adventures in vpn-land

omg, that was insanely complicated: i just spent the last hour and a half trying to set my mother up with a google account that we could connect to our family account. everything about the process is ridiculous, not least of which being that our family accounts are all registered as canadian because that's how they were legitimately created, and we can't change that because we need access to the canadian play store in order to use canadian apps (like our banking apps).

firstly, google insists on phone verification when creating an account on the desktop, but wouldn't accept any of our valid, active phone numbers. after quite a struggle, i stumbled across a support answer that suggested creating the account from an android phone, where phone verification is optional.

excellent. i still can't believe that worked.

but then, once i had an account created i couldn't change its country. even after providing my canadian payment details, because that's based on the current IP address and not card issuer. i - tried - so - many - things...

eventually, i thought "bugger this", subscribed to and installed a vpn on both my desktop and my mobile, set everything up for ontario (not quebec, which was somehow confused with romania?!), created a brand new account on my mobile, signed in on my desktop, and finally - FINALLY! - was able to hit the "join family" button.

i never thought i'd post an endorsement like this, but veepn was well worth the once-off $10 for the month. i've paid for vpn trials in the past and been very disappointed, but this was simple AF. if i actually needed a VPN long-term, i'd probably go for the cheaper plans, but it's good to know there's a viable option that doesn't suck.

openings, closings, and in-betweenings

yesterday:

after another good morning getting mr smear to school, i synced with my mom and made what i hope will be my last big forex transfer to canada.

although gd has been hurting, she gave me a haircut in anticipation of the important meeting that was scheduled for this evening. she wasn't happy with it, but it's definitely respectable enough that i've got nothing to be embarrassed about.

work was tough, but i finally got the job done. then i ran into performance issues, and spent the rest of the afternoon (and some of the evening) tweaking until it was good enough.

at 5pm i met gd and mr smear at the pain clinic for her nerve block appointment. as soon as she went in, i took mr smear for our "usual" falafel laffa. the food court - and ordering in particular - was an exercise in cultural anthropology. even the team working the counter were having a hard time with the group of seniors ahead of us weaving in and out between the rest of the customers sowing chaos. when we finally got our order, i asked the girl sitting behind us with her mother to take her shoes off the chair, which she didn't. halfway  through our meal, i looked up and saw - and then couldn't unsee - that almost everyone around us was chewing with their mouths grotesquely wide open.

so that happened.

regardless, mr smear and i enjoyed our meal together and we both ate a lot. after we got gd home, i walked to the cafe to pick her up a sandwich (and dessert), and the rest of the evening was pretty quiet.

today:

i got up a bit early this morning, with my neck still giving me some trouble. not a lot, but enough to be uncomfortable all day.

the day began with two Very Big Deals: the first, that after chasing down the canadian debt we generated migrating and getting settled for two and a half years, we finally were able to pay it off! we're not out of the woods yet - we owe my mother and our south african bank quite a lot of money - but it's a huge milestone and relief.

the meeting i was looking forward to in the evening? gco had forgotten about it and run into complications, so it had to be cancelled :(

the second Big Deal was a meeting with mr smear's teacher, principal and guidance counsillors. the first step to a corrective experience was that i made it very clear to the principal - twice, for two different aspects - where and why our last meeting went south, and she accepted it with a grace that really impressed me. the second was an actual discussion - much easier to have without gd, primarily because i didn't spend half the meeting translating. so it's a pity she couldn't make it, but it worked out for the best.

in short, mr smear has started the year on the right foot*, and we've received helpful advice, and he's going to be supported, and we're all feeling better about how he's handling.

* okay, not perfectly, as we learned later in the day, but definitely on the right foot.

my work day was a bit wonky. i fixed yesterday's code based on my boss' comments, partially at least, but i was supposed to be focused on a hugely important bug and it was a morning full of distractions (although the back-to-school sandwiches were very welcome). at lunchtime i walked to the school to pick up mr smear, walked him pleasantly back home, had a bit of a family fight when gd found out that he'd done something self-destructive that we've been warning him to stop doing, which i'm pleased to report i managed to diffuse pretty effectively.

i returned to work, right into a retrospective. afterwards a bunch of us went downstairs for coffee, where i bumped into one of my cousin's kids, who's just started working two floors up from us.

the rest of the workday was a mixed bag. by the time i left, i hadn't achieved what i needed to and i felt like my brain was melting out my ears...

i walked home, managed to rekindle the earlier fight, which we eventually seemed to have resolved, and dinner was great (we started watching the first x-men movie).

i've just put mr smear to bed - we're both really enjoying reading the goblet of fire so far - and we're about to call gd's canadian bank to ask them to close her account.

sky cry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

today:

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

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

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

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

it was very frustrating.

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

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

...

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

reversal

 WELL. we went to our friends for dinner last night, and aside from enjoying a really nice evening with them - and eating too much delicious food - we were all completely taken by surprise when mr smear and their daughter forgot their rivalry and just had a really good time together!

today was mostly relaxed, we played rayman: legends (we've restarted from scratch, and we're generally playing pretty well together), and we watched the second installment of pirates of the caribbean. so that was a great start to a saturday.

in the afternoon we all went out to play table tennis, which would have been nice except for a) mr smear throwing a wobbly on the way that generated a lot of unhappiness and b) the apparently-biting flies (both gd and mr smear complained about them) and wasps around the table.

so after all the drama in getting there, and the minor success in mr smear deciding he wanted to play, we ended up getting out of there without much playtime.

i had a good chat with horseman, though it's tough hearing how much he's been struggling (he's been suffering from chronic pain, he's in montreal where the only effective care is private, and he's had to quit his counselling job and has limited benefits that are running out).

in the evening, i put on my blades, mr smear got on his bike, we picked up our friend's daughter on hers and we went to the climbing wall together, for the last time on the three-month membership we bought. the kids were cool, and the evening was largely successful (her father and brother joined us after a while).

after a few walls mr smear decided he was done, but not after doing something that i had to punish him for. minor, but still. towards the end, i struck a bargain with him that i instantly regretted the moment i heard it coming out of my mouth - two more "goes" to drop the punishment.

gosdsdammit, i'm the one who's being trying to reinforce the idea that punishments are not transactional. fuck, fuck, fuck. afterwards, i explained to him that i'd made a mistake and that that won't be happening again...

the ride home was alright, and the rest of the evening was alright. now it's our bedtime, we have a big day tomorrow - first day of school, and ari's pain clinic appointment, at the same hour. whoo!

it's okay

 the morning went alright. we hit the mall early, and after some consulting with the parents' group i think we got the right thing - an actual tanach for mr smear. and then a bunch of stuff at the pharmacy and grocery store.

and then a bread and a bagel and a... pretzel thingy at the bakery.

we came home, dropped everything off, then turned around and caught a bus to south tel aviv. we got to the store without incident, and picked up our couch cushions. the ones we paid for almost half a year ago. along the way i tried to explain the time value of money to mr smear. and that it's not exactly stealing, but kind of stealing, when you promise goods in return for money and delay the delivery for an unreasonably long time.

on the way home, we stopped at a coffee shop for coffee and apple juice. we all had a good time, right until we didn't - so that kinda sucked - but by the time we left we were alright again. the walk to the bus took infinity time because of the light rail construction, so we ended up at a light rail station and used that to get home instead.

i quite like the light rail.

the afternoon has been spent relaxing, with a good chunk of it devoted to an exciting rewatch of the first pirates of the caribbean movie. so that was awesome. now we're all chilling until it's time to go to our friends - or frenemies, in mr smear and their daughter's case :P

in the middle of the night

 it's 4am. i've spent half the night tossing and turning, mostly responding to a message from a friend about whether or not canada is dangerous for jews. i don't know how dangerous it is right now if you don't openly identify, but i do know that gd and i both know people who've gone off the rails on pro-hamas / antisemitic propaganda, we have friends and family who either don't feel it's safe, or have cut off communication. did we make the right decision to stay? we didn't really have many options. financially, we definitely wouldn't have managed... 

also, i've been physically uncomfortable and restless. so i got up a while ago, and have been doomscrolling social media.

now i've responded to that message, and am left just feeling sleepless and sad.

*sigh*

ugh.

i rollerbladed to work this morning, after a relaxed start to the day. i arrived at the office and realized i'd forgotten my wrist pads, and sandles. so that's where my head was at, at the beginning of the day.

fortunately, the security guard let me roll into the building.

i don't recall how many "i hate my life"s came out of me today, but let's just say that me and frontend dev are not vibing right now. and it didn't help that for about three hours - between lunch and "happy hour" - i was repeatedly disturbed by sudden and aggressive needs to go to the toilet every few minutes. wtf? i was trying so hard to solve a real life puzzle (which i didn't really manage to solve by the end of the day), by the time i left the office i was done in multiple ways.

i got home, showered, and played rayman: legends with mr smear until dinner. then we continued watching x-men, and then it was bedtime, and then it was pay bills time, and now it's i-don't-know-what-i'm-doing-or-want-to-do-but-i-feel-shitty time.

tomorrow's the last opportunity to sort out school shopping for mr smear. tomorrow evening i have an exciting call scheduled with sailor. right now, though?

ugh.

progress

 yesterday:

another clinic visit in the morning on the way to work. buying a laffa for lunch but being served a pita instead, "paying" them to not have to go back inside. meetings in the morning and struggling not to fall asleep in the afternoon.

a good evening, but issues with mr smear around and after bedtime, making for a long, shit feeling until my own.

today:

a somewhat decent night's sleep, weird but forgotten dreams.

on the way to work, i dropped off the shoes gd's returning at the post office. the post office experience was okay, but the people were weird. especially the older woman who kept bashing into some guy's scooter (even immediately after apologizing for doing it), and the woman who was in a hurry because she'd left her baby somewhere bothered me.

i walked and talked with my mom on the way to the bicycle repair shop, not sure if the bike would even be there. almost there, the call cut off, and i couldn't call back - i only understood later that my ear had hit the airplane mode button :/

i arrived at the shop and asked about the bike. the good news? the bike was there, and the bike was repaired! the bad news? once there, i *had* to pick it up and i had to carry it all the way home. by the time i got home i was seriously sweating, and not only that but i was running late to a meeting...

... i managed to get to azrieli center in time for the meeting, and parked myself in the food court. this was fine at first. the first guy i spoke to was pretty professional. after five/ten minutes he realized he was in over his head and brought in a dev.

the dev joined the call wearing a wife-beater and with one arm holding a cigarette out the window next to his desk 😂

we spent the next forty five minutes finding the first bug, but the next one was on them and we eventually called it and agreed to meet again. by that stage the end-of-summer-holidays crowds had filled the food court and the rest of the mall, it was loud and unpleasant, and getting out to the street was anxiety-inducing.

i arrived at work just as everyone was planning on going out to eat. i'd brought lunch from home, but i joined them anyway - i recently read somewhere that nobody ever remembers when you worked through lunch, but they remember when you impacted them socially, so i've been making a point of not skipping lunches / happy hours.

i didn't want to eat, but i hadn't had my usual second coffee and i stumbled upon a fruit shake place selling vegan coffee shakes made with dates and bananas, and that sounded really good. unfortunately, i didn't think to ask about the price until the shake was already ready, and i was shocked to discover it was more than the cost of a meal. it wasn't just me, my coworkers were shocked too.

it was delicious, to be fair, but i won't be doing that again.

the rest of the work day was... not bad, but difficult. i've been struggling with frontend shenanigans for two days, and it's been very frustrating. every time i've gotten one thing working, another's fallen apart.

in the middle of it all, i had my second bi-weekly (every two weeks) meeting with my boss. i was expecting to discuss how things have been, considering that the last meeting was quite negative, but i guess things are fine because we chatted awkwardly about family and argued gently about traditional weddings - i've never been to a wedding with groomsmen.

anyway, there was a visceral moment this evening, around 5pm, when i suddenly, luckily - nay, miraculously - got everything working the way i wanted it. i spent most of the next hour tidying things up for a code review, and then walked home.

the evening has been mostly positive.

skull storm

i've just completed the skull storm challenge. it was the last holdout achievement for me. i have been on edge the entire run, with a wacky deck that had just as much chance - no, more chance - of crashing and burning than of getting through three rounds of grizzlies and everything else leshy had to throw at me.

pictures for illustration:

an eclectic insect deck with an insect/hive totem - first time i've ever played that

me drawing my unkillable, fired-up mantis god copy (the bad copy without the annoying sigil) in the starting hand of the final battle.

what a trip!

for months i've been playing almost daily, pausing only to play through hex for the first time, and for months i've been unable to wrap my head around just how utterly, absurdly brilliant this game is / all the daniel mullins games are.

i just posted a thank you in the discord to everyone whose comments pulled me back in when i got frustrated, and whose suggestions helped me think a bit differently ✌️ 🙏 🤯 

back to front

 yeah, it wasn't a great night's sleep, but it was definitely an improvement. so that's good.

i started the day with a walk to the hospital, after discovering that gd and i had completely missed her appointment we waited months to be able to make. by months. the appointment was mid-may.

mid-may.

goddamn.

anyway, i managed to secure one for only a couple of weeks' time, and i managed to sort out some more stuff at the clinic along the way home.

...

mr smear's drawing is incredible. he drew a knight on a horse, waving a flag, in motion, yesterday, and today he doodled (on a computer with a mouse) detailed images of among us characters that completely blew us away.

...

i spent most of my work day involved in frontend fuckery. i've managed to get the results i wanted, under very particular circumstances, and the underlying code is ugly and i have no idea what it's actually doing.

it's kinda embarrassing.

i went over all the extracurricular activities the school is offering, misread how much it would cost, got both gd and mr smear excited about them, and then realized we couldn't afford it. i'm struggling to wrap my head around how the arts and music programmes cost between the same amounts as the school fees and double the school fees, and that's on top of the school fees.

where are the other parents getting all this money?

anyway, gd took mr smear to his hebrew tutor, and i took him to his jiujitsu class. for the most part, his day went well and mine was pretty successful. and gd's doing well enough emotionally that she's actually been able to read for the first time in ages. so that's good.

it was fun chatting with a cousin my mom was visiting while putting mr smear to bed. afterwards, we continued reading the goblet of fire but i had to stop because the book's version of events at the quidditch world cup were far too much like what's actually happening with us and hamas/hezbollah.

holy shit.

quiet

 the workday was... frontend. i spent the morning figuring out and successfully replicating echarts' tooltip rendering, only to discover that they've recently added a method that completely obviated the need for doing so. otherwise, it was a constructive day but psychologically costly, as in it cost me more snacking than i'm happy to admit to keep me keeping on.

i was reminded of the interview i bombed a couple of years ago, when i said i was "full stack" but not so good with making things look nice, and they tested me as a frontend. in my current role, i'm the most frontend guy in the team and it's clear how much more comfortable i am with the html/css/javascript ick.

i called the furniture store, who we ordered cushions from about half a year ago. apparently they've been in their warehouse for a while, and they haven't retrieved them yet. not one piece of information in that sentence makes any sense to me.

anyway, the day was alright, and the evening was pretty pleasant. i've spent the past few hours trying to wear myself out with games (inscryption and bloons) and youtube videos, and i'm not quite sure i'm ready to sleep yet... i mean, i'm pretty tired, but my back's hurting and i'm worried it's going to end up being more of the same from last night :/

compulsions

 i'm really not sleeping well. friday night was a bit better, but still rough, and last night was pretty horrible. i did have some really weird dreams, though, when i finally did pass out a few hours ago. in one of them i was being harrassed by an "undercover" black man when i saw his red-haired manager plant something in his bag. that ended with me physically attacking the manager, but although i was beating him up we had that weird dream-thing going on where my attacks were doing a lot less damage than they would have in real life.

there was another dream, too, but the moment i described the first one that one melted away... something about a sandwich named "jamothy" and a vegan tuna wrap named "vuna vovegood".

yesterday was all over the place. firstly, i got up with a bee in my bonnet about obtaining the missing inscryption achievements (666 damage and deleting the captive file). that didn't take very long (thank god i tried the stim mage tactic, because the ouroboros one was extremely tedious), but even after obtaining them i continued playing through the end of the game again because i was enjoying the deck i built.

the afternoon was mostly spent relaxing and napping.

i had a talk with my mother about our argument the other day, i hope what i said landed.

in the evening, mr smear and i walked to the climbing wall. the walk there was nice in itself, but there were a lot more kids than usual so mr smear had to queue to get on walls, and by the third one he got emotional. i tried to talk to him after he calmed down a little, but he said some really hurtful things and i needed to walk them off.

we met outside, and started on our way back, and i was trying to find a way to tell him how he made me feel without making him feel the same. it looks like i succeeded, but that opened up a proper fight over him going to the summer school and after school programmes, and i sat him down on a bench and talked (okay, there was some yelling) him through what we, as his parents, saw and went through.

suddenly, the look on his face changed and he apologized for what he'd said, and we both took some breaths and had a very grown-up conversation about it all. that continued into the walk home, and the rest of the evening went well.

this morning was going well until he thought i was teasing him about his accent (i wasn't), and we had a whole different shit-show. eventually resolved, but not without me stress-sweating. and it turns out the new anti-persperant that gd insisted on me buying doesn't work well for me, and she subsequently insisted on me getting rid of it :/

...

anyway, i've just arrived at work and am about to begin my day. everyone's nervous because we stopped a massive missile attack aimed at tel aviv, and i just cannot figure out why we're supposed to be more worried today than yesterday, before we stopped it. or the past two weeks, when they've been threatening it. or the past eleven months, when they've been attacking us non-stop.

if it was up to me, i would've dropped flyers on quatar and tehran weeks ago, waited a few days, and then bombed the shit out of them.

slowdown

i slept a bit better, but still not great.

today began busily. we started off on a mission to get mr smear's gear for the new school year, and neither i nor the poor kid at the stationery store could make heads or tails of some of the items on the list. mr smear and i had a really good conversation on our way into the mall, and if he remembers any of it i think he's going to have a much better year.

mr smear got really excited about vine leaves and cauliflower schnitzel, so we splurged. it was outrageously expensive, but i kinda wanna encourage him anyways.

after getting home and eating a bit, we all took his bike to the repair shop. it was a long, long walk in the heat, which hasn't been this oppressive since my mother left... i had an unpleasant and weird moment with a woman who arrived after us, but cut in front of us. if i'm honest with myself, i shouldn't have been waiting so politely for someone to get to me. anyway, we left them the bike and my phone number, not a clue when they'll get back to me.

on the way home we stopped for lemonade and to get mr smear a half-pita of falafel, which he thoroughly enjoyed. gd says he's entering his "eating" phase. if that's true, i'm good with that.

the afternoon was spent very lazily. we tried watching my dinner with andre, which i found somewhat interesting before i passed out and which gd walked out on pretty quickly. i invited mr smear to join me as i played through the ending of inscryption, and we both enjoyed that. we ended up watching quite a few videos about it, and i'm now playing through act ii again just to get an achievement i missed, and there's a final kaycee's mod achievement that i missed as well...

in the evening, i tricked mr smear into watching some of fantasia with us, which he enjoyed a lot more than he thought he would.

we just finished a late kiddush / dinner, and everyone's getting ready to go to bed.

the feelings

tuesday:

my boss didn't like my approach. we argued about it for a bit, after which he decided to put the work on hold while he thought about it. it's frustrating, but the fact that i've seen that one of my coworkers is working on fixing an underlying issue, the discovery of which was through my efforts and which i've been saying needs to be taken care of, is at least a little comforting.

our new sprint began, and almost all of my work is frontend. i'm strangely okay with that.

on tuesday evening i took mr smear with me when i went to the school to pick up his books for the next year. the summer holidays are almost over...

after putting him to bed, gd told me she'd been feeling really sad. i didn't know what to do with that information.

yesterday:

yesterday morning was going alright until gd said something that triggered a fight, a fight about how she's been dealing (or not dealing) with the past 11 months of war and trauma, but really a fight about how and when she communicates (or doesn't) with me about it.

so the day started off really shitty for both of us, but by the time i got to my office building i'd managed to transform my anger into something more constructive and we both found ourselves in a better place.

the work day was alright, which was a big deal considering how not alright it's been for week or two prior. everything was okay, everything was put on the table during the retrospective and the vibe was less tense in general.

when i got home, gd and i had a talk. a lot of the time, i say things and she says things and we talk past each other, but last night we not only heard each other, but i managed to put things to her in a way that she clearly heard, and not only did she immediately feel better about things but she's been doing a lot better over the course of today.

and even that is more than either of us expected.

i passed out on the couch immediately after putting mr smear to bed. nothing knocks me out faster than reading to him.

today:

around midnight, i was able to drag myself off the couch and get into bed. doing that, however, woke me up just enough to be too conscious of the stiffness around my hips to be able to get back to sleep, but i was also too tired to get up. even for a little bit. that went on for a few hours, and although i occasionally had the strength to get up and move around it would wear out within minutes and i'd need to lie down and suffer again.

i don't know how long it was before i finally fell asleep, but i'm guessing three of four hours of that.

my alarm clock woke me up at 7am, and i rushed everyone else up, grabbed a cup of coffee in a takeaway cup and walked to the post office. i arrived there just past eight, picked up gd's shoes, then walked back. it was hot, and i was pretty sweaty by the time i got home.

i didn't even take my shoes off, just gulped down a cup of water in the entrance and then we all went to the bus stop with gd's sewing machine to head down to the sewing machine repair shop. it was a long ride, with some very... interesting... people, and gd regretfully informed me that i need to start wearing deodorant 💀

we arrived at the shop just after 9am, and we were out of there in about ten minutes. i took a bus to work and they took a bus home.

the work day was - socially - good. all good. the work itself was difficult, parts of it quite unpleasant, really, and it was really hard to focus on it. but i eventually got it 98% completed, and my boss agrees that if i can't finish it within the first couple of hours on sunday then it'll be good enough as is.

i had a long chat with our cape town community director, and it was a huge relief to hear that by and large they've shifted (ideologically) to a stronger (and right) position vis-a-vis the war and zionism. gd still has reservations, but i'm glad that they didn't cater to the pro-palestinian nonsense.

i ate too much cake during our happy hour.

on the way home, i contacted urchin who informed me that she's finally signed a contract with a new employer! we're really excited for her, she's been miserable for ages and the new gig (on paper, at least) sounds way better in every respect :)

the evening was mostly good, although we had to stop watching harry potter during the scene in which bellatrix interrogates hermione because gd couldn't handle it. our national PTSD with the hostage situation is very real.

before and after putting mr smear to bed, my mother and i had a really heavy argument about her and aliyah and a lot of it was really unpleasant. at the very end, i feel like she at least heard me, but i don't know what good that'll do.

if she chooses to stay in south africa, or at least not prepare to make aliyah before the universe forces it on her, the most likely outcome is that we'll all be in big trouble. but she's a big girl and only she can make that call.

overload

 today wasn't easy. it started with financial stress, and borrowing money from my mother again. that's really not a good feeling. gd and i had a serious talk about strategy from her end, which i feel was constructive, and an argument about shopping brought out a story from her childhood she's never shared with me before, something that's pretty useful to know.

i worked from home today, and mr smear was being difficult. i had a call with last week's coworker of the week, and the tone seemed pretty positive.

my work day was 95% battling to understand why my tests were flaking out, which was a quintessentially frustrating experience. especially considering that even the source of the flakiness was flaky.

in the afternoon i took mr smear to his jiujitsu class, but he was the only kid there. i convinced him to help out his teacher with promotional material, and they made what from the side appear to be really funny videos. if the videos don't come out as funny, i personally got to witness absolute hilarity in their production :)

i'm concerned about mr smear's neck - he really doesn't understand how important it is to keep his neck stiff when standing on his head. or use his arms to carry his weight. i really hope he doesn't end up with a neck like his parents'...

while mr smear's behavior while we were out was good, it regressed as soon as we got home. gd informed me that it's been days of that - i'd thought everything was going smoothly - and we had a couple of tense "conversations" before he appeared to remember his place. the rest of the evening went pretty smoothly as far as he was concerned.

another coworker called me just as mr smear was going to bed, and he confirmed that the theory i'd come up with only minutes before made sense, and pointed me towards the source. i think he was quite surprised that i came up with a solution as quickly as i did, and once he understood what i was getting at he seemed enthusiastic. hopefully my boss will feel the same tomorrow.

earlier i completed a survey from the school, it looks like they're making a play for controlling the kids' screentime and access to mobile devices. i don't trust their judgement in the slightest.

gd and i watched the first bit of the director's cut of donnie darko before she crashed, and although it's been a couple of decades i was amazed by how familiar i felt with the characters and scenes!

after gd went to bed, i had a quick chat with my mom and then fired up inscryption. i meant to play until i was ready to pass out, but it's almost 1am and i've just completed act iii for the second time. only this time, i unlocked loads more stuff, built a ridiculously overpowered and fun deck, and encountered some puzzles and scenes i'd completely missed the first time around. i'm really happy i decided to play through again.

otherworldly

 today was a weird day. i was on-call, but fortunately the only thing i needed to deal with could wait until i was back in the office... mr smear and i accompanied gd to the dermatologist, deep in the heart of bnei brak. on the bus there we discussed - for mr smear's benefit - the differences and similarities between the ultra-orthodox and us, and he was fascinated.

we arrived half an hour earlier than the scheduled appointment time, and just as the electricity in the building began to flicker, which messed up the queue system. we walked a bit to find a store where i could get a coffee and gd and mr smear could get something cold to drink, and the two of them picked up parve (but not vegan) potato burekas which they both agreed was absolutely delicious.

fortunately, due to my not wanting to burn my tongue i took the lid off my coffee before tasting it, so i had the opportunity to see that they'd put milk in it and take it back for a replacement.

we ended up waiting quite a while for the doctor, but once we saw him he was absolutely worth the wait. he was patient, and thorough, and explained his thinking while actually doing something to help gd. apparently, what she's managed to develop is a "nail-shaped corn" driving straight into her foot. he performed the conservative treatment, and we're all hoping it's good enough and that she won't end up needing surgery.

getting back to tel aviv took forever, partially because the first bus skipped our stop, and partially because of the ridiculous traffic through bnei brak...

i was hungry by 2pm when i finally got into the office, but i had some challah and a couple of tiny pieces of mr smear's breakfast wraps, and a banana, and aside from that and a couple of energy bars i was very good about not snacking today.

i had a big dinner to make up for it, but all healthy stuff :) i registered yesterday that over the past week i've been getting flabbier again - not heavier, but definitely more "meaty" than i'd like :/

the work day felt marginally successful, and i walked home in time for dinner. we continued watching the seventh harry potter movie, and then it was mr smear's bedtime, and then i sat down for some more inscryption time.

i discovered the bone lord in act iii, which i hadn't heard of before, and i beat the mycologists in a way that scored me an *amazing* card even though i hadn't read how that mechanism works (i just got lucky).

oh, and i've started doing an exercise that i saw online today, seems like it might actually be good for my hip / waist issues.

making memories

 phew.

last night i told mr smear we'd go out early this morning and head to the beach. he wasn't too enthusiastic then, but in the morning he absolutely refused to go to the beach. i managed to talk him down, compromising on the beach itself but not on going for a ride.

we enjoyed a fun ride down to the beach. when we got there, mr smear didn't follow my instructions to use the stair guide for bikes and dropped his bike, obliterating his front brake.

so that kind of sucked. but at least the rear brake was still good.

then, as we got to the bottom of the stairs, on a beautiful, perfect-beach-weather morning, with relatively few beachgoers and fantastic conditions, he said: "dad, i wanna go to the beach."

godsdammit.

we didn't have beach gear, because we'd gorram agreed not to the go to beach.

anyway. we rode down the promenade for a bit, then he decided he was ready to turn back. on the way, we stopped to get him a fanta, and then a fruit shake. we ended up sitting on a bench for quiet a while, just chatting and enjoying being where we were.

it was pretty cool.

eventually we decided it was time to go home, and by then it had gotten a lot hotter. by the time we got home, we were sweaty, and ready for some a/c, and three hours had gone by.

it was a good morning.

after showering, we enjoyed a big breakfast (neither of us had eaten, he hadn't been interested when i offered), and then settled in to watch gremlins 2, which we'd agreed to hold off on until it was daytime so he wouldn't be scared. he made it through about half the movie before decided to nope on out, primarily because it was too gory (all the slime :P).

he and gd then watched the aristocats, which they enjoyed. i didn't see much of it because i was passed out on the couch for the most part.

the rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur, but then we had some drama: mr smear had agreed to go out again, and we'd reminded him for about two hours beforehand that it was happening, and then the time came to go and he was not interested in going. it took a combination of convincing and coercing to finally get him out the door, but although the first minute or two were quiet and uncomfortable he suddenly opened up and started talking about the games he remembers from the ps3 back in south africa. that led to a conversation about nostalgia, and about how our moments together now will be something i already know i'll have nostalgia for, and about rebelliousness and teenage hormones and how no matter what he feels we'll always have his back.

we ended up taking a rather long walk through the park, and we both enjoyed it. it was a very good end to a very good day. we got him in time for a second shower, a delicious dinner and the first part of the seventh harry potter movie, and a pleasant bedtime.

and then some more inscryption, act iii. i just discovered the mycologists for the first time 🤯

*sighs deeply*

i think i'm in a better place today than i've been for a while. hopefully that translates to a better work week. regardless, today was a day full of stuff i'm grateful for.

friday

 i'm tired. probably going to bed soon. it was a... a day. not bad, really, but there's still a bad aftertaste from the week left in my mouth. i guess i need to make an effort to get my head into a better space, not just to enjoy the weekend but to try to start the new week on the right foot...

the three of us started the day at the mall, which was a predominantly unsuccessful attempt at getting gd sorted with footwear that doesn't hurt her, but i did pick up a couple of minecraft comics in hebrew for mr smear.

then we came home and played inscryption together on the playstation. then gd decided she wanted to go for an ice-cream, but mr smear didn't want to come with, so we left him here to roblox and we enjoyed a nice walk (and shared a small ice-cream, and then i picked up a falafel for a late lunch).

the late afternoon / evening was nice.

we finished rewatching the half-blood prince, and as amazed as mr smear was that something made so long ago could be so good, dumbledore's death caused him to break down in tears. but then he was fine...

after getting him into bed, i really wanted to complete inscryption's act ii properly, and i did. so that was good.

grinding down the week

yesterday:

work yesterday was hard, i was keenly conscious of my interactions with my coworkers and boss and generally feeling shit. not as shit as tuesday night, which i was anxious for most of, but still pretty shit.

i spent most of my work day generating test data and testing postgres support for and performance with jsonb columns. the results were... inconsistent. and i learned a lot about the limitations. jsonb in a postgres database can be incredibly powerful, but the table designer has to pay careful attention to the possible operations to make it work and ours... didn't.

last night i was in a zoom call where a group of us was briefed (unofficially) by an idf spokesperson. it was generally interesting, but of particular interest was him repeatedly expressing an (informed) opinion that really doesn't fit with how our government's been operating*, but is very much in line with what a whole lot of us believe.

* ie. listening to our ignorant western allies even though we have a much better idea of what we're up against and what's at stake

today:

still with the shit feeling around the office, but a bit more positive. socially the day was me just being (relatively) under the radar, but while i definitely got a lot done, it was a miserable experience. as far as i can tell i'm handling this in the best way we could under the circumstances, but the solution isn't sparking much joy. and it still needs much more serious testing. so that's what i'll be doing on sunday.

when i'm not taking gd into the heart of bnei brak for an emergency dermatologist appointment that i managed to organize for her this morning. i may have yelled a little bit.

mr smear and i had time to play some a virus named tom between my getting out the shower and dinner time, and that was quite a fun experience. he apparently had a pretty good day today, particularly at mma where the jiujitsu instructor wasn't feeling well so the kids had a class that was basically sports games and socializing.

that's fine by us.

...

i looked into dental insurance again this morning, it's not a thing. i'm in real pain (last year's filling "fix" damaged a nerve that radiates deep into my jaw) and gd's apparently got two teeth threatening to crack. we literally cannot afford to do anything about either right now.

the snap

 this morning started alright, but went downhill fast from the moment i looked at our upcoming expenses. i know where they come from, and i know why they're necessary, and it doesn't help me breathe any easier.

i went past the hospital to start organizing insurance authorization for gd, and then past an office depot where i picked her up a small book of plastic sleeves.

the work day seemed to start off alright, but by lunchtime we had some drama about what my ticket is all about, and i struggled to communicate with my boss. the afternoon was a mixed bag of agreements and disagreements, and then in the evening my boss and i had a one-on-one which went... not badly, but not great either.

i think we covered all the things in a constructive way, but one thing that he said to me has really made me feel shit and i've been down in the dumps all evening: i said something to my coworker the other night that was taken completely the wrong way, and i can't fault him for taking it that way even though it's absolutely not what i intended.

fuck.

ironically, after all the arguments of the day, my boss finally sat down and looked at what i was doing, and finally understood what i'd been trying to explain to him.

*sigh*

anyway, it looks like my approach might work, but i have some big testing to do tomorrow.

i wallowed all the way home, had a not-unpleasant evening (or, at least, nothing further unpleasant happened), mr smear (who seems to have had a good day) is now in bed, most of the dishes are done, and i'm feeling utterly done for the day.

oh, and gd found her headphones this afternoon.

oh, and both gd and i need root canals and crowns, apparently, and we can't afford the dental work.

oh, and along with everything else we're in a really stressful situation regarding the war. or not-war. i feel like we missed an enormous opportunity to outright attack iran today, specifically because it was tisha b'av and they were threatening to attack us. i believe that strategically the worst thing we can do, and it's what we're doing, is listen to our allies telling us not to escalate. the west is making a big mistake, and every day we don't take them down is another day closer to doomsday.

...

gd's progressing really well with her sewing, at least. hopefully she'll be able to start selling stuff soon.