this morning i heard on the radio that south africa is considering raising the legal drinking age to 21 in order to reduce alcohol-related crime, in spite of all evidence suggesting that that will have the opposite effect.
and now we're going to stop piracy? the best thing for musicians that's happened in recent history was steve jobs forcing artists and labels alike to charge $1 per song. music piracy has actually been shown to *help* sales, at least of merchandise and concert tickets.
what we need is to see the same thing in books and cinema, because if you give people reasonable prices then... *GASP*... they will pay. and everybody will win.
our governments need to stop trying to control shit and start trying to manage everything constructively. if you're not a part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Sunday, May 15, 2016
after bedtime
saturday 30th:
deliberately doing nothing
the woodworld expedition on the worst possible day: through the old biscuit mill traffic only to find our destination closed... so we went to the old biscuit mill. i got road rage just from walking through that insanity
nooka ftw! phenomenally good humus, proper israeli style
trying to take advantage of the gorgeous weather by taking gd and mr smear to camps bay beach, where we were greeted by a sudden cold wind and a series of assholes
coming back home to our own issues (while trying to relax), a visit from my sister with some disturbing news, my mind being shot and an unnerving liquor store experience
watching most of the first episode of game of thrones after putting mr smear to bed...
sunday 1st:
... which set the tone for a long, inexplicably sleepless night (excess karvol? too hot or too cold? teething? bad dreams?)
a shit morning, surprise else heart.break() download, an interesting decorex experience with my mom, knead and visiting my great aunt
puking poison (floor flakes) and parent panic, then some more game of thrones
monday 2nd:
mr smear actually sleeping
epic, weird dreams including hiding out in the magic users cabins while being hunted, inspiring adam sandler to do a spoken word performance
being the first out of bed after a good night's rest
vacuuming followed by a badly timed haircut: equipment fail, burning legs, a soiled diaper, hairs everywhere and an unexpected visitor at the worst possible time...
... but an excuse to take mr smear into the shower with me, which was a fun experience, a long nap time for all (a very sore gd)
a slow afternoon and evening, mr smear's routine, a little bit of jealousy over nystire's freedom to rapidly prototype an idea of mine
a little prep for the new job, more game of thrones and a reasonably early night
tuesday 3rd:
a decent night, an early appointment with the tax consultant / dancer / jiujitsu teacher / mercenary, the hospital visit, plant lunch and familiar faces
baby city parking failure, serious headache
t'was my first night contracting again / and all throughout the house / not a creature was stirring / all one could hear was my mouse
wednesday 4th:
3am freezing, gd letting me sleep late, all the wrongs foods, knead for breakfast and giving the owner bad news about canada, dis-chem rush, the acupuncturist, pooping on the way home, mom down, laptop hunting, insane drivers all the way to the hair salon
a cup of tea until mr smear woke up angry (just as gd finished), back home, quickly shopping for us and my mom, back to work
i cannot understand why a product that doesn't list any dairy ingredients but says "may contain milk" and calls itself "lacto vegetarian" gave me the indigestion that i only get when i've consumed a lot of cheese. my aren't the dairy ingredients listed?
thursday 5th:
not the most productive of nights, tax pressure, an irrational morning followed by a surprise visit from the building's angry handyman, a nap, small victories, a lot of dishes, a lovely walk along the promenade, shopping while hungry
good food eaten twice, mom visit and workstation purchase (delayed pickup due to misunderstanding); the salesman messing with me when i walked in and my response which could only be appreciated in a country where people face race
listening to safm on the way home: no, south africa, co-ed universities are not the reason for the high number of campus rape cases
friday 6th:
taxes (late already) and installations into the night, getting stuck on the former and being pretty successful with the latter, a rough night for mr smear and a fiery dawn windstorm
a disappointing ultrasound result with mr smear entertaining the waiting room, a great plant breakfast
taxes, taxes, taxes - long phone calls to canada only to discover that ufile's data import is severely flawed
an early night unable to focus on work
saturday 7th:
a good night for all, meeting the maid, urgent early morning tax printing and trying to inform my uncle about nutrition, grandma babysitting and acupuncture drop off and standing in the post office and realizing that i'd forgotten to print some important documents
lunchtime awkwardness (we did it all wrong), the baby city mission, building a changing table to awful instructions, carrying a heavy trestle table alone under a magnificent sunset sky, mom pharmacy mission, coming home to a sleeping child and preparing to pick up a delicious dinner from kushi (authentic spicing!), GoT: i have to say, though, that as good as this is - and it is GOOD - it really makes me itch to see a similar-quality translation of the wheel of time series, or the sword of truth, or the book of words, or the belgariad. those would be AMAZING.
another early night,
sunday 8th:
but getting up around 4am to setup my workstation
6am wakeup from a cold morning, the mistake of presenting my mother with unwrapped gifts, meeting up with my sister's family and driving out to philadelphia for a great mother's day breakfast, driving back with vomit and a full diaper, coffee and a conman at the holocaust centre, gd's visit and mr smear's first rope climb (kind of)
fancon! the trouble parking (and the shame of leaving the window open), running into shadowslight and an old friend, meeting great illustrators, rushing to pick up my mom with a lucky ten in coins to get us out of the parking, home and shopping and putting mr smear to bed, dinner and GoT and early to bed
monday 9th:
a long, unintentionally sleepless night, a foggy morning (both inside and out), tax document printing, hellkom visit, lunch and tax paper shuffling, finally mailing the documents (mail and pray service), driving out to canal walk to buy wall panel heaters at game but after finally getting ourselves ready to shop (after feeding and changing mr smear, failing to find a good tailor and grabbing a cup of coffee; plus gd's cheese and spinach muffin), finding the store to be shut down for three days of stock taking
quick 'n heavy pharmacy shopping, giving my mom (who still wasn't feeling well) a hand, and getting to work. hitting pure exhaustion about halfway through the night...
the building manager floor story twist
tuesday 10th:
a much better night; early rising, high stress landlord response, the rush to game and bumping into a big man's license plate because the gear slipped into reverse instead of first... TWICE, the quick purchase on the wrong card, a splendid job by the electrician installing our heaters, high tension cleanup, positive illustrator response, badly synchronized lunchtime events (??), the lone wolf at the waterfront, mom's falafel pickup and tax talk, a long night with shitty computer problems
wednesday 11th:
mr smear sleeping soundly after taking half an hour to go to bed, expensive cheap heating, dell's crap backup software
my first pram jam, shopping, lunch and a pleasant chat with the south african consulate in israel
the chiropractor's no show, quick-ish pharmacy visit and a great talk with the illustrator
getting work done, playing with paypal (and learning that fnb still holds details on me from when i was a teenager)
thursday 12th:
an especially sour start to the day, so no chance of resting
frustrating work, a visit to the doctor, an emotional visit to the other doctor, taking laundry to my mom's in the cold
friday 13th:
sleep deficit, my son's method of soaking every ball he plays with, a long meeting with the tax consultant, groovy lunch, the chiropractor, quick pharmacy run
roadkill wiki is awesome!
a lovely little shabbat dinner, game of thrones, a steady stream of software updates
did you know: leave laptops with lithium ion batteries plugged as much as you can to preserve battery life? (verify that with your manufacturer, but dell is pretty clear about it)
saturday 14th:
getting to bed at 4am after finally enjoying some success, at which point mr smear decided that *he* was done sleeping...
banking statement mismatch
mr smear drunk on boob
running into airplane's fiancée
dr's woo - crystals don't do anything to protect from emf radiation, but that's damned-near impossible to find out if you're relying on a simple google search.
me and mr smear on the merry-go-round
the herbal patches: at least they smell nice, and they're certainly making me posture-conscious
double trunk diaper change, nooka humus, speeding home and passing out, the dream-state parking switch
waking up with a sensation i haven't felt since i last was operating in the early hours of the morning
beginning GoT season 2: very cool, very, very cool
an early night for all
deliberately doing nothing
the woodworld expedition on the worst possible day: through the old biscuit mill traffic only to find our destination closed... so we went to the old biscuit mill. i got road rage just from walking through that insanity
nooka ftw! phenomenally good humus, proper israeli style
trying to take advantage of the gorgeous weather by taking gd and mr smear to camps bay beach, where we were greeted by a sudden cold wind and a series of assholes
coming back home to our own issues (while trying to relax), a visit from my sister with some disturbing news, my mind being shot and an unnerving liquor store experience
watching most of the first episode of game of thrones after putting mr smear to bed...
sunday 1st:
... which set the tone for a long, inexplicably sleepless night (excess karvol? too hot or too cold? teething? bad dreams?)
a shit morning, surprise else heart.break() download, an interesting decorex experience with my mom, knead and visiting my great aunt
puking poison (floor flakes) and parent panic, then some more game of thrones
monday 2nd:
mr smear actually sleeping
epic, weird dreams including hiding out in the magic users cabins while being hunted, inspiring adam sandler to do a spoken word performance
being the first out of bed after a good night's rest
vacuuming followed by a badly timed haircut: equipment fail, burning legs, a soiled diaper, hairs everywhere and an unexpected visitor at the worst possible time...
... but an excuse to take mr smear into the shower with me, which was a fun experience, a long nap time for all (a very sore gd)
a slow afternoon and evening, mr smear's routine, a little bit of jealousy over nystire's freedom to rapidly prototype an idea of mine
a little prep for the new job, more game of thrones and a reasonably early night
tuesday 3rd:
a decent night, an early appointment with the tax consultant / dancer / jiujitsu teacher / mercenary, the hospital visit, plant lunch and familiar faces
baby city parking failure, serious headache
t'was my first night contracting again / and all throughout the house / not a creature was stirring / all one could hear was my mouse
wednesday 4th:
3am freezing, gd letting me sleep late, all the wrongs foods, knead for breakfast and giving the owner bad news about canada, dis-chem rush, the acupuncturist, pooping on the way home, mom down, laptop hunting, insane drivers all the way to the hair salon
a cup of tea until mr smear woke up angry (just as gd finished), back home, quickly shopping for us and my mom, back to work
i cannot understand why a product that doesn't list any dairy ingredients but says "may contain milk" and calls itself "lacto vegetarian" gave me the indigestion that i only get when i've consumed a lot of cheese. my aren't the dairy ingredients listed?
thursday 5th:
not the most productive of nights, tax pressure, an irrational morning followed by a surprise visit from the building's angry handyman, a nap, small victories, a lot of dishes, a lovely walk along the promenade, shopping while hungry
good food eaten twice, mom visit and workstation purchase (delayed pickup due to misunderstanding); the salesman messing with me when i walked in and my response which could only be appreciated in a country where people face race
listening to safm on the way home: no, south africa, co-ed universities are not the reason for the high number of campus rape cases
friday 6th:
taxes (late already) and installations into the night, getting stuck on the former and being pretty successful with the latter, a rough night for mr smear and a fiery dawn windstorm
a disappointing ultrasound result with mr smear entertaining the waiting room, a great plant breakfast
taxes, taxes, taxes - long phone calls to canada only to discover that ufile's data import is severely flawed
an early night unable to focus on work
saturday 7th:
a good night for all, meeting the maid, urgent early morning tax printing and trying to inform my uncle about nutrition, grandma babysitting and acupuncture drop off and standing in the post office and realizing that i'd forgotten to print some important documents
lunchtime awkwardness (we did it all wrong), the baby city mission, building a changing table to awful instructions, carrying a heavy trestle table alone under a magnificent sunset sky, mom pharmacy mission, coming home to a sleeping child and preparing to pick up a delicious dinner from kushi (authentic spicing!), GoT: i have to say, though, that as good as this is - and it is GOOD - it really makes me itch to see a similar-quality translation of the wheel of time series, or the sword of truth, or the book of words, or the belgariad. those would be AMAZING.
another early night,
sunday 8th:
but getting up around 4am to setup my workstation
6am wakeup from a cold morning, the mistake of presenting my mother with unwrapped gifts, meeting up with my sister's family and driving out to philadelphia for a great mother's day breakfast, driving back with vomit and a full diaper, coffee and a conman at the holocaust centre, gd's visit and mr smear's first rope climb (kind of)
fancon! the trouble parking (and the shame of leaving the window open), running into shadowslight and an old friend, meeting great illustrators, rushing to pick up my mom with a lucky ten in coins to get us out of the parking, home and shopping and putting mr smear to bed, dinner and GoT and early to bed
monday 9th:
a long, unintentionally sleepless night, a foggy morning (both inside and out), tax document printing, hellkom visit, lunch and tax paper shuffling, finally mailing the documents (mail and pray service), driving out to canal walk to buy wall panel heaters at game but after finally getting ourselves ready to shop (after feeding and changing mr smear, failing to find a good tailor and grabbing a cup of coffee; plus gd's cheese and spinach muffin), finding the store to be shut down for three days of stock taking
quick 'n heavy pharmacy shopping, giving my mom (who still wasn't feeling well) a hand, and getting to work. hitting pure exhaustion about halfway through the night...
the building manager floor story twist
tuesday 10th:
a much better night; early rising, high stress landlord response, the rush to game and bumping into a big man's license plate because the gear slipped into reverse instead of first... TWICE, the quick purchase on the wrong card, a splendid job by the electrician installing our heaters, high tension cleanup, positive illustrator response, badly synchronized lunchtime events (??), the lone wolf at the waterfront, mom's falafel pickup and tax talk, a long night with shitty computer problems
wednesday 11th:
mr smear sleeping soundly after taking half an hour to go to bed, expensive cheap heating, dell's crap backup software
my first pram jam, shopping, lunch and a pleasant chat with the south african consulate in israel
the chiropractor's no show, quick-ish pharmacy visit and a great talk with the illustrator
getting work done, playing with paypal (and learning that fnb still holds details on me from when i was a teenager)
thursday 12th:
an especially sour start to the day, so no chance of resting
frustrating work, a visit to the doctor, an emotional visit to the other doctor, taking laundry to my mom's in the cold
friday 13th:
sleep deficit, my son's method of soaking every ball he plays with, a long meeting with the tax consultant, groovy lunch, the chiropractor, quick pharmacy run
roadkill wiki is awesome!
a lovely little shabbat dinner, game of thrones, a steady stream of software updates
did you know: leave laptops with lithium ion batteries plugged as much as you can to preserve battery life? (verify that with your manufacturer, but dell is pretty clear about it)
saturday 14th:
getting to bed at 4am after finally enjoying some success, at which point mr smear decided that *he* was done sleeping...
banking statement mismatch
mr smear drunk on boob
running into airplane's fiancée
dr's woo - crystals don't do anything to protect from emf radiation, but that's damned-near impossible to find out if you're relying on a simple google search.
me and mr smear on the merry-go-round
the herbal patches: at least they smell nice, and they're certainly making me posture-conscious
double trunk diaper change, nooka humus, speeding home and passing out, the dream-state parking switch
waking up with a sensation i haven't felt since i last was operating in the early hours of the morning
beginning GoT season 2: very cool, very, very cool
an early night for all
Saturday, May 14, 2016
thought for the week
i don't remember where i heard it, but i think i read somewhere once that a stretch limo with tinted windows is making a statement: "look at me! but don't look at me!"
as cute as that is, that's not what it's saying. it's actually describing the western ideal: all status, no identity.
we're better off riding bicycles.
as cute as that is, that's not what it's saying. it's actually describing the western ideal: all status, no identity.
we're better off riding bicycles.
Friday, May 06, 2016
another tax year, another tax headache
filing tax returns is a horrible thing. it gets even more horrible when everything fails because the "let's import your slips for you" function only imports 80% of the data and you spend hours on the phone trying to figure out where the numbers went wrong, and then takes a sharp turn to the south when it turns out that not only am i filing late*, but that because my address is outside of canada i can't use netfile. of course not! it's a whole different thing now that we're on different sides of the internets. how would they know which online account to update? how could they be sure that the post wouldn't get lost along the way?
at least the tax return we're owed is going to good use... paying off the cost of submission...
* lots of valid excuses that nobody cares about
at least the tax return we're owed is going to good use... paying off the cost of submission...
* lots of valid excuses that nobody cares about
Thursday, May 05, 2016
what's worse than finding a worm in your apple? the holocaust.
interesting - i didn't realize it was holocaust memorial day until after i gave my wife a copy of MAUS to read this morning. and twice this week i found myself discussing the influence that the holocaust has had on israeli society. and just yesterday i found myself arguing with someone spouting offensively ignorant drivel about the jews and whether or not we have the right to call ourselves a nation.
look where we've been, and look where we are; we've come a long way through a dark night, but we're still nowhere near to being anywhere in the light.
look where we've been, and look where we are; we've come a long way through a dark night, but we're still nowhere near to being anywhere in the light.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
farewell
sunday 24th:
the game mission, in canal walk no men are allowed to change babies, serious climbing boy, the long way to the golf course with a dirty, hungry mr smear, settling at home, the nap, getting caught eating gd's leftovers from plant, the shower
monday 25th:
everyone oversleeping. the internet fault was mine! before telkom really broke it. mr smear's ups and downs. good work, an interesting chat with a recruiter who's pushing remote work. putting the table together backwards. adventure time and call-a-pizza.
tuesday 26th:
breakdown call wakeup. locating the clutch and learning the golf door trick. hating telkom even harder than usual. an easy drive, an easy morning, a long meeting and a big stew lunch upgrade from plant - sinus-clearing spicy beans and rice, well-hung pregnant sea horses in the invisible fish tank, telkom escalation to nowhere, finding stuff to do between sprints, being forced onto de waal drive on my way to the paediatrician, catching up while waiting for my family to navigate the mariah carey traffic, pharmacists and chemo patients and nutrition skepticism, quick shopping, another netless night with adventure time and super meat boy followed by a great night's sleep
wednesday 27th:
freedom day: borrowing drills and switching car seats, custom smoothies in another great knead experience, missed acupuncture, the gift run and some manly hammering, drilling fail, tinned mushroom fail
falling asleep early
thursday 28th:
a decent night's sleep in spite of my sinuses, a standard morning broken by an emergency egg run, shouting at telkom, arriving at the office in time for a long meeting that i wasn't really feeling a part of and accidentally letting everyone know by turning the audio on when it was my turn to say something
small victories on my second last day
too many fruit rolls
leaving in the rain
friday 29th:
freezing night with lots of waking
telkom opening at 9am, not 8am, so rushing out of a warm bed for nothing, the sudden onset of the internets (to be followed a full day later by an sms informing me of their success)
the successful plant baked goods, the lesson in not discussing epigenetics with parents who've tried sleep training, a great graphic novel lunch with an old CLAWs friend (who still has my old 2000AD collection)
the final hours, wiping my macbook and saying goodbye, walking out feeling good
a nice little friday night dinner at our place, getting an early start on next week with SxS
saturday 30th:
a more disciplined night, with two wakeup-and-go-back-to-sleeps and one feed, waking up early in the morning for a slow, pleasant start to the day. i feel good about the week went.
the game mission, in canal walk no men are allowed to change babies, serious climbing boy, the long way to the golf course with a dirty, hungry mr smear, settling at home, the nap, getting caught eating gd's leftovers from plant, the shower
monday 25th:
everyone oversleeping. the internet fault was mine! before telkom really broke it. mr smear's ups and downs. good work, an interesting chat with a recruiter who's pushing remote work. putting the table together backwards. adventure time and call-a-pizza.
tuesday 26th:
breakdown call wakeup. locating the clutch and learning the golf door trick. hating telkom even harder than usual. an easy drive, an easy morning, a long meeting and a big stew lunch upgrade from plant - sinus-clearing spicy beans and rice, well-hung pregnant sea horses in the invisible fish tank, telkom escalation to nowhere, finding stuff to do between sprints, being forced onto de waal drive on my way to the paediatrician, catching up while waiting for my family to navigate the mariah carey traffic, pharmacists and chemo patients and nutrition skepticism, quick shopping, another netless night with adventure time and super meat boy followed by a great night's sleep
wednesday 27th:
freedom day: borrowing drills and switching car seats, custom smoothies in another great knead experience, missed acupuncture, the gift run and some manly hammering, drilling fail, tinned mushroom fail
falling asleep early
thursday 28th:
a decent night's sleep in spite of my sinuses, a standard morning broken by an emergency egg run, shouting at telkom, arriving at the office in time for a long meeting that i wasn't really feeling a part of and accidentally letting everyone know by turning the audio on when it was my turn to say something
small victories on my second last day
too many fruit rolls
leaving in the rain
friday 29th:
freezing night with lots of waking
telkom opening at 9am, not 8am, so rushing out of a warm bed for nothing, the sudden onset of the internets (to be followed a full day later by an sms informing me of their success)
the successful plant baked goods, the lesson in not discussing epigenetics with parents who've tried sleep training, a great graphic novel lunch with an old CLAWs friend (who still has my old 2000AD collection)
the final hours, wiping my macbook and saying goodbye, walking out feeling good
a nice little friday night dinner at our place, getting an early start on next week with SxS
saturday 30th:
a more disciplined night, with two wakeup-and-go-back-to-sleeps and one feed, waking up early in the morning for a slow, pleasant start to the day. i feel good about the week went.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
the notice
sunday 17th:
a pretty good night's sleep but mr smear waking up with a serious fever
cooling down to playful, nap time, big shopping and unnecessary tension and panic
the job offer
a quiet evening spent calculating things and playing with mr smear, even reading a little
monday 18th:
it would have been an easier night if my neck wasn't so sore, weird dreams and a few wakings and putting him in the bed with us when 7am approached and he wouldn't sleep but wasn't really ready to wake up yet either
a gorgeous sunrise on a week that began with the news that boaty mcboatface won (although they won't use it :()
tofu that i had to eat half of before i was sure it wasn't beef
the meta xkcd shirt: that moment when you realize that the person whose shirt you're staring at is staring back at you. or, as was my experience today, that moment when you realize that the person you thought was staring you down was merely mesmerized by your shirt.
the considerably overweight woman at the kiosk trying to establish the freshness of the sandwich because "i'm worried about my health"
offending anti-UX dev by being surprised by some legacy code
saying goodbye to the brit, followed by accepting the offer from SxS
the sticky handbrake? fine. the reverse gear not always taking first time? okay. the car needing a minute to warm up? if i must. but all three together when some jerk has parked me in? fuck off.
a quiet evening until mr smear got up, ending on dark note caused by a typical male misunderstanding (women usually don't want solutions, they want sympathy)
tuesday 19th:
a straightforward night, a chilly morning
finally making a call to a domestic worker and then learning that i'd been given significantly different instructions than were intended
who's flooding the engine?
cheeseless pizza with cheese; too hungry to not eat it anyway
small victories (and a bit of super meat boy) after everyone went to bed
wednesday 20th:
a night of serious post-cheese suffering - painful indigestion
an early, productive morning (minus trouble starting the engine again)
a long workday
another treasure island lunch
the awkward team photo when you know you're leaving
it's not me flooding the engine, there's definitely a problem
challenging mr smear (in particular about dressing him), pies and adventure time
thursday 21st:
not an easy night but a vast improvement over the previous one, a decent morning and very fortuitously having internet installed before heading off to work
being caught by the man who i'd unwittingly parked in the day before
mr smear's breathing difficulties, a pretty productive morning and being called out to take mr smear to the doctor just after i ordered lunch
finishing treasure island along with a magnificent "bunless mexican", arriving to a blocked parking, the doctor, the pharmacy (and a very rude hebrew teacher who didn't recognize nor acknowledge me as she cut in front)
shopping and running into an old classmate in the checkout, getting a bit of work done while feeling more and more grateful to be leaving as i go deeper into their methods
a sleepy, restless mr smear, sorting out services, super meat boy followed by adventure time and a big dinner
friday 22nd:
hardcore midnight freak out with a sick mr smear (breathing trouble, and so bad he projectile vomited), spilled medication, some broken glass and a lot of struggling until gd finally got him breathing easily enough to sleep... an intermittent baby monitor, and a really early wake-up
a difficult notice to give, team sadness, hard work on a surprise customer service day, curry lunch and emergency dinner shopping in a storm, gd overload just before the smelly old woman after ten minutes waiting in the "express" checkout arguing with the cashier and then the cashier calling for her supervisor
a rushed, stressed afternoon with a bad handover before hitting rush hour for forty five minutes (i picked the right route but the wrong lane) and stressing to get ready for dinner and the ice cream parlour being closed without warning and...
...
... a lovely seder (grumpy old man doing it himself at high speed), mr smear's new friend, learning about tim noakes and his unscientific wishful thinking campaign: tim noakes is a fraud. but he's a fraud who tells a great story. which is why there are smart people who fall for his shit, in spite of an overwhelming body of evidence that's easily available. this upsets me.
saturday 23rd:
another difficult night, the rising crescendo until i finally convinced gd that for once i was the more experienced (allergies), sleeping eucalyptus and some good hours for us
waking up to no internet, an irritable start with improvement towards acupuncture, a positive telkom experience (the broken modem actually saved us a couple of weeks of shitty net access), picking up gd with a still-sleeping mr smear
the eggbeating will continue until morale improves
my theory this passover is that moses might not have been a single man, but rather a role played by a number of men, and that that's why the name is in plural.
an unattractive sexy food experience
"who died and made you john lennon?"
coconut water / pineapple / cayenne smoothie success, a floppy vish burger, mr smear choking on cabbage
car trunk changing table
h&m carrying a climbing boy, shop attendant adoration
shower, big pre-bath poop forcing a second shower, rushed prep, big, delicious dinner (vegan kneidlach!) and a very cool shortened seder and a lot of interesting talk (though i definitely pressed a few buttons), mr smear on me wrapped in his bear blanket
sunday 24th:
a comment on mr smear's improvement preceding an unpleasant wake-up, weird dreams and waking up to find mr smear crying and not sure how long he'd been like that for :(
a relaxed, sunny sunday morning but with hints of sinusitis
a pretty good night's sleep but mr smear waking up with a serious fever
cooling down to playful, nap time, big shopping and unnecessary tension and panic
the job offer
a quiet evening spent calculating things and playing with mr smear, even reading a little
monday 18th:
it would have been an easier night if my neck wasn't so sore, weird dreams and a few wakings and putting him in the bed with us when 7am approached and he wouldn't sleep but wasn't really ready to wake up yet either
a gorgeous sunrise on a week that began with the news that boaty mcboatface won (although they won't use it :()
tofu that i had to eat half of before i was sure it wasn't beef
the meta xkcd shirt: that moment when you realize that the person whose shirt you're staring at is staring back at you. or, as was my experience today, that moment when you realize that the person you thought was staring you down was merely mesmerized by your shirt.
the considerably overweight woman at the kiosk trying to establish the freshness of the sandwich because "i'm worried about my health"
offending anti-UX dev by being surprised by some legacy code
saying goodbye to the brit, followed by accepting the offer from SxS
the sticky handbrake? fine. the reverse gear not always taking first time? okay. the car needing a minute to warm up? if i must. but all three together when some jerk has parked me in? fuck off.
a quiet evening until mr smear got up, ending on dark note caused by a typical male misunderstanding (women usually don't want solutions, they want sympathy)
tuesday 19th:
a straightforward night, a chilly morning
finally making a call to a domestic worker and then learning that i'd been given significantly different instructions than were intended
who's flooding the engine?
cheeseless pizza with cheese; too hungry to not eat it anyway
small victories (and a bit of super meat boy) after everyone went to bed
wednesday 20th:
a night of serious post-cheese suffering - painful indigestion
an early, productive morning (minus trouble starting the engine again)
a long workday
another treasure island lunch
the awkward team photo when you know you're leaving
it's not me flooding the engine, there's definitely a problem
challenging mr smear (in particular about dressing him), pies and adventure time
thursday 21st:
not an easy night but a vast improvement over the previous one, a decent morning and very fortuitously having internet installed before heading off to work
being caught by the man who i'd unwittingly parked in the day before
mr smear's breathing difficulties, a pretty productive morning and being called out to take mr smear to the doctor just after i ordered lunch
finishing treasure island along with a magnificent "bunless mexican", arriving to a blocked parking, the doctor, the pharmacy (and a very rude hebrew teacher who didn't recognize nor acknowledge me as she cut in front)
shopping and running into an old classmate in the checkout, getting a bit of work done while feeling more and more grateful to be leaving as i go deeper into their methods
a sleepy, restless mr smear, sorting out services, super meat boy followed by adventure time and a big dinner
friday 22nd:
hardcore midnight freak out with a sick mr smear (breathing trouble, and so bad he projectile vomited), spilled medication, some broken glass and a lot of struggling until gd finally got him breathing easily enough to sleep... an intermittent baby monitor, and a really early wake-up
a difficult notice to give, team sadness, hard work on a surprise customer service day, curry lunch and emergency dinner shopping in a storm, gd overload just before the smelly old woman after ten minutes waiting in the "express" checkout arguing with the cashier and then the cashier calling for her supervisor
a rushed, stressed afternoon with a bad handover before hitting rush hour for forty five minutes (i picked the right route but the wrong lane) and stressing to get ready for dinner and the ice cream parlour being closed without warning and...
...
... a lovely seder (grumpy old man doing it himself at high speed), mr smear's new friend, learning about tim noakes and his unscientific wishful thinking campaign: tim noakes is a fraud. but he's a fraud who tells a great story. which is why there are smart people who fall for his shit, in spite of an overwhelming body of evidence that's easily available. this upsets me.
saturday 23rd:
another difficult night, the rising crescendo until i finally convinced gd that for once i was the more experienced (allergies), sleeping eucalyptus and some good hours for us
waking up to no internet, an irritable start with improvement towards acupuncture, a positive telkom experience (the broken modem actually saved us a couple of weeks of shitty net access), picking up gd with a still-sleeping mr smear
the eggbeating will continue until morale improves
my theory this passover is that moses might not have been a single man, but rather a role played by a number of men, and that that's why the name is in plural.
an unattractive sexy food experience
"who died and made you john lennon?"
coconut water / pineapple / cayenne smoothie success, a floppy vish burger, mr smear choking on cabbage
car trunk changing table
h&m carrying a climbing boy, shop attendant adoration
shower, big pre-bath poop forcing a second shower, rushed prep, big, delicious dinner (vegan kneidlach!) and a very cool shortened seder and a lot of interesting talk (though i definitely pressed a few buttons), mr smear on me wrapped in his bear blanket
sunday 24th:
a comment on mr smear's improvement preceding an unpleasant wake-up, weird dreams and waking up to find mr smear crying and not sure how long he'd been like that for :(
a relaxed, sunny sunday morning but with hints of sinusitis
Saturday, April 16, 2016
still no net at home
sunday march 20th:
a restful day, interestingly productive (primarily poetically)
out for shopping (surprise assistance from my nephew)
monday 21st:
a really tough night being repeatedly yanked out of fascinating dreams followed by an explosive morning
reviewing the new apartment, looking good
appliance store number one, a good deal
appliance store number two, even better
canal walk and panarotti's pizza ftw (and for the family experience, sure)
aside from an urgent woolworths mission the rest of the day was chilling and sorting out the home network (in particular, my mother's email which has apparently confounded professional IT guys in three companies for well over two years now... what a bunch of idiots :/
a big dinner with gd being pleasantly surprised by the quality of fry's strips, getting to sleep relatively early...
tuesday 22nd:
... and paying for it with multiple lengthy wakings
a rough morning softened just before i had to leave, an experimental day deciding that i'm not unhappy with my present employment but i'm hardly thrilled
electric neck twinge mid-meeting
sunshine and songs from the lion king
paying future rent with today's paycheque
a pleasant end to the workday, coming home to the screams of a small child's eye infection, and the struggle of having reached my mother's internet cap
wednesday 23rd:
most of a night's sleep, sore necks but mr smear looking much better
fifteen minutes to get to work, another fifteen to find parking
slow progress, but progress nonetheless
lunchtime education: that "veggie" burger i was so excited about last week is made with cheese, so i found a vegan-friendly restaurant across the road instead... mimi's for the win
gd and my mom visiting a doctor and learning that mr smear has had an ear infection for months that gd suspected and not a single montreal doctor could detect
ending the day with a dilemma, clanking home, evening tension turning sour, taking notes
thursday 24th:
another rough night
waking up to a banking failure and mobile number porting issues
finally getting the last week's job done with no way of testing it, the reaction to my first big pull request containing precisely 1337 changes and leaving on a great note
driving into the most incredible sunset over de waal's drive without a dashcam
not switching cars as the "better" one kept choking out every few metres
back home to a busy boy and a sick gd
friday 25th:
the saddest pair, one doubled over sick feeding the other hangry with irritated eyes and ears
good friday, crazy friday shopping and running into krybabie and his family, mr smear's amazing progress with standing and eating baby biscuits; fry's pies and a lazy afternoon, gd getting some recovery rest, a big dinner and going to bed early and exhausted
saturday 26th:
getting some sleep before heavy rls, a night of many weird dreams quickly forgotten
rain, milestones, purchasing appliances, seeing cousins from jhb, tax returns and not-mr delivery
a tense evening...
sunday 27th:
... leading into a tense morning, we need to see someone, we need our own space, we need alone time
the only promenade walks are serious ones, comforter cleaning, finally touching base with SxS, a quick chat with my toronto cousin, a ride into an unknown side of town and almost losing to google maps, frankincense and good beats, dinner and finding our saturation point
monday 28th:
dr greger's daily dozen is a must-have app
the longest "i'm ready to go"
don't drive when you can walk followed by an explosive response to the denial of a family outing followed by a walk and some unexpected softness
a shopping mission and running into a cousin who was just about to cancel tea, lots of "healthy" junk food and delicious vegan choc-mint ice-cream!
a pleasant evening and a big dinner
tuesday 29th:
the weirdness of parenting: the joy in seeing mr smear's smile after a long, sleepless night (not sure if physical discomfort or nightmares, but i'm certain the soaked diaper didn't help)
running late for work, the premonition two seconds before my breakfast dropped out of my bag to spill all over my pants and the carpet and then getting in the car to discover that i'd left the lights on...
phpunit hassles, learning new code conventions, developing a cough in a small space, vegucating a coworker, chinese lunch, complex changes throughout the afternoon, leaving late and finding the battery dead and learning that the guy from funcars is a complete asshole, being forced to wait in the rain (drizzle) and trying to uber home with a driver who went the completely wrong way so i made him circle back, my phone port starting just as i needed to be able to take emergency calls and the mechanic running out of battery just after he arrived
not doing de waal drive in the dark rain, a missing petrol cap and delighting the mechanics with love for south africa on the ride back home
mr smear standing up steadying himself with only one hand was AMAZING but then he wobbled and landed from his full height and i was worried that he'd be put off trying again [but he definitely wasn't]
lots of food, lots of dishes
wednesday 30th:
another long night (floor fix stress and an overly-demanding mr smear) and an early morning
too emotional to take the car hire's calls, a busy morning with a great 80's playlist, scraping cheese off an otherwise good lunch, defeating agile with agile, scripting for tester welfare, last minute scope creep handled successfully
a gorgeous sunset including a short walk to the supermarket, steers for chips, eating a big dinner and being amazed by how much mr smear consumed, entertaining an adventurous, remarkably determined little boy
thursday 31st:
rushed morning, missed breakfast, funcars guy being an idiot but not a total jerk, trying to get fun work done with constant interruptions (not including another two-hour meeting)
banking and internetworking and breakfast for lunch (as opposed to the peanut brittle i had when i got into the office)
more meetings, good work with a rushed finish, the mall (and double urgent baby room visit and almost losing a bootie), first moving, mom putting mr smear to bed before we got home, dinner and dessert, the laggies from nowhere
friday 1st:
absolutely horrible night of seemingly ceaseless cries
telkom guy after days of silence i get three calls during a meeting to tell me he's sending an email and that he didn't yet have the info that i wanted
pleasant lunch with the new guy, connecting a leaving coworker with a friend in mauritius, a sleep-deprived friday afternoon "learning"
coffee machine clean, driving back to hold mr smear and plan for the move, big, fun, delicious dinner although ending on a note of great discomfort
the long walk to pick up something at the apartment
saturday 2nd:
sleepless, agony
following along and holding mr smear
damaged floors and broken taps but a great dining room set and beginning to get comfortable in our own space
postacino
cousins good techno
rushed prepaid electricity non-emergency
mouth-burning pie
breaking down and building up
the last mission meltdown
sunday 3rd:
not a bad night, if a little cold
a warm morning, feeling much better and actually taking it easy
crazy canal walk shopping, incompetently long lunch, from funny to not funny in less than a minute, neighbourly parking space management, golf pickup meeting weirdos, more shopping
constructing, carrying, showering, successful self-soothing attempt, mom's dinner
monday 4th:
waking up with a severely pinching nerve and being unable to return to sleep
double flat run and change and no breakfast
getting to work pre-coffee but with a smile, a successful documentation day in spite of fatigue; a stunning sunset and a son who smelled like cookies
waiting for a meeting with SxS's (boss?) that didn't happen but giving SxS the opportunity to impress me with his project
taking a completely knocked out little boy home, finding our shower to be significantly improved, that moment when you've been preparing a shake and you pour in (almond) milk that you knew was bad but assumed that your wife had replaced... (she'd assumed that i'd replaced it)
tuesday 5th:
not a great night, but alright
semi-productive morning
plant has opened in observatory!!! ^_^
killing passion in a grooming session
retail shopping therapy with fake sales, buying a single shoe
a shopping run and a visit from dirk diggler, vish and comics and ice cream and getting into bed as quickly as possible
wednesday 6th:
another tiring night followed by a rushed morning
kneepads and bottle stealing on mr smear's eight month
deliberately guessing the wrong artists from the playlist with hilarious results, playing with videos, a long lunch hour speaking vegan at plant, being sidelined by IT for an interesting strategy session, getting a little done before leaving
chair delivery, another non-meeting, great dinner, relatively early to bed
thursday 7th:
defcon 5 at 5
a morning paying people the last of my money and trying to arrange medical aid while simultaneously being productive at work, an awkward one-on-one with the department head, struggling with our caretaker and building management over floor tiles for the second time, that place for lunch
a lazy afternoon, distracted and disinterested, leaving late on a pleasant evening
emergency curtain shopping fail
an hour and a half interview with someone who's definitely on the same page as me professionally but that ended unclear as to whether we would be proceeding or not
friday 8th:
another long night, an early morning walk on the promenade for a gorgeous sunrise seeing parts of whales breaching
parking lot conversations, a generally successful morning
plant: the most delicious soup i've ever had
a successful afternoon, the company wind-up for the annual awards and the boss introducing us to the new office space
telkom's 7-21 days installation window
a really nice dinner at my aunt's, mr smear's first sedative (an antihistamine for his allergies that lets his parents relax and enjoy the evening
saturday 9th:
the strangeness of waking up after a decent night's rest, being able to look out over the ocean at breakfast
great coffee and bad bagels and an amazing acupuncturist, extra caution before my body reset, awkward coffee shop lunch (the owner's stare and a few tears)
a great walk through the waterfront on a sunny afternoon, not losing my driver's license, "i'm a rocket surgeon" to the guys i'm sharing a parking with, quick shopping and a walk home along the promenade during a magnificent sunset
falling asleep over a delicious dinner, getting into bed early...
sunday 10th:
... and both of us waking up before mr smear after our second almost full night's sleep in a row, getting up to a phenomenally beautiful sunrise with time for coffee and breakfast
napping, shopping and an excellent knead experience (the veggie burger is excellent and our waitress volunteered to take mr smear while we ate - i don't know which of the three parties enjoyed the arrangement more)
sleeping through urgent calls from the neighbours, hanging curtains, mr smear climbing over me and demonstrating a little more cunning than i gave him credit for
picking up my mom who'd won a prize at golf who gave us an hour or so to get drinks and dinner downstairs (rockpool is great!)
monday 11th:
morning stress on top of a hangover
bad headache paused for strong veggie curry, a long afternoon, my first deployment
activating activism, a fast shopping run and a security guard trying to sneak my baby away (it was okay, he was being funny but he totally caught me off... guard)
a quick and quiet evening and everyone going to bed early
tuesday 12th:
so early, in fact, that i woke up around 5am and lay in bed slowly processing from my backlog of unhandled experiences
a stunning sunrise to match the previous sunset, nursery rhymes and car hire calls before breakfast
irritable day on my first mti
scammed! id, prenup status, race, names and numbers, and about 45 minutes afterwards verifying that it wasn't a legit call...
incredible sunset but with a heavy head, an uneventful evening (playing with a lava lamp), and getting to bed on schedule
wednesday 13th:
mr smear unwilling to sleep for about three hours, getting up super early to rent a car, driving the wrong way to work
a slow morning, then a long meeting made longer for our lunches were cooling off right in front of us
it's entirely my fault if i asked for lunch and forgot to specify "no cheese" :/
a raw vegan recipe for putting my foot in my mouth
burgers for lunch and pizzas for dinner... mom's haircut and using her phone to get mr smear walking (with help, but still)
gd witnessing her first forest fire - fortunately not a bad one
thursday 14th:
another difficult night, so much for sedatives... an early morning egg run
the first meeting: now i fully understand that these guys are not going to be resolving their legacy issues any time soon because they're consistently making the problem worse. surprisingly intelligent developers who are applying themselves to small, boring problems instead of the large, exciting ones
airplane miscommunication and an unfortunate series of events leading to a tight reschedule; woodstock's the deli and accidental canderelle and running late for the second meeting and hitting traffic
red velvet cupcakes sans icing, communal agreements and disagreements over documentation and working with a useful tool that some bright spark wrote and didn't tell anyone about :/
taking a long time to leave but finally going on a date night (!!!) - mezepoli was really nice, great service and mostly brilliant dishes and a hilariously embarrassing french reading for dessert
an emergency shower to avoid going to bed covered in pomegranate sorbet
yesterday:
a decent night's rest before a psychological storm: moving chairs and not getting any work done and rushing to the doctor and rushing to the pharmacy and rushing to switch cars and everything being slow and then hitting rush hour traffic because in cape town friday's rush hour is all day and not having time for lunch and being forced to burn a half-day of vacation and getting some work done but ending the day with a weird mystery (the architect losing a contact lens over it) and trying to rush home but being on coffee machine cleaning duty and hitting the special traffic caused by strikers setting the trains alight again and then gobbling down leftovers and rushing off to dinner
a very nice dinner, introducing mr smear to new cousins, much fun and good food and awkward domestic appreciation
today:
a long, early acupuncture visit ended with pee leaking from his diaper, baby city and curtain shopping and exhaustion and stress, my mom winning her golf tournament and us celebrating with a great lunch, an attempted nap followed by a big nap, mr smear's big nap and deciding against doing what needed doing (aside from putting up his new curtain)
a restful day, interestingly productive (primarily poetically)
out for shopping (surprise assistance from my nephew)
monday 21st:
a really tough night being repeatedly yanked out of fascinating dreams followed by an explosive morning
reviewing the new apartment, looking good
appliance store number one, a good deal
appliance store number two, even better
canal walk and panarotti's pizza ftw (and for the family experience, sure)
aside from an urgent woolworths mission the rest of the day was chilling and sorting out the home network (in particular, my mother's email which has apparently confounded professional IT guys in three companies for well over two years now... what a bunch of idiots :/
a big dinner with gd being pleasantly surprised by the quality of fry's strips, getting to sleep relatively early...
tuesday 22nd:
... and paying for it with multiple lengthy wakings
a rough morning softened just before i had to leave, an experimental day deciding that i'm not unhappy with my present employment but i'm hardly thrilled
electric neck twinge mid-meeting
sunshine and songs from the lion king
paying future rent with today's paycheque
a pleasant end to the workday, coming home to the screams of a small child's eye infection, and the struggle of having reached my mother's internet cap
wednesday 23rd:
most of a night's sleep, sore necks but mr smear looking much better
fifteen minutes to get to work, another fifteen to find parking
slow progress, but progress nonetheless
lunchtime education: that "veggie" burger i was so excited about last week is made with cheese, so i found a vegan-friendly restaurant across the road instead... mimi's for the win
gd and my mom visiting a doctor and learning that mr smear has had an ear infection for months that gd suspected and not a single montreal doctor could detect
ending the day with a dilemma, clanking home, evening tension turning sour, taking notes
thursday 24th:
another rough night
waking up to a banking failure and mobile number porting issues
finally getting the last week's job done with no way of testing it, the reaction to my first big pull request containing precisely 1337 changes and leaving on a great note
driving into the most incredible sunset over de waal's drive without a dashcam
not switching cars as the "better" one kept choking out every few metres
back home to a busy boy and a sick gd
friday 25th:
the saddest pair, one doubled over sick feeding the other hangry with irritated eyes and ears
good friday, crazy friday shopping and running into krybabie and his family, mr smear's amazing progress with standing and eating baby biscuits; fry's pies and a lazy afternoon, gd getting some recovery rest, a big dinner and going to bed early and exhausted
saturday 26th:
getting some sleep before heavy rls, a night of many weird dreams quickly forgotten
rain, milestones, purchasing appliances, seeing cousins from jhb, tax returns and not-mr delivery
a tense evening...
sunday 27th:
... leading into a tense morning, we need to see someone, we need our own space, we need alone time
the only promenade walks are serious ones, comforter cleaning, finally touching base with SxS, a quick chat with my toronto cousin, a ride into an unknown side of town and almost losing to google maps, frankincense and good beats, dinner and finding our saturation point
monday 28th:
dr greger's daily dozen is a must-have app
the longest "i'm ready to go"
don't drive when you can walk followed by an explosive response to the denial of a family outing followed by a walk and some unexpected softness
a shopping mission and running into a cousin who was just about to cancel tea, lots of "healthy" junk food and delicious vegan choc-mint ice-cream!
a pleasant evening and a big dinner
tuesday 29th:
the weirdness of parenting: the joy in seeing mr smear's smile after a long, sleepless night (not sure if physical discomfort or nightmares, but i'm certain the soaked diaper didn't help)
running late for work, the premonition two seconds before my breakfast dropped out of my bag to spill all over my pants and the carpet and then getting in the car to discover that i'd left the lights on...
phpunit hassles, learning new code conventions, developing a cough in a small space, vegucating a coworker, chinese lunch, complex changes throughout the afternoon, leaving late and finding the battery dead and learning that the guy from funcars is a complete asshole, being forced to wait in the rain (drizzle) and trying to uber home with a driver who went the completely wrong way so i made him circle back, my phone port starting just as i needed to be able to take emergency calls and the mechanic running out of battery just after he arrived
not doing de waal drive in the dark rain, a missing petrol cap and delighting the mechanics with love for south africa on the ride back home
mr smear standing up steadying himself with only one hand was AMAZING but then he wobbled and landed from his full height and i was worried that he'd be put off trying again [but he definitely wasn't]
lots of food, lots of dishes
wednesday 30th:
another long night (floor fix stress and an overly-demanding mr smear) and an early morning
too emotional to take the car hire's calls, a busy morning with a great 80's playlist, scraping cheese off an otherwise good lunch, defeating agile with agile, scripting for tester welfare, last minute scope creep handled successfully
a gorgeous sunset including a short walk to the supermarket, steers for chips, eating a big dinner and being amazed by how much mr smear consumed, entertaining an adventurous, remarkably determined little boy
thursday 31st:
rushed morning, missed breakfast, funcars guy being an idiot but not a total jerk, trying to get fun work done with constant interruptions (not including another two-hour meeting)
banking and internetworking and breakfast for lunch (as opposed to the peanut brittle i had when i got into the office)
more meetings, good work with a rushed finish, the mall (and double urgent baby room visit and almost losing a bootie), first moving, mom putting mr smear to bed before we got home, dinner and dessert, the laggies from nowhere
friday 1st:
absolutely horrible night of seemingly ceaseless cries
telkom guy after days of silence i get three calls during a meeting to tell me he's sending an email and that he didn't yet have the info that i wanted
pleasant lunch with the new guy, connecting a leaving coworker with a friend in mauritius, a sleep-deprived friday afternoon "learning"
coffee machine clean, driving back to hold mr smear and plan for the move, big, fun, delicious dinner although ending on a note of great discomfort
the long walk to pick up something at the apartment
saturday 2nd:
sleepless, agony
following along and holding mr smear
damaged floors and broken taps but a great dining room set and beginning to get comfortable in our own space
postacino
cousins good techno
rushed prepaid electricity non-emergency
mouth-burning pie
breaking down and building up
the last mission meltdown
sunday 3rd:
not a bad night, if a little cold
a warm morning, feeling much better and actually taking it easy
crazy canal walk shopping, incompetently long lunch, from funny to not funny in less than a minute, neighbourly parking space management, golf pickup meeting weirdos, more shopping
constructing, carrying, showering, successful self-soothing attempt, mom's dinner
monday 4th:
waking up with a severely pinching nerve and being unable to return to sleep
double flat run and change and no breakfast
getting to work pre-coffee but with a smile, a successful documentation day in spite of fatigue; a stunning sunset and a son who smelled like cookies
waiting for a meeting with SxS's (boss?) that didn't happen but giving SxS the opportunity to impress me with his project
taking a completely knocked out little boy home, finding our shower to be significantly improved, that moment when you've been preparing a shake and you pour in (almond) milk that you knew was bad but assumed that your wife had replaced... (she'd assumed that i'd replaced it)
tuesday 5th:
not a great night, but alright
semi-productive morning
plant has opened in observatory!!! ^_^
killing passion in a grooming session
retail shopping therapy with fake sales, buying a single shoe
a shopping run and a visit from dirk diggler, vish and comics and ice cream and getting into bed as quickly as possible
wednesday 6th:
another tiring night followed by a rushed morning
kneepads and bottle stealing on mr smear's eight month
deliberately guessing the wrong artists from the playlist with hilarious results, playing with videos, a long lunch hour speaking vegan at plant, being sidelined by IT for an interesting strategy session, getting a little done before leaving
chair delivery, another non-meeting, great dinner, relatively early to bed
thursday 7th:
defcon 5 at 5
a morning paying people the last of my money and trying to arrange medical aid while simultaneously being productive at work, an awkward one-on-one with the department head, struggling with our caretaker and building management over floor tiles for the second time, that place for lunch
a lazy afternoon, distracted and disinterested, leaving late on a pleasant evening
emergency curtain shopping fail
an hour and a half interview with someone who's definitely on the same page as me professionally but that ended unclear as to whether we would be proceeding or not
friday 8th:
another long night, an early morning walk on the promenade for a gorgeous sunrise seeing parts of whales breaching
parking lot conversations, a generally successful morning
plant: the most delicious soup i've ever had
a successful afternoon, the company wind-up for the annual awards and the boss introducing us to the new office space
telkom's 7-21 days installation window
a really nice dinner at my aunt's, mr smear's first sedative (an antihistamine for his allergies that lets his parents relax and enjoy the evening
saturday 9th:
the strangeness of waking up after a decent night's rest, being able to look out over the ocean at breakfast
great coffee and bad bagels and an amazing acupuncturist, extra caution before my body reset, awkward coffee shop lunch (the owner's stare and a few tears)
a great walk through the waterfront on a sunny afternoon, not losing my driver's license, "i'm a rocket surgeon" to the guys i'm sharing a parking with, quick shopping and a walk home along the promenade during a magnificent sunset
falling asleep over a delicious dinner, getting into bed early...
sunday 10th:
... and both of us waking up before mr smear after our second almost full night's sleep in a row, getting up to a phenomenally beautiful sunrise with time for coffee and breakfast
napping, shopping and an excellent knead experience (the veggie burger is excellent and our waitress volunteered to take mr smear while we ate - i don't know which of the three parties enjoyed the arrangement more)
sleeping through urgent calls from the neighbours, hanging curtains, mr smear climbing over me and demonstrating a little more cunning than i gave him credit for
picking up my mom who'd won a prize at golf who gave us an hour or so to get drinks and dinner downstairs (rockpool is great!)
monday 11th:
morning stress on top of a hangover
bad headache paused for strong veggie curry, a long afternoon, my first deployment
activating activism, a fast shopping run and a security guard trying to sneak my baby away (it was okay, he was being funny but he totally caught me off... guard)
a quick and quiet evening and everyone going to bed early
tuesday 12th:
so early, in fact, that i woke up around 5am and lay in bed slowly processing from my backlog of unhandled experiences
a stunning sunrise to match the previous sunset, nursery rhymes and car hire calls before breakfast
irritable day on my first mti
scammed! id, prenup status, race, names and numbers, and about 45 minutes afterwards verifying that it wasn't a legit call...
incredible sunset but with a heavy head, an uneventful evening (playing with a lava lamp), and getting to bed on schedule
wednesday 13th:
mr smear unwilling to sleep for about three hours, getting up super early to rent a car, driving the wrong way to work
a slow morning, then a long meeting made longer for our lunches were cooling off right in front of us
it's entirely my fault if i asked for lunch and forgot to specify "no cheese" :/
a raw vegan recipe for putting my foot in my mouth
burgers for lunch and pizzas for dinner... mom's haircut and using her phone to get mr smear walking (with help, but still)
gd witnessing her first forest fire - fortunately not a bad one
thursday 14th:
another difficult night, so much for sedatives... an early morning egg run
the first meeting: now i fully understand that these guys are not going to be resolving their legacy issues any time soon because they're consistently making the problem worse. surprisingly intelligent developers who are applying themselves to small, boring problems instead of the large, exciting ones
airplane miscommunication and an unfortunate series of events leading to a tight reschedule; woodstock's the deli and accidental canderelle and running late for the second meeting and hitting traffic
red velvet cupcakes sans icing, communal agreements and disagreements over documentation and working with a useful tool that some bright spark wrote and didn't tell anyone about :/
taking a long time to leave but finally going on a date night (!!!) - mezepoli was really nice, great service and mostly brilliant dishes and a hilariously embarrassing french reading for dessert
an emergency shower to avoid going to bed covered in pomegranate sorbet
yesterday:
a decent night's rest before a psychological storm: moving chairs and not getting any work done and rushing to the doctor and rushing to the pharmacy and rushing to switch cars and everything being slow and then hitting rush hour traffic because in cape town friday's rush hour is all day and not having time for lunch and being forced to burn a half-day of vacation and getting some work done but ending the day with a weird mystery (the architect losing a contact lens over it) and trying to rush home but being on coffee machine cleaning duty and hitting the special traffic caused by strikers setting the trains alight again and then gobbling down leftovers and rushing off to dinner
a very nice dinner, introducing mr smear to new cousins, much fun and good food and awkward domestic appreciation
today:
a long, early acupuncture visit ended with pee leaking from his diaper, baby city and curtain shopping and exhaustion and stress, my mom winning her golf tournament and us celebrating with a great lunch, an attempted nap followed by a big nap, mr smear's big nap and deciding against doing what needed doing (aside from putting up his new curtain)
Sunday, March 20, 2016
reintroductions
thursday 10th:
the cost of uber would have been totally worth the hour and a half i ended up waiting for my mother to pick me up, then drop herself off and send me over kloofnek into the setting sun for my first drive in a year
walking in on mr smear putting on a show for my niece (the first cousin he's met), feeling down but a drink and a visit from shadowslight doing me good, finally getting gd's phone backed up (hating android like crazy)
friday 11th:
two night wakings that took forever to recover from, a rushed morning, nothing vegan at gardens centre, getting my neck sunburned on the short walk to pick up the car
you know you're in cape town when you're going over de waal drive in a rattling four speed citi golf that's older than the idea of power steering
grabbing great coffee instead of walking in halfway through the first talk, an excellent second talk but somewhat distracted by trouble at home; just getting interested in the third before having to rush out for an urgent phone call
"vegan no cheese" means they still don't understand what the word means; at least i didn't have to scrape anything off, and i did get the last XL conference shirt
properly passing out to the low drowsy monotone and waking with a start and the hope that i hadn't been snoring
a great last talk, the end of the complementary coffee from vida, a pleasant drive home, big shopping at checkers and major dischem disappointment: they had good hair products, but a terrible supplement selection and buying b12 and vegan d3 online turned out to be a nightmare
farm visit surprise generating discomfort
saturday 12th:
an inexplicably unhappy night
banking: why did gd sign papers for a joint account if they don't do joint accounts?
train station cellphone hacking part i: "no, it's fine" is not the response i expected when asking for a receipt
introducing gd to truth coffee
train station cellphone hacking part ii: no, the usb port does not need to be repaired, you just wasted an hour trying to swindle me
a sore and angry little boy sitting in his poop and screaming while we were stuck in traffic
train station cellphone hacking part iii: of course it was going to take another twenty to thirty minutes. and of course they were at a point where disconnecting the phone would brick it
new york bagels: the queer guy overusing my name after he overheard it was beginning to get irritating, but the beetroot, ginger and carrot juice was as amazing as the humus and grilled vegetables bagel (montreal bagels can't touch these)
train station cellphone hacking part iv: rescued by my very angry mother, these slimy fuckers had gd's phone hostage and when we eventually got her phone back i found out that they were planning to continue to dick us around for at least another hour.
new policy: never dealing with indians or pakistanis again if i can help it. it's a culture of liars, which i learned before when i was travelling india*, and i don't know how to deal with that level of shameless dishonesty
* they're the only people in the world who have managed to make me racist; partly because of the dishonesty but primarily because they are themselves the most overtly racist people on the planet (in my experience, at least) and are only too happy to take advantage of cultural differences
our first time alone since we arrived followed by an evening of call-a-pizza with friends that stretched into the morning
sunday 13th:
slow day, apparently getting over the jet lag, learning just how badly nedbank stuffed us around (we'll be moving our custom elsewhere as soon as possible), learning about MVNOs, an appreciated call from my cousin about his wedding, introducing mr smear to another cousin, a 7-11 experience and discovering that there's a decadently delicious dark chocolate tv bar, dirty hands and ginger beer and jelly tots and yet another waterfront mission
from pleasant to unpleasant in one easy step, then unpleasant to confusing to revelatory
monday 14th:
sleepless night followed by an 8.30am bank mission that left me feeling somewhat satisfied but still deeply distrustful
surprise stop streets on ocean view drive
a pretty good day in the office, effectively working on my own stuff, walking out into a beautiful late afternoon then getting stuck behind traffic that took me ten minutes of going nowhere to understand that i didn't need to be behind
parking behind a smartcar at all the wrong angles, a walk along the promenade, big shopping, mr smear meeting his great great aunt, two of us too tired to eat dinner
tuesday 15th:
a better night, a rough start but a pretty decent day (confusing the office manager's stand-in)
the big chunk at the bottom of the notably small "large" rice milk smoothie that i suspect wasn't rice milk (it felt like yoghurt)
heavy winds on the way home through town, meeting my brother-in-law's (daughter?), the rush to the waterfront to find that all the major stores are competing to sell the ugliest shoes and they're all losing (another guy with the same problem), actually buying crocs for the wedding (did *you* know they make pretty decent formal-wear?), R1000 to R500 to R400 and sold! one plain white button shirt
the babies-don't-go-to-weddings stress explosion
playing with me&you mobile and being rather impressed overall, spending an inordinate amount of time discovering just how messed up samsung and android are - i backed everything up before unlocking gd's phone but now the backups are incompatible. also, two of our gmail accounts are locked because we didn't update our phone numbers in time
wednesday 16th:
not a bad night, a fairly smooth morning managing bank accounts
the shame of having caused a company-wide network outage due to incorrect dropbox settings
the long, unproductive morning followed by an obz meal mission; jerry's chickpea burger is a serious, serious burger and watching cricket or staring out the door at the lack of wifi was quite a nice experience
aircon fixit, end of the day scope reevaluation
gorgeous promenade stroll, observing aged drama at the checkout
our own drama, mr smear's phenomenal development, his refusal to go to bed
thursday 17th:
a long and difficult night, failing to sleep late, gearing up for the department of home affairs, truth coffee not allowed in, the greeter sending us to wait in the wrong queue, another wait only to have the validity of my citizenship called into question
stress turning into despair
awkward pre-wedding drinks
chasing a badly driven porsche through unknown streets in the CBD
a beautiful wedding, a very chilled mr smear and a lot of love from all around
parenting 101: always keep ear protection in the ready bag, you never know when "cocktails" will turn into club volume disco
locked out of the parking, an angry mr smear
friday 18th:
a chilly, foggy morning
a quick and pleasant chat with a recruiter
a fun shared ride with the physics student
family values, company values and presenting scaleconf
a big, suspiciously eggy lunch with the B.I. guy
a beer just as i pushed a decent version of the code i've been working on, some team fluxx, and hitting heavy traffic in a shitty car for the second day in a row
skipping the post-wedding dinner to take care of gd and mr smear, correctly handling an anti-vegan troll, dropping $40 on regaining access to our google accounts, successfully introducing gd to adventure time
saturday 19th:
very little sleep due to an unhappy mr smear, but some interesting dreams nonetheless
the 7am car move: waiting a minute to warm up the engine just to drive for half that time
the joint couch nap in the middle of the cleaning operation, my sister's visit and filling out forms at the discovery store
some time with a cousin, comparing nutrition notes and ordering a nutribullet
a long evening trying to relax and failing, mr smear being wholly uninterested in going to bed
sunday 20th:
a nightmare night with mr smear in pain and throwing up at every attempt to give him something for it; guilt + stress = blame
a relatively easy sunday morning, inspiration to address my brother and my mom's cough taking a nasty turn
the cost of uber would have been totally worth the hour and a half i ended up waiting for my mother to pick me up, then drop herself off and send me over kloofnek into the setting sun for my first drive in a year
walking in on mr smear putting on a show for my niece (the first cousin he's met), feeling down but a drink and a visit from shadowslight doing me good, finally getting gd's phone backed up (hating android like crazy)
friday 11th:
two night wakings that took forever to recover from, a rushed morning, nothing vegan at gardens centre, getting my neck sunburned on the short walk to pick up the car
you know you're in cape town when you're going over de waal drive in a rattling four speed citi golf that's older than the idea of power steering
grabbing great coffee instead of walking in halfway through the first talk, an excellent second talk but somewhat distracted by trouble at home; just getting interested in the third before having to rush out for an urgent phone call
"vegan no cheese" means they still don't understand what the word means; at least i didn't have to scrape anything off, and i did get the last XL conference shirt
properly passing out to the low drowsy monotone and waking with a start and the hope that i hadn't been snoring
a great last talk, the end of the complementary coffee from vida, a pleasant drive home, big shopping at checkers and major dischem disappointment: they had good hair products, but a terrible supplement selection and buying b12 and vegan d3 online turned out to be a nightmare
farm visit surprise generating discomfort
saturday 12th:
an inexplicably unhappy night
banking: why did gd sign papers for a joint account if they don't do joint accounts?
train station cellphone hacking part i: "no, it's fine" is not the response i expected when asking for a receipt
introducing gd to truth coffee
train station cellphone hacking part ii: no, the usb port does not need to be repaired, you just wasted an hour trying to swindle me
a sore and angry little boy sitting in his poop and screaming while we were stuck in traffic
train station cellphone hacking part iii: of course it was going to take another twenty to thirty minutes. and of course they were at a point where disconnecting the phone would brick it
new york bagels: the queer guy overusing my name after he overheard it was beginning to get irritating, but the beetroot, ginger and carrot juice was as amazing as the humus and grilled vegetables bagel (montreal bagels can't touch these)
train station cellphone hacking part iv: rescued by my very angry mother, these slimy fuckers had gd's phone hostage and when we eventually got her phone back i found out that they were planning to continue to dick us around for at least another hour.
new policy: never dealing with indians or pakistanis again if i can help it. it's a culture of liars, which i learned before when i was travelling india*, and i don't know how to deal with that level of shameless dishonesty
* they're the only people in the world who have managed to make me racist; partly because of the dishonesty but primarily because they are themselves the most overtly racist people on the planet (in my experience, at least) and are only too happy to take advantage of cultural differences
our first time alone since we arrived followed by an evening of call-a-pizza with friends that stretched into the morning
sunday 13th:
slow day, apparently getting over the jet lag, learning just how badly nedbank stuffed us around (we'll be moving our custom elsewhere as soon as possible), learning about MVNOs, an appreciated call from my cousin about his wedding, introducing mr smear to another cousin, a 7-11 experience and discovering that there's a decadently delicious dark chocolate tv bar, dirty hands and ginger beer and jelly tots and yet another waterfront mission
from pleasant to unpleasant in one easy step, then unpleasant to confusing to revelatory
monday 14th:
sleepless night followed by an 8.30am bank mission that left me feeling somewhat satisfied but still deeply distrustful
surprise stop streets on ocean view drive
a pretty good day in the office, effectively working on my own stuff, walking out into a beautiful late afternoon then getting stuck behind traffic that took me ten minutes of going nowhere to understand that i didn't need to be behind
parking behind a smartcar at all the wrong angles, a walk along the promenade, big shopping, mr smear meeting his great great aunt, two of us too tired to eat dinner
tuesday 15th:
a better night, a rough start but a pretty decent day (confusing the office manager's stand-in)
the big chunk at the bottom of the notably small "large" rice milk smoothie that i suspect wasn't rice milk (it felt like yoghurt)
heavy winds on the way home through town, meeting my brother-in-law's (daughter?), the rush to the waterfront to find that all the major stores are competing to sell the ugliest shoes and they're all losing (another guy with the same problem), actually buying crocs for the wedding (did *you* know they make pretty decent formal-wear?), R1000 to R500 to R400 and sold! one plain white button shirt
the babies-don't-go-to-weddings stress explosion
playing with me&you mobile and being rather impressed overall, spending an inordinate amount of time discovering just how messed up samsung and android are - i backed everything up before unlocking gd's phone but now the backups are incompatible. also, two of our gmail accounts are locked because we didn't update our phone numbers in time
wednesday 16th:
not a bad night, a fairly smooth morning managing bank accounts
the shame of having caused a company-wide network outage due to incorrect dropbox settings
the long, unproductive morning followed by an obz meal mission; jerry's chickpea burger is a serious, serious burger and watching cricket or staring out the door at the lack of wifi was quite a nice experience
aircon fixit, end of the day scope reevaluation
gorgeous promenade stroll, observing aged drama at the checkout
our own drama, mr smear's phenomenal development, his refusal to go to bed
thursday 17th:
a long and difficult night, failing to sleep late, gearing up for the department of home affairs, truth coffee not allowed in, the greeter sending us to wait in the wrong queue, another wait only to have the validity of my citizenship called into question
stress turning into despair
awkward pre-wedding drinks
chasing a badly driven porsche through unknown streets in the CBD
a beautiful wedding, a very chilled mr smear and a lot of love from all around
parenting 101: always keep ear protection in the ready bag, you never know when "cocktails" will turn into club volume disco
locked out of the parking, an angry mr smear
friday 18th:
a chilly, foggy morning
a quick and pleasant chat with a recruiter
a fun shared ride with the physics student
family values, company values and presenting scaleconf
a big, suspiciously eggy lunch with the B.I. guy
a beer just as i pushed a decent version of the code i've been working on, some team fluxx, and hitting heavy traffic in a shitty car for the second day in a row
skipping the post-wedding dinner to take care of gd and mr smear, correctly handling an anti-vegan troll, dropping $40 on regaining access to our google accounts, successfully introducing gd to adventure time
saturday 19th:
very little sleep due to an unhappy mr smear, but some interesting dreams nonetheless
the 7am car move: waiting a minute to warm up the engine just to drive for half that time
the joint couch nap in the middle of the cleaning operation, my sister's visit and filling out forms at the discovery store
some time with a cousin, comparing nutrition notes and ordering a nutribullet
a long evening trying to relax and failing, mr smear being wholly uninterested in going to bed
sunday 20th:
a nightmare night with mr smear in pain and throwing up at every attempt to give him something for it; guilt + stress = blame
a relatively easy sunday morning, inspiration to address my brother and my mom's cough taking a nasty turn
Friday, March 18, 2016
don't be evil
Dear Google Account Recovery Team
There is no way that the information that I gave you for both my wife's account and our shared account was insufficient. You've just forced me to pay $40 to reactivate my phone number in a different country because you can't be bothered to deal with people like human beings.
Thanks *so much* for not being evil.
There is no way that the information that I gave you for both my wife's account and our shared account was insufficient. You've just forced me to pay $40 to reactivate my phone number in a different country because you can't be bothered to deal with people like human beings.
Thanks *so much* for not being evil.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
just a moment
one thing i've learned over the years is that this mentality of "don't judge" is a sickness - if you accept everyone with all their darkness and don't filter out those whose behaviours and attitudes are poisonous to yours, your self will be degraded until there's nothing worthwhile left. our principles, our ideals and our hopes are all we have if we're to become better, and to make the world better. otherwise we're all just wallowing in other people's shit until we die.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
back in the mother city
here i am, sitting at kirstenbosch gardens (mostly) enjoying scaleconf. i'm falling over exhausted, this past week and a half has really taken it out of me but it's brought such blessings that i can only wonder at just how fortunate i am. there's still a ton of stuff to do, though... important, urgent stuff...
monday 29th:
a stressed day after everyone finally got a great night's sleep, document filtering, double haircut mission and finding amazing luggage and great news from my mom and freezing smoothies and a woman with a contrabass on her back almost smashing mr smear with it and dressing mr smear in a freezing metro platform and a girl forcing gd to step aside with mr smear in her carrier followed by smokers in the metro
a busy afternoon with an unhappy teething mr smear turning into a long evening; a visit from friends being a lot of fun but us men missing the obvious cues from the women to call it a night
a stressed vibe and
tuesday 1st:
a terrible midnight waking, small repairs and a relatively peaceful night following
the internet is down! tortured animals on facebook and other unpleasant things (like mr smear sticking his hand in my hot porridge, fortunately he's okay but i really need to work on my reflexes)
documents, documents and more documents, continued net outage even after officially reconnecting, cold water heating tempers, sale progress
hospital bureaucracy: there's nothing quite like that feeling when public servants deliberately waste your time to demonstrate their authority after they've already wasted your time by giving you bad instructions. and just as i suspected. i had to wait for twenty minutes in order to be told that i needed to go somewhere else.
asking out loud for something to make a six month old drowsy can't be done in a comfortable way.
starbucks 2016 plant products fail
the nap, godmother's god-awful timing, hurrying to my last laser treatment, hurrying back to sell more stuff, taking apart the changing table and giving new parents much-appreciated clothing, meeting gd's really nice cousin for the first time, gd's friends and horseman and a busy night with a happy mr smear and this is really what the last six months *should* have been and it's sad that it was only our last nights here that we got to enjoy that
our last night in montréal - so surreal!
wednesday 2nd:
"mister - mister sme-ar, see him travel like a big boy" (the song format for the next five days, and it's still popping up every now and again)
a good night's rest before the storm: no time to do anything, last minute moving and packing and everyone having extremely bad timing and amazing help from friends and high stress insanity and gd's last minute pre-flight back sprain and finally leaving an apartment that looked like a disaster zone and praying that we hadn't left behind anything important and having had two taxis wait for us for an hour and arriving at the airport to learn that our flight had been delayed and struggling to find a safe space to breastfeed and go through our papers which weighed a lot and most of which could have been scanned and dumped had we had the time and not being early enough to checkin to sort out the seating issues and having to pay for an extra bag but having the counter girls help us avoid paying overweight as well and saying goodbye to horseman who'd been with us the whole time and really gone above and beyond anything we could have reasonably expected from anyone
my little bagel with cream cheese... and a mango smoothie (things we dumped on our boy before the flight)
breezing through security (not exactly, but relative to the usual irritation going through with a ton of heavy gear and a back sprain and a baby wasn't actually so bad, a waiting area fill with coughing people and boarding pleasantly and switching seats twice with two people who didn't hesitate in order to be with gd and mr smear who scratched himself so badly during takeoff that gd's shirt collar was red but otherwise was pretty relaxed until the cabin temperature dropped but a steward actually put it back up which i'd never realized was a thing; the best airplane food in recent memory and the most comfortable arrangement
thursday 3rd:
getting some sleep on a plane for the first time in ages...
... waking changing trauma in an airplane toilet... (non-stop screaming and struggling to put on the clean diaper interrupted by him peeing all over himself)
a smooth landing, straightforward hurry to the aspire lounge
a) at first, the trainee attempted to charge for all three of us
b) with no place to put down bags or sit with child, after we realized that she was wrong we had to wait in the queue again
c) they have six rest pods for a hundred (probably) people, and there's no booking them.
d) we had to pay, go around ourselves to check if there was a pod available, then return and enter the queue again in order to get a refund
e) their machine broke and the woman sorting out the refund simply disappeared without a word
f) eventually we got the refund, but not after having wasted an hour in total and witnessing a bunch of other people being treated like crap for various reasons
"the only thing the aspire lounge aspires to is being a real lounge"
british airways being delightfully politely unhelpful and callous, being lied to about the immigration lines by an official, hurrying through to the sofitel to incur more debt at a remarkable pace
the "cot" again, coupled with a bad mattress and expensive food
that moment when you realize that your kid soiled himself just before taxiing
friday 4th:
a much rougher flight, finally getting mr smear to sleep and then being woken by a bunch of asshole attendants playing silly buggers as they went on break, banging loudly next to the cot and flashing lights in all our faces. who seats a baby right next to the crew rest area?!?!
passport control stress, waiting a long time for luggage that had already arrived but that some idiot had taken off the conveyor for us (on the opposite side where we couldn't see), rushing to checkin using an incredibly useful elevator, wonderfully helpful checkin staff and rearranging bags and breezing through security and all that while having needed to pee desperately
the short flight feeling the longest, being so tired that i almost passed out a few times while holding mr smear in my arms, possibly offending our kind but odd neighbor over hand sanitation (we're learning to relax about hygiene) and making new friends, slowly disembarking into a warm summer's day, a smooth baggage claim and being met by my mom and a friend and getting through tough traffic and being in an absolute daze
a beautiful moment with my family on the balcony looking over the ocean
taking a long time to recover from a short nap; candle lighting followed by a visit to the waterfront, our first stroller outing, running into an old neighbour with a funny story about my childhood, coming home to a proper friday night dinner and suddenly it was 11.30 and mr smear wasn't in bed yet...
saturday 5th:
an amazing night's sleep with the sounds of the ocean wafting through the window, broken only by a terrifying moment when i checked on mr smear and found him very cold and breathing too shallow to detect, followed by a short burst of crying after which we put him in the bed with us - poor kid woke up sweating on a warm morning
i can't recall where we went in the morning
looking at an apartment and being satisfied enough
an afternoon calling canada, horseman's videotron fail (who would steal and modem, a router and the owner's documents and then try to return them?!)
an hour and a half for call-a-pizza delivery but well worth it
protoplasm visit
sunday 6th:
getting to bed late after possibly upsetting the neighbours and definitely upsetting my mom
a great night's sleep, an amazing shower, opening a bank account and introducing mr smear to krybabie's mother
nü with an israeli cousin and decidedly not-delicious kale smoothies, then off to my aunt's to celebrate my cousin's 40th (his kids are 14 already!)
a waterfront mission, a painfully lengthy money exchange procedure, finally introducing my boy to his aunt (!!!), another urgent shopping expedition, a big dinner after feeding a very hungry child, preparing for work
monday 7th:
we need to talk about kevin: what do you do when you see the signs, but the kid hasn't done anything yet? i was unable to sleep for a while thinking about this.
tired waking up after four nighttime cries (before we realized it was a teething thing), making my mother late for her first day
my first day: overdressed in cargo jeans and a t-shirt, lots of great people and too many names, a team of seniors with a generally good attitude, a lunchtime discovery of veggie burgers and smoothies, a shiny new macbook pro and an afternoon setting it up, home early and a shopping expedition and a great night with my uncle and a chat with my toronto cousin
clearing up issues of babysitting and keeping an eye out for the creepy twins
tuesday 8th:
everyone oversleeping, rushing out, explaining privilege to my ride, a day of minimal work and lots of watching (or dozing off while watching) and very interesting conversations, lunch with protoplasm at ganesha with no idea what's in the smoothie - i asked twice and the guy made it awkward so i just won't be going back, leaving very late, an exciting development with mr smear (he's *really* crawling now), a good dinner followed by a long series of chores
wednesday 9th:
a better night's sleep, but severe eye strain during a meeting
an entirely african-run chinese restaurant experience: the worst miso soup ever, lunch taking forever and then getting back to the office to discover that the fried rice was actually noodles
a stretched out afternoon, coming home exhausted and really screwing up while trying to undo a bad series of wedding miscommunications
finding the guy to call who then suffered a breakdown on the way, gd's pizza versus my peanut buttered toast and leftovers
thursday 10th:
waking up early to leave late (investigating medical coverage), my first uber experience (being rear-ended just before the onramp), ignoring google maps' attempt to misdirect us and making it to the conference just in time
an interesting instagram talk, a less interesting etsy talk and a downright boring mesos talk
"i don't remember if i ordered a special meal" does not mean that i didn't order it, i'm glad i managed to convince the woman to read the name tags... but moyo's vegan offering had me scraping cheese off a bland sandwich and throwing away a tex bar that nobody else wanted either.
at least eating lunch out in kirstenbosch gardens is pleasant in and of itself.
i'm glad to have taken the opportunity to post - a talk i didn't need to hear had provided a nice little break. now... back to the real world.
monday 29th:
a stressed day after everyone finally got a great night's sleep, document filtering, double haircut mission and finding amazing luggage and great news from my mom and freezing smoothies and a woman with a contrabass on her back almost smashing mr smear with it and dressing mr smear in a freezing metro platform and a girl forcing gd to step aside with mr smear in her carrier followed by smokers in the metro
a busy afternoon with an unhappy teething mr smear turning into a long evening; a visit from friends being a lot of fun but us men missing the obvious cues from the women to call it a night
a stressed vibe and
tuesday 1st:
a terrible midnight waking, small repairs and a relatively peaceful night following
the internet is down! tortured animals on facebook and other unpleasant things (like mr smear sticking his hand in my hot porridge, fortunately he's okay but i really need to work on my reflexes)
documents, documents and more documents, continued net outage even after officially reconnecting, cold water heating tempers, sale progress
hospital bureaucracy: there's nothing quite like that feeling when public servants deliberately waste your time to demonstrate their authority after they've already wasted your time by giving you bad instructions. and just as i suspected. i had to wait for twenty minutes in order to be told that i needed to go somewhere else.
asking out loud for something to make a six month old drowsy can't be done in a comfortable way.
starbucks 2016 plant products fail
the nap, godmother's god-awful timing, hurrying to my last laser treatment, hurrying back to sell more stuff, taking apart the changing table and giving new parents much-appreciated clothing, meeting gd's really nice cousin for the first time, gd's friends and horseman and a busy night with a happy mr smear and this is really what the last six months *should* have been and it's sad that it was only our last nights here that we got to enjoy that
our last night in montréal - so surreal!
wednesday 2nd:
"mister - mister sme-ar, see him travel like a big boy" (the song format for the next five days, and it's still popping up every now and again)
a good night's rest before the storm: no time to do anything, last minute moving and packing and everyone having extremely bad timing and amazing help from friends and high stress insanity and gd's last minute pre-flight back sprain and finally leaving an apartment that looked like a disaster zone and praying that we hadn't left behind anything important and having had two taxis wait for us for an hour and arriving at the airport to learn that our flight had been delayed and struggling to find a safe space to breastfeed and go through our papers which weighed a lot and most of which could have been scanned and dumped had we had the time and not being early enough to checkin to sort out the seating issues and having to pay for an extra bag but having the counter girls help us avoid paying overweight as well and saying goodbye to horseman who'd been with us the whole time and really gone above and beyond anything we could have reasonably expected from anyone
my little bagel with cream cheese... and a mango smoothie (things we dumped on our boy before the flight)
breezing through security (not exactly, but relative to the usual irritation going through with a ton of heavy gear and a back sprain and a baby wasn't actually so bad, a waiting area fill with coughing people and boarding pleasantly and switching seats twice with two people who didn't hesitate in order to be with gd and mr smear who scratched himself so badly during takeoff that gd's shirt collar was red but otherwise was pretty relaxed until the cabin temperature dropped but a steward actually put it back up which i'd never realized was a thing; the best airplane food in recent memory and the most comfortable arrangement
thursday 3rd:
getting some sleep on a plane for the first time in ages...
... waking changing trauma in an airplane toilet... (non-stop screaming and struggling to put on the clean diaper interrupted by him peeing all over himself)
a smooth landing, straightforward hurry to the aspire lounge
a) at first, the trainee attempted to charge for all three of us
b) with no place to put down bags or sit with child, after we realized that she was wrong we had to wait in the queue again
c) they have six rest pods for a hundred (probably) people, and there's no booking them.
d) we had to pay, go around ourselves to check if there was a pod available, then return and enter the queue again in order to get a refund
e) their machine broke and the woman sorting out the refund simply disappeared without a word
f) eventually we got the refund, but not after having wasted an hour in total and witnessing a bunch of other people being treated like crap for various reasons
"the only thing the aspire lounge aspires to is being a real lounge"
british airways being delightfully politely unhelpful and callous, being lied to about the immigration lines by an official, hurrying through to the sofitel to incur more debt at a remarkable pace
the "cot" again, coupled with a bad mattress and expensive food
that moment when you realize that your kid soiled himself just before taxiing
friday 4th:
a much rougher flight, finally getting mr smear to sleep and then being woken by a bunch of asshole attendants playing silly buggers as they went on break, banging loudly next to the cot and flashing lights in all our faces. who seats a baby right next to the crew rest area?!?!
passport control stress, waiting a long time for luggage that had already arrived but that some idiot had taken off the conveyor for us (on the opposite side where we couldn't see), rushing to checkin using an incredibly useful elevator, wonderfully helpful checkin staff and rearranging bags and breezing through security and all that while having needed to pee desperately
the short flight feeling the longest, being so tired that i almost passed out a few times while holding mr smear in my arms, possibly offending our kind but odd neighbor over hand sanitation (we're learning to relax about hygiene) and making new friends, slowly disembarking into a warm summer's day, a smooth baggage claim and being met by my mom and a friend and getting through tough traffic and being in an absolute daze
a beautiful moment with my family on the balcony looking over the ocean
taking a long time to recover from a short nap; candle lighting followed by a visit to the waterfront, our first stroller outing, running into an old neighbour with a funny story about my childhood, coming home to a proper friday night dinner and suddenly it was 11.30 and mr smear wasn't in bed yet...
saturday 5th:
an amazing night's sleep with the sounds of the ocean wafting through the window, broken only by a terrifying moment when i checked on mr smear and found him very cold and breathing too shallow to detect, followed by a short burst of crying after which we put him in the bed with us - poor kid woke up sweating on a warm morning
i can't recall where we went in the morning
looking at an apartment and being satisfied enough
an afternoon calling canada, horseman's videotron fail (who would steal and modem, a router and the owner's documents and then try to return them?!)
an hour and a half for call-a-pizza delivery but well worth it
protoplasm visit
sunday 6th:
getting to bed late after possibly upsetting the neighbours and definitely upsetting my mom
a great night's sleep, an amazing shower, opening a bank account and introducing mr smear to krybabie's mother
nü with an israeli cousin and decidedly not-delicious kale smoothies, then off to my aunt's to celebrate my cousin's 40th (his kids are 14 already!)
a waterfront mission, a painfully lengthy money exchange procedure, finally introducing my boy to his aunt (!!!), another urgent shopping expedition, a big dinner after feeding a very hungry child, preparing for work
monday 7th:
we need to talk about kevin: what do you do when you see the signs, but the kid hasn't done anything yet? i was unable to sleep for a while thinking about this.
tired waking up after four nighttime cries (before we realized it was a teething thing), making my mother late for her first day
my first day: overdressed in cargo jeans and a t-shirt, lots of great people and too many names, a team of seniors with a generally good attitude, a lunchtime discovery of veggie burgers and smoothies, a shiny new macbook pro and an afternoon setting it up, home early and a shopping expedition and a great night with my uncle and a chat with my toronto cousin
clearing up issues of babysitting and keeping an eye out for the creepy twins
tuesday 8th:
everyone oversleeping, rushing out, explaining privilege to my ride, a day of minimal work and lots of watching (or dozing off while watching) and very interesting conversations, lunch with protoplasm at ganesha with no idea what's in the smoothie - i asked twice and the guy made it awkward so i just won't be going back, leaving very late, an exciting development with mr smear (he's *really* crawling now), a good dinner followed by a long series of chores
wednesday 9th:
a better night's sleep, but severe eye strain during a meeting
an entirely african-run chinese restaurant experience: the worst miso soup ever, lunch taking forever and then getting back to the office to discover that the fried rice was actually noodles
a stretched out afternoon, coming home exhausted and really screwing up while trying to undo a bad series of wedding miscommunications
finding the guy to call who then suffered a breakdown on the way, gd's pizza versus my peanut buttered toast and leftovers
thursday 10th:
waking up early to leave late (investigating medical coverage), my first uber experience (being rear-ended just before the onramp), ignoring google maps' attempt to misdirect us and making it to the conference just in time
an interesting instagram talk, a less interesting etsy talk and a downright boring mesos talk
"i don't remember if i ordered a special meal" does not mean that i didn't order it, i'm glad i managed to convince the woman to read the name tags... but moyo's vegan offering had me scraping cheese off a bland sandwich and throwing away a tex bar that nobody else wanted either.
at least eating lunch out in kirstenbosch gardens is pleasant in and of itself.
i'm glad to have taken the opportunity to post - a talk i didn't need to hear had provided a nice little break. now... back to the real world.
Monday, March 07, 2016
the present
i can't even... but i'm going to try anyway.
the last few months have been really tough, and the last couple of weeks in montreal were simply crazy and i'm not entirely sure that i know what was happening. travelling 30+ hours with a small child and as much of our lives as we could carry on our backs was almost as hard emotionally as it was gruelling physically
but no matter how exhausted we are, how jetlagged we are or how much we have yet to get done, this past couple of days have been such an incredible relief i can't even describe it. being here with so much family and friends close by, watching my mom playing on the floor with my son, sleeping to the sound of the ocean and being able to take our boy out in his stroller for the very first time, knowing that we're home and that we don't have to go anywhere anytime soon is absolutely magical.
sixteen years and one month ago i finished college in the exact offices (seriously!) that i just started my first day of work in today.
mind blown. heart full. i think i'm starting to realize where i am.
the last few months have been really tough, and the last couple of weeks in montreal were simply crazy and i'm not entirely sure that i know what was happening. travelling 30+ hours with a small child and as much of our lives as we could carry on our backs was almost as hard emotionally as it was gruelling physically
but no matter how exhausted we are, how jetlagged we are or how much we have yet to get done, this past couple of days have been such an incredible relief i can't even describe it. being here with so much family and friends close by, watching my mom playing on the floor with my son, sleeping to the sound of the ocean and being able to take our boy out in his stroller for the very first time, knowing that we're home and that we don't have to go anywhere anytime soon is absolutely magical.
sixteen years and one month ago i finished college in the exact offices (seriously!) that i just started my first day of work in today.
mind blown. heart full. i think i'm starting to realize where i am.
Monday, February 29, 2016
the last week at work
sunday 21st:
super busy afternoon with a full apartment and mr smear getting lots of attention from new people, small victories and a shopping trip, mom chat then aristocats followed by feeding and putting mr smear to bed, then struggling to eat stealthily
monday 22nd:
i wish i could record my dreams...
a relatively good night followed by an ugly morning
feeling concussed when it was mr smear who fell over hard (he does that quite a lot, it's very unnerving), receiving a mediocre job offer but an offer nonetheless, getting good work done, successfully "letting go" when a dev decided we were wasting time "talking" all the time (designing and planning)
leaving work early, a busy mr smear entertaining my mom while she helped me with the salary negotiation, an evening playing with mr smear or being fascinated by the dragon's den while eating dinner
the pokemon theme song stuck in my head for the second day in a row
tuesday 23rd:
a decent night with lots of forgotten dreams
post-bath scream: apparently (with me, at least) mr smear would rather not be wrapped in his towels
a pretty good day at work, if a little pressured... the test for the job coming in handy at my (now) old job...
... accepting the revised job offer! even though it's not as much as i'd like, it's a good place to get started so i'm excited and relieved and they've been really cool with me since then
gd preparing a big celebratory dinner, getting chores out the way while managing a particularly feisty little boy, putting him to bed at nap time and being surprised by his actually sleeping
the weirdness of the idea that i have an interesting job waiting for me, where the pay's not bad and the atmosphere seems relaxed and i'll be getting another macbook pro (although better purposed this time, it's much better suited to web development than to cross-platform development)
the apartment: putting prices on things is weird
wednesday 24th:
a midnight feed (oh, no! he's going to turn into a gremlin!), not an easy night but not too bad either, an odd apartment proposal that would totally sort us out and my mom looking at places for us, saying "aunty gd" to my nephew amusing me endlessly
nice weather, the only reason to put the hood up being to avoid snow melting in my clothing
figuring out some cool stuff in laravel in spite of their half-assed (but pretty!) documentation, a good lunch at aux vivres with my manager, the satisfaction of a job elegantly done turning sour as i struggled to merge something i'm proud of into a brand new repo that's already been corrupted by nem and his team's never having learned how routing works; spending a few minutes introducing one of them to the concept and then rushing home late to meet a potential tenant who arrived earlier than expected without the landlord in the pouring, freezing rain
coming in from taking out the garbage to find mr smear crawling! and then sitting up by himself! *super proud dad*
the disturbing realization that we bought the wrong luggage, trying hard to stay relaxed even though i know that we've handled all the really important stuff
thursday 25th:
up for at least five minutes every half hour from 4am
mr smear's crawling was not a fluke! cancelled prescriptions and almost accidentally cancelling gd's phone too early and good company news and finally arranging the right insurance form and getting my feet wet returning the luggage
an unsuccessful hunt for the right luggage, picking up copper branch, lunch, playing with mr smear, gulping down coffee, buying onesies and hitting walmart for their last large duffle bag and baby food
the grocery mission, accidentally missing my final meeting, forgetting to call an illustrator
selling and packing, feeding and showering and doing laundry and eating and feeling rather pleased with everything
friday 26th:
another tough night, this time giving up early and letting him sleep on his belly while i arranged material for the new illustrator; an interesting discussion about fidelity brought on by an offer for beauty products, the dress clothes' triage
mr smear doing interesting yoga moves and mimicking his parents for the first time
my last presentation, a surprising and interesting pushap lunch with vfmp, saying goodbye with some surprising emotional moments, packing up and heading home with some surprising finds from my desk
surprise!
a relatively quiet and easy evening
yesterday:
another difficult 5am, this time desperate enough to put mr smear on his belly after which everything was fine.
selling stuff day. gd's friend coming over to help her triage, finding some of gd's childhood photos, gd's friend's father coming to buy our air conditioner and give shipping advice, finally (four days before we leave!) putting a bunch of stuff up for sale online, showing the apartment to a couple of people and then learning that our landlord doesn't intend to hold us to our lease (amazing!) so now we're actually hoping that he doesn't find anyone immediately because he doesn't mind us staying for two extra days if nobody needs to move in which would make our lives *immensely* easier
selling the television and getting an offer for the projector and feeling the stress melting away little by little
so: http://www.plantpurenation.com/
for something both fascinating and distressing, it's a surprisingly inspirational documentary. i think they have the right attitude
today:
a better night after giving up quicker, a busy morning with lots of visitors, general exhaustion, scanning and selling, whirlwind afternoon with some surprise visits and a huge relief from some old training partners and nox, a quick bath and a quick, cold run to the supermarket (where they made sure to remind me not to miss them), then slowly winding down the day.
today's experience has left us feeling like we're doing alright with this parenting thing. *knocks on wood*
...
as our apartment empties out, our relocation is becoming very real. and through all the exhaustion, the restlessness, the little but important conerns... we are very grateful.
super busy afternoon with a full apartment and mr smear getting lots of attention from new people, small victories and a shopping trip, mom chat then aristocats followed by feeding and putting mr smear to bed, then struggling to eat stealthily
monday 22nd:
i wish i could record my dreams...
a relatively good night followed by an ugly morning
feeling concussed when it was mr smear who fell over hard (he does that quite a lot, it's very unnerving), receiving a mediocre job offer but an offer nonetheless, getting good work done, successfully "letting go" when a dev decided we were wasting time "talking" all the time (designing and planning)
leaving work early, a busy mr smear entertaining my mom while she helped me with the salary negotiation, an evening playing with mr smear or being fascinated by the dragon's den while eating dinner
the pokemon theme song stuck in my head for the second day in a row
tuesday 23rd:
a decent night with lots of forgotten dreams
post-bath scream: apparently (with me, at least) mr smear would rather not be wrapped in his towels
a pretty good day at work, if a little pressured... the test for the job coming in handy at my (now) old job...
... accepting the revised job offer! even though it's not as much as i'd like, it's a good place to get started so i'm excited and relieved and they've been really cool with me since then
gd preparing a big celebratory dinner, getting chores out the way while managing a particularly feisty little boy, putting him to bed at nap time and being surprised by his actually sleeping
the weirdness of the idea that i have an interesting job waiting for me, where the pay's not bad and the atmosphere seems relaxed and i'll be getting another macbook pro (although better purposed this time, it's much better suited to web development than to cross-platform development)
the apartment: putting prices on things is weird
wednesday 24th:
a midnight feed (oh, no! he's going to turn into a gremlin!), not an easy night but not too bad either, an odd apartment proposal that would totally sort us out and my mom looking at places for us, saying "aunty gd" to my nephew amusing me endlessly
nice weather, the only reason to put the hood up being to avoid snow melting in my clothing
figuring out some cool stuff in laravel in spite of their half-assed (but pretty!) documentation, a good lunch at aux vivres with my manager, the satisfaction of a job elegantly done turning sour as i struggled to merge something i'm proud of into a brand new repo that's already been corrupted by nem and his team's never having learned how routing works; spending a few minutes introducing one of them to the concept and then rushing home late to meet a potential tenant who arrived earlier than expected without the landlord in the pouring, freezing rain
coming in from taking out the garbage to find mr smear crawling! and then sitting up by himself! *super proud dad*
the disturbing realization that we bought the wrong luggage, trying hard to stay relaxed even though i know that we've handled all the really important stuff
thursday 25th:
up for at least five minutes every half hour from 4am
mr smear's crawling was not a fluke! cancelled prescriptions and almost accidentally cancelling gd's phone too early and good company news and finally arranging the right insurance form and getting my feet wet returning the luggage
an unsuccessful hunt for the right luggage, picking up copper branch, lunch, playing with mr smear, gulping down coffee, buying onesies and hitting walmart for their last large duffle bag and baby food
the grocery mission, accidentally missing my final meeting, forgetting to call an illustrator
selling and packing, feeding and showering and doing laundry and eating and feeling rather pleased with everything
friday 26th:
another tough night, this time giving up early and letting him sleep on his belly while i arranged material for the new illustrator; an interesting discussion about fidelity brought on by an offer for beauty products, the dress clothes' triage
mr smear doing interesting yoga moves and mimicking his parents for the first time
my last presentation, a surprising and interesting pushap lunch with vfmp, saying goodbye with some surprising emotional moments, packing up and heading home with some surprising finds from my desk
surprise!
a relatively quiet and easy evening
yesterday:
another difficult 5am, this time desperate enough to put mr smear on his belly after which everything was fine.
selling stuff day. gd's friend coming over to help her triage, finding some of gd's childhood photos, gd's friend's father coming to buy our air conditioner and give shipping advice, finally (four days before we leave!) putting a bunch of stuff up for sale online, showing the apartment to a couple of people and then learning that our landlord doesn't intend to hold us to our lease (amazing!) so now we're actually hoping that he doesn't find anyone immediately because he doesn't mind us staying for two extra days if nobody needs to move in which would make our lives *immensely* easier
selling the television and getting an offer for the projector and feeling the stress melting away little by little
so: http://www.plantpurenation.com/
for something both fascinating and distressing, it's a surprisingly inspirational documentary. i think they have the right attitude
today:
a better night after giving up quicker, a busy morning with lots of visitors, general exhaustion, scanning and selling, whirlwind afternoon with some surprise visits and a huge relief from some old training partners and nox, a quick bath and a quick, cold run to the supermarket (where they made sure to remind me not to miss them), then slowly winding down the day.
today's experience has left us feeling like we're doing alright with this parenting thing. *knocks on wood*
...
as our apartment empties out, our relocation is becoming very real. and through all the exhaustion, the restlessness, the little but important conerns... we are very grateful.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
alert signal
an important TED talk on wireless technologies
i've been *not* worrying about this stuff for a long time, but he makes a few excellent points: not least of which being the accumulation of signals we're being exposed to over time.
i'm now convinced that we won't be going wireless in our next apartment. and that i need a tool like http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-schedule-airplane-mode-on-iphone-to-toggle-on-and-off-automatically/ so that our phones will simply check for messages at intervals instead of searching constantly. that's certainly not a perfect solution, hopefully one will present itself...
i've been *not* worrying about this stuff for a long time, but he makes a few excellent points: not least of which being the accumulation of signals we're being exposed to over time.
i'm now convinced that we won't be going wireless in our next apartment. and that i need a tool like http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-schedule-airplane-mode-on-iphone-to-toggle-on-and-off-automatically/ so that our phones will simply check for messages at intervals instead of searching constantly. that's certainly not a perfect solution, hopefully one will present itself...
Sunday, February 21, 2016
february fly-by
so... in just over a week we're relocating to south africa. this coming week is my last week at work, after which (when we land) i'm going to be doing my best to either land some contract work or just get a job. i just gave up on the new, exciting illustrator, who i believe is the third or fourth to begin working on a paid job and then simply stop communicating (is this an illustrator thing?).
we have packing to do and selling to do and storing to do and transferring our lease to do.
and then 30+ hours of travelling to do.
no pressure.
monday 1st:
there's nothing like being kept up at night by the feeling that you're not parenting right.
a disturbingly delightful spring morning instead of february weather
an anxious morning, a pleasant welcome back to work
one fun job, one non-starter
finishing limbo - a disappointing ending to a phenomenal game, but at least it's got great replay value
a walmart run on the way home, enjoying a jolly family evening, an impressive feeding, an exciting (over-exciting, gd had to call "time!") play session and a highly amusing set of sleepy sounds wherein mr smear demonstrated the amusing new additions to his vocalizations
tuesday 2nd:
nightmare rls from the waist down for hours of extreme discomfort
family conjunctivitis (or so we thought), gd in more pain
wasted hours trying to ssh into a vagrant box, eventually giving up so that i could investigate something broken and learn that the new, "clean" setup we've just begun porting to has already been corrupted by the chief troublemaker
lunchtime cs:go and thomas was alone
coming home to another positive call with the illustrator, a very loud mr smear practicing interesting sounds, an impressive feeding and a solid demonstration of his mobility
wednesday 3rd:
a better night, but not a good night, with a relaxed morning
freezing rain just as the ice began to clear
two tall, skinny black kids bumping into me as they ran out of the dep with a couple of bottles of alcohol, one with a beige tuque and blue scarf; i'm embarrassed to admit that it took me a full minute to decide that they might've just stolen them...
... and of course, my boots have sprung a leak...
a day of distractions (playing with continuous testing), finishing with some laravel plugin frustration and eventually realizing that just doing things myself (in that specific context) is much easier
skype fails with my mom, double dinner and garbage day ending with a bite on my foot and is-the-insect-still-there paranoia
thursday 4th:
by 1am it felt like a long night already, and we were woken by his cries at regular intervals afterwards. gd was convinced it was teething pain (his new tooth is *sharp*), but i think it was either bad dreams or just general discomfort...
struggling out of bed for an unnecessary diaper change (i think he farted just as i was checking), a chilled morning with some apparently good news
reading shitty laravel documentation until i felt my brain was bleeding out of my ears, but eventually getting a fix on the direction i need to take
a rush home to pick up mr smear and meet gd at the clinic, then a rush home and a wait which forced a rush to work for half an hour before rushing to my weekly meeting
the problem with analog timers is that they work even when the machine they're supposed to activate isn't plugged in. i thought i'd timed my toasted muffin perfectly for the veggie burgers but after i heard the *ding* i pulled it out cold
late for the meeting after a metro slowdown, some intriguing insights
a really nice family evening (although mr smear really should've been in bed an hour or so earlier)
friday 5th:
an amazing, refreshing two solid blocks of sleep, but waking up from a bad angle with a sore neck and back.
hunting down and killing a creepy spider inspiring an amusing introduction to parktown prawns for gd (and she'd just been watching die antwoord - fatty boom boom, too)
the godmother last chance debate
wasting some more time, then giving the laravel approach another chance (a third ldap package): this one mostly works, but i had to fork the repo and make an important fix* and spend ages defending it to the owner who was trying to coerce me into writing all his tests for him...
* php's ldap functions don't work as specified. some developers write simple wrappers to correct the behaviour, but most just pass it on to the user which is offensively pathetic
a walmart / oshkosh mission after lunch, mind blowing thomas was alone puzzles and an insanely large quantity of delicious cocoa halva, seriously arguing about cashew nuts with a coworker
leaving late, missing a train and the next one delayed, kids singing and some miserable git yelling at them to shut up but the parents chiming in in response
digging holes in what could've been a relaxing friday evening
saturday 6th:
ups and downs
the godmother incident
the shopping mission (hurting shoulders)
six months to the day!!! and his first real adult poop (actually his second, but my first experience)
running out of time to watch the martian - 48 hours is never enough
sunday 7th:
easy like gd's birthday morning, minus a bad-news haircut
a kind-of-a-nap but i was still exhausted and restless and wondering if i was sick or over-tired or deficient in something
finally seeing the imitation game and rewatching a completely forgotten unbreakable
heavy awkward cumbersome donation bags, dodgy bastards lurking in front of the pharmacy forcing me to ask if i could enter
the second nail filing incident in which i was much braver than before (but still struggling)
evil apples with gd until bedtime
monday 8th:
some decent sleep and some weird dream fragments
no breakfast and metro rush hour with a child and an inordinate amount of time waiting for a signature after a blazingly quick x-ray
the good doctor's appointment (especially after the radiologist failed to do the one thing he was called for, stamp the damned report), a short visit to subway followed by a highly stressed afternoon
the one piece games on sale, booking toronto (holy crap this ordeal is expensive), discovering that i'm fully back in debt after finally approaching zero
tuesday 9th:
a long, sleepless night (post-vaccination), duct-taping the balcony door to keep the cold out, early out of bed for a really good interview
catching up and strategizing with dirk diggler, mr smear taking more than one step forward!
a little one piece, a quick lunch and verification that mr smear was experiencing his first fever
being aroused from a nap to report a death threat to the FBI from a lady gaga fan who got pissed off by a comment from my wife - no more unconsidered commenting in public forums for her :P
papers panic while mr smear struggled, the printing rush and speeding over to the notary
the cashier at iga made sure to smear her slimy cold virus on each and every one of the products i purchased
...
i use my healthy diet as an excuse to shamelessly consume junk food with no consequences... i regret nothing!
except the home fries. i knew i shouldn't have bought them, and i got halfway through before i felt like i'd made a big mistake.
every time...
...
mr smear's fever breaking
wednesday 10th:
bad timing for a team transfer request, although it was very flattering
a mostly decent night
a highly stressed last-minute morning, leaving early (what we thought was early) and almost missing the final call, our first times with the new car seat quite successful
a pretty good train ride (practice run for the airplane), mr smear getting along nicely with other kids, two major dis-ass-ters (two soiled onesies) on the train, a smooth welcome to toronto, quick and easy passport photos, being joined by supertongue for high speed shopping and rushed gobbling while trying to play big catch-up with very little time
a super-tired hyper-active mr smear who seemed to have advanced a step overnight but appeared to need to make up for missed playtime after his bedtime
discovering a severe google maps fail when printing the last documents; i guess if i hadn't forgotten those documents we would've found out too late that we were a twenty minute drive away from our destination and not a five minute walk... our night in toronto would probably have been significantly cheaper, too...
thursday 11th:
so no, a playpen and a crib are not the same thing and a floor-height crib is impossible to use to put small children to sleep (not to mention dangerous for parents' backs)
sleeping in the fridge: an unsealed window in canada in winter???
3am losing my shit and organizing a properly heated room that we wouldn't move to because it was too much work, drunk fucks leaning on me in the elevator generating a massive level of rage that could've turned into an evening with the police but instead just saw me shoving my way out and seething and losing a bit more sleep unnecessarily after i finally came up with a solution that involved mr smear sleeping on the bed and myself on the couch so i could add bad angles for my neck and back to the equation
starbucks rush, hurried packing and a call from my toronto cousin combining with gd noticing a subtle photo issue sending us on a mission to the mall before we could checkout and grab a taxi and leaving for the consulate almost an hour after we were supposed to have arrived
if we hadn't had an incomplete application, we might've been rejected immediately because it took two sadistically bureaucratic scenes before our overlord was reprimanded for inappropriate cruelty by her superior. swimming in my own consciousness, all three of us exhausted to the point of dysfunction and having to jump to a notary at 11.30am to deal with a secretary who confused the instructions multiple times but was good enough to let me print statements from her pc, finally returning at 12.15 to fill out tough forms under the gun when the consulate shuts down at 12.30; not quite making it but being rescued and pulling through to a very fair compromise on the consulate's part - giving us a few more days to fix our files and not forcing us to return to toronto.
it was horrifying to think of how much money we'd had to sink into this endeavour and how all of it and our future was riding on a bunch of unfeeling forms and number crunchers.
walking out with a large collection of discarded expensive documents feeling a mixture of shock and relief and dread; having to hurry to get to the train station and find a place to sit and eat and rest (there isn't one, of course), more hours waiting for the train
another lucky train break (four seats available! score!) but feet too smelly from two days in boots to even partially relax and unwind on the way home
parenting advice to the rail guy
getting home to a freezing apartment
friday 12th:
a solid night's sleep for all but waking up on the verge of collapse; chatting with mom, messaging godmother for her birthday, bathing mr smear and being absolutely amazed at how much he's advanced in a matter of days, alternating between playing with him and playing some more one piece, just getting through the day trying (and failing) to rest and doing a shopping run and then taking forever to get everyone to sleep
surrealist bon appetit to the aids guy
saturday 13th:
it felt like mr smear put on five pounds during the night, a couple of short wakings and getting up in the morning still wiped out and with a test ahead of me
ice walk at -32
blueberry skinning fail
a long day setting up my home dev environment and digging in to laravel
me and my big mouth while listing priorities
mr smear having a decent day but it appeared that he had a cold and since toronto it's been unclear whether his cries are actual cries or just him practicing...
circumcision adherence correction and planning a clinic visit just in case
sunday 14th:
a difficult, sleepless night, outside at -35 for wet wipes that won't mess with mr smear's skin, making progress on the test but finding it tricky, insoles for my boots, a freezing cold clinic run
gathering documents, working late into the night
monday 15th:
passing the point of hallucination, running out of onesies at 4am, the opposite of what we meant, not being able to sleep and getting up to finish the test and wrap it in a bow and pray that it satisfies
gd and i both extremely nervous for the big day, forcing myself to swallow each bite of my breakfast
hand nerve pain
the big announcement being followed by a series of smaller, more awkward announcements, receiving a surprising amount of support and an open offer to return to work whenever i'm ready
pushing comixology
a pointless lunch run to buy clothing for mr smear but apparently buttons on pajamas aren't fashionable for children over six months
making magic with node.js, having an old mexican friend visit for a beer and a great chat, gd feeling awful after a long day of being screamed at by our son who's either very irritable lately or is exercising his ability to produce highly ambiguous noises. some of them are cute or funny, some of them scary
clearing up miscommunications, going to bed late but relatively early
tuesday 16th:
a better night, up at 6am to send important emails and make calls and successfully avoid discussing money with a potential employer
rushing to the supermarket for emergency stock, overheating on the way home at 4 below, stressing non-stop about the scheduled consulate call
fun with command line node.js, not being able to contact the consulate and last-chance emailing potentially problematic statements, just getting back into work mode before receiving an email informing me that gd and phoenix's visas are in the mail, that we aren't going to have to return to canada in the coming months, that the incredible investment in the toronto visit paid off, that our highest priorities are in order and we can now focus on the insane task of selling and storing and packing and leaving over the course of the next two weeks
a pleasant evening's work
a quick, quiet evening (though mr smear's stuffy nose kept him up for a while), finally announcing publicly that we're moving to south africa
wednesday 17th:
very little sleep, getting up early, a slow day at work, giving the pharmacist the wrong medical insurance card
thursday 18th:
2, 4, 6am and no more sleep
a mostly uneventful day in the office getting shit done the right way; leaving on a positive note after a solid cleanup session. pushap for lunch (heavy, delicious), not picking up $200 lying in a puddle
friday 19th:
3.30am mysterious awakening, a restless couple of hours and getting up at 6am again
playtime, breakfast, psychometric evaluation, post-evaluation stress, the hospital run that failed because the department only opens at 1.30pm for a couple of hours each day
the shopping mission: from no wind to utterly freezing in five seconds flat
taking pride in being the parent who can change the diaper without gagging
dinner and passing out as soon as mr smear did for his nap
saturday 20th:
wild dreams: festival, snowboarding and catching myself with my hands over a deadly drop
spit-up day
nox's surprising family services offer, liking pokemon in spite of myself, the first bath-time where mr smear calmed down and let me dry and dress him without freaking out
the morning shopping expedition turned into picking up lunch with horseman, fending off old people who feel that touching my baby is their right, long goodbyes stretching into making viewers of our apartment wait for twenty minutes, their smelly feet and our moron landlord, still proud that i'm the parent changing our son's diapers without gagging, listing furniture prices, a long chat with my mom, law and order and pinching nerves
some people are pieces of shit dressed up as mouthwatering chocolate cake
sunday 21st:
wild dreams: flying over mountains on a board and picking up broken batman before escaping from the troll by yelling "it's a bomb!"
amazon payments bullshit
paypal bullshit
another illustrator bites the dust
freelancd bullshit
yellow jelly poop
we have packing to do and selling to do and storing to do and transferring our lease to do.
and then 30+ hours of travelling to do.
no pressure.
monday 1st:
there's nothing like being kept up at night by the feeling that you're not parenting right.
a disturbingly delightful spring morning instead of february weather
an anxious morning, a pleasant welcome back to work
one fun job, one non-starter
finishing limbo - a disappointing ending to a phenomenal game, but at least it's got great replay value
a walmart run on the way home, enjoying a jolly family evening, an impressive feeding, an exciting (over-exciting, gd had to call "time!") play session and a highly amusing set of sleepy sounds wherein mr smear demonstrated the amusing new additions to his vocalizations
tuesday 2nd:
nightmare rls from the waist down for hours of extreme discomfort
family conjunctivitis (or so we thought), gd in more pain
wasted hours trying to ssh into a vagrant box, eventually giving up so that i could investigate something broken and learn that the new, "clean" setup we've just begun porting to has already been corrupted by the chief troublemaker
lunchtime cs:go and thomas was alone
coming home to another positive call with the illustrator, a very loud mr smear practicing interesting sounds, an impressive feeding and a solid demonstration of his mobility
wednesday 3rd:
a better night, but not a good night, with a relaxed morning
freezing rain just as the ice began to clear
two tall, skinny black kids bumping into me as they ran out of the dep with a couple of bottles of alcohol, one with a beige tuque and blue scarf; i'm embarrassed to admit that it took me a full minute to decide that they might've just stolen them...
... and of course, my boots have sprung a leak...
a day of distractions (playing with continuous testing), finishing with some laravel plugin frustration and eventually realizing that just doing things myself (in that specific context) is much easier
skype fails with my mom, double dinner and garbage day ending with a bite on my foot and is-the-insect-still-there paranoia
thursday 4th:
by 1am it felt like a long night already, and we were woken by his cries at regular intervals afterwards. gd was convinced it was teething pain (his new tooth is *sharp*), but i think it was either bad dreams or just general discomfort...
struggling out of bed for an unnecessary diaper change (i think he farted just as i was checking), a chilled morning with some apparently good news
reading shitty laravel documentation until i felt my brain was bleeding out of my ears, but eventually getting a fix on the direction i need to take
a rush home to pick up mr smear and meet gd at the clinic, then a rush home and a wait which forced a rush to work for half an hour before rushing to my weekly meeting
the problem with analog timers is that they work even when the machine they're supposed to activate isn't plugged in. i thought i'd timed my toasted muffin perfectly for the veggie burgers but after i heard the *ding* i pulled it out cold
late for the meeting after a metro slowdown, some intriguing insights
a really nice family evening (although mr smear really should've been in bed an hour or so earlier)
friday 5th:
an amazing, refreshing two solid blocks of sleep, but waking up from a bad angle with a sore neck and back.
hunting down and killing a creepy spider inspiring an amusing introduction to parktown prawns for gd (and she'd just been watching die antwoord - fatty boom boom, too)
the godmother last chance debate
wasting some more time, then giving the laravel approach another chance (a third ldap package): this one mostly works, but i had to fork the repo and make an important fix* and spend ages defending it to the owner who was trying to coerce me into writing all his tests for him...
* php's ldap functions don't work as specified. some developers write simple wrappers to correct the behaviour, but most just pass it on to the user which is offensively pathetic
a walmart / oshkosh mission after lunch, mind blowing thomas was alone puzzles and an insanely large quantity of delicious cocoa halva, seriously arguing about cashew nuts with a coworker
leaving late, missing a train and the next one delayed, kids singing and some miserable git yelling at them to shut up but the parents chiming in in response
digging holes in what could've been a relaxing friday evening
saturday 6th:
ups and downs
the godmother incident
the shopping mission (hurting shoulders)
six months to the day!!! and his first real adult poop (actually his second, but my first experience)
running out of time to watch the martian - 48 hours is never enough
sunday 7th:
easy like gd's birthday morning, minus a bad-news haircut
a kind-of-a-nap but i was still exhausted and restless and wondering if i was sick or over-tired or deficient in something
finally seeing the imitation game and rewatching a completely forgotten unbreakable
heavy awkward cumbersome donation bags, dodgy bastards lurking in front of the pharmacy forcing me to ask if i could enter
the second nail filing incident in which i was much braver than before (but still struggling)
evil apples with gd until bedtime
monday 8th:
some decent sleep and some weird dream fragments
no breakfast and metro rush hour with a child and an inordinate amount of time waiting for a signature after a blazingly quick x-ray
the good doctor's appointment (especially after the radiologist failed to do the one thing he was called for, stamp the damned report), a short visit to subway followed by a highly stressed afternoon
the one piece games on sale, booking toronto (holy crap this ordeal is expensive), discovering that i'm fully back in debt after finally approaching zero
tuesday 9th:
a long, sleepless night (post-vaccination), duct-taping the balcony door to keep the cold out, early out of bed for a really good interview
catching up and strategizing with dirk diggler, mr smear taking more than one step forward!
a little one piece, a quick lunch and verification that mr smear was experiencing his first fever
being aroused from a nap to report a death threat to the FBI from a lady gaga fan who got pissed off by a comment from my wife - no more unconsidered commenting in public forums for her :P
papers panic while mr smear struggled, the printing rush and speeding over to the notary
the cashier at iga made sure to smear her slimy cold virus on each and every one of the products i purchased
...
i use my healthy diet as an excuse to shamelessly consume junk food with no consequences... i regret nothing!
except the home fries. i knew i shouldn't have bought them, and i got halfway through before i felt like i'd made a big mistake.
every time...
...
mr smear's fever breaking
wednesday 10th:
bad timing for a team transfer request, although it was very flattering
a mostly decent night
a highly stressed last-minute morning, leaving early (what we thought was early) and almost missing the final call, our first times with the new car seat quite successful
a pretty good train ride (practice run for the airplane), mr smear getting along nicely with other kids, two major dis-ass-ters (two soiled onesies) on the train, a smooth welcome to toronto, quick and easy passport photos, being joined by supertongue for high speed shopping and rushed gobbling while trying to play big catch-up with very little time
a super-tired hyper-active mr smear who seemed to have advanced a step overnight but appeared to need to make up for missed playtime after his bedtime
discovering a severe google maps fail when printing the last documents; i guess if i hadn't forgotten those documents we would've found out too late that we were a twenty minute drive away from our destination and not a five minute walk... our night in toronto would probably have been significantly cheaper, too...
thursday 11th:
so no, a playpen and a crib are not the same thing and a floor-height crib is impossible to use to put small children to sleep (not to mention dangerous for parents' backs)
sleeping in the fridge: an unsealed window in canada in winter???
3am losing my shit and organizing a properly heated room that we wouldn't move to because it was too much work, drunk fucks leaning on me in the elevator generating a massive level of rage that could've turned into an evening with the police but instead just saw me shoving my way out and seething and losing a bit more sleep unnecessarily after i finally came up with a solution that involved mr smear sleeping on the bed and myself on the couch so i could add bad angles for my neck and back to the equation
starbucks rush, hurried packing and a call from my toronto cousin combining with gd noticing a subtle photo issue sending us on a mission to the mall before we could checkout and grab a taxi and leaving for the consulate almost an hour after we were supposed to have arrived
if we hadn't had an incomplete application, we might've been rejected immediately because it took two sadistically bureaucratic scenes before our overlord was reprimanded for inappropriate cruelty by her superior. swimming in my own consciousness, all three of us exhausted to the point of dysfunction and having to jump to a notary at 11.30am to deal with a secretary who confused the instructions multiple times but was good enough to let me print statements from her pc, finally returning at 12.15 to fill out tough forms under the gun when the consulate shuts down at 12.30; not quite making it but being rescued and pulling through to a very fair compromise on the consulate's part - giving us a few more days to fix our files and not forcing us to return to toronto.
it was horrifying to think of how much money we'd had to sink into this endeavour and how all of it and our future was riding on a bunch of unfeeling forms and number crunchers.
walking out with a large collection of discarded expensive documents feeling a mixture of shock and relief and dread; having to hurry to get to the train station and find a place to sit and eat and rest (there isn't one, of course), more hours waiting for the train
another lucky train break (four seats available! score!) but feet too smelly from two days in boots to even partially relax and unwind on the way home
parenting advice to the rail guy
getting home to a freezing apartment
friday 12th:
a solid night's sleep for all but waking up on the verge of collapse; chatting with mom, messaging godmother for her birthday, bathing mr smear and being absolutely amazed at how much he's advanced in a matter of days, alternating between playing with him and playing some more one piece, just getting through the day trying (and failing) to rest and doing a shopping run and then taking forever to get everyone to sleep
surrealist bon appetit to the aids guy
saturday 13th:
it felt like mr smear put on five pounds during the night, a couple of short wakings and getting up in the morning still wiped out and with a test ahead of me
ice walk at -32
blueberry skinning fail
a long day setting up my home dev environment and digging in to laravel
me and my big mouth while listing priorities
mr smear having a decent day but it appeared that he had a cold and since toronto it's been unclear whether his cries are actual cries or just him practicing...
circumcision adherence correction and planning a clinic visit just in case
sunday 14th:
a difficult, sleepless night, outside at -35 for wet wipes that won't mess with mr smear's skin, making progress on the test but finding it tricky, insoles for my boots, a freezing cold clinic run
gathering documents, working late into the night
monday 15th:
passing the point of hallucination, running out of onesies at 4am, the opposite of what we meant, not being able to sleep and getting up to finish the test and wrap it in a bow and pray that it satisfies
gd and i both extremely nervous for the big day, forcing myself to swallow each bite of my breakfast
hand nerve pain
the big announcement being followed by a series of smaller, more awkward announcements, receiving a surprising amount of support and an open offer to return to work whenever i'm ready
pushing comixology
a pointless lunch run to buy clothing for mr smear but apparently buttons on pajamas aren't fashionable for children over six months
making magic with node.js, having an old mexican friend visit for a beer and a great chat, gd feeling awful after a long day of being screamed at by our son who's either very irritable lately or is exercising his ability to produce highly ambiguous noises. some of them are cute or funny, some of them scary
clearing up miscommunications, going to bed late but relatively early
tuesday 16th:
a better night, up at 6am to send important emails and make calls and successfully avoid discussing money with a potential employer
rushing to the supermarket for emergency stock, overheating on the way home at 4 below, stressing non-stop about the scheduled consulate call
fun with command line node.js, not being able to contact the consulate and last-chance emailing potentially problematic statements, just getting back into work mode before receiving an email informing me that gd and phoenix's visas are in the mail, that we aren't going to have to return to canada in the coming months, that the incredible investment in the toronto visit paid off, that our highest priorities are in order and we can now focus on the insane task of selling and storing and packing and leaving over the course of the next two weeks
a pleasant evening's work
a quick, quiet evening (though mr smear's stuffy nose kept him up for a while), finally announcing publicly that we're moving to south africa
wednesday 17th:
very little sleep, getting up early, a slow day at work, giving the pharmacist the wrong medical insurance card
thursday 18th:
2, 4, 6am and no more sleep
a mostly uneventful day in the office getting shit done the right way; leaving on a positive note after a solid cleanup session. pushap for lunch (heavy, delicious), not picking up $200 lying in a puddle
friday 19th:
3.30am mysterious awakening, a restless couple of hours and getting up at 6am again
playtime, breakfast, psychometric evaluation, post-evaluation stress, the hospital run that failed because the department only opens at 1.30pm for a couple of hours each day
the shopping mission: from no wind to utterly freezing in five seconds flat
taking pride in being the parent who can change the diaper without gagging
dinner and passing out as soon as mr smear did for his nap
saturday 20th:
wild dreams: festival, snowboarding and catching myself with my hands over a deadly drop
spit-up day
nox's surprising family services offer, liking pokemon in spite of myself, the first bath-time where mr smear calmed down and let me dry and dress him without freaking out
the morning shopping expedition turned into picking up lunch with horseman, fending off old people who feel that touching my baby is their right, long goodbyes stretching into making viewers of our apartment wait for twenty minutes, their smelly feet and our moron landlord, still proud that i'm the parent changing our son's diapers without gagging, listing furniture prices, a long chat with my mom, law and order and pinching nerves
some people are pieces of shit dressed up as mouthwatering chocolate cake
sunday 21st:
wild dreams: flying over mountains on a board and picking up broken batman before escaping from the troll by yelling "it's a bomb!"
amazon payments bullshit
paypal bullshit
another illustrator bites the dust
freelancd bullshit
yellow jelly poop
Monday, February 01, 2016
the end of the first leave
it's sunday night, tomorrow morning i go back to work after a much-needed-but-still-not-nearly-enough week of parental leave...
sunday 17th:
haircuts, groping grannies and unwelcome mall mothers, home and heavy shopping
...
dream: trance dance hilltop, third day trying to return to the floor jumping in the public shower being unable to lock the door because some woman was blocking it then her boyfriend bullying me out, i tried punching him but was unable to cause him to so much as flinch after repeated hits to the jaw, leaving humiliated
3.30am lying in bed trying to understand why i haven't heard from the illustrator in a week
monday 18th:
beating yoshimitsu and almost beating devil jin in the tekken 6 scenario campaign and feeling really good about it
parental leave inspiration
bash success, a chaotic day at work, a walk to walmart in temperatures* that have migrated from "temperate" to "mean", but which were mild compared to those going home after dark
* including the wind chill factor, that's what was really hurting
rushed leftovers, a bath, a blur of an evening and then suddenly it was 10pm and he was in bed and we were getting ready for bed
tuesday 19th:
another long night, weird dreams and no more than an hour and a half of sleep at a time, mr smear making creepy, worrying movements with his neck whenever i put him in his crib
brief tekken, hunter x hunter and then hurrying to get ready for both work and laser treatment
a day of varied success, with some exciting progress in laravel; receiving authorization for taking paternal leave next week
both thomas was alone and limbo increasing in intensity to ridiculous levels
the dirty fist bump in the iga
the man walked out of the metro car, but his smell continued to fill it as intensely as if he had remained, to the point where breathing was a painful experience and the fear of leaving with his stain - whether by smell or by disease - became a very palpable thing
with gd ill the night flew by too fast, the pleasure of feeding an enthusiastic mr smear followed by the frustration of having forgotten to feed myself until he was in bed and the last thing i wanted was to risk waking him with the unsuppressible pings and dings of our toaster oven or microwave
wednesday 20th:
a gift from the illustrator
multiple wakings but feeling powered up after three straight hours before dawn; learning that while i appreciate dave chapelle as an artist i don't enjoy his comedy, taking back my morning with hunter x hunter and making myself a breakfast shake for the first time in days
a rushed morning and then an urgent call to come home (that horrible feeling that you're not going to finish your work before taking a week off)
my first time winter dressing mr smear alone and under pressure
no signs for the emergency room
a changing table two units over
cleaning lady blowing something in my eye as i walked past
waiting room giggles
long wait, unpleasant conditions, don't patronize my wife when she has a legitimate request and then remind her that there were issues with her when those issues were an incompetent nurse wiggling the iv needle twice and gd was simply the first patient to complain because her screams of agony weren't enough of a hint
lost winter gear (we thought we'd left it behind, but we hadn't), a bad metro driver
hardcore frontside poop and difficulty getting mr smear to bed before midnight
thursday 21st:
garbage day, dinner, sleep. or not exactly, managing to get very little of it and then suddenly it was 7am
calling in sick, struggling to deal with the fact that gd still needs help and that the hours in emergency were wasted because the doctor felt it was more important to protect his staff than his patients
dirty changing station
long wait with an autistic kid
being the parent of the child practicing vocalizations in a waiting room is a very different experience. i feel bad for anyone not feeling well, but it can be remarkably amusing and we're not going to shut him up when he's just starting to learn how to express himself
the $70 cost of not realizing it was thursday
putting on boots when bone-weary and warm and sleepy post shower
"didn't you pick up your prescription already?" is not a good thing to hear
going for one thing and then forgetting it and having to return
finally lying down... to rls
friday 22nd:
running into nox on the way to work who made me feel like a fool for even considering going, coming home to a family meeting with my mom and then gd's babysitting friend coming over to sign a photo and join us on our mission to passport canada and the police headquarters. both experiences were actually pretty good, the latter being especially impressive considering that we arrived without an appointment (nobody had warned us that we need to make an appointment) and they saw us anyway
hunter x hunter while amusing mr smear, getting him to sleep and eating quickly so we could join him
saturday 23rd:
not an easy night, taking a turn for the worse at 5am when mr smear decided that he was done sleeping
gd refusing to return to the emergency unit, vfmp giving us a hand with the shopping
sunday 24th:
the rest of the weekend being pretty restful, although we did complete an important form and put the old car seat up for sale...
freaks and geeks and a talkative mr smear
monday 25th:
nightmare sleeping disruptions compounded with misunderstood venting and an eye / ear scratching scare
laundry folding and first contact and sharing mr smear's first carrot experience with my mom (he's eating gratifyingly well) and printing. the realization that the experience of feeding mr smear was something i would've missed out on had i been at work...
what an exhausting afternoon and evening spent doing very little... which was kind of the point of taking paternity leave, but it's still weird.
tuesday 26th:
folding laundry, hunter x hunter chimera ant madness, finally getting into wii fit, setting up an interview, putting more stuff up for sale, bath-time happiness souring over a bad response
a long wait for a late doctor who wasn't particularly helpful, bad moods but a good feeding when we got home, a great dinner with horseman
wednesday 27th:
a long night, up early for a no-show interview, scary icy shopping run, flight scheduling, pseudo-resting, and afternoon of an irritable mr smear, a family shopping trip to a rude metro, dinners and a stealth side poop becoming a song and dance
we all have fantasized about meeting our clones, but that surreal moment seeing yourself in your kid is insane
taking out the trash followed by a long and difficult goodnight mr smear
staying up late to watch the last couple of episodes of freaks and geeks again with gd
thursday 28th:
a pretty good night's sleep, still tired but no more than i'm used to; a relaxed morning, a messy sweet potato feeding and then grabbing the opportunity for an outside haircut when the babysitter arrived
the man on the metro with what appeared to be an audio cable plugged into a port on the back of his head about halfway between his spine and his ear
p.m. delivery (it's the tofu skins she likes!), gd's horror over my haircut (i'm not allowed back there again), desperate nap and difficulty waking up for my meeting
the mind blowing revelation that i've talked about myself for hours and given away nothing of who i am (like my blog, except that i've been talking exclusively about my experiences and motivations)
friday 29th:
two decent nights in a row, an early struggle to get mr smear measured (a positive experience overall), gd's health rapidly degrading after mr smear's bath, nothing but stress
emergency post-toilet eye drops swim pharmacy run, ridiculous fails trying to get myself and mr smear ready to join gd at the clinic (lost mittens and the front of the winter suit going under my dirty boots)
the long evening in the waiting room; gd's birthday present excitement
finally, a doctor with a decent bedside manner who explained what everything actually means
saturday 30th:
three decent nights in a row
an unproductive morning followed by a family shopping expedition, an irritable mr smear who i suspect has a bit of a cold, a meeting of the minds with my mom about our trip to cape town
sunday 31st:
four decent nights, we may not be getting a full night's sleep yet but the situation has definitely improved
mr smear's first tooth is making an appearance!
a disappointing ending to a disappointing season of hunter x hunter (season five, i hope there's a sixth on the way)
a busy day doing not much, humid and warm inspiring us to finally clean the humidifier - and screw it up completely
it's scary planning details...
the post-shower rush to pick up dinner, good dinner, bath headache followed by hitting an ugly language barrier in a tense situation, a good recovery but needing to take something for the headache...
... and now to try and get some sleep
sunday 17th:
haircuts, groping grannies and unwelcome mall mothers, home and heavy shopping
...
dream: trance dance hilltop, third day trying to return to the floor jumping in the public shower being unable to lock the door because some woman was blocking it then her boyfriend bullying me out, i tried punching him but was unable to cause him to so much as flinch after repeated hits to the jaw, leaving humiliated
3.30am lying in bed trying to understand why i haven't heard from the illustrator in a week
monday 18th:
beating yoshimitsu and almost beating devil jin in the tekken 6 scenario campaign and feeling really good about it
parental leave inspiration
bash success, a chaotic day at work, a walk to walmart in temperatures* that have migrated from "temperate" to "mean", but which were mild compared to those going home after dark
* including the wind chill factor, that's what was really hurting
rushed leftovers, a bath, a blur of an evening and then suddenly it was 10pm and he was in bed and we were getting ready for bed
tuesday 19th:
another long night, weird dreams and no more than an hour and a half of sleep at a time, mr smear making creepy, worrying movements with his neck whenever i put him in his crib
brief tekken, hunter x hunter and then hurrying to get ready for both work and laser treatment
a day of varied success, with some exciting progress in laravel; receiving authorization for taking paternal leave next week
both thomas was alone and limbo increasing in intensity to ridiculous levels
the dirty fist bump in the iga
the man walked out of the metro car, but his smell continued to fill it as intensely as if he had remained, to the point where breathing was a painful experience and the fear of leaving with his stain - whether by smell or by disease - became a very palpable thing
with gd ill the night flew by too fast, the pleasure of feeding an enthusiastic mr smear followed by the frustration of having forgotten to feed myself until he was in bed and the last thing i wanted was to risk waking him with the unsuppressible pings and dings of our toaster oven or microwave
wednesday 20th:
a gift from the illustrator
multiple wakings but feeling powered up after three straight hours before dawn; learning that while i appreciate dave chapelle as an artist i don't enjoy his comedy, taking back my morning with hunter x hunter and making myself a breakfast shake for the first time in days
a rushed morning and then an urgent call to come home (that horrible feeling that you're not going to finish your work before taking a week off)
my first time winter dressing mr smear alone and under pressure
no signs for the emergency room
a changing table two units over
cleaning lady blowing something in my eye as i walked past
waiting room giggles
long wait, unpleasant conditions, don't patronize my wife when she has a legitimate request and then remind her that there were issues with her when those issues were an incompetent nurse wiggling the iv needle twice and gd was simply the first patient to complain because her screams of agony weren't enough of a hint
lost winter gear (we thought we'd left it behind, but we hadn't), a bad metro driver
hardcore frontside poop and difficulty getting mr smear to bed before midnight
thursday 21st:
garbage day, dinner, sleep. or not exactly, managing to get very little of it and then suddenly it was 7am
calling in sick, struggling to deal with the fact that gd still needs help and that the hours in emergency were wasted because the doctor felt it was more important to protect his staff than his patients
dirty changing station
long wait with an autistic kid
being the parent of the child practicing vocalizations in a waiting room is a very different experience. i feel bad for anyone not feeling well, but it can be remarkably amusing and we're not going to shut him up when he's just starting to learn how to express himself
the $70 cost of not realizing it was thursday
putting on boots when bone-weary and warm and sleepy post shower
"didn't you pick up your prescription already?" is not a good thing to hear
going for one thing and then forgetting it and having to return
finally lying down... to rls
friday 22nd:
running into nox on the way to work who made me feel like a fool for even considering going, coming home to a family meeting with my mom and then gd's babysitting friend coming over to sign a photo and join us on our mission to passport canada and the police headquarters. both experiences were actually pretty good, the latter being especially impressive considering that we arrived without an appointment (nobody had warned us that we need to make an appointment) and they saw us anyway
hunter x hunter while amusing mr smear, getting him to sleep and eating quickly so we could join him
saturday 23rd:
not an easy night, taking a turn for the worse at 5am when mr smear decided that he was done sleeping
gd refusing to return to the emergency unit, vfmp giving us a hand with the shopping
sunday 24th:
the rest of the weekend being pretty restful, although we did complete an important form and put the old car seat up for sale...
freaks and geeks and a talkative mr smear
monday 25th:
nightmare sleeping disruptions compounded with misunderstood venting and an eye / ear scratching scare
laundry folding and first contact and sharing mr smear's first carrot experience with my mom (he's eating gratifyingly well) and printing. the realization that the experience of feeding mr smear was something i would've missed out on had i been at work...
what an exhausting afternoon and evening spent doing very little... which was kind of the point of taking paternity leave, but it's still weird.
tuesday 26th:
folding laundry, hunter x hunter chimera ant madness, finally getting into wii fit, setting up an interview, putting more stuff up for sale, bath-time happiness souring over a bad response
a long wait for a late doctor who wasn't particularly helpful, bad moods but a good feeding when we got home, a great dinner with horseman
wednesday 27th:
a long night, up early for a no-show interview, scary icy shopping run, flight scheduling, pseudo-resting, and afternoon of an irritable mr smear, a family shopping trip to a rude metro, dinners and a stealth side poop becoming a song and dance
we all have fantasized about meeting our clones, but that surreal moment seeing yourself in your kid is insane
taking out the trash followed by a long and difficult goodnight mr smear
staying up late to watch the last couple of episodes of freaks and geeks again with gd
thursday 28th:
a pretty good night's sleep, still tired but no more than i'm used to; a relaxed morning, a messy sweet potato feeding and then grabbing the opportunity for an outside haircut when the babysitter arrived
the man on the metro with what appeared to be an audio cable plugged into a port on the back of his head about halfway between his spine and his ear
p.m. delivery (it's the tofu skins she likes!), gd's horror over my haircut (i'm not allowed back there again), desperate nap and difficulty waking up for my meeting
the mind blowing revelation that i've talked about myself for hours and given away nothing of who i am (like my blog, except that i've been talking exclusively about my experiences and motivations)
friday 29th:
two decent nights in a row, an early struggle to get mr smear measured (a positive experience overall), gd's health rapidly degrading after mr smear's bath, nothing but stress
emergency post-toilet eye drops swim pharmacy run, ridiculous fails trying to get myself and mr smear ready to join gd at the clinic (lost mittens and the front of the winter suit going under my dirty boots)
the long evening in the waiting room; gd's birthday present excitement
finally, a doctor with a decent bedside manner who explained what everything actually means
saturday 30th:
three decent nights in a row
an unproductive morning followed by a family shopping expedition, an irritable mr smear who i suspect has a bit of a cold, a meeting of the minds with my mom about our trip to cape town
sunday 31st:
four decent nights, we may not be getting a full night's sleep yet but the situation has definitely improved
mr smear's first tooth is making an appearance!
a disappointing ending to a disappointing season of hunter x hunter (season five, i hope there's a sixth on the way)
a busy day doing not much, humid and warm inspiring us to finally clean the humidifier - and screw it up completely
it's scary planning details...
the post-shower rush to pick up dinner, good dinner, bath headache followed by hitting an ugly language barrier in a tense situation, a good recovery but needing to take something for the headache...
... and now to try and get some sleep
Sunday, January 17, 2016
happy new year!
time flies... especially when everything's so compressed you can't keep track of what day it is. it's mid-january and we've only accomplished a fraction of what we've needed to, mr smear is almost at six months and still hasn't settled down, and gd and i are absolutely exhausted. but hey! winter finally arrived and our little boy is healthy and happy and sitting on his own. and my work might not be ideal, but things are better than they were.
--- sunday 27th december:
the first proper snowfall of the season
comic inspiration
replacing the dead soundbar with gd's old amp
salting the steps vs clearing them
visiting best buy so they could help me order from their website (shitty, broken website)
a chilled afternoon / evening with a visit from horseman, mr smear being fussy / generally unimpressed by me
monday 28th:
waking up to a distressingly cold child in a confusingly cold apartment - it's 2015 in montréal, a city famous for its cold winters, and we don't have a thermostat and our heaters aren't reliable or particularly effective
long night, a few difficult wakeups, getting up at 7am exhausted and not feeling at all ready for even a three-day workweek
a morning spent trying to fix the laptop gd's brother gave us a long time ago
one signed nda later...
*now* it's winter, all cold and crunchy underfoot
another pleasantly relaxed day at work, getting back into scripting during my lunch break
a badly hurting knee on my way home (massaging it helped, though)
straight to business, an exciting phone call with an amazing artist
an icy walk to the shops, a long time putting mr smear to bed, compiling the artist's package
tuesday 29th:
another difficult night, the psychological wearing-down when you don't know what's wrong
early up with little sleep to a heavy snowstorm and howl's moving castle
my first leg exercise in half a year: clearing our steps and trudging through thick snow to the metro... throughout the day the snowstorm becoming progressively heavier and visibility progressively lower
a slow day getting the job done - and noting the other team conspicuously spending their hours consuming weird porn - until discovering a critical bug in my (now live) project just as gd messaged me to tell me that she urgently needed help
vaccination mission - not too bad, but ending with repeated baby seat stress
mr smear passed out cold when we got home but made up for it in spades when it was our bedtime.
wednesday 30th:
giving up around 1am and settling in the lounge to monitor him and message the artist who has already produced stunning work and we haven't properly begun yet
more than four straight hours of sleep!!!
waking up with my neighbour totoro
carrying the sound bar to work to see if anyone wants to try fixing it before i recycle it, being the only developer there, working really hard on painfully squinty work, trying out the cat lady over lunch (very interesting), abandoning ship to help gd with an unhappy post-vaccination mr smear, picking up his winter jacket and learning how much better walmart is for baby shopping than almost anywhere else here, coming home heavily laden, helping briefly, grocery shopping mission, alternating between dinner, mr smear, exciting comic progress and trying to handle a heavy snow garbage day silently
thursday 31st:
you know what kind of day it is when you realize that your shirt's on backwards and you're holding the book upside down
delivery special: the high chair, my police report and a bouncing toy / distraction all arrived nearly simultaneously. staring at the high chair, gd and i both thinking "didn't we just bring him home from the hospital?"
the successful car seat mission, the barely successful cashew milk mission and the end of 2015 being a quiet night in
friday 1st:
happy new year! here's hoping 2016 will be at least as good as 2015 and provide much more sleep.
sleeping better, but still far from enough, and beginning the day with battlestar galactica and entertaining mr smear with tekken and abe's exoddus. heading out to p.m. to pick up lunch, the long travel and wait and intense hunger, another busy / quiet evening, watching the end of bernie
saturday 2nd:
six and a half hour's sleep!!! amazing. a slow day, finally putting up hooks that i bought in august, big poops and good naps and a big (slow) shopping mission with mr smear's new winter suit
a long day of arguing about the middle east and finally blocking a hard right university associate
the avengers: age of ultron is a lot of fun, but not nearly as good as the original
sunday 3rd:
struggling when forced to wake up in the middle of a dream at 1am, sleeping pretty well the rest of the night
a sunday whizzing by all too fast. lots of snow and minor chores and a home depot mission and a visit from horseman and multiple puking events and a lot of hilarity and being conscious of being present for mr smear making the most ridiculously cute noises while making himself comfortable on my chest
monday 4th:
a long, trying night including a shoulder-height poop, my own uncomfortable belly and three wakeups to a freezing apartment, finally passing out with mr smear on my chest and having a second dream of the scotsman nonchalantly bleeding profusely from his eyes
the second great pooping, watching mr smear with full house (holy crap, the eighties was a weird time) and asterix, being terrified that he'd hurt his arm when he fell over (he hadn't), a brisk walk to the pharmacy in -28 degrees (the garbage men here are hard)
fleeing coughing on the metro, a long, intense day making solid progress, limbo and thomas was alone and ftl, nifty's surprisingly easy comic dismissal acceptance, walmart mission and a badly-timed call home, pigging out on fake pringles on the ride home
good dinner, the ultimate fighter, the beginnings of a throat infection
tuesday 5th:
that turned into an ear infection, a pinching nerve and a couple of night changes, sleeping in an extra hour and getting the day restarted talking about dreams and freud and hillman
the most awkward, nervous-giggling-inducing chat with the scotsman when i told him about my dreams
another long day ending with sore eyes, but walking out feeling remarkably self-satisfied. my lunchtime remembering that ftl is dangerously addictive.
my quote of the day: there should be a queer magazine called "bi weekly".
halogen's response: it can come out whenever it's ready. no pressure.
fast shopping and a visit from horseman
wednesday 6th:
that moment when you're in a hurry and you realize that the instructions for the car seat don't actually match with what you're looking at
the first taxi on the way to the clinic arriving with compromised seats, and the first taxi on the way back from the clinic arriving with compromised seats
little sleep, no breakfast and sudden exhaustion as we got home, but sucking it up and turning around to go to work
you know you're in montreal when it's seven below zero and nobody's wearing gloves
arriving at work to the conclusion that i have a cold, warzone 2100 and ftl for lunch, a long four hours struggling to identify what i was supposed to be doing with the bad queries i was finding, a fun hour or two with a more interesting project and then leaving the office feeling worn out
small victories: dinner, humidifier, dishes, garbage, bottle returns, shower... deserving of an ice cream reward
thursday 7th:
better breathing with the humidifier but still a tough night, starting the day with clone wars (the series, which isn't bad but it doesn't motivate me to watch the movies at all) and mr smear's deceptively large stealth poop
a beautiful white and blue morning, a day full of random, the lunch break combo (warzone 2100, limbo and ftl), the last minute code review and heading to my weekly meeting feeling great about my work and not so great about being ten minutes late for my appointment.
another interesting meeting
hurried dinner followed by baby monitoring with lego movies and tekken
friday 8th:
a slight sinus infection. a comfortable morning singing and playing with my son, and rescuing gd's brother's laptop with ubuntu. appreciating the fact that sativa is the "right" strain and indica's popularity is the reason i've never been a fan of smoking
narrowly avoiding an official warning, pushap lunch with vfmp, a wishy-washy workday
the guy who gets into training gear to go down the stairs on his way home
shitty tofu from a well-known asian restaurant is very disappointing
saturday 9th:
not the best of nights, waking up with tekken and the realization that i've been customizing wrong all this time (now making the first real progress since before i met gd)
getting riled up by gd's online friend defending anti-science new-age bullshit
another last minute laser cancellation
shopping in the rain, a long, tiring evening of not much
sunday 10th:
sleeping in a little, hunter x hunter (the reboot is only getting better and better)
baby passport photos
returning the new car seat, bad attitude taxi driver who couldn't understand english but i still felt bad about not tipping him
amazing semi-finals and finale for the latest the ultimate fighter season
last time it was leaving the entrance door open all night in subzero temperatures, this time - after we explained that we hear everything and they promised to be more respectful - it was vacuuming at 11pm. can they be such assholes? or that stupid? or so high?
monday 11th:
dealing with rls when trying to get to sleep, managing a couple of hours and then feeling it again
a few times up during the night but it was a pretty easy one nonetheless; a difficult morning, though, with an inexplicably agitated mr smear
RIP david bowie. i don't have anything clever or personal to say, but just like robin williams he was one of those people who leaves a void when they ascend. i found all the raging against his personal life confusing, there was a lot of talk about "rape" but the only things i could find seemed to be consensual. maybe i wasn't looking hard enough? maybe we should just appreciate him as an artist, and not do the whole hero worship thing?
another weird day not really certain what i should be doing, eventually deciding that my workstation is in dire need of a clean format
lunchtime with limbo and thomas was alone, an afternoon rocked by power outages that somehow bypassed our backup supply
firefly and hunter x hunter over dinner, getting to bed feeling oddly awake and clear
tuesday 12th:
waking up around 1am for a feeding and having difficulty getting back to sleep, reading an intriguing set of discussions about the canadian slam scene, immense difficulty waking up for the morning routine
tekken while mr smear scooted around his mats, protecting him as he sat on his bum playing with his toys for a while, then rushing to get ready for work
death of a computer, an exciting snowstorm, the IT intern being really weird about finding my desk, nem being full of upsetting bullshit, returning the awkwardly opened charity envelope, leaving during a team crisis but figuring out the cause just before walking out the door
a busy evening until bedtime,
wednesday 13th:
followed by a busy night, a calm morning right until i needed to leave (venting + miscommunication), arriving late for work
slow and steady progress reinstalling all my tools, but having to deal with live issues under stressful rush conditions and ending up exhausted after a long day. then coming home to go straight back out to do heavy grocery shopping, then help bath mr smear, then miscommunicate badly instead of nap, then go through the whole garbage day routine
approaching midnight with no appetite and a distinct sense of humour failure
thursday 14th:
an uncomfortable mr smear, low spirits morning
soft, light snow on the way to the metro as if the gods had had a pillow fight
bureaucracy revisited, a difficult day working on an enigma that we resolved with some inspired weirdness, heavy and delicious pushap (albeit with some shitty attitude from the waiter), bash scripting fun, almost leaving late for an important appointment
tekken, big field roast sausages (chipotle, painfully deliciously spicy), firefly
friday 15th:
average rest interrupted by indigestion, a morning catching up on social media while monitoring mr smear, a long day trying to avoid doing damage to our code repository, some great limbo and thomas was alone experiences (i got to their inversion points simultaneously, very clever stuff), a little bit of bug fixing in the evening and then home for an exhausted friday night doing nothing
the office idiot chasing me down because he thought my field roast sausage was a real one and he was enthusiastically trying to catch me out - i was offended enough that i couldn't have hid my disdain even if i'd wanted to, and then i felt like an ass for letting someone so stupid get under my skin. did i mention before my realization that the people who's heads i want to bash in the most are the ones least likely to have their cognitive abilities affected by it?
saturday 16th:
making a big mistake while trying to deal with rls and paying for it all the way through the night, a relaxed morning and early afternoon with hunter x hunter and tekken while amusing mr smear (and a pared down version of fluxx by way of introduction), then heading off to the health store and to buy a new baby car seat
of course they've sold out the model on sale and the similar ones are more than twice the price... and of course there're only two people working at babies r us on a saturday afternoon
FUCK. the metro was packed, i was carrying a massive box and they announced my station so i pushed through and got out just in time... for the doors to close behind me as i realized that i had gotten off one station early
totally wiped out after the serious physical exertion, bathing and not-resting and take-out and a failed attempt to continue watching star wars (iv) as gd wasn't feeling well
sunday 17th:
another looooooong night, another early sunday morning. not too bad, beginning the 5th season of the hunter x hunter reboot and being all excited about it. i have adult stuff to do today but... just another few minutes, eh? i need some rest.
the first proper snowfall of the season
comic inspiration
replacing the dead soundbar with gd's old amp
salting the steps vs clearing them
visiting best buy so they could help me order from their website (shitty, broken website)
a chilled afternoon / evening with a visit from horseman, mr smear being fussy / generally unimpressed by me
monday 28th:
waking up to a distressingly cold child in a confusingly cold apartment - it's 2015 in montréal, a city famous for its cold winters, and we don't have a thermostat and our heaters aren't reliable or particularly effective
long night, a few difficult wakeups, getting up at 7am exhausted and not feeling at all ready for even a three-day workweek
a morning spent trying to fix the laptop gd's brother gave us a long time ago
one signed nda later...
*now* it's winter, all cold and crunchy underfoot
another pleasantly relaxed day at work, getting back into scripting during my lunch break
a badly hurting knee on my way home (massaging it helped, though)
straight to business, an exciting phone call with an amazing artist
an icy walk to the shops, a long time putting mr smear to bed, compiling the artist's package
tuesday 29th:
another difficult night, the psychological wearing-down when you don't know what's wrong
early up with little sleep to a heavy snowstorm and howl's moving castle
my first leg exercise in half a year: clearing our steps and trudging through thick snow to the metro... throughout the day the snowstorm becoming progressively heavier and visibility progressively lower
a slow day getting the job done - and noting the other team conspicuously spending their hours consuming weird porn - until discovering a critical bug in my (now live) project just as gd messaged me to tell me that she urgently needed help
vaccination mission - not too bad, but ending with repeated baby seat stress
mr smear passed out cold when we got home but made up for it in spades when it was our bedtime.
wednesday 30th:
giving up around 1am and settling in the lounge to monitor him and message the artist who has already produced stunning work and we haven't properly begun yet
more than four straight hours of sleep!!!
waking up with my neighbour totoro
carrying the sound bar to work to see if anyone wants to try fixing it before i recycle it, being the only developer there, working really hard on painfully squinty work, trying out the cat lady over lunch (very interesting), abandoning ship to help gd with an unhappy post-vaccination mr smear, picking up his winter jacket and learning how much better walmart is for baby shopping than almost anywhere else here, coming home heavily laden, helping briefly, grocery shopping mission, alternating between dinner, mr smear, exciting comic progress and trying to handle a heavy snow garbage day silently
thursday 31st:
you know what kind of day it is when you realize that your shirt's on backwards and you're holding the book upside down
delivery special: the high chair, my police report and a bouncing toy / distraction all arrived nearly simultaneously. staring at the high chair, gd and i both thinking "didn't we just bring him home from the hospital?"
the successful car seat mission, the barely successful cashew milk mission and the end of 2015 being a quiet night in
friday 1st:
happy new year! here's hoping 2016 will be at least as good as 2015 and provide much more sleep.
sleeping better, but still far from enough, and beginning the day with battlestar galactica and entertaining mr smear with tekken and abe's exoddus. heading out to p.m. to pick up lunch, the long travel and wait and intense hunger, another busy / quiet evening, watching the end of bernie
saturday 2nd:
six and a half hour's sleep!!! amazing. a slow day, finally putting up hooks that i bought in august, big poops and good naps and a big (slow) shopping mission with mr smear's new winter suit
a long day of arguing about the middle east and finally blocking a hard right university associate
the avengers: age of ultron is a lot of fun, but not nearly as good as the original
sunday 3rd:
struggling when forced to wake up in the middle of a dream at 1am, sleeping pretty well the rest of the night
a sunday whizzing by all too fast. lots of snow and minor chores and a home depot mission and a visit from horseman and multiple puking events and a lot of hilarity and being conscious of being present for mr smear making the most ridiculously cute noises while making himself comfortable on my chest
monday 4th:
a long, trying night including a shoulder-height poop, my own uncomfortable belly and three wakeups to a freezing apartment, finally passing out with mr smear on my chest and having a second dream of the scotsman nonchalantly bleeding profusely from his eyes
the second great pooping, watching mr smear with full house (holy crap, the eighties was a weird time) and asterix, being terrified that he'd hurt his arm when he fell over (he hadn't), a brisk walk to the pharmacy in -28 degrees (the garbage men here are hard)
fleeing coughing on the metro, a long, intense day making solid progress, limbo and thomas was alone and ftl, nifty's surprisingly easy comic dismissal acceptance, walmart mission and a badly-timed call home, pigging out on fake pringles on the ride home
good dinner, the ultimate fighter, the beginnings of a throat infection
tuesday 5th:
that turned into an ear infection, a pinching nerve and a couple of night changes, sleeping in an extra hour and getting the day restarted talking about dreams and freud and hillman
the most awkward, nervous-giggling-inducing chat with the scotsman when i told him about my dreams
another long day ending with sore eyes, but walking out feeling remarkably self-satisfied. my lunchtime remembering that ftl is dangerously addictive.
my quote of the day: there should be a queer magazine called "bi weekly".
halogen's response: it can come out whenever it's ready. no pressure.
fast shopping and a visit from horseman
wednesday 6th:
that moment when you're in a hurry and you realize that the instructions for the car seat don't actually match with what you're looking at
the first taxi on the way to the clinic arriving with compromised seats, and the first taxi on the way back from the clinic arriving with compromised seats
little sleep, no breakfast and sudden exhaustion as we got home, but sucking it up and turning around to go to work
you know you're in montreal when it's seven below zero and nobody's wearing gloves
arriving at work to the conclusion that i have a cold, warzone 2100 and ftl for lunch, a long four hours struggling to identify what i was supposed to be doing with the bad queries i was finding, a fun hour or two with a more interesting project and then leaving the office feeling worn out
small victories: dinner, humidifier, dishes, garbage, bottle returns, shower... deserving of an ice cream reward
thursday 7th:
better breathing with the humidifier but still a tough night, starting the day with clone wars (the series, which isn't bad but it doesn't motivate me to watch the movies at all) and mr smear's deceptively large stealth poop
a beautiful white and blue morning, a day full of random, the lunch break combo (warzone 2100, limbo and ftl), the last minute code review and heading to my weekly meeting feeling great about my work and not so great about being ten minutes late for my appointment.
another interesting meeting
hurried dinner followed by baby monitoring with lego movies and tekken
friday 8th:
a slight sinus infection. a comfortable morning singing and playing with my son, and rescuing gd's brother's laptop with ubuntu. appreciating the fact that sativa is the "right" strain and indica's popularity is the reason i've never been a fan of smoking
narrowly avoiding an official warning, pushap lunch with vfmp, a wishy-washy workday
the guy who gets into training gear to go down the stairs on his way home
shitty tofu from a well-known asian restaurant is very disappointing
saturday 9th:
not the best of nights, waking up with tekken and the realization that i've been customizing wrong all this time (now making the first real progress since before i met gd)
getting riled up by gd's online friend defending anti-science new-age bullshit
another last minute laser cancellation
shopping in the rain, a long, tiring evening of not much
sunday 10th:
sleeping in a little, hunter x hunter (the reboot is only getting better and better)
baby passport photos
returning the new car seat, bad attitude taxi driver who couldn't understand english but i still felt bad about not tipping him
amazing semi-finals and finale for the latest the ultimate fighter season
last time it was leaving the entrance door open all night in subzero temperatures, this time - after we explained that we hear everything and they promised to be more respectful - it was vacuuming at 11pm. can they be such assholes? or that stupid? or so high?
monday 11th:
dealing with rls when trying to get to sleep, managing a couple of hours and then feeling it again
a few times up during the night but it was a pretty easy one nonetheless; a difficult morning, though, with an inexplicably agitated mr smear
RIP david bowie. i don't have anything clever or personal to say, but just like robin williams he was one of those people who leaves a void when they ascend. i found all the raging against his personal life confusing, there was a lot of talk about "rape" but the only things i could find seemed to be consensual. maybe i wasn't looking hard enough? maybe we should just appreciate him as an artist, and not do the whole hero worship thing?
another weird day not really certain what i should be doing, eventually deciding that my workstation is in dire need of a clean format
lunchtime with limbo and thomas was alone, an afternoon rocked by power outages that somehow bypassed our backup supply
firefly and hunter x hunter over dinner, getting to bed feeling oddly awake and clear
tuesday 12th:
waking up around 1am for a feeding and having difficulty getting back to sleep, reading an intriguing set of discussions about the canadian slam scene, immense difficulty waking up for the morning routine
tekken while mr smear scooted around his mats, protecting him as he sat on his bum playing with his toys for a while, then rushing to get ready for work
death of a computer, an exciting snowstorm, the IT intern being really weird about finding my desk, nem being full of upsetting bullshit, returning the awkwardly opened charity envelope, leaving during a team crisis but figuring out the cause just before walking out the door
a busy evening until bedtime,
wednesday 13th:
followed by a busy night, a calm morning right until i needed to leave (venting + miscommunication), arriving late for work
slow and steady progress reinstalling all my tools, but having to deal with live issues under stressful rush conditions and ending up exhausted after a long day. then coming home to go straight back out to do heavy grocery shopping, then help bath mr smear, then miscommunicate badly instead of nap, then go through the whole garbage day routine
approaching midnight with no appetite and a distinct sense of humour failure
thursday 14th:
an uncomfortable mr smear, low spirits morning
soft, light snow on the way to the metro as if the gods had had a pillow fight
bureaucracy revisited, a difficult day working on an enigma that we resolved with some inspired weirdness, heavy and delicious pushap (albeit with some shitty attitude from the waiter), bash scripting fun, almost leaving late for an important appointment
tekken, big field roast sausages (chipotle, painfully deliciously spicy), firefly
friday 15th:
average rest interrupted by indigestion, a morning catching up on social media while monitoring mr smear, a long day trying to avoid doing damage to our code repository, some great limbo and thomas was alone experiences (i got to their inversion points simultaneously, very clever stuff), a little bit of bug fixing in the evening and then home for an exhausted friday night doing nothing
the office idiot chasing me down because he thought my field roast sausage was a real one and he was enthusiastically trying to catch me out - i was offended enough that i couldn't have hid my disdain even if i'd wanted to, and then i felt like an ass for letting someone so stupid get under my skin. did i mention before my realization that the people who's heads i want to bash in the most are the ones least likely to have their cognitive abilities affected by it?
saturday 16th:
making a big mistake while trying to deal with rls and paying for it all the way through the night, a relaxed morning and early afternoon with hunter x hunter and tekken while amusing mr smear (and a pared down version of fluxx by way of introduction), then heading off to the health store and to buy a new baby car seat
of course they've sold out the model on sale and the similar ones are more than twice the price... and of course there're only two people working at babies r us on a saturday afternoon
FUCK. the metro was packed, i was carrying a massive box and they announced my station so i pushed through and got out just in time... for the doors to close behind me as i realized that i had gotten off one station early
totally wiped out after the serious physical exertion, bathing and not-resting and take-out and a failed attempt to continue watching star wars (iv) as gd wasn't feeling well
sunday 17th:
another looooooong night, another early sunday morning. not too bad, beginning the 5th season of the hunter x hunter reboot and being all excited about it. i have adult stuff to do today but... just another few minutes, eh? i need some rest.
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