coiled, uncoiled

 gd went to the dentist today to get a mold impression done, i stayed home and fought with mr smear about reading two pages from his hebrew translation of a miles moralis comic (hebrew homework). by fought, i mean i asked him to do it, tried to encourage him, and he stormed off and spent most of the morning in his bedroom, reading his kindle. eventually he came out, and did other stuff, and we were fine until gd came home.

she convinced him to do the reading pretty quickly, and he did the reading, pretty quickly. apparently he hadn't felt confident that he could do it (no nikud, or vowels). now he's confident that he can.

otherwise, the morning was intense and unpleasant. it started alright, with me reviewing my coworker's changes (he found a third way, and i feel it was a good compromise). but then my boss asked how things were going, which led to a phone call, which led to two upset people. he's upset because i've (apparently) been doing the wrong thing, i'm upset because what i was being asked to do didn't really come across very clearly.

so the rest of the day was spent focused, rushed, and stressed. BUT. towards the end of the day, i managed to figure something out that turned everything around; not only making things better in terms of me closing the ticket, but finding a better way to do things than they've been done until now.

i'm becoming a believer in postgres' JSON columns. if you know how to use them, they're incredibly powerful!

in the early afternoon i took mr smear to his hebrew tutor, who's just moved to a move convenient place, the only downside being that the coffee shop i sat at only had barista soy milk and that did a number on my stomache for the rest of the day :/

afterwards gd took mr smear to mma, where he had a really good class and is apparently socializing well with the other kids.

when they got home, gd had lost her headphones and that (for a number of reasons) triggered a bit of a fight. but we soon root-caused it and that revealed a couple of things that had been lurking... anyway, we're all good now.

i took mr smear for a walk to get dinner, realizing as we stepped out that it's tisha b'av which is a fast day. fortunately, we found something good, and we both enjoyed the food and the walks there and back together. the evening / bedtime was smooth and pleasant.

it's been a good evening / night so far. i finished the hex, which is short, but intense and amazing. absolutely brilliant, ingenius, and very, very evil. i don't really care much for doing All The Things (getting all the achievements and endings), but i've skimmed through a guide after completing it myself and it's an interesting read :)

my eyes are shutting, i'm going to try get some sleep.

obsession

the day started early for all of us. we made a good start on cleaning the big windows, and i accompanied gd and mr smear to the nearby swimming pool, which is pleasantly close and very nice indeed.

on the bus to work, i struggled with my bluetooth headphones, and almost lost my watch in the process. i still haven't got them quite right :/

the first order of the day was pushing the testing improvement, which worked well and went down well with the team.

most of the day was a difficult day, primarily because i'm working on something new (for me) and very complex. it was hard because of what i was doing, and because i was struggling to stay focused in the face of the tedium, and because my mind was distracting itself with thoughts of the hex.

i *am* obsessed with the hex.

but that's not all, i'm also obsessed with making sure our testing tools work for us*, and as much as i value my coworker's complementary competences, i don't feel that the direction he was planning on going on was going was the right one, and we ended up spending almost two hours arguing back and forth, both trying to compromise constructively...

* this is purely for selfish reasons, because in almost all my previous companies i'm the one who ended up having to deal with... suboptimal... implementations.

it was getting dark by the time i left the office. i came home just in time for dinner, which was delicious, while we watched the beginning of tad, the lost explorer and the emerald tablet, which is quite fun.

...

i'm exhausted.

restful

 i got some more sleep, then woke up to a quiet morning. including resting a little more, and reading some naruto, and playing more the hex.

i've played a lot of it today, it's really gotten in my head. it's... well, it's a daniel mullins game. it's real art, real subversion of expectations, and loads of fun.

mr smear had a video "playdate" with our old neighbor's kid, and then two of them ended up playing roblox together for a while and it seemed like they were having a really good time.

in the late afternoon, we all took a walk (the weather's been quite pleasant), ending up at vaniglia for really nice ice cream.

...

i've spent a lot of the past couple of days feeling grateful that we're here in tel aviv. that we had the privilege of being able to go into the debt we needed to in order to fight the canadian and israeli authorities and escape south africa. i've been remembering how trapped and scared we were, and i remember visualizing just being here.

we're very, very lucky to live in a place like this. even with the war going on. very, very lucky.

the hex

 i don't know what i was expecting, but in my head the hex is a murder-mystery game and gd might have enjoyed it with me. but it's daniel mullins, and a whole bucket of wtf, and it's too off-beat for gd but i'm definitely enjoying it.

i think?

i think.

it's 3.30am now, i woke up restless an hour or two ago and eventually got up and played it some more.

friday night dinner was good, and we're slowly re-watching x-men, and i don't know what happened but i began passing out at the table, shifted straight to the couch, and got up a few hours later to go to bed. now i'm tired, my brain's spinning on ugly disinformation social media posts i responded to during the day, and my neck hurts.

whoooo.

overflow

 i boiled over this morning, i'm doing what i can to take this afternoon as easy as possible.

the day began pretty simply, we got up, had coffee, i played through bloons: adventure time quests and caught up on stuff. then we woke mr smear up, fed him, and we left for the shuk. on the way to the bus, we ran into our old neighbor and his now six-month old son, and we had a good chat. i mean, the subject matter was tough, but it was nice talking to him.

the bad feelings began on the bus. not because the driver was driving recklessly (and throwing us about) - though that didn't help - but because there was a bunch of young people and nobody would give up their seats for the old people who climbed in.

and then it was a fight to get off the bus because of all the idiots blocking the doors, and it took a little while to start calming down. but by then we were in the shuk itself, and we were realizing that we weren't going to find what we were looking for, and then all the people around us were doing what mall people (yes, same thing) do, and then that started stressing me out...

then we walked down king george, but first we encountered an old rollerblading friend and i completely blanked on his name and got super weird and uncomfortable. we walked down to dizengoff center, where the security guard insisted on shaking my hand before letting us in.

*shakes head*

king george was unusually empty - obviously because lots of people are scared or scared away - but the mall was pretty full.

first a pit stop, then finding food, all through mall people. that part was good, and the tourist group doing a headphone party activity was amusing.

we hit the sports store and found gd a swimming cap, then took mr smear into the toysrus to see if there was anything he wanted for his birthday. this time i was the one who became overwhelmed, and progressively desperate for a cold drink and coffee. eventually, on the point of losing it, i rushed everyone out, very grateful for gd being in full support mode.

we got some cool drinks, then crossed the road to ozen hashlishi and sat down. i approached the baristas, who informed me that... that their coffee machine had broken down. the big man i'd assumed was a barista was actually the technician. i looked her in the eyes, and explained that i was desperate, and would settle for a turkish coffee if they had any.

they did.

and just as she was about to start preparing it for me, the technician announced that the machine was back in working order.

*relief*

still very anxious, we sat outside and i slowly calmed down over my latte, and then we hopped on a bus home.

i still had some leftovers and a bagel from our mall breakfast, so i figured i'd give it away if we came across anyone in need. there's an older homeless woman who i've seen a lot in the area lately - the last time i saw her she was fighting with some garbage men about *her* trash can - and i asked if she was interested. she said no, but told me there was another woman walking around who would be, and so i left it on the bench and said it was for that woman.

she began yelling at me. i tried to walk away, but she picked up the package and ran over to me because "she's got enough trouble of her own, she can't be helping other homeless people".

wtaf.

*sigh*

anyway, we came home, and i rested, and the rest of the afternoon's been all about playing games: inscryption (act ii of the story mode), and i roped mr smear into playing shivers with me because he wouldn't stop going on about scary games. overall, we had a fun experience together, and while the atmosphere totally creeped him out the jump scare (which i'd warned him was coming) didn't bother him too much. i think the proprietor's corpse was a bit much for him, though, but reading about the hieroglyphs seemed to distract him sufficiently.

...

now praying for a quiet weekend.

compulsion

i finally completed inscryption. like, for real. after posting, i simply couldn't stop playing until i hit the end of the credits. i enjoyed those last two runs so immensely that i kinda wanna start the entire game all over again.

but i desperately need to go to bed.

...

what an absolute masterpiece.

getting real-er

or, at least, it feels like it.

this is not an easy time.

this morning a motorcycle accelerated for a long time on the nearby highway, and mr smear yelled and jumped off the toilet in a panic. it's even harder seeing him affected...

today was an odd sort of a day, but also fairly standard too. gd and mr smear went to the pool that they discovered on an outing with my mom before she went back to south africa, and although gd's foot started hurting so badly they had to come back in a taxi, mr smear's swimming's getting stronger and he was having a great time.

my work day was pretty good. i had a good opportunity to apologize to my coworker in front of our boss, and i seized it, and i feel that smoothed things over. lunch was excellent - i had my usual salad, but i also ordered fries with the team so i could do the salt and vinegar thing (apparently one of my coworkers has been silently wondering for months what the heck i've been keeping in the plastic bottle on my desk).

i made progress on the big ticket i'm working on.

because of gd's foot, i had to take mr smear to mma today. all in all everything went well, both in getting there and back, and in the class itself. on the way home we went past the supermarket and i picked up a bunch of stuff, and for the first time mr smear actually helped me carry things home.

after watching some harry potter (we're on the sixth film), and reading some harry potter (we're on the fourth book), i settled in to complete a new medium article for the first time in a while, and in order to do so made the changes i described to our work repo (so... that was a personal-time contribution/favor). i'm very happy with the results.

war anxiety is stabilizing at extremely-high / wtaf-is-going-on-levels. life is feeling pretty surreal right now. we're making plans to go to the shuk tomorrow, but we're also waiting for the sirens to go off at any moment...

...

so, i've just completed challenge level 12 in kaycee's mod. with an AMAZING deck + totem. an infinite bee/ant generating machine. and i have to admit - i'd read about the final final boss, but there's an angle here (at the beginning of the run) that i really didn't anticipate and i'm not sure how to process it.

divine potential

why do i have the chorus to איש קש bouncing around my head?

i slept better last night, though not great, and took a much-needed easy morning. well, that's partially true. some of the morning was spent supporting gd with her war anxieties and trauma. i initially responded in a very unconstructive way, but i managed to get my head together pretty quickly and talk her through my perspective, and it seems to have helped. my perspective being that it's my job to do my job, and to keep abreast of what's happening, and hers to take care of herself and our son. the conversation ended on a very interesting spiritual note - she's been experiencing sporadic episodes of intense spirituality lately and i'm happy to accept and support anything that keeps her sane.

then i went to work, which turned out to be a very busy, but odd sort of day.

i needed to merge something which my coworker was certain would cause him trouble, and i was certain wouldn't. i merged it, and it messed his work up completely :(

i never fully trust git's merge strategy, but i've never seen it fail to abominably as it did today.

...

i came home in time for an early dinner with the family, and then at 8pm jumped onto a call with gco, sailor and gco's partner-in-crime that has the potential to be life-changing. the call went on for a couple of hours, and i feel like everyone dropped off with a greater sense of purpose.

now i've done the dishes, showered, and am trying to decide whether to try to go to bed, or let the buzzing in my head die down a bit first.

the big nine

it got worse before it got better. it took another couple of hours before i was finally able to get some sleep. during that time i watched random shit, did bloons: adventure time quests, and played inscryption.

i had a revelation while playing inscryption - instead of investing in beating the game, i made a conscious decision to try and just enjoy playing it. i also started "cheating" - the battles only save after they're over, so if you mess up you can just bail and continue from the previous save point.

i ended up completing the 11th challenge level of kaycee's mod before crashing.

the morning started off well, although i was still struggling to formulate a plan of action for when i arrived at the office.

mr smear turned nine years old today! we managed to make it really nice, and special, and he had a really good time. except for the bit where gd took him to the mall in the hope of finding something to engage him / a birthday present, but once they got there he just wanted to come home and wait for me to take them to goodness.

i had an intense day at work, which began with me taking aside my coworker (the "lead" from yesterday) and together we cleared the air and had a productive (albeit somewhat heated) discussion. the whole thing was an enormous relief. that was followed by sprint meetings where we took those points further, and aside from a moment in which my boss repeatedly told me to stop shouting at him* i felt that even the items i wasn't happy with were at least addressed and given some thought.

* i was fired up, everyone was talking over each other, and i hadn't realized i was shouting - so that was embarassing...

the rest of the day was pretty intense, but ultimately successful.

i walked home, and we got ready, and we took the bus to king george. the bus driver was a maniac, and although getting through to the bus' service agent was a frustrating mission it was really nice that the app we're using (rav-pass) makes it easy to get all the actual bus's details and i could be sure that the bus company knows exactly who i was reporting.

our experience at goodness was excellent. the service was a bit off - though it was understandable as they were very short-staffed - and they no longer server the dish mr smear was specifically excited about, but the food and drinks we ordered were delicious and the experience overall was fantastic. not least of which being that mr smear behaved well even by an adult's standards, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself and his food, and the whole thing was just a real pleasure and felt worth the expense.

we got home reasonably early, and after showering and drawing we had a smooth bedtime. all in all, it was a grand day for mr smear ^_^

now... praying to be able to catch up on some of the sleep i missed last night. the war anxiety's still there, and it's *very* frustrating that our western allies are asking us to shoot ourselves (and our credibility) in the foot by exercising restraint, and we've already suffered more casualties up north. here's praying for a peaceful night 🙏

four

 four goddamned hours. i haven't been able to sleep. i don't think there's anything physical going on this time, but i've got a massive load of anxiety that's been making my head spin. some of it from the war, sure. i even wrote the following to sailor in response to him asking how we're doing:

you know that weird thing where people will stick with a shit situation rather than risk an unknown one? well, the unknown is literally all we have right now, a huge stinking pile of it. nobody has a clue what direction things are going in, never mind how they'll turn out, so i guess we're all just riding the abyss and praying we don't get swallowed while we're definitely already being swallowed.

someone i served with called it "warception", when you're in a war worrying about things escalating to a new war. even though we've been at war for 75 years already.

but a lot of it - according to the thoughts that have been attacking me mercilessly - to do with my coworkers' bullshit.

ugh.

i just want to rest.

the vibes

 today was not a great day. some of it was okay, but a lot of it was pretty shit.

a large part of that shit was a bunch of weird or annoying issues at work, and two probably-unintentionally obstructive coworkers. and i was working at home, so there was some unpleasantness initially because mr smear (as usual) didn't get that i couldn't be available for him the entire time.

on the other hand, mr smear did get the hang of his first minecraft command, which he was very proud of. he also - with very little encouragement - made his own breakfast.

gd came home from her sewing lesson very excited about what she's learning, so that's cool too.

in the afternoon, i took mr smear to mma. the first part of the journey was a stuff-up because they've changed the bus route and we had a much longer walk to get there. the second part of the journey was a stuff-up because mr smear got angry with me for something (i'm trying to teach him road safety, it's hard), and then didn't like the fact that his direct rudeness got an immediate and unpleasant reaction.

the unpleasantness became really intense, including a fight with a thornbush that i'd never noticed before, and i got him to sit down and try to calm down and change the mood before we went downstairs to the gym itself. 

we were kinda doing better by the time we entered the gym (although he did respond to "how're you?" with "not good"), and once he was on the mats and seemed okay i went out to call and update gd.

by the time i returned, i found the teacher sitting with him, and him in tears. i don't know what they said to each other, but at some point i found a way to intervene and i took him aside and gave him some support, and managed to get him to go back in.

he switched up and did well for the rest of the lesson, while i sat on my computer mixing all those shitty feelings with additional new ones from my coworkers.

ugh.

anyway, the way home was pretty good, and after his shower we sat down and talked and what i had to say went over surprisingly well. nothing different to what i've been saying before, but we both seemed to be communicating a bit better.

after making *some* (unappreciated) progress, we had an early dinner, watched some more x-men (we're still around episode six of the first original season, but this time mr smear's really into it), and then i read some more goblet of fire to him at bedtime.

i've played a couple more attempts of inscryption, which made me feel pretty shit about myself and my luck, and am now trying to figure out what the smartest way to end this annoying day could be.

...

today was / would have been ariel bibas' fifth birthday. we're waiting impatiently to see what happens with the threats of impending escalation from iran, and have invested some of the day trying to make sure that our bomb shelter's in a reasonable state. gd's really struggling with the anxiety, i'm occasionally looking at news and trying not to be more irritable / depressed / despondent.

tomorrow will be mr smear's ninth birthday.

eye gong

depression/wartime anxiety is making every little task overwhelming. gd's been having a very hard time the past few days - we all have - but her in particular. we were talking about it during the day, and i think i know what it is: being under attack is scary, but not knowing whether you're under attack is terrifying. it's a case of "the devil you know" - we tend to be more afraid of the unknown than of direct threats.

especially after ten straight months of terror and war.

it looks like a lot of the world is waking up to how they've been played by BRICS, but if social media is to be believed, places like montreal and toronto and pretty much lost. gods help us all.

...

friday:

we successfully paid a visit to the shiva house, and mr smear was relatively amazing (generally pretty good) with his little cousins. it was quite crowded, but we hung with our younger (new parent) cousins and were present.

i don't think we did anything else for the remainder of the day. i was exhausted, as i had been for a few days.

yesterday:

i spent most of the day alternating between doing not much (watching random stuff and starting to read naruto), watching the goblet of fire with mr smear*, and napping. in the evening i took mr smear to the climbing wall, and while we weren't there for very long nor did very much, we did have a good time.

* re-watching the fifth harry potter movie, and it's beyond triggering. the ministry of magic's absurd behavior EXACTLY describes what israel and the jews have been dealing with for the past ten months (far longer than that, but it's been frighteningly transparent since october 7th), it's horrifying and anxiety-inducing and wrong.

today:

i tried to look into schools in the area, but became thoroughly overwhelmed. i'm going to try again tomorrow, this time scoping it down to filtering schools by location...

my work day went really well. i got a lot done, and having completed all my tasks on time i started taking over others' tasks, and overall made my boss and coworkers happy.

we went out for a fancy lunch to say farewell to our marketing consultant; it wasn't vegan-friendly, but they made a plan and the experience was surprisingly good. especially their focaccia with jalapeño jam.

mr smear appears to be doing well back in mma. i'm very pleased.

i did eat way too much pasta over the course of the day, though. so i skipped dinner, replacing it with a walk to the supermarket for a couple of emergency supplies (and things that can't be obtained online) and text chatting with a help line that proved pretty unhelpful.

counter counter

 yesterday was a day.

i went into work expecting it to be a shit one, but i joined my boss on his coffee mission and told him how i was feeling - both about my current task and about my distraction from it the day before - and he suggested a way forward that worked for both of us.

so the first part of my day was working on other tickets - ones i most certainly derived more satisfaction out of - and pushed the problem task to the end of the day.

war: everyone's expecting the worst. nobody has a clue whether things are about to get better, or worse, so we don't even know what we're preparing for, which is a brilliant source of anxiety.

i had a chat with some friends of the mongoose's, a couple that includes a teacher and whose kids are all special needs, and they suggested a way forward that i'm going to look into over the weekend.

gd took mr smear to his first mma class since april, and apparently it went very well. well, mostly - there're some english speakers in the class and he spent more time talking than working... i'll take it :P

by the end of the day - and post-"happy hour" where i'd gotten tasa+'s vegan oreo cookie and nut and lotus cream (essentially peanut butter) pie - i found myself staring incomprehensibly as rows and rows of log text, finding it impossible to keep my eyes open or my brain on. it felt like my eyeballs were melting out of their sockets. i was miserably embedded in the shit task that still wasn't making any sense.

at the end of my rope, i retried something that i'd given a go a couple of days ago - upgrading envoy. only this time, instead of upgrading to the latest version, i updated to the one before, and resigned myself to breaking configuration changes shit.

but there wasn't any shit. it upgraded nicely, and then everything magically started working.

beautifully.

all this time, it wasn't something we were doing wrong.

so that's the mixed-but-mostly-good feeling i had when i left the office, strapped on my rollerblades, and came home.

it was a very pleasant evening, we continued watching the goblet of fire movie over dinner, i finished reading the prisoner of azkaban to mr smear at bedtime (what a startlingly different experience!), and then i passed out on the couch next to gd while listening to the chamber of secrets.

...

then i got up a couple of hours ago after a lot of time restless, and i've been playing inscryption until now. and now... back to bed? we've got stuff to do today, although arguably the most important is going to the shiva house together.

counter

 i just made a mistake and looked at my tiktok inbox while decided to wake up, and encountered the account of someone i know personally who's built their identity around serving as a mouthpiece for anti-israel propaganda. we've been at war and under attack for ten months now, and this asshat is fighting for the people who want him and his kind dead.

...

yesterday... wasn't great, overall. it had some good moments, though.

the day started with a surprise credit card charge from ha'avoda - i voted in their primaries a couple of years ago - and i spent an angry part of the morning trying to communicate with them to get my money back (and to get them to lose my data), but finding it impossible.

i did, however, continue playing inscryption. and, with my son as my witness, i finally beat the eighth challenge level!

on the way to work, i took the vacuum cleaner i bought just over a couple of weeks ago to try and return it. the guy i approached informed me that it has passed the 14 day deadline for returns, and i asked if there was noone we could speak to. the guy next to him got irritated and grabbed the box, inspected it, and told him "it's practically friday already, just give him the refund and put it away" 😂

work was rough. i wasted a couple of hours on something i shouldn't have been working on, and ran into a bunch of problems, not least being that i hadn't realized that i could test one thing one way, another thing another, but not both at the same time so all of my test results were meaningless.

i kind of lost my temper.

just as i was venting my frustrations to my boss and one of my coworkers, someone i studied with walked past, tapped me on the shoulder and threw me off completely!

i overheard an argument between two of my coworkers, and jumped in with some actual experience - only to find myself arguing with a wall of ignorance. i know the intentions aren't bad, but i let my infuriatingly-stubborn (and wrong) coworker push all of my buttons. no matter what, i shouldn't have lost my cool with him (not for the first time) and  i'm embarrassed about it. i'm going to need to practice keeping a level head.

it was our consultant's last day of his second contract, and he asked me to lay tefilin. we eventually found an unused meeting room, and in addition to a not-unpleasant experience we had a conversation that turned to surprisingly well-received criticism about modern orthodoxy.

there is hope.

what remained of the work day was short and disappointing. then i left early to get home, change for my cousin's funeral and drive through.

the funeral was very touching, and i honestly didn't expect each and every eulogy to make me cry.

kc's brother's girlfriend - who's been around for a couple of years now, and i still had to ask someone her name yesterday - was carrying one of the kids past me and the child's grandmother, with the child bawling. the grandmother - clearly joking - said "what are you doing to my grandson?!" and she took it completely seriously, it was a surreal moment and at least some of us had a good laugh about it afterwards.

after the funeral, i joined the family for an hour or so at the shiva and then made my way back to tel aviv, in time for dinner.

one of the mma instructors got back to us about the mma camp, he asked that we reconsider sending mr smear and rather take the approach of easing him back into things. gd and i agreed, and i guess the next couple of weeks will be a bit less expensive... if we're making the right choice, we're making the right choice, but at the back of my mind there's still a bit of doubt that the mma camp could have been a better one.

i played more kaycee's mod until i was ready for bed, and slept better than the night before (this time without hyper-realistic zombie dreams, or waking up with numb limbs), and now that i've posted this and done some of the daily bloons: adventure time challenges, i think i'm about ready to face the day.

the end of an era

 today our cousin whose husband passed away last year, passed away herself. she was also very old, and no longer in command of her faculties, and we saw it coming - but it's still very sad nonetheless.

...

it was a rough day, workwise, and although i managed to sneak in a small win (and receive confirmation from our friendly consultant that my frontend efforts were on the right track) it was a long battle against a mysterious bug with what feels like very little progress.

also, a piece of danish vegan chocolate popped out of my hand and landed under me, and so my new-ish chair and shorts are stained :/

gd and mr smear had a rough patch in the afternoon, but were otherwise fine. i wasn't feeling good (i was passing out at my desk before i went for a fourth coffee), so i didn't go rollerblading this evening (at least i rollerbladed to and from work), and for the last few days i definitely haven't been doing too well as far as diet is concerned.

i read a whole chapter of the prisoner of azkaban to mr smear tonight, i think we only have one left.

i then played another run of inscryption, and was swatted down before the second boss.

ugh.

the news has been utterly atrocious these past two days, i kinda just want to bury my head in the sand and wait for it all to blow over. but by the looks of things, nothing's going to blow over, war or no war, without a massive, concerted effort to counter the efforts of the enemies of the west.

i'm going to try to get some sleep.

stretched thin

omg it's half past 1am, i've spent the past couple of hours writing a "short" summary of our immigration disaster story for mr smear's friend's dad. i was going to start writing it this morning, but i've been on-call since 9am and it's been a heck of a day.

big things from the day that were work related: i had to convince a coworker of the value of a fix and became increasingly frustrated because he apparently literally didn't understand what i was fixing or why it needed fixing. i felt he was being obstructive, but in addition to "walking it off" one of his questions inadvertantly led to me finding something legitimately wrong and fixing that, so i couldn't be too mad.

big things from the day that weren't work related:

mr smear being rude on the way home from his hebrew tutor, i dragged him aside to a shady spot in a park and managed (somehow) to get through to him. not only did he handle it well (from that point, at least) but he took his punishment (an hour without screen time) like a boss.

he also decided that he'd rather go back to mma than keep up with the wall-climbing. sad for the wall-climbing, but great for the mma. we made a deal, and *he* insisted on recording it on our phones.

we also finally plugged in the guitar hero guitars and he's done some of the tutorial a few times - he's getting better. and he's persisting, which is big. even though the buttons seem to be jamming.

something big happened in the news today, big and crazy, and i only just heard about it now. so i'm going to try to sleep, and then try to wrap my head around whatever the fuck it is in the morning.

it's not suicide, it's communication

saturday:

my mom and i went to pick up mr smear around 6pm, but i took a wrong turn and we got a lot more of a walk than we bargained for.

the airport run:

we left on time, and arrived with time to spare before the allegedly-scheduled train was due to leave the station. the fictitious train would have gotten us to the airport approximately on time, but once we were on the platform it became clear that we'd been had by the transit app.

apparently all the transit apps use google maps as a source :/

fortunately, there was an available go-to car close by! we located it without too much hassle, although we were definitely stressed and relieved that gd and mr smear were at home. we loaded the car, and got to the airport without a hitch, only a little bit later than we'd have liked. and on the way, my mother taught me about the rear-view mirror clip for when assholes behind you have their brights on.

i made a mistake and parked at the orchard, instead of the vineyard. our parking spot was really far from the terminal.

we got through the first round of security quickly, but then were stuck in the queue to the counters (five counters, two manned, one only sometimes) for at least an hour. aside from "the farts", and having numnum cat stuck in my head (to my mother's perpetual amusement), at least she wasn't alone in the experience and we had plenty of time for a face-to-face farewell conversation.

there wasn't anything to do between check-in and security, and my bedtime and car rental period was closing in, so we said our goodbyes and i made my way up to the car. it was a long way, and the pay machines were broken. i was starting to panic, but encountered a family who assured me that i could pay at the exit itself, so i headed up to the car, strapped in, and turned on the engine.

that was when my mom called, and i immediately worried that she was having trouble with security and needed me to come back. she couldn't hear me, and put the phone down before i could switch microphones. then she didn't answer when i trying to call her back, nor respond to my messages.

eventually i got hold of her, and discovered she just wanted advice on purchasing headphones before the flight.

...

the ride home was okay, i was still wired from the espresso shot i'd had when picking up mr smear :P

yesterday:

a quiet morning before mr smear woke up, shopping and relaxing

the suicide drawing scare: gd approached me, freaking out because mr smear was drawing someone shooting himself in the head. so i calmly made my way over to peek, but he immediately covered it up in an effort to hide it. "it's a surprise!"

"hey," i said, "i have to go to work in a minute, please can i see it?"

"okay, but only because you're leaving soon."

it turned out to be a soldier with his rifle on his lap, and two fingers pressed into an earpiece to communicate. so that was a conversation we didn't need to have! *phew*

a long and frustrating workday hunting for a bug (and not finding it, but at the end of the day wishful-thinking that i'd found it), with me repeating "i want to die" on a loop

taking mr smear away from rain world for a really nice table tennis outing

trying to watch jumanji, but mr smear getting scared.

finishing the truman show, mr smear definitely having taken it the right way.

going to sleep lessons: understanding/remembering that mr smear has been afraid of going to sleep, and for the first time getting through to him that even if some of his dreams are scary, they can't hurt him or become real. a little later, i found him still lying awake, but he was no longer afraid, just restless.

worrying about whether it makes sense to request that he be moved to a different class before we move him to a different school

kaycee's mod update: omg this game is insane, and insanely unfair. for the third or fourth time in a couple of days, i managed to build an incredibly powerful deck (an insect deck with an ouroboros and an insect totem with an ant spawner sigil), only to get swatted at the final level by a situation i could see no way out of. i think i'm going to take a break from this abuse for a while.

today:

waking up from long intense dreams, my old house, mosquitoes, rollerblades, a weird butcher (who was butchering elephants?), and being unable to get a younger mr smear out of a creepy area after it had taken everything to get him to come with me in the first place.

mr smear waking up a little while ago, and happy to have another positive conversation about dreams.

winning.

...

it's a work-from-home day, but my first point of business is writing up a description of our aliyah story for mr smear's friend's father. hopefully he can help somehow...

luna park ftw!

 this morning was AMAZING. i slept pretty well last night, and spent some time organizing my google drive folders now that i've switched from sync. so far, so good. then mr smear woke up (he'd moved himself to the couch in the middle of the night 'cause he couldn't sleep), and after breakfast asked to be (re-)introduced to iron maiden. happy to oblige, we both enjoyed it.

then his friend rocked up, and we headed out to the luna park. getting there was easy, finding parking was easy, getting inside was easy, and getting on the rides was easy - it was the *perfect* day and time to go! out of the couple of hours we were there, the kids got to have fun and do almost all the rides they wanted (except the 140cm minimum rides) without waiting, and they even went on the anaconda!

i "dadded" well for both the kids - mr smear got freaked out by the black mamba, and his friend by the anaconda, and i managed to get them both back on track (mr smear psychologically, his friend physically and psychologically) - and i'm feeling really good about that. i even went on the final ride myself, which was great fun ^_^

everyone had a fun morning, and i dropped mr smear off at his friend's place on the way home so now we've got the afternoon to rest up before taking my mom to the airport tonight.

we're sad she's leaving us, but happy we got some good times in in spite of being sick for a lot of her visit (as always).

the sammich

 the morning started off alright, but then we suddenly got hit with an attitude issue that was on-off until we got to the lego store (including on our mission to the shuk, which mr smear also isn't a fan of, although we did find him the white hate he's been whining for in spite of his protests and we got an iron maiden shirt made for him which he's ridiculously excited about - so i guess that was a bit of a corrective experience).

then we hit the lego store. i gave him explicit instructions to remember that it's *his* birthday present (not his mom's), that *he* has to choose what *he* wants, and that he has to be under budget (it's a big budget - we may be under financial stress, but we believe he deserves a birthday celebration just like everyone else). he was excited, and he went from section to section but couldn't decide.

then, suddenly, he cut and ran. i realized what was happening before anyone else did, and chased after him, catching him outside, hugging him tight, and explaining that he didn't need to make any decisions right then, nor even get his present from the lego store. he started calming down, and asked if he could just wear his new shirt, so i took him to a quiet store with a changing room and he came out pretty much fully recovered.

we caught the bus home, and the rest of the afternoon was nice. a/c, and after watching a couple of jonas tyroller videos, we decided to reinstall will you snail and remembered just how much fun it is!

it was generally a really nice afternoon. we had a break from doing things together - he played rain world, and watching him bouncing up and down while he played was wildly entertaining for all of us - and then i was inspired to put on the truman show. at first he didn't seem interested, but pretty soon he joined me on the couch and really got into it.

we had a wickedly delicious friday night hotdog dinner - didn't know that was a thing until tonight - and he rushed through his shower so that we could watch another half hour of the movie. it's an excellent movie, and it's really fun watching it with him.

bedtime was mostly okay but ended on a silly sour note, not the worst bedtime but still not a great end to an otherwise great day. then i sat down to some more inscryption, and it *really* made me feel shitty. two runs where i was getting everything i wanted, and got demolished anyway with zero ceremony.

i think calling the game "evil" is absolutely fair. it doesn't change my obsession/addiction, it just qualifies it a bit more...

now to plan tomorrow's luna park mission and go to bed.

steps forward

yesterday:

a really exciting meeting with gco and an extremely interesting writer/comedian, which went so well that i blabbed to one of my teammates and instantly regretted it. but, at the same time, got immediate and very enthusiastic feedback for my idea ^_^

it was mr smear's final "play therapy" session in the afternoon, so that's a bit sad, but he was cool about it.

my mom, mr smear and i took a very crowded bus to the beach to meet with the mongoose and his family, it was a beautiful evening and we all enjoyed it immensely, although his daughter was very upset by something (twice) and i strongly suspect it was me - but we don't know why. possibly my tattoos? or just me being awkward? who knows.

i hadn't intended on eating dinner when we got home, but i ended up eating rather a lot.

today:

sleeping really badly last night, waking up in the middle exhausting and with a stiff neck

picking up gd's clippers on the way to work

sorting out - or assisting gd with sorting out - luna park tickets, mr smear's friend's mom really did manage to wrangle us half-price tickets

a busy and positive day at work not taking care of my urgent task, but after hummus for lunch just wanted to close my eyes (or play inscryption :P)

dubstepping home later than planned

a good climbing wall session, both in terms of his performance and in meeting a sweet guy who wants to be a councillor/guide - mr smear was really cool with him, and he got mr smear to give a new wall (with a real incline) another go

mr smear getting into bed really late but adorably asking us to give my mom permission to read to him anyway

inscryption degradation (i feel like i lost some dignity over the second run)

bailing on sync -> google drive