from all over and it's hard to find space to breathe.

my first meeting today was with the first-prize company, and it was just great. like, it was actually weirdly great to have the guy i interviewed with last week walk in on my chat with the team lead to give me a hug and welcome me.

the second meeting was with my cousin's company, and the guy who interviewed me and i had a really fun coding session together.

that's two companies who want me in their offices tomorrow in an attempt to complete the application process.

the third company, tahoma's that i interviewed with yesterday - they're also scrambling to pick me up, and when i shared my morning's insights with the recruiter she basically told me that they felt the same but they were very happy with how i think.

so that's good too.

...

the company i didn't do so well with the other day? i've been thinking about that interview, and it did not give me a good vibe. i think maybe i shouldn't go in to visit them on thursday.

...

in other news, my tax-free "trust fund" has been released and we can relax a bit about money.

...

i really hope i'm not starting a throat infection.

regerts

these past two days have been a little crazy. these past couple of weeks have been a little crazy, even crazier than the weeks before them which we even crazier than the weeks and months before them.

but things are, overall, going well. 

yesterday i learned an important but painful lesson, that i should not be interviewing for a role as a full stack - i'm a backend dev who dabbles in full stack, and it looks like i may have burned myself with two potential employers that i was excited about.

i will be learning from this experience. 

... 

in positive news, a company i did a challenge for yesterday that i'm extremely keen on joining is very happy with my solution, and today i'm paying them a visit to see if we actually like each other in person! 

also, after learning from cm that the absorption ministry had given us bad information*, gd took mr smear to the nearby school and apparently we're going to be able to work something out.

* or at least, failed to help us out with useful information

... 

today my manager wants to announce my plans to the team. 

past midnight check-in

 i managed to get two and a half hours of paid work done today, and just finished them a few minutes ago.

the rest of the day was dedicated to technical interviews, the first took six and a half hours and the second was really... not good. both of the interviewers want to follow up.

tomorrow morning, early, i have another full day of interviews.

i'm exhausted.

i'm really deep into six day weeks right now.

on friday night we were picked up by cousins for dinner, and it was really excellent :)

shabbat morning started nicely - i managed to convince mr smear to walk to the port with me and we met up with nystire and family and tahoma, the morning was pretty good until a last-minute incident and mr smear and i had a walk home that was so unpleasant that i really don't think i'm ever going to forget it.

it's really tough navigating him being six and his world being upside down and needing extra understanding, and him continuing to display behaviours that we've been struggling to deal with for years.

urchin paid us a visit in the afternoon and then the mongoose and his partner, we ended up taking quite a walk which was mostly great but at some point became too much for gd.

...

we have a washing machine! and also, a bunch of gd's clothing that's been destroyed by the professional laundry service we had to use until the technician finally came today.

...

we met our lawyer the other day, although we spent most of our time in her home office playing with her very jumpy, very loving pit-bull.

...

these past two weeks have been ridiculous. my telephone doesn't stop ringing and it's giving me anxiety.

i really hope i get an exciting offer soon.

theory and practice

i should have been taking notes, but i haven't. these past weeks have been ridiculous. we've been trying to put together our new apartment, navigate our new life, all while i interview like crazy and try to make up hours with my current employer.

christ, but there are a lot of bills to pay and bureaucratic side-quests to complete. 

one day at a time. one foot in front of the other. 

the breakdown

 i got up this morning at least as tired as when i went to "bed" last night. i'm exhausted, we all are. this morning was a particularly intense emotional rollercoaster, between scrambling to extract money out of my pension fund and trying to get work done and interviewing for a potential new job, then half-running to the bank to get there *just* before closing...

... it didn't start off so well, but the clerk eventually warmed up to our story and when she contacted my mom and was satisfied that she should help us i literally cried - so obviously that she rushed off to get me some water and said she was worried that she was going to follow suit.

we now have everything we need to sign for the apartment tomorrow morning.

i spent most of the second half of the day pretty fuzzy, my brain having turned to candy floss from all the emotions and exhaustion. i managed to get some work done, but really not a significant amount, and i did a lot of jumping from phone call to phone call with various people and organizations.

in the evening we went to the mongoose's, where gd made a nice dinner and we had some interesting conversations, including a phone conversation with a friend of theirs who has a very interesting business proposition... (crypto again?)

i'm sad that we left waaaay to late for me to join the TAR purim rollerblade route.

otherwise, it was a fun evening and the taxi ride home was interesting and now i'm finishing this up and taking another desperately needed shower and going to bed.

disconnect / reconnected

friday 7:50pm:

we really are nuts. but the world is nuts, too, i guess it'll all even out in the end.

i don't remember when last i got a good night's rest, i probably posted about it enthusiastically but i cannot for the life of me remember which year it was. after six years in cape town, having arrived sleep deprived and in debt and with no idea what was going to happen next, we've now gotten on a plane (after weeks of furiously sorting and packing and dropping hundreds of dollars every time we spoke to anyone) and are halfway to the holy land, praying that they'll let us in and start setting our bureaucratic wrongs right.

six kilos of documents are weighing me down, but for some reason i have a mostly positive feeling about the way we're going about this and it kinda feels like the universe is almost cheering us on.

i mean, it does right at this moment, after a long night frantically packing and taking care of the insanely demanding administrative tasks involved in getting on a plane, and a couple of terrifying hours at the airport.

i don't think i mentioned our discovery three nights ago that mr smear's south african passport had expired. i'm usually on top of those sorts of things with alarms and alerts and what-have-you, but we were supposed to be out of here in *september* and we really didn't think we needed to care about it. and then there was also the story of gd's visa renewal application not being reflected in her passport.

and learning, in the middle of the night last night, in the dark during our second round of loadshedding for the day, that we'd overestimated how much carry-on luggage they'd let us have and underestimated how much hold luggage we needed.

anyway.

so mr smear's been handling this all very well, and he's been travelling pretty well too. his farewell circle at his school yesterday was super-sweet and everyone got a little emotional. we've been saying lots of goodbyes, making lots of big plans, and we still have no guarantee that we'll be let in when we get there - i can't say i'm not nervous.

our old ipad broke in the baggage compartment in the cabin earlier, because i packed it badly. it was right on top of this machine and i was a bit traumatized that this had suffered the same fate - *sheesh*.

i've been struggling to frame where i am psychologically, i'm like a functional burn-out. i have flashes of motivation and i'm totally capable, but it's so damned difficult to dive into things and enjoy them. i've spent so long worrying about the dark side of things that i've got to retrain my brain with this "it's going to be okay" mantra, and it's nigh-impossible to shake the feeling that i'm not doing enough, that i'm missing out, that i'm forgetting something...

breathing is hard.

on wednesday, i had a chat with my manager, and neither of us were expecting that conversation to go the way it did: i've effectively, though unofficially, given notice. he took it hard, not least because he was relying on my presence to take his upcoming paternal leave with an eased mind, and i think he panicked a little bit. i'm a little distressed that the big boss has been unavailable / has made himself unavailable to talk to me directly about it.

...

if i compare how we left cape town to how we left montréal, there's little to go by. i feel that that's in no small part due to my mother's efforts, and the fact that gd has had very real, competent help for the last few months since we replaced our domestic worker with her sister-in-law. not to sound ungrateful, but i don't see why she was given ALL of the ice-lollies when she left this morning, i would have liked to take one for the road.

...

i haven't posted anything on social media because i'm afraid of jinxing us. leaving "quietly" feels really weird.

speaking of social media, i was pleased that a friend i called out for being rude to sailor online was big enough to apologize and make amends. he's been deep into fighting the world on social media since covid hit... i was reading a little reality is broken earlier and i was wondering if it wouldn't be helpful to start "polite-ical dialog" groups on facebook to see if generating some level of constructive, civil debate is even possible these days.

i certainly wouldn't want to moderate it, though.

saturday:

two long flights, the first with a terrified autistic kid in the row behind us and the second with an obviously sick man right behind us wet-coughing and refusing to wear a mask. otherwise, we got through it just fine and arrived in ben gurion.

* mr smear eating a meal at 1.40am

* surreal yelling to get the first border interaction started

* the surprisingly straightforward entry

* mr smear actually helping us out between 3 and 4am, getting through PCR testing and getting to the hotel in the rain

* a complicated welcome, getting into bed as soon as possible

* my first re-encounter with tel aviv

* ordering in amazing hummus

* tahoma coming over for a few hours, a mission, knafe

sunday:

* getting a little work done, a quick and pleasant walkabout with gd and mr smear, then a mad rush to get out of our hotel room and get to the mongoose's with much difficulty with getting taxis

* an amazing reception, the mongoose winning over mr smear with an amazing videogame setup (including an arcade cabinet!)

* quick shopping

* realizing how urgently we needed sim cards, driving through to kenyon ayalon, gd going missing while "looking for me"

* being sorely disappointed by the apartment location walking all the wrong routes

* the viewing

* walking the opposite direction and loving the location

* returning to the mongoose's, complications ordering food and setting up my new number

* meeting the mongoose's partner and watching her win mr smear over with lego technic assistance

* gd's sudden and violent reaction to the cats

* a dramatic exit and moving in to their new, empty apartment with nothing but air mattresses: "camping in the middle of tel aviv"

monday:

omg it's monday. it was an insane monday. it was a very intense and wild and confusing monday.

waking up early to work, being absolutely freezing. walking along ben gurion for the first time in almost ten years to get coffee, then walking to the bank to try and open an account.

making an appointment to open the account next week (really?! apparently a covid thing)

a really shitty feeling from my boss (i was uninvited from the weekly meeting, i really think he's taken me leaving personally)

a confused day jumping between apartment things and working, barely eating anything (and then learning that i'm apparently at risk for an e-coli infection because i've been eating hummus leftovers)

my brain falling apart, but pushing through and leading a team security event

gd feeling lost, then finding herself and enjoying the area

the glorious shower after a day of feeling disgusting

an evening shopping with the mongoose and getting sushi (he's *really* winning mr smear over, like, we can't compete at this rate!)

awkward stress trying to navigate closing on the apartment, panicking in spite of the fact that if we *do* get it it's a miracle, then my mom pointing out that i'd misread the contract and simply wouldn't be able to pony up for the deposit, then realizing that i actually have enough pension available to cover it

accidentally sending my pension report to the landlord

gd's hand, having been scratched by the same damned cat, ballooning up.

trying to resolve an issue with my canadian credit card, trying to cancel our south african mobile numbers, failing on both counts

...

anyway, i'm exhausted and i have a technical interview in the morning, i'm going to bed feeling pretty positive that we'll get the apartment and feeling incredibly grateful to the universe in general and to the mongoose and his partner in particular - they really are our aliyah angels. 

t-?

 it's late. again. i had things i'd planned on doing, but then an hour or two ago while dealing with some travel agent drama (every time i talk to her i drop a few thousand rand) we realized something horrifying: we thought we'd be out of south africa by september, and in all the madness i've completely forgotten to renew *his* passport.

jesus, fuck.

so we're busy scrambling to try and get him out the country without it, which is... complicated. we might have a way, but at the same time we might have to wait for a new one to be issued. i've managed to start the application process online, but i can't make the payment because - and i can't believe i'm typing this - my bank's payment systems are offline from 8pm to 8am according to their 24/7 hotline.

jesus, fuck.

so tomorrow's going to be a story.

anyway, after a brief update with the mongoose i've realized that this kind of setback is no different to us getting a positive PCR test result, so whatever. we'll deal.

...

in apartment and job hunting news, we found four good apartment candidates last night alone, which gives me confidence that we'll find *something* in reasonable time. i've also applied to a couple of job that look really interesting and had a long chat with a dev at one of the MAMAA companies and gain some more insight into the current state of things, and i'm going to take the mongoose's advice and relax on that too, i'm confident i'll find something good quickly enough.

...

reviewing python code isn't the same as writing it. so when my python migration script ran smoothly to completion the first time i employed it yesterday, a script i'd spent a few hours polishing that integrates three components i've never directly worked with before, i had to walk away for the day with a

via GIPHY

t-5

mr smear's been having tummy troubles this past week or two, so we figured we'd round off this rather excellent day with an emergency room visit. i really hope it's not appendicitis.

i'm exhausted. i'm anxious. i'm feeling a bit sad. this past week had some great bits and successes, but it also included me taking the warnings seriously and consulting with an international tax specialist, who made it very clear in no uncertain terms that i am not earning nearly enough to live anywhere near tel aviv.

also, that i'd be a dumbass to continue working as a freelancer from israel.

we also suddenly remembered that gd is allergic to cats and had forgotten to ask the mongoose if he has cats. he does. two of them.

i'm now desperately looking for a place to live and a new job. hooray.

...

alright, apparently mr smear isn't presenting with the right symptoms for appendicitis and we're going home (after only an hour or two). he passed out on an emergency room bed shortly after they let him in.

that's my boy.

...

did i mention i'm tired?

t-10

yesterday:

feeling better in the morning because i can earn more by working more hours, but estimating that i still need a considerable wage bump to be comfortable

a long workday, mr smear wishing me a good meeting after almost making me late with a tantrum about being rushed - later we'd get an excellent report of him from his martial arts teacher

today:

the changeling: mr smear waking up on time and being polite and considerate and cooperative all morning

2.5 hours spent figuring out travelling details and discussing some of them with nystire and the mongoose

a surprisingly pleasant walk in the chilly wind along the promenade

day of the tentacle

a late eveing with shadowslight and muadib

fog

heavy fog creeped in this evening, the foghorn is sounding and so is one of our neighbors' alarm clocks. for at least half an hour already. 

yesterday was quite social, our ex-neighbors dropped off their child and we took the kids to the promenade for a bit, in the evening protoplasm and his partner came over for a really fun dinner.

sailor also arrived for dinner, but exactly 23 hours and 50 minutes late.

i spent a lot of yesterday playing games / trying to figure out what i wanted to do with my day, and ended up playing day of the tentacle with mr smear. we continued with a couple more sessions today.

i had a long chat with mongoose yesterday, a strategy session, and between conversations with him and my mom and sailor i'm beginning to worry that i'm not earning enough to live in tel aviv. a new stress... 

i managed to get through a fair amount of filing this afternoon, so that's good. i also managed to sort out travel-friendly 2nd factor authentication for most of my accounts, in spite of the experience being so awful it made me really angry.

uninstalling sudoku

it's 4.15am and i'm uninstalling sudoku. i've been playing it constantly for weeks. i need to make space for other things. like reading. 

post-twosday + two weeks

 twosday came and went, and i'm honestly a little taken aback that it's thursday night already. this has been a week.

work-wise, it's been pretty cool - mostly kinda fun, actually. mr smear's been doing pretty well, although we're a bit concerned about his eyesight (he keeps creeping up to the tv, but it *is* significantly harder to read after the enormous projector screen we've gotten used to ), and i dropped him off at school the other day and got to witness his class bully antagonising him entirely unprovoked.

speaking of reading - he's reading really well!

we ran into my nephew and his girlfriend on the promenade the other day, mr smear really enjoyed playing with their dog (and their dog's friends) and catching up was pleasant.

it's my grandmother's yahrzeit day today, my mother and i went to the synagogue this evening. going to an orthodox shul gets weirder and weirder as time goes by.

i've put some hours into my side project, and i'm making a bit of progress. all things considered, i'm quite pleased with myself.

we just finished watching vampire hunter d. it's really not a good movie. i was so excited about the graphic novel coming out that i'd somehow conflated it with ninja scroll. i hope that is as good as i remember...

...

we got a call from someone a the consulate this afternoon, it appears they know just about as much as we do... i guess we'll keep an eye on things, but right now it seems pretty clear that we can land and that the best course of action is to get on the plane and go.

two. weeks.

better and better

 well, it's not 100% certain yet, but everyone's pretty damned sure that the new regulations coming in will enable us to get on a flight in a couple of weeks and get started with the next phase of our lives. i was so excited this morning i was shaking.

it was also a good day because i got up early and powered through until mid-afternoon for a generally successful day. i then took mr smear for a walk along the promenade, where he sold me a virtual falafel which put me in the mood for a real one, and the falafel guy was close by so we went there and both thoroughly enjoyed a full pita.

gd and i watched about half of vampire hunter d, and then i suddenly realized that the movie i was thinking of when i got all excited was actually ninja scroll. D'OH!

i'm sad that nightbirde passed away. i don't like much of the rest of her music, but her it's okay is on our family playlist. probably like a billion other people's.

i'm going to bed, tomorrow's promising to be eventful.

more positive

 things i didn't mention yesterday: we started off the day watching spiderman: homecoming - we've agreed with mr smear that we're all (especially him) going to ignore bad language in movies. i could only remember the half of far from home that i'd seen that had put me off, i'd completely forgotten how great homecoming is! we also watched cars (my and mr smear's first time) - although i passed out for a chunk of it - and it was enjoyable. it also renewed his interest in the video game, which is a win (he's not usually into anything competitive).

last night gd and i discussed his punishment, and then punishments in general, and this morning we hit the reset button and sat down with him to discuss a new strategy. so far, so good.

...

last night, we watched jackass 3. in retrospect, we should have watched vampire hunter d (we've picked up a digital copy of the vampire hunter d: message from mars graphic novel and gd's not familiar with the original) - not because we didn't "enjoy" it, for a given definition of that word, but because it really was just more of the same stuff with a sprinkling of some really uncomfortable bits where we just felt sad for these guys.

in the middle of the night, when i was having trouble sleeping, i got up and started cleaning up and updating my side project repositories which i haven't touched in ages. a short while ago i managed to bring the final component up to speed and i'm ready to start the next bit of work.

this morning was the second not-great-weather day in a row, gd's still very sick and mr smear has been a bit feverish the past couple of days. one thing that we're not sure what to make of is that whatever pest attacked me and mr smear, seems to have stopped. i'm still "feeling things" but i'm not sure if it's psychosomatic or not.

anyway, we watched avatar (the extended version), which was amazing, and i went rollerblading in the afternoon which was mostly relaxed talking time - i might have made a good connection for a business idea i've been bouncing around - and then to "stretch my legs" i raced against the wind to the pavilion and back, a fifteen minute race after which i was out of breath and sweaty.

after a pleasant evening getting mr smear ready for bed, i put on jimmy carr: his dark material (i'm not a jimmy carr fan, but this was pretty good) while fiddling with the repository updates, and am now about to make a quick call to horseman and go to bed.

i forgot to mention watching simon amstell: set free last week - it's really, really great.

being human is complicated.

this week ended on a strong note, and it feels like my team (and manager) relationships have improved. i've also mailed off the documents that the lawyer needs to initiate the paternity suit, so that's done. we're praying that the proposed regulations change lets us get on a plane soon, but at this point we're really not expecting anything.

mr smear and i went to the temple in person yesterday evening, which was really nice!

unfortunately, we've had a couple of mr smear incidents, although upon review thursday's bullying incident seems to have been at least partially instigated by the other kid (who's not only a liar, but apparently is particularly good at finding other kids' metaphorical pressure points and squeezing on them). we're still embarrassed that our boy is finding his way with his fists rather than his mind, but we'll just have to see how things proceed.

he's also been fighting with us a lot, and in completely irrational ways that don't serve him at all. today was the first time i properly spanked his bum until he stopped trying to physically fight me - as in, he was physically trying to impose his will on me in spite of me warning him that "this really isn't going to go well for you".

poor kid... at least he came around a short while later and we had some positive discussions.

...

in other news.we've had a couple of days being bitten and "feeling things", and it looks like we're in for another round of pest control even though we haven't found a shred of evidence. and my mother's been taking strain, in general - it sounds like our trials and tribulations are exhausting her - but also because we've been openly trying to fix broken things and she's been taking our complaints personally.

mid-week status

 i'm definitely in a better place psychologically, in spite of the occasional flashback from sunday's trauma.

i'm a little concerned that during the high-stress weeks leading up to us leaving our apartment, i burned some credibility with my teammates and it feels like a bit of an uphill battle reclaiming it. otherwise, the past two days were a successful culmination of a week of frustration with the codebase i've been working with. so there's that.

everything else is a blank. although it does come to mind that gd and i had a fascinating conversation about the tower of babel last night, i feel like that's not the first time but horseman's ideas about thought-mathematics came into play as well.

controlling the narrative

sea point promenade on a sunday afternoon with my six year old, a strong-looking, very aggressive 6'4" man came towards us and started threatening me, yelling about how i stole his phone yesterday amidst a bunch of other things. i kept backing up and trying to get away without getting into a brawl in front of my kid, and after thirty seconds he just walked away with an ugly laugh then angrily repeated "i'm just joking" until he was out of earshot.

according to the policeman i spoke to (this happened across the road from the station), they know who this guy is and there's literally nothing they can do even if i could press charges.

ha. ha.

...

 that was earlier - i seem to have handled myself well enough that mr smear didn't feel scared, and i tried to take him for a double-thick shake at royale right afterwards to bring us back into a positive space but sadly they had two cashiers who didn't have a clue how their vegan menu worked... we got a nice drink from newport instead and enjoyed the walk back. he certainly hasn't forgotten the incident, but at least he doesn't seem phased by it.

thursday and friday were pretty straightforward as far as workdays go. friday morning i tried and failed to get in the car to take mr smear to their class outing at sanccob, i really don't like our car, this time the battery was drained by the front inside light which i must have turned on by accident, and of course there's no warning light or sound and no mechanism for it to turn off automatically after a set period of time... and, of course, i hadn't charged the emergency battery pack since i bought it so we had to wait for someone (my mother and a neighbour) to come to the rescue with jump leads.

gd's been feeling sick, and the weather yesterday wasn't great, so we watched the goonies (which was even better than i remembered!) and pirates of the caribbean: on stranger tides, although mr smear got bored halfway through and missed the mermaids because he was busy playing lego batman.

we had a bit of an incident at shower-time last night, and while i was feeling horrible about the whole thing (not the first time), i watched "you are the creator" - nothing new, just very well-packaged and well-timed. i've been reactive and exhausted for years now and it's long past time to retake control of my narrative.

i woke up this morning feeling better about life, the universe and everything and i spent a few hours putting together the script for the next couple of pages, including spending a fortune on the license to the only script i could find (gd helped) that made any sort of sense for use as a stand-in for shakespeare's handwriting (his actual handwriting is practically illegible for most of us). one thing that gd and i both found amusing is that i had a great idea this morning for the pages before i reviewed the existing script (that i wrote about six or seven years ago) which i sketched out for her, and when i did get to reading it i discovered i'd had the exact same idea back then and recorded it in pretty much the same way.

this afternoon i decided that mr smear was ready for invader zim, and we were not disappointed by the first few episodes ^_^ (only the original season or two, beyond that the writing stopped being clever and original)

we're also halfway through the heaven's arena arc in hunter x hunter again, and mr smear is super-excited about the idea of nen :D

right, it's dinnertime. i'm a little sunburned from taking mr smear to visit my mom and her friend's pool. after the evening routine i plan on being a little more productive than usual and then gearing up for a new week with a better attitude.

(mostly) better than anticipated

 i barely slept last night, i spent at least five hours churning mental simulations with an imagined consul and no matter what i imagined nothing made me feel any more capable of sleeping. although i did have one seemingly good idea - trying to apply for refugee status instead. a little research into that in the morning made it seem a little less plausible, but still...

what really happened was that we finally sat down with the consul, who immediately lowered the tension by admiring gd's tattoos. ultimately, there's not a lot that can be done for us but it made a huge difference speaking to somebody with a sympathetic ear and they've assured us that they'll try to speed up the notarization of the documents as much as possible.

otherwise, we really don't know what's coming and we're looking for a less temporary - but still temporary - furnished place to stay in the meanwhile. and if one thing positive's coming out of this ordeal, it's that we're taking on a bunch of much-needed fixes and minor renovations in my mom's apartment so we're leaving it better than we found it.

...

mr smear and i have been in an interesting space the past few days - we've had some rough moments, but we've had some constructive conversations come out of them. by and large, i think we're doing well.

...

gd's friend's passing is still shocking. the funeral was utterly heartbreaking.

eye rubbing

a friend of gd's, part of her closest circle, who just gave birth a couple of months ago and has another child about two years old, suddenly had a seizure a couple of days ago and died. we're all reeling and heartbroken.

...

 i finally got a real night's sleep on thursday night for the first time since we started moving, what a pity it was flooded with nightmares.

the end of the work-week was strong, although mr smear and i both appear to have picked up some kind of bug that's going around ("stomache flu" for both of us, and a throat infection for me). pure joy. it was a great excuse to have some me-time yesterday while gd and mr smear joined my mom at her friend's pool, i finally watched the entirety of harlock: space pirate. it's a great movie, really convoluted plot twists and turns but i guess the nature of illusion and manipulation is kind of the point.

certainly, it was more satisfying than don't look up. gd and i watched that during the week and it's pure horror (too real) with zero catharsis. i'm still glad i watched it, i guess.

i guess while i'm writing about my media consumption i should mention that we watched the latest hotel transylvania movie yesterday morning* and i was mortified to see genndy tartakovsky's name all over the credits of such a completely trashy film. i *hope* it's the low point of his career.

* in spite of mr smear being "grounded" for hitting a kid in his class yesterday - i guess it doesn't matter if you're not violent with your kids when other kids are :/

...

we've been granted audience with the consul next week to sign and notarize the lawyer's documents, i'm trying to prepare myself for meeting her because we have some things to say that need to be said very carefully about how they've been treating us.

...

we finally met my nephew's girlfriend on friday night, we had dinner at my cousin's who i managed to meet with during the week for a coffee - he's finally accepting that his divorce is actually happening and i was able to provide him with some measure of relief, so i was happy for the opportunity to help.

...

i'm VERY excited about the latest two pages of the graphic novel which we managed to finalize yesterday! they came out even better than planned due to a slight misreading of my script, and the visual clarity is so good that even mr smear knew exactly what was happening when he saw it ^_^

moved

 well, that was an intense week. gd, my mother and i were all terribly misaligned when it came to our visions of how we would leave the apartment. the root cause being that until very recently, we thought we were going to pack up our lives into a container and meet them on the other side... but then we got a bunch of quotes in and learned that it would cost us more to ship our things than to put them up for auction and buy them again on the other side*.

* as opposed to how we moved from montréal, where we just left most of our stuff and had to buy everything again. that took years (and one delores umbridge) to recover from.

so *i* thought that come tuesday morning (the 25th), we'd have everything cleared out except for a few pieces of luggage and we'd either take that luggage to my mother's, or to the airport.

on monday we confirmed that we would not be going to the airport. the consulate is being obstructive and treating us really badly, and they really aren't interested in providing any sort of assistance. on tuesday, we started moving. we moved every day. we moved multiple trips every day. we had the auction house come in on thursday to take all the furniture, and realize that we hadn't agreed on what wasn't going to be sold just yet :(

finally, a week after displacing my mom (again) and sleeping here, we grabbed the very last of the things and handed over the keys and said goodbye to our home of three and a half years - just as long as i lived in montréal in total. and now we're here. the place is still strewn with black bags and boxes and tons of stuff that needs triage, but slowly but surely things are coming together and making sense, and in a weird way we're almost grateful for the unwanted delay...

speaking of which, after some uncomfortable negotiating we've engaged a lawyer and are now attempting to get the consulate to let us sign documents before a notary...

in the meanwhile, mr smear is loving his first weeks in grade 1. my mom's place is getting a little more TLC than it's used to. i'm finally able to focus on work again after weeks of feeling like i was making a fool of myself (anxiety matters, y'all). i'm starting to consistently beat sudoku at the expert level without guessing. and the next pages of the graphic novel are looking really good.

deep breaths.

breathing and sneezing

filing years of documents is dusty work.

also: wanna know how i've lost ten kilos in six months (almost exactly) with no exercise? intermittent fasting, combined with incredibly high stress levels.

this past week became more and more stressful and frustrating, both work-wise and bureaucratically, and i spent friday afternoon trying not to let me heart explode.

we have no control over our situation.

while the jewish agency has determined my family to be jewish enough to migrate, misrad hapnim is blocking us and there aren't any humans to talk to. after a long chat with the lawyer who appears to be the right one for us, she ended the conversion saying "you're going to go through all this whether you like it or not. you can do this 'in chill', or you can make yourself sick".

something i needed to hear, i guess.

this weekend has been BAKING hot. my brain was melting before the temperatures rose. i picked up cardboard boxes yesterday morning and got the car valeted, and we've spent a large chunk of the weekend sorting and triaging and packing. and trying to breathe. and even breathing a bit.

also, gd and i watched a lot of cobra kai last night and it's so well-written and cringy that i'm not sure i can handle any more of it. certainly not with all the other stuff going on in our lives.

shaky

was today tuesday? jesus. two intense (and largely frustrating) work days disrupted by a chat with the consulate during which it became apparent that the woman i've been dealing with is a giant spoke in our wheel, it's just not clear whether that's due to incompetence or malice. we're trying desperately to get permission for mr smear to travel next tuesday. we have no idea whether or not we'll be getting on that flight. in a way, this is all considerably more stressful than leaving montréal, and that was hella stressful...

otherwise, mr smear had a meltdown this evening followed by what appeared to be authentic regret, although he did admit to me later that he was hoping an apology would earn him his privileges back... and tomorrow he starts grade 1. if we're lucky, it'll be for only four days and then we can spend the next while fighting to get him into kitah aleph instead.

this morning i commented on a friend's post about flashbacks not being a thing, i spent ages putting it together in a way to make it clear that i appreciated what he wrote regardless of the specific detail i took issue with but what i subsequently learned was that i really should have just left it. *sigh*

rollercoaster (sleepless)

 i feel like i survived the whirlwind that was today. i've been talking to lawyers since thursday, talking through plans that seem saner or more mind-bogglingly mad depending on the number i times i talk through them, each strategy making less sense than the one before and each path at the mercy of organizations and factors out of our control.

i didn't sleep much last night. i spent a good chunk of it pacing up and down, exhausted, working through conversations i was praying i would be able to have in the morning and dreading the continued silence from the people we thought were on our side. or listening to strangers sharing their stories in series' of voice messages, gleaning little bits and pieces of experience that may actually help us.

this morning i shakily got up, my stomache churning and my heart* thumping in my throat, and called someone who i thought was avoiding me.

no answer.

i subsequently tried calling her second-in-command.

no answer.

and then, suddenly, a call back from the first with a sense of compassion. she appears to have heard me, explained to me why nothing's happening as fast as we need (primarily because everyone's come down with covid, funny how south africans discovered the new strain and got blacklisted but we all seem to be relatively functional), and has agreed to plead our case to the decision-makers. my anxiety's far from gone, but it is dramatically lessened.

* which reminds me, i've lost a fair amount of weight over the past months and i've hit 85kg consistently for the first time in many years. i think my skin's responded at a slant because my AURYN (sonnet 19) seems a bit skew and it didn't before.

after that, a half hour chat with an israeli cousin who's disgusted by what's happening and trying to lend a hand. after that, a chat with the second-in-command, who seems very sympathetic.

in summary: the court process will almost certainly take a lot longer than we can afford - two people have reported stories taking eight and nine months, even - and our quality of life with all the stress and uncertainty is already quite low and will only be lower if we're forced to stay here or go to montreal. we need them to make an exception for us, to let us get there and take care of the details once we arrive. the irony is that nobody disputes whether mr smear should be living in israel, only whether his right to do so is by birth or as an immigrant, and them preventing us for moving because they're not sure makes no sense whatsoever.

my mom came over for a bit, and after we discussed the container quotes we've received we've all agreed that it makes far more sense to send all our belongings to an auction house and buy new things there - it'll certainly be cheaper, and it'll also be less headache.

i spent a good chunk of the day shuffling paperwork, trying to sort out some of my documents, and i took mr smear down to the pool for a break which was fun until i realized that he had been developing a real cough so i rushed him back upstairs...

i don't know what happened, but i was buggered. probably exhaustion from the stress and not sleeping, possibly virus-related? who knows, these days. not only did i feel weak and dizzy, but my phone kept pinging... i finally got up around the time my mom came over for dinner (including an unfortunate and unpleasant outburst by gd about my godmother, triggered by our johannesburg cousin's sister doing something ugly), made another call to a lawyer, had a brief text chat with vfmp and made a call to horseman, got dragged off for dinner. then horseman and i resumed our chat and an hour or so later we said goodbye full of inspirations: i do believe he's invented his own branch of the sciences, a "psychematics", if you will. an exciting idea that thoughts might operate according to mathematical principles.

...

yesterday:

"zoomagogue", trying to shabbat and failing with all the stress

our rabbi friend coming over to swim, pool time before it got too windy

chat with a johannesburg cousin (and the awkwardness of getting help from her and her husband when my own brother's visiting cape town and hasn't even bothered to say hi)

tron + abe's exoddus + tron legacy, mr smear loving all of it along with us

a good sync with vfmp (with some uncomfortable talk about the kid we've both tried to help)

the work week:

my work week was thoroughly disrupted by all the things, even though i managed to be relatively productive my manager did express concern that i'm making it difficult for him to plan availability and productivity and that if this keeps up we may have to take steps. that does not spark joy at all.

friday in particular was effectively a lost cause, i spent most of it on phone calls and emailing and generally freaking out. we had dinner at my mom's with cousins and nephew, it was a jolly fun evening and towards the end everyone learned some things about everyone else's relationship/histories with psychedelics which was pretty hilarious.

...

*breathe*

*remember to breathe*

we celebrated too early

 we're not just deflated, we're stunned, shocked, full of anxiety. i got a very rude awakening yesterday morning in the form of a call from the consulate - it turns out they've recognized gd as jewish, but they have *not* recognized me as his father. not only that, it turns out that the last time i tried to register his birth i was told something critically incorrect: that the paternity test couldn't be done here in south africa. so the good news is that the test can be done in south africa, the bad news is that it's only under very specific (and expensive) conditions and may take months.

months that i would have had in spades if they'd only told me this before.

so now we're in a race against the clock (gd's visa to remain here, her police clearance documents) and we've got to be out of our apartment by the end of this month. i spent all of last night (until 3.30am) hunting through documents and social media for any scrap of evidence i could find, but this morning the consulate called to inform me that almost none of what i found was at all relevant. we've spent today trying to piece together a plan for getting there, but this is extremely stressful and disillusionment is at an all-time high.

the one sliver of light in the darkness is that we've managed to get in touch with our landlord from when we moved in together, and he might be able to help us out.

...

and i had to work today. so i just signed off a few minutes ago after playing catch-up because my hours for both yesterday and today would have been very short otherwise. also, we've been getting quotes for moving with containers and they're expensive. like, big debt expensive, the kind that kept us chasing our tails for three years after we moved here from canada. like, we need to consider whether it doesn't make more sense to sell everything we can and buy new there.

mr smear, for the last while, has been much better behaved and more stable but we did have a few incidents today - although the recovery from those incidents on all our parts was actually pretty impressive. and the biggest issue when we went down to the pool with the neighbour's kid and her cousin was that he really doesn't want to get out of the water even when he's clearly too tired to keep himself afloat (－‸ლ) [does that look like a facepalm? really?)

i think i should go to bed now.

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powering into 2022

dec 26th: whatever else happened that day, hido and i met up for drinks with a couple of other people and had a jolly time, after which i picked up mr smear from my mom's.

during the course of the week between christmas and new year's, we tried to organize an aliyah interview but things became very complicated because the shlichim were all on holiday. however! after pleading with the local representative to find a solution - any solution - we were connected directly with the head of aliyah in south africa who happened to be holidaying in cape town! she agreed to interview us on sunday morning!

new year's eve 2022 was very quiet for us old people. we spent the following evening at "family playdate", with one of mr smear's friends - the kids were mostly good, but the adults enjoyed a delicious dinner and played exploding kittens.

of course, i didn't sleep a wink on saturday night, but on sunday morning we met with her for three hours, we had almost all the documentation she needed and she got to meet the three of us as human beings. although i subsequently spent the rest of the day locating and scanning missing documents, she'd already been convinced (officially) that gd is jewish and mr smear is my son, and on thursday morning we received an official letter to that effect so our rush now is to get them entered into the population registry and mr smear's passport produced. as soon as that's done, we can make travel arrangements!

shehecheyanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh.

the relief and excitement are both overwhelming.

work has been pretty great over the past couple of weeks, and by the end of the week our team was back together, bigger than ever (we've had two new hires in two months). i've made good hours in spite of many distractions, and i've actually managed to get some summer holiday time in with my family too.

so... things are good.

posting this was the first thing on my saturday to-do list, now i'm going to post something for my patreons, and then start rewatching Why Everyone Is Quitting Their Job To Play Call of Duty with an aim to provide subject start times and titles so that i can write a post about it. i've now seen 2.5 hours of it, and i'm convinced that it's the most important video ever uploaded to youtube.

happy new year!