CRIMINALS AND ENABLERS THE LOT OF THEM.
i have spent my morning furious, but i'm starting to find the humour in the absurdity. just after discovering that telkom had significantly overcharged me a while back and i hadn't picked it up (not the first time, i really do need to remember that they're a bunch of bandits) , i then received a message from FNB informing me that telkom had unexpectedly taken a whole lot of money out of my account - the exact same amount i'd paid them a week ago.
livid, i abandoned my morning responsibilities and went straight to the closest fnb branch where they informed me that although the money was stolen today, and i know about it, i can only report it tomorrow. WHAT - THE - ACTUAL - F***.
i was also distressed to learn that the reason telkom was able to take the money was because of a watch they'd put on my account (and forgotten to remove), which i don't recall agreeing to.
shocked, perhaps even angrier than before if such a thing was possible, i fumed for a bit before finally getting hold of telkom's billing department (i know, i'm impressed that i got through too!). after getting all my details and my payment reference for the previous week, the agent agreed that they had received the payment and took the money in error.
and could i please call back to open a dispute tomorrow, because that can't be done on the same day.
WHAT.
THE.
ACTUAL.
F***.
Monday, August 27, 2018
Thursday, August 23, 2018
bell bill bull
after months being hounded by collection agencies on behalf of bell for a clearly fictitious bill that i disputed (it was for a period i'd already disconnected my service and left the country), i finally got through to the right people (bell employees can't communicate by email or make phone calls out, apparently). after a breakdown of the final months and my payments, we finally established that bell bills are actually for the two months prior, meaning that a bill for march is actually the bill for january. it suddenly struck me that they'd been doing that since my first bill, which means that although i only signed up with bell in november 2012 my first bill in december was actually for the month of september. a time when i didn't receive any service from them.
it took the supervisor, who's clearly been working there for years, a few moments to process this information. i explained to him that as a human being, he had two choices: the first was to cancel the debt and call it a day, the second was to leave it as is and let me take all this information before a judge if and when we return to canada.
to his credit, he acknowledged the absurdity of the situation and cancelled the amount. this story has only cost me a few dollars in calling costs, but it's cost me a whole lot in hours that i don't have and in stress i have way too much of.
i knew all about hydro quebec doing crazy shit to steal customers' money, but this just blew my mind. and apparently videotron's similar.
wow, canada, you guys put up with a lot of shit.
it took the supervisor, who's clearly been working there for years, a few moments to process this information. i explained to him that as a human being, he had two choices: the first was to cancel the debt and call it a day, the second was to leave it as is and let me take all this information before a judge if and when we return to canada.
to his credit, he acknowledged the absurdity of the situation and cancelled the amount. this story has only cost me a few dollars in calling costs, but it's cost me a whole lot in hours that i don't have and in stress i have way too much of.
i knew all about hydro quebec doing crazy shit to steal customers' money, but this just blew my mind. and apparently videotron's similar.
wow, canada, you guys put up with a lot of shit.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
seven days in
tuesday 14th august:
down the crypto rabbit hole until 3.45am
early up, jumping out of bed to an angry mr smear, the washing machine installed, gd out of commission and some unnecessary tension
a bad cough starting
dropping mr smear at school, printing our contract and sending in my shirt for popeyefication, pharmacy
my first work chats (asynchronous), lots of communication tool configuration, a rush to draw cash for the morning's appliance guy, beginning to set up my old laptop
picking up mr smear, who'd had a normal day, a mall visit for a babyccino and some nails for our coffee table, home for lunch, taking mr smear in the stroller back to the mall with him falling asleep, just missing the next hardware store, stopping by an awesome tattoo parlour (tomb) to get my helix replaced
mr smear waking up in a foul mood just before we returned home, ordering in, apartment contract stress, mom's laptop issues (windows smartscreen is the WORST), the food being good but the delivery sucked, ending up with polystyrene packaging in my food
the tragedy of my son spooning good soup all over his chest, but improving a little at least
a very long goodnight, peeling three apples with my teeth
the policeman shouting at our neighbour's door
wednesday 15th:
waking up past midnight in my son's bed having passed out because it had taken so long to get him to go to bed
a little setup then grabbing four hours of sleep before getting up around 5.30 to adult with the lease - finally getting through it around two hours later, just in time for everyone else to wake up and to decide that i needed more rest (ha, ha, right)
still with the horrible cough
a very busy morning getting mr smear to school, finding a strip for our shower door - feeling like i'd taken a crazy pill, wondering if everyone on the roads was simultaneously having a stroke and one well-dressed man actually walking into the side of my stopped car - lots of time invested in contract signing and snags, setting up my workstation, dealing with pest control and homeless shelter vouchers and the museum and class gifts and condolence gifts and drawing cash for piercings
picking up mr smear ("i *want* to be wet and smelly!"), trying to optimize by taking him to the shelter to pick up the vouchers; he fell asleep just as we arrived, and everything smelled intensely of human feces, the weirdness of learning that the pharmacy gets a bulk discount on vouchers and hoping that's not actually the case and that they're simply paying a part of each booklet themselves
mr smear napping and me continuing to set up my workstation, asking him what he wanted for his room's walls and constructing a lego policemen poster while he complained that he'd meant he wanted to see lego city on the ipad; feeding him wraps, hummus and berries before taking him and his balance bike to the tomb tattoo parlour to pay the amount i still owed them, mr smear finally getting on his bike (i'd had to carry it the whole time) and having an amazing time following around the indian restaurant owner's bigger kid (and stopping to develop a relationship with the francophone car guard)
a pleasant walk home, then heading to my mom's coffee shop to help her with her laptop and chat over coffee before doing a grocery run for my salad ingredients, winning a bunch of airtime vouchers, then coming home and straight into shower time
a dripping wet diaper right after showering requiring us to shower again, putting mr smear to bed and learning that for three days he's been avoiding going to sleep because he's afraid of a ghost he saw on the #!%?ing care bears
raging after discovering that the cleaning lady is still putting open food in the cupboards
trying to get some work done but becoming overwhelmed with exhaustion, lying down to nap for half an hour
thursday 16th:
and eventually getting up at 5am and wondering if this early morning thing was going to be the way forward
horrible cough day three: sludge throat
gd and i sharing a mutual freakout because i'd been working for my new employer for three days and had yet to produce a thing; partially exacerbated by running out of local funds because i hadn't been keeping track and the move was full of surprise expenses
managing to get mr smear out the door half a hour less late than usual (with a little stress and a packed breakfast), returning pretzels and learning about torque bits and finally leaving the hardware store with a wood bit and a pre-sliced dowel, picking up a second attempt at a popeye shirt and printing the lego policemen poster (which he'd enjoy later), returning home to sort out carpets, make slow and steady progress with work and later prove my "handiness" to my wife by satisfactorily fixing the foot of our sleeper wood coffee table
the relief of being able to walk barefoot in our apartment for the first time
picking up mr smear and taking him shopping while he devoured his breakfast, lunch and berries (and a handful of raw almonds, which pleased me), then returning home to find him passed out in the back and lying down myself for an hour or two until he woke up around 5pm
finally, after being in our home for a week, setting up the entertainment system
a reasonable bedtime preparation followed by a child who was completely uninterested in going to sleep - after a lot of effort on both our parts he threw a tantrum; i managed to handle it well and he confided in me that he didn't want to go to sleep because he wanted to go to the dentist - i explained that the two aren't mutually exclusive, recited a poem while scratching his back and finally got some me time in watching you magnificent bastard before getting back to work
mr smear starting a cough,
oh-f***-it's-friday 17th:
crashing suddenly just after midnight
a longer time waking up than planned, wondering where my week went (inspiring me to log my hours again)
an hour or so figuring out how to self sign certificates in windows (thank you, let's encrypt! and thank YOU, babun!), a tough time getting mr smear out of his room ("i don't want to go to school! i want to stay in my room!") and ready for school ("i don't want to play with my friends, i want to go to the dentist!")
a lost cap, a quick shopping that took far too long, picking up gd and going straight through to her not-hypnotherapist
a little work progress, followed by a rush to get through a city full of incompetent drivers, stopping in the worst parking lot (woolworths at cavendish) to pick up a new cap for mr smear and finally arriving ten minutes late at the wrong hospital on the opposite side of town for gd's appointment - dropping her off and realizing that she was two minute's walk from our new home - it turned out to be a bad idea to tell her that, though, which kind of soured the afternoon a bit
picking up mr smear, working while keeping an eye on him, finally achieving something (basic, but satisfying) just before leaving for the temple
a pleasant service with mr smear playing quietly in the kid's corner with a new friend (i think her mother thought i was hired help - she certainly treated me as such), heading straight to my cousins for a really nice and loud family dinner
saturday 18th:
lost iphone contacts - my phone had decided to attach all my contacts to my work account and deleted them all when i disconnected it :'(
gardens visit, a scalding hot babyccino and the predictable fallout which the woman at least had the decency to be embarrassed about
a beard trim and laser treatment
a company gardens playdate, mr smear's first strip show (he stumbled upon a woman modelling nude in public), the kids simultaneously pooping their pants and the nightmare scenario of not catching mr smear taking off his onesie and diaper and covering himself in messy shit
back home for a fun hour or two while the kids parallel played
setting up the playstation and mr smear passing out on my lap watching me play motorstorm
dinner and disenchanted (great)
sailor coming over for a long and entertaining evening
sunday 19th:
two hours of personal project work followed by two hours of dealing with mr smear's nappy rash and refusal to sleep, finally sliding out of his bed (his eyes were still open) at 4am just as city revelers started a massive fight in the streets that lasted at least half an hour
about three hours of sleeping badly, waking up uncomfortably, half an hour of tightening security for my phone service, driving through to wynberg
the joy of witnessing mr smear in the back seat wearing a blue glitter water drop mask and singing along to dead or alive - you spin me round
getting out of the car for a memorial service and mr smear yelling "ghostbusters!" at the top of his lungs...
telling my son we had to go but getting stuck for half an hour (at least some of it was fun, chasing him around the empty synagogue)
lunch at plant, waiting an absurdly long time but the new menu definitely successful
a fun walk around the block with mr smear and witnessing a gang of street kids giving patrons a hard time
coming home to no naps, a proper shower (after two days skipped) and an afternoon with mr smear generally* playing nicely while i worked on my telephony project and then joining me for an intense session of toy story 3 (that game is amazing)
* with a few bum-paste related meltdowns
accidentally breaking a very nice wardrobe light installation (all we needed)
dinnertime with animaniacs (he asked for it, we all enjoyed it), followed by a very nice story time and getting him asleep before 9pm for the first time since before we moved, gd actually settling in a drawing for the first time in ages, and now that i've posted i think i'm ready to work.
i just wish i didn't have that infestation feeling all over my legs again. and that i had time to invest in preparing for next week's poetry slam.
down the crypto rabbit hole until 3.45am
early up, jumping out of bed to an angry mr smear, the washing machine installed, gd out of commission and some unnecessary tension
a bad cough starting
dropping mr smear at school, printing our contract and sending in my shirt for popeyefication, pharmacy
my first work chats (asynchronous), lots of communication tool configuration, a rush to draw cash for the morning's appliance guy, beginning to set up my old laptop
picking up mr smear, who'd had a normal day, a mall visit for a babyccino and some nails for our coffee table, home for lunch, taking mr smear in the stroller back to the mall with him falling asleep, just missing the next hardware store, stopping by an awesome tattoo parlour (tomb) to get my helix replaced
mr smear waking up in a foul mood just before we returned home, ordering in, apartment contract stress, mom's laptop issues (windows smartscreen is the WORST), the food being good but the delivery sucked, ending up with polystyrene packaging in my food
the tragedy of my son spooning good soup all over his chest, but improving a little at least
a very long goodnight, peeling three apples with my teeth
the policeman shouting at our neighbour's door
wednesday 15th:
waking up past midnight in my son's bed having passed out because it had taken so long to get him to go to bed
a little setup then grabbing four hours of sleep before getting up around 5.30 to adult with the lease - finally getting through it around two hours later, just in time for everyone else to wake up and to decide that i needed more rest (ha, ha, right)
still with the horrible cough
a very busy morning getting mr smear to school, finding a strip for our shower door - feeling like i'd taken a crazy pill, wondering if everyone on the roads was simultaneously having a stroke and one well-dressed man actually walking into the side of my stopped car - lots of time invested in contract signing and snags, setting up my workstation, dealing with pest control and homeless shelter vouchers and the museum and class gifts and condolence gifts and drawing cash for piercings
picking up mr smear ("i *want* to be wet and smelly!"), trying to optimize by taking him to the shelter to pick up the vouchers; he fell asleep just as we arrived, and everything smelled intensely of human feces, the weirdness of learning that the pharmacy gets a bulk discount on vouchers and hoping that's not actually the case and that they're simply paying a part of each booklet themselves
mr smear napping and me continuing to set up my workstation, asking him what he wanted for his room's walls and constructing a lego policemen poster while he complained that he'd meant he wanted to see lego city on the ipad; feeding him wraps, hummus and berries before taking him and his balance bike to the tomb tattoo parlour to pay the amount i still owed them, mr smear finally getting on his bike (i'd had to carry it the whole time) and having an amazing time following around the indian restaurant owner's bigger kid (and stopping to develop a relationship with the francophone car guard)
a pleasant walk home, then heading to my mom's coffee shop to help her with her laptop and chat over coffee before doing a grocery run for my salad ingredients, winning a bunch of airtime vouchers, then coming home and straight into shower time
a dripping wet diaper right after showering requiring us to shower again, putting mr smear to bed and learning that for three days he's been avoiding going to sleep because he's afraid of a ghost he saw on the #!%?ing care bears
raging after discovering that the cleaning lady is still putting open food in the cupboards
trying to get some work done but becoming overwhelmed with exhaustion, lying down to nap for half an hour
thursday 16th:
and eventually getting up at 5am and wondering if this early morning thing was going to be the way forward
horrible cough day three: sludge throat
gd and i sharing a mutual freakout because i'd been working for my new employer for three days and had yet to produce a thing; partially exacerbated by running out of local funds because i hadn't been keeping track and the move was full of surprise expenses
managing to get mr smear out the door half a hour less late than usual (with a little stress and a packed breakfast), returning pretzels and learning about torque bits and finally leaving the hardware store with a wood bit and a pre-sliced dowel, picking up a second attempt at a popeye shirt and printing the lego policemen poster (which he'd enjoy later), returning home to sort out carpets, make slow and steady progress with work and later prove my "handiness" to my wife by satisfactorily fixing the foot of our sleeper wood coffee table
the relief of being able to walk barefoot in our apartment for the first time
picking up mr smear and taking him shopping while he devoured his breakfast, lunch and berries (and a handful of raw almonds, which pleased me), then returning home to find him passed out in the back and lying down myself for an hour or two until he woke up around 5pm
finally, after being in our home for a week, setting up the entertainment system
a reasonable bedtime preparation followed by a child who was completely uninterested in going to sleep - after a lot of effort on both our parts he threw a tantrum; i managed to handle it well and he confided in me that he didn't want to go to sleep because he wanted to go to the dentist - i explained that the two aren't mutually exclusive, recited a poem while scratching his back and finally got some me time in watching you magnificent bastard before getting back to work
mr smear starting a cough,
oh-f***-it's-friday 17th:
crashing suddenly just after midnight
a longer time waking up than planned, wondering where my week went (inspiring me to log my hours again)
an hour or so figuring out how to self sign certificates in windows (thank you, let's encrypt! and thank YOU, babun!), a tough time getting mr smear out of his room ("i don't want to go to school! i want to stay in my room!") and ready for school ("i don't want to play with my friends, i want to go to the dentist!")
a lost cap, a quick shopping that took far too long, picking up gd and going straight through to her not-hypnotherapist
a little work progress, followed by a rush to get through a city full of incompetent drivers, stopping in the worst parking lot (woolworths at cavendish) to pick up a new cap for mr smear and finally arriving ten minutes late at the wrong hospital on the opposite side of town for gd's appointment - dropping her off and realizing that she was two minute's walk from our new home - it turned out to be a bad idea to tell her that, though, which kind of soured the afternoon a bit
picking up mr smear, working while keeping an eye on him, finally achieving something (basic, but satisfying) just before leaving for the temple
a pleasant service with mr smear playing quietly in the kid's corner with a new friend (i think her mother thought i was hired help - she certainly treated me as such), heading straight to my cousins for a really nice and loud family dinner
saturday 18th:
lost iphone contacts - my phone had decided to attach all my contacts to my work account and deleted them all when i disconnected it :'(
gardens visit, a scalding hot babyccino and the predictable fallout which the woman at least had the decency to be embarrassed about
a beard trim and laser treatment
a company gardens playdate, mr smear's first strip show (he stumbled upon a woman modelling nude in public), the kids simultaneously pooping their pants and the nightmare scenario of not catching mr smear taking off his onesie and diaper and covering himself in messy shit
back home for a fun hour or two while the kids parallel played
setting up the playstation and mr smear passing out on my lap watching me play motorstorm
dinner and disenchanted (great)
sailor coming over for a long and entertaining evening
sunday 19th:
two hours of personal project work followed by two hours of dealing with mr smear's nappy rash and refusal to sleep, finally sliding out of his bed (his eyes were still open) at 4am just as city revelers started a massive fight in the streets that lasted at least half an hour
about three hours of sleeping badly, waking up uncomfortably, half an hour of tightening security for my phone service, driving through to wynberg
the joy of witnessing mr smear in the back seat wearing a blue glitter water drop mask and singing along to dead or alive - you spin me round
getting out of the car for a memorial service and mr smear yelling "ghostbusters!" at the top of his lungs...
telling my son we had to go but getting stuck for half an hour (at least some of it was fun, chasing him around the empty synagogue)
lunch at plant, waiting an absurdly long time but the new menu definitely successful
a fun walk around the block with mr smear and witnessing a gang of street kids giving patrons a hard time
coming home to no naps, a proper shower (after two days skipped) and an afternoon with mr smear generally* playing nicely while i worked on my telephony project and then joining me for an intense session of toy story 3 (that game is amazing)
* with a few bum-paste related meltdowns
accidentally breaking a very nice wardrobe light installation (all we needed)
dinnertime with animaniacs (he asked for it, we all enjoyed it), followed by a very nice story time and getting him asleep before 9pm for the first time since before we moved, gd actually settling in a drawing for the first time in ages, and now that i've posted i think i'm ready to work.
i just wish i didn't have that infestation feeling all over my legs again. and that i had time to invest in preparing for next week's poetry slam.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
final invoice
i began this post at 1.40am, towards the end of my first day in a new job; i'm nervous about not having actually spoken to anyone or having made any real progress yet, although i have finally learned the basics of react...
--- sunday 29th july:
2am bedtime
everyone up early, gd angry because the meds messed her up and the nerve blocks have done nothing for her
a waterfront mission for party toys, mr smear managing to hold his own with bigger (and rougher) kids on a giant slide
making satisfying progress with my telephony project
an afternoon at the "mikveh", feeling worn out and in great need of an extra weekend, mr smear having a grand time with the other kids
gd's support snail
submerging mr smear into the freezing water to great protest right after gd (a minute later he wanted to go again), scraping my knee on a poorly designed step while trying to hand him over at awkward angles
a long drive home, being sent shopping, then being sent to pick up food with no menus and gd complicating the options
falling asleep at the table waiting for the food to come out
a disappointing potty training failure, a big, delicious dinner with my mom, a naughty mr smear, a really nice bedtime
dark tourism, sasha baron cohen, and more satisfying telephony project progress
monday 30th:
a reasonable night's rest, waking up slowly with mr smear sleeping in, dropping him off an hour late, heading to the printer, then the police station to certify the copy, then the gym for a half-hour session before realizing i was out of time and rushing to shower, snack and get to the fingerprinting office (while yelling at my phone for being completely useless when needed)
a big pick 'n pay lunch (i bought and ate way too much food) and clearing my virtual desk at my mom's coffee shop before picking up mr smear - needing a short nap in the car before going to get him, then another short nap at home
a really enjoyable walk to the lighthouse playground, both of us having a good time
dropping him off at home, then heading to my mother's coffee shop to (poorly) finish installing the shelf
coming home for a traumatic shower experience, but a really sweet bedtime story
my frustrations with bad writing: watching some of the night of and finding myself utterly incapable of sympathizing with naz because every action or reaction of his is literally unbelievably stupid and he's supposed to be the tutor
crashing until midnight (so one or two hours)
tuesday 31st:
getting up to work, and finally going back to bed just before 4am
everyone still tired, jumping out of bed at 8 for a marshmallow delivery - an enormous box of vegan marshmallows for mr smear's birthday party that nobody really went for
not as late for school as the previous couple of days, heading to the gym for a "relaxed" workout before settling down to work
relatively good news for mr smear's allergies (there's a chance that he'll outgrow his dairy allergy after all)
picking up a happy boy, home, a pharmacy run that utterly ruined the day, helping my mom with the shelf again, shower and bedtime and a long time convincing mr smear that his bed is just fine
from unpleasant to bearable
wednesday 1st august:
an uneasy morning, mr smear eating his breakfast heartily and enjoying new israeli songs, dropping him off late, heading to the gym and diving into work instead of working out
rushing to pick up gd on the far end of sea point then rushing back to town, encountering unusually bad drivers all along the way
a straightforward meeting with the neurologist, feeling more willpower-depleted the closer we got to home and crashing for an hour before rushing to pick up mr smear
a long handover meeting, a quick bug fix then joining gd for her graduation ceremony rehearsal; mr smear and one of the bigger kids playing really nicely, a positive urinal experience with mr smear, my first "hagba"
an insulting response from my soon-to-be ex-boss to my resignation letter that insinuated that they could have made a plan to pay me better after two years of giving me stories when i explained i was in financial distress
meeting our brazilian friend to pick up mr smear's birthday gift early and having a really interesting conversation about nutrition
mr smear's third birthday superman muscle top is like my third birthday superman outfit on steroids
working hard and running through chores
thursday 2nd:
until 2am, in bed just before 2.30
meeting our cleaning lady's "sister", another late morning
a good workout in spite of the gym music being demoralizingly bad - my first time remembering to put on very loud psytrance to cover it up
good work, picking up mr smear, picking up gd's tallit and get mr smear home and into bed for his skipped nap
working until he woke up, then resting a bit before taking him shopping with me; a walking stick, a bicycle helmet, birthday stuff
dinner, a good chat with horseman, a good shampoo night experience and a really nice bedtime storytelling which included me reciting poetry to him after lights out for the second day in a row with good results (him relaxing)
an episode of captain underpants (great!) before crashing heavily for a couple of hours,
friday 3rd:
up around midnight to work and debate online, finally returning to sleep around 3.30
up at 7am for a half hour attempting to coax mr smear out of bed (successfully), leaving late but really early compared to the previous week, working for a bit before exercising
good but high-pressured work, lunchtime reading coca wars (interesting, but not amazing), picking up mr smear and learning he'd called the new kid "harry hadeda"
an extra ride to get him to sleep a little, another long handover meeting, a rush to get everyone ready for the temple
mr smear being pretty amazing for the two hours of gd's graduation ceremony and service, generally playing well with the other kids and sometimes even enjoying sitting with me and singing
losing my cool in the car on the way home (the suggestion of going to the chinese place that caused a fight last time) and finally remembering not to let that stuff get to me - "i don't care" is not a bad strategy when you've got anger issues. and i have anger issues.
a not unpleasant evening, very quickly showering mr smear and brushing his teeth and reading howl [what?! i'm sure i mistyped] until ten
crashing around 22.20
saturday 4th:
up at 7am to pick up the birthday cake, a lot of noticeable potholes between observatory and my mom's fridge, mr smear in tantrum until i finally got him out the door ("i - i - i - i wa-want to be-have"), a very long morning service with some great moments (mr smear in his batman onesie running to gd while she read the shema), a very long brocha with very little vegan food, plenty of alcohol and a lot of talking
mr smear's late and long nap, taking full advantage, overeating and playing a bit of samorost 3
a long waterfront mission: food, mr smear holding his own with bigger kids on the slides, balloon hunting, sneaking into the alcohol aisle just as they were locking it up
losing the beard (i suspected that that was why mr smear was calling me "grampa"... i was wrong), a late shower and bedtime and falling asleep while trying to get him into bed
10pm and mr smear putting on a show, finally getting him calm and climbing into bed myself about half an hour later
sunday 5th:
2am sudden anxiety because we were throwing a birthday party for three year-olds with lots of sugar and no activities or toys
a mad rush for grocery shopping, picking up mr smear and delivering him with the party gear before paying the plastics store a quick visit (i brought the random to the party, and it appeared to work)
arriving just in time for the party, non-stop craziness for two hours and an incredible amount of gratitude to my cousins for not only letting us use their house but for really pitching in to make things work; a morning filled with friends and family and mr smear thoroughly enjoying himself, another dolce vegan cake success
no naps in spite of our best efforts, a long afternoon and a lot of enthusiastic gift opening, mom visiting before i set about taking mr smear to the aquarium: it's become a thing, this falling asleep just as i park the car...
napping uncomfortably myself after getting him home, unwinding a bit (about half of the huntsman: winter's war) then diving into work
monday 6th:
finally getting to bed around 1.30am
mr smear getting in a solid 11 or 12-hour sleep, and waking up ready for action around 5am; gd taking one for the team and letting me sleep to alarm-time
another stiff neck day
the final gift unwrapping after gd had opened all the surprise mini-figures (so *that* was an expensive early wake-up), gd's foot-in-mouth voice message to our cleaning lady that couldn't have been worse (fortunately it turned out okay)
getting mr smear to school reasonably late (ie 5 minutes or so) in spite of cape town's drivers making a magnificent case for autonomous automobiles, walking to my mom's coffee shop for a coffee and a few important messages then walking back to celebrate mr smear's birthday with the class
the birthday crown
candle enthusiasm
the kids loving the sorbet
all manner of lovely moments, peaking with "how old are you?" "i'm SAN!"
the excitement of receiving my first work communication from my new employer, a lot of pleasant desk clearing before completing an important handover task
lunch comics: john allison's that is pretty good
picking up mr smear just before the heavy rains began, an afternoon of him playing nicely with his new mini figures and watching spirited away, then chores and work
dinner documentary (bbc's "life" - amazing!)
good shower and generally positive bedtime
duct-taping vents and windows, work, a bit of crayon physics deluxe, and my eyelid twitching from exhaustion
tuesday 7th:
until calling it a night around 2am
...
or 2.50am...
early up, feeling a bit better neck-wise for the first hour or two, discovering the yard on my way into the gym (and their delicious but overpowered coffee)
a good workout, some productive time and finishing that over lunch, picking up a happy mr smear
what i wouldn't give to see the silly look on my face:
"what were you just singing?"
"this is the last time, okay?"
telkom visit, a long handover meeting
mr smear's first bicycle outing and enraptured drone watching
exhausted and going to bed early
wednesday 8th:
a terrible night's sleep
putting sunscreen on mr smear when he pushed the autistic kid who fought back furiously; the difficulty of explaining to a three year-old that it's his fault while simultaneously protecting him
the yard's coffee improved by being single-shot, a solid workout (unrecorded) with the biokineticist, more handover documentation and a nut replacement for my salad that almost broke my teeth
another handover meeting and concern building that my coworker is *not* getting it
mr smear's great ride to the blue train, great train and park time, but a half an hour to get him on the way home and having to return in the freezing cold wind with him complaining of a sore knee
SxS's frustration and my frustration with his frustration, requesting an intended implementation before the end of my notice period because my coworker's not ready
late night timeouts (no throwing batgirl)
mom reading mr smear to sleep
the good place (cute, i guess) before crashing early
thursday 9th:
a better night's sleep but a grumpy wakeup
finally fixing the shelf at my mom's coffee shop (satisfying)
taking mr smear and his bike to the park
running into an old schoolmate and his family, then into our old neighbours and teaching the husband about game shopping
smoothie and gym equipment
mr smear passing out in the warm car
coming home to a packed up apartment, getting a tiny amount of work done before rushing off to my mom's apartment for the last handover meeting
freezing with a ski jacket and upset that my mother's been suffering an awful bathroom for six months
cold and heavy winds
returning home to a quick and desperate coffee, taking mr smear to the waterfront and realizing on arrival that i'd left his ready bag at home (!), quick shopping and rushing home to drop him off and head out to he sheng; finding myself too early to pick up our food and having to wait in the car
my deepest thanks to https://fpv-freerider.itch.io/fpv-freerider for allowing me to discover, along with the aid of a playstation controller, just how easy drone control isn't. also for demonstrating just how good a decision the guy on the promenade made by ignoring my three year old's persistent requests for a turn
a delicious dinner, an easy shower, an easy bedtime but too tired to read and unable to nap because we needed to pack - packing and working
friday 10th:
until 1.30am
painfully up at 7am, rushing out a bit late with big boxes and arriving on time to discover that the agent was running late
a startlingly well-run building, only one serious handover issue, a very awkward and unwelcome congratulatory hug, a 9am discovery that our movers had misunderstood my instructions, the caretaker cleverly pre-preparing gd's tag
emergency shopping, a quick stop at my mom's before a tiring series of back-and-forths while the movers delayed twice (passing out for five minutes in the car, waiting for ten or fifteen in the cold wind)
a simple first move, a massive second move and at 1pm rushing off to let in the bath fixers, picking up three lafot (accidentally ordering four but converting the last into falafel and fries), meeting our cleaning lady's daughter who came to babysit and who instantly clicked with mr smear
losing the movers on the way out the parking lot, eventually getting sorted (it turned out they were pulled over for a traffic violation)
a superette run for drinks, an embarrassing moment realizing that i was supposed to have organized lunch for the movers, macdonald's for everyone (their veggie burgers are better than i remember their "meat" burgers being)
rushing to get gd to the temple for her first truly voluntary temple service, packing up some of the loose bits then picking her up and returning for an initially tense evening
no showers, no toothbrushes leading me to do another run in spite of my exhaustion (and they weren't there)
mr smear blessedly going to bed easily
saturday 11th:
a slow morning with mr smear, then heading back to meet my mom and pack some more while a new cleaning lady helped gd sort things out, a quick shopping mission (a chai at my mom's coffee shop while gd shopped and my mom chased mr smear), taking mr smear out for a mostly fun hour at the company gardens
showertime: not bad, but mr smear almost scoring an injury in the slippery tub
the shocking news that a young girl who'd graduated the previous week with gd had passed away
a really tough bedtime with mr smear (i was tired and stressed about work and he was in test mode)
successfully integrating web api side-by-side with node.js before midnight
sunday 12th:
working until 2.30am in spite of my intentions to get some rest
5 hours of relatively decent sleep with some intense dreaming, an easy start to the day, then hurrying mr smear to meet my mom and do another trip
full-scale meltdown, eventually appearing to be move-stress related
getting mr smear and the boxes home, rushing to get to game before closing time, picking up the stuff and being conned into a handshake by a beggar, then negotiating with competing "car-guards" who i'm fairly certain weren't guarding my car
taking mr smear in the stroller to the holocaust museum, taking a walk to determine the best way to the school (i'm pretty sure i found the worst), a visit to the museum and discovering that they DO have membership options but operate them ass-backwards, getting caught in the rain, realizing that there're no ramps at all in our building for the disabled or parents
home, kashrut conversations, installing a panel heater and being deeply satisfied by the new drill i'd purchased, dinner, positive shower, not unpleasant bedtime and then a long night of mostly working really hard
and eating far too much junk food
monday 13th:
finally going to bed at 3am on my first day of a new job, but handing over a pretty complete solution and feeling REALLY good about it
tough getting up, a mostly pleasant start but some last minute stress on mr smear's part, dropping him off and coming back home to set myself up with my new work
sore feet from my first day back to working on my feet
the pain of hearing about mr smear being wild and mean at school (understandable, but sad)
a long and sometimes painful mall mission, sudden waves of exhaustion, taking our cleaning lady home on my way to pick up more things before realizing i didn't have keys for my mom's apartment; napping for five minutes until she came to the rescue and braving the particularly cold sea air to sort out another delivery.
feeling ill
affixing the mezuzah, teaching my son that ghosts aren't welcome in our apartment and aren't allowed to make scary noises, eating, showering and putting mr smear to bed - passing out myself while wishing him a goodnight (he didn't start relaxing until around 10.30pm), chugging a mug of coffee and going to bed for twenty minutes...
tuesday 14th:
... waking up after midnight, spending an hour hunting through chat history (skype makes that difficult for the past year and a half, and impossible for anything earlier) and putting together a final email to SxS after discovering that my company account had been deactivated, firing off a prorated invoice (i had to learn how) before receiving a positive response from him. then deciding to post this and now actually publishing it more than half an hour later...
2am bedtime
everyone up early, gd angry because the meds messed her up and the nerve blocks have done nothing for her
a waterfront mission for party toys, mr smear managing to hold his own with bigger (and rougher) kids on a giant slide
making satisfying progress with my telephony project
an afternoon at the "mikveh", feeling worn out and in great need of an extra weekend, mr smear having a grand time with the other kids
gd's support snail
submerging mr smear into the freezing water to great protest right after gd (a minute later he wanted to go again), scraping my knee on a poorly designed step while trying to hand him over at awkward angles
a long drive home, being sent shopping, then being sent to pick up food with no menus and gd complicating the options
falling asleep at the table waiting for the food to come out
a disappointing potty training failure, a big, delicious dinner with my mom, a naughty mr smear, a really nice bedtime
dark tourism, sasha baron cohen, and more satisfying telephony project progress
monday 30th:
a reasonable night's rest, waking up slowly with mr smear sleeping in, dropping him off an hour late, heading to the printer, then the police station to certify the copy, then the gym for a half-hour session before realizing i was out of time and rushing to shower, snack and get to the fingerprinting office (while yelling at my phone for being completely useless when needed)
a big pick 'n pay lunch (i bought and ate way too much food) and clearing my virtual desk at my mom's coffee shop before picking up mr smear - needing a short nap in the car before going to get him, then another short nap at home
a really enjoyable walk to the lighthouse playground, both of us having a good time
dropping him off at home, then heading to my mother's coffee shop to (poorly) finish installing the shelf
coming home for a traumatic shower experience, but a really sweet bedtime story
my frustrations with bad writing: watching some of the night of and finding myself utterly incapable of sympathizing with naz because every action or reaction of his is literally unbelievably stupid and he's supposed to be the tutor
crashing until midnight (so one or two hours)
tuesday 31st:
getting up to work, and finally going back to bed just before 4am
everyone still tired, jumping out of bed at 8 for a marshmallow delivery - an enormous box of vegan marshmallows for mr smear's birthday party that nobody really went for
not as late for school as the previous couple of days, heading to the gym for a "relaxed" workout before settling down to work
relatively good news for mr smear's allergies (there's a chance that he'll outgrow his dairy allergy after all)
picking up a happy boy, home, a pharmacy run that utterly ruined the day, helping my mom with the shelf again, shower and bedtime and a long time convincing mr smear that his bed is just fine
from unpleasant to bearable
wednesday 1st august:
an uneasy morning, mr smear eating his breakfast heartily and enjoying new israeli songs, dropping him off late, heading to the gym and diving into work instead of working out
rushing to pick up gd on the far end of sea point then rushing back to town, encountering unusually bad drivers all along the way
a straightforward meeting with the neurologist, feeling more willpower-depleted the closer we got to home and crashing for an hour before rushing to pick up mr smear
a long handover meeting, a quick bug fix then joining gd for her graduation ceremony rehearsal; mr smear and one of the bigger kids playing really nicely, a positive urinal experience with mr smear, my first "hagba"
an insulting response from my soon-to-be ex-boss to my resignation letter that insinuated that they could have made a plan to pay me better after two years of giving me stories when i explained i was in financial distress
meeting our brazilian friend to pick up mr smear's birthday gift early and having a really interesting conversation about nutrition
mr smear's third birthday superman muscle top is like my third birthday superman outfit on steroids
working hard and running through chores
thursday 2nd:
until 2am, in bed just before 2.30
meeting our cleaning lady's "sister", another late morning
a good workout in spite of the gym music being demoralizingly bad - my first time remembering to put on very loud psytrance to cover it up
good work, picking up mr smear, picking up gd's tallit and get mr smear home and into bed for his skipped nap
working until he woke up, then resting a bit before taking him shopping with me; a walking stick, a bicycle helmet, birthday stuff
dinner, a good chat with horseman, a good shampoo night experience and a really nice bedtime storytelling which included me reciting poetry to him after lights out for the second day in a row with good results (him relaxing)
an episode of captain underpants (great!) before crashing heavily for a couple of hours,
friday 3rd:
up around midnight to work and debate online, finally returning to sleep around 3.30
up at 7am for a half hour attempting to coax mr smear out of bed (successfully), leaving late but really early compared to the previous week, working for a bit before exercising
good but high-pressured work, lunchtime reading coca wars (interesting, but not amazing), picking up mr smear and learning he'd called the new kid "harry hadeda"
an extra ride to get him to sleep a little, another long handover meeting, a rush to get everyone ready for the temple
mr smear being pretty amazing for the two hours of gd's graduation ceremony and service, generally playing well with the other kids and sometimes even enjoying sitting with me and singing
losing my cool in the car on the way home (the suggestion of going to the chinese place that caused a fight last time) and finally remembering not to let that stuff get to me - "i don't care" is not a bad strategy when you've got anger issues. and i have anger issues.
a not unpleasant evening, very quickly showering mr smear and brushing his teeth and reading howl [what?! i'm sure i mistyped] until ten
crashing around 22.20
saturday 4th:
up at 7am to pick up the birthday cake, a lot of noticeable potholes between observatory and my mom's fridge, mr smear in tantrum until i finally got him out the door ("i - i - i - i wa-want to be-have"), a very long morning service with some great moments (mr smear in his batman onesie running to gd while she read the shema), a very long brocha with very little vegan food, plenty of alcohol and a lot of talking
mr smear's late and long nap, taking full advantage, overeating and playing a bit of samorost 3
a long waterfront mission: food, mr smear holding his own with bigger kids on the slides, balloon hunting, sneaking into the alcohol aisle just as they were locking it up
losing the beard (i suspected that that was why mr smear was calling me "grampa"... i was wrong), a late shower and bedtime and falling asleep while trying to get him into bed
10pm and mr smear putting on a show, finally getting him calm and climbing into bed myself about half an hour later
sunday 5th:
2am sudden anxiety because we were throwing a birthday party for three year-olds with lots of sugar and no activities or toys
a mad rush for grocery shopping, picking up mr smear and delivering him with the party gear before paying the plastics store a quick visit (i brought the random to the party, and it appeared to work)
arriving just in time for the party, non-stop craziness for two hours and an incredible amount of gratitude to my cousins for not only letting us use their house but for really pitching in to make things work; a morning filled with friends and family and mr smear thoroughly enjoying himself, another dolce vegan cake success
no naps in spite of our best efforts, a long afternoon and a lot of enthusiastic gift opening, mom visiting before i set about taking mr smear to the aquarium: it's become a thing, this falling asleep just as i park the car...
napping uncomfortably myself after getting him home, unwinding a bit (about half of the huntsman: winter's war) then diving into work
monday 6th:
finally getting to bed around 1.30am
mr smear getting in a solid 11 or 12-hour sleep, and waking up ready for action around 5am; gd taking one for the team and letting me sleep to alarm-time
another stiff neck day
the final gift unwrapping after gd had opened all the surprise mini-figures (so *that* was an expensive early wake-up), gd's foot-in-mouth voice message to our cleaning lady that couldn't have been worse (fortunately it turned out okay)
getting mr smear to school reasonably late (ie 5 minutes or so) in spite of cape town's drivers making a magnificent case for autonomous automobiles, walking to my mom's coffee shop for a coffee and a few important messages then walking back to celebrate mr smear's birthday with the class
the birthday crown
candle enthusiasm
the kids loving the sorbet
all manner of lovely moments, peaking with "how old are you?" "i'm SAN!"
the excitement of receiving my first work communication from my new employer, a lot of pleasant desk clearing before completing an important handover task
lunch comics: john allison's that is pretty good
picking up mr smear just before the heavy rains began, an afternoon of him playing nicely with his new mini figures and watching spirited away, then chores and work
dinner documentary (bbc's "life" - amazing!)
good shower and generally positive bedtime
duct-taping vents and windows, work, a bit of crayon physics deluxe, and my eyelid twitching from exhaustion
tuesday 7th:
until calling it a night around 2am
...
or 2.50am...
early up, feeling a bit better neck-wise for the first hour or two, discovering the yard on my way into the gym (and their delicious but overpowered coffee)
a good workout, some productive time and finishing that over lunch, picking up a happy mr smear
what i wouldn't give to see the silly look on my face:
"what were you just singing?"
"this is the last time, okay?"
telkom visit, a long handover meeting
mr smear's first bicycle outing and enraptured drone watching
exhausted and going to bed early
wednesday 8th:
a terrible night's sleep
putting sunscreen on mr smear when he pushed the autistic kid who fought back furiously; the difficulty of explaining to a three year-old that it's his fault while simultaneously protecting him
the yard's coffee improved by being single-shot, a solid workout (unrecorded) with the biokineticist, more handover documentation and a nut replacement for my salad that almost broke my teeth
another handover meeting and concern building that my coworker is *not* getting it
mr smear's great ride to the blue train, great train and park time, but a half an hour to get him on the way home and having to return in the freezing cold wind with him complaining of a sore knee
SxS's frustration and my frustration with his frustration, requesting an intended implementation before the end of my notice period because my coworker's not ready
late night timeouts (no throwing batgirl)
mom reading mr smear to sleep
the good place (cute, i guess) before crashing early
thursday 9th:
a better night's sleep but a grumpy wakeup
finally fixing the shelf at my mom's coffee shop (satisfying)
taking mr smear and his bike to the park
running into an old schoolmate and his family, then into our old neighbours and teaching the husband about game shopping
smoothie and gym equipment
mr smear passing out in the warm car
coming home to a packed up apartment, getting a tiny amount of work done before rushing off to my mom's apartment for the last handover meeting
freezing with a ski jacket and upset that my mother's been suffering an awful bathroom for six months
cold and heavy winds
returning home to a quick and desperate coffee, taking mr smear to the waterfront and realizing on arrival that i'd left his ready bag at home (!), quick shopping and rushing home to drop him off and head out to he sheng; finding myself too early to pick up our food and having to wait in the car
my deepest thanks to https://fpv-freerider.itch.io/fpv-freerider for allowing me to discover, along with the aid of a playstation controller, just how easy drone control isn't. also for demonstrating just how good a decision the guy on the promenade made by ignoring my three year old's persistent requests for a turn
a delicious dinner, an easy shower, an easy bedtime but too tired to read and unable to nap because we needed to pack - packing and working
friday 10th:
until 1.30am
painfully up at 7am, rushing out a bit late with big boxes and arriving on time to discover that the agent was running late
a startlingly well-run building, only one serious handover issue, a very awkward and unwelcome congratulatory hug, a 9am discovery that our movers had misunderstood my instructions, the caretaker cleverly pre-preparing gd's tag
emergency shopping, a quick stop at my mom's before a tiring series of back-and-forths while the movers delayed twice (passing out for five minutes in the car, waiting for ten or fifteen in the cold wind)
a simple first move, a massive second move and at 1pm rushing off to let in the bath fixers, picking up three lafot (accidentally ordering four but converting the last into falafel and fries), meeting our cleaning lady's daughter who came to babysit and who instantly clicked with mr smear
losing the movers on the way out the parking lot, eventually getting sorted (it turned out they were pulled over for a traffic violation)
a superette run for drinks, an embarrassing moment realizing that i was supposed to have organized lunch for the movers, macdonald's for everyone (their veggie burgers are better than i remember their "meat" burgers being)
rushing to get gd to the temple for her first truly voluntary temple service, packing up some of the loose bits then picking her up and returning for an initially tense evening
no showers, no toothbrushes leading me to do another run in spite of my exhaustion (and they weren't there)
mr smear blessedly going to bed easily
saturday 11th:
a slow morning with mr smear, then heading back to meet my mom and pack some more while a new cleaning lady helped gd sort things out, a quick shopping mission (a chai at my mom's coffee shop while gd shopped and my mom chased mr smear), taking mr smear out for a mostly fun hour at the company gardens
showertime: not bad, but mr smear almost scoring an injury in the slippery tub
the shocking news that a young girl who'd graduated the previous week with gd had passed away
a really tough bedtime with mr smear (i was tired and stressed about work and he was in test mode)
successfully integrating web api side-by-side with node.js before midnight
sunday 12th:
working until 2.30am in spite of my intentions to get some rest
5 hours of relatively decent sleep with some intense dreaming, an easy start to the day, then hurrying mr smear to meet my mom and do another trip
full-scale meltdown, eventually appearing to be move-stress related
getting mr smear and the boxes home, rushing to get to game before closing time, picking up the stuff and being conned into a handshake by a beggar, then negotiating with competing "car-guards" who i'm fairly certain weren't guarding my car
taking mr smear in the stroller to the holocaust museum, taking a walk to determine the best way to the school (i'm pretty sure i found the worst), a visit to the museum and discovering that they DO have membership options but operate them ass-backwards, getting caught in the rain, realizing that there're no ramps at all in our building for the disabled or parents
home, kashrut conversations, installing a panel heater and being deeply satisfied by the new drill i'd purchased, dinner, positive shower, not unpleasant bedtime and then a long night of mostly working really hard
and eating far too much junk food
monday 13th:
finally going to bed at 3am on my first day of a new job, but handing over a pretty complete solution and feeling REALLY good about it
tough getting up, a mostly pleasant start but some last minute stress on mr smear's part, dropping him off and coming back home to set myself up with my new work
sore feet from my first day back to working on my feet
the pain of hearing about mr smear being wild and mean at school (understandable, but sad)
a long and sometimes painful mall mission, sudden waves of exhaustion, taking our cleaning lady home on my way to pick up more things before realizing i didn't have keys for my mom's apartment; napping for five minutes until she came to the rescue and braving the particularly cold sea air to sort out another delivery.
feeling ill
affixing the mezuzah, teaching my son that ghosts aren't welcome in our apartment and aren't allowed to make scary noises, eating, showering and putting mr smear to bed - passing out myself while wishing him a goodnight (he didn't start relaxing until around 10.30pm), chugging a mug of coffee and going to bed for twenty minutes...
tuesday 14th:
... waking up after midnight, spending an hour hunting through chat history (skype makes that difficult for the past year and a half, and impossible for anything earlier) and putting together a final email to SxS after discovering that my company account had been deactivated, firing off a prorated invoice (i had to learn how) before receiving a positive response from him. then deciding to post this and now actually publishing it more than half an hour later...
Wednesday, August 08, 2018
everyone knows
i don't believe that there are fundamentally malicious people. i believe that most of us are simply misguided. or, perhaps, complexly misguided. i believe that when you're conditioned to accept things that require activating cognitive dissonance, whether its owning slaves, or killing jews, or fighting undesirable sexual urges, or advertising useless products, or destroying the planet, or producing and destroying animals in their billions, or grinding eight hours a day in jobs we hate in the hope of not starving or losing the roofs over our heads; the struggle to operate without fighting back or losing one's mind can make one depressed and resentful and frustrated and cruel.
i don't think of the people who can step back and say "this is wrong" as "compassionate". i don't believe they're any more compassionate than everybody else. i believe they're enjoying the privilege of being able to identify the wrongs and the empowerment to do what's right, regardless of the consequences.
that's true freedom, in my opinion, the freedom to be a hero and face down adversity even when the consequences are life-threatening. the courage to stand up to the world will always be more of a blessing than a curse, because whatever ill may come you'll know in your heart that you did the right thing.
i think it's the same freedom that motivates heroes as the freedom that motivates (misguided) terrorists. it's the power to serve one's ideals to the very death, in an age where most people feel trapped in the industrial machine while being shown glamourous pictures of a life of excess that they can only dream of buying their way into.
that freedom isn't something anyone else can bestow - not a person, not a government. it's something we can only choose for ourselves. others can rig the game, but we can play it on our own terms. or we can change the game entirely.
i don't think of the people who can step back and say "this is wrong" as "compassionate". i don't believe they're any more compassionate than everybody else. i believe they're enjoying the privilege of being able to identify the wrongs and the empowerment to do what's right, regardless of the consequences.
that's true freedom, in my opinion, the freedom to be a hero and face down adversity even when the consequences are life-threatening. the courage to stand up to the world will always be more of a blessing than a curse, because whatever ill may come you'll know in your heart that you did the right thing.
i think it's the same freedom that motivates heroes as the freedom that motivates (misguided) terrorists. it's the power to serve one's ideals to the very death, in an age where most people feel trapped in the industrial machine while being shown glamourous pictures of a life of excess that they can only dream of buying their way into.
that freedom isn't something anyone else can bestow - not a person, not a government. it's something we can only choose for ourselves. others can rig the game, but we can play it on our own terms. or we can change the game entirely.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
beginnings of ends
in one week, gd has completed her conversion course, i've accepted a job offer and we've taken an apartment in the city centre. mr smear and i appear to be over being horribly sick, gd appears to be making progress in the health department and i've begun a different kind of training regimen.
--- monday 25th june:
working and playing until 2.40am
the lifting floor becoming a bit freaky
up at 7.30 to a very unhappy gd - it appears that the nerve block procedure was ineffective
not only dropping mr smear off late but forgetting his schoolbag, going all the way home to fetch it, stopping by the vodacom store to learn that the sms informing me that gd's phone was ready was erroneous, delivering mr smear's bag, hitting the gym, struggling a bit with the run but a lot with the jump rope, bag and planking (a bit weak and dizzy), work progress and an infuriating experience with a recruiter prompting me to send an angry email to her boss - that earned me a phone call and it turned out to be the company's fault and not hers...
forgetting to eat until it was too late to order, picking up mr smear who'd napped at school (the teacher was laughing because he messed about for a while, and when he finally did put his head down it was with a naughty smile so they were sure he wasn't asleep)
coming home tired and hungry (and sore, my back and neck were giving me problems); angrily cancelling my GAP insurance policy and trying to contact a montreal consulate on st jean baptiste day, work and puzzles and coffee, taking mr smear out with his plastic bike, running into our neighbours whose uncle had just been murdered in stellenbosch, a big grocery shopping with no loyalty cards, a good dinner and shower and bedtime and passing out myself for an hour, then lying in bed uncomfortably
tuesday 26th:
until 1.30am, getting up in a haze, working well until 4am when gd woke up, chatting and playing a bit more human resource machine befoe before crashing around 4.40am
difficulty getting up at 7.30, choco-banana not working as expected, late for school, hitting the gym only for the workspace and preparing for ios dev
a relatively productive morning (although it could have been more so if xcode hadn't taken so long to download), a delicious lunch (although they have precisely one vegan item on the menu and were out of its main ingredient), taking mr smear home, filling up the car, paying the phone store another pointless visit, upgrading my phone contract at the waterfront, a lot of small shopping, coming home with the weariness of a few days of sciatica (both sides), eating, making a smoothie with oranges (bad idea)
my mom and me visiting my uncle who's clearly on his last legs, his girlfriend forcing him to eat way more than he could handle in spite of our protests
a fast shower and bedtime, gd not feeling good, remembering why i despise the israeli consulate in montreal (i wasted a lot of time on multiple attempts to call them, they pick up and put down)
reading a bit of deadpool, a productive chat with SxS, trying to clear my desk a bit
11pm nightmares
wednesday 27th:
2am bedtime after a night of mixed work and faffing, a slow wakeup but feeling better than the day before, late for school but a quick drop off followed by a good workout, coffee and lunch and learning swift for a bit before diving in to my first ios project
sudden, overwhelming exhaustion about half an hour before i needed to pick up mr smear
*TRIGGER WARNING POOP STORY* at least he was good enough to come and tell me that he'd pooped on the floor. i wish "the floor" hadn't primarily meant "the bathmat". i wish the poop hadn't been soft and slimy. and that i hadn't made the mistake of getting down on one knee to clean him up while wearing nice pants. i really hope i've done a good enough job of cleaning him. and the floor. and the batgirl figurine he was busy playing with at the time. is 3pm too early in the day to start drinking?
discovering that mr smear's problem with solving puzzles was one of motivation - as soon as it was a picture of a superhero who could only be saved by completing the puzzle he performed beautifully and didn't need to start with corners at all
gd's passing grade for her conversion course after retaking some of the exam - it turns out she knows plenty, but just isn't in a good place for writing exams (in addition to the learning difficulties imposed by pain meds)
taking mr smear for a promenade ride, some stressful moments, running into a friend of his and grabbing his dad's skateboard (and standing on it well!)
back home for dinner - putting on hebrew music videos in the background, mr smear and gd both definitely dig karolina - mr smear standing under the shower by himself for the first time in almost four months
only reading in the dark (grimm), entering the second season of luke cage (shades is way overacted), napping until midnight
thursday 28th:
two hours finding documentation for GAP insurance, then two hours working, almost three and a half hours sleeping
the beard trimmer cutting out almost from the start
that awkward moment when you can't identify the other parents walking towards you with the sunlight behind them and you and your kid are in the middle of the chorus of brand new day
going straight to my laser treatment, arriving early and picking up a chai latte at vida, having a laugh with the barista when we realized that the card i'd given up on using had just the amount i needed
a very quick treatment (hopefully meaningful), returning home to scan an out-of-print graphic novel volume, handle some chores (the GAP insurance company's response to my public complaints was to actually start doing their job) and get some work done
picking up mr smear and taking him to play at one of his best friends, sadly not thinking to bring a laptop...
holy **** bacterial takeover is a stupid, and stupidly addictive game
coming home, setting mr smear up with monsters inc as a babysitter so i could take a work call, gd coming home after having resolved an issue around my uncle's "care" (the man's dying, he doesn't need to be force-fed)
work, dinner, exhaustion, coffee, shower, full reading, luke cage with half an eye
friday 29th:
watching some smart entertainment and working until 2.30am, going to bed with a sudden sore throat
dropping mr smear off very late, picking up coffee and racing through the pouring rain to gd's not-hypnotherapist, good work and bacterial takeover inspiration, bumping into my cousin in the gym for a very interesting talk about water and community upliftment, printing issues and a little work and picking up mr smear
the cleaning lady not coming in because it was raining, then not answering her phone
a quick meeting, a lot of paperwork, big grocery shopping, a pleasant service at the temple, trying to arrange chinese but our favourite place was still closed and the option across the road didn't have tofu (?!?), picking up pastas in the rain, gd's being inedibly spicy and having to go back again (the owner was mortified, somebody had accidentally dowsed all their garlic with chili oil)
mr smear dropping out easily, gd watching the rest of thor: ragnarok and me passing out on the couch
saturday 30th:
everyone sleeping in, a generally miserable wintery day spent mostly indoors and grumpy, the door and window guys finally coming in to sort out the leaking frames so we could stop with the masking tape
taking mr smear along to take my mom to builder's warehouse as an "excursion" but his feet barely touched the floor and his mood certainly didn't improve
"practicing patience" by not interfering with my three year old doing a jigsaw puzzle was one of the most stressful and perplexing six minutes of my life. it's funny how things we take for granted as intellectual can be heavily experiential. either that or my son's an idiot...
a short nap, trying out magic carpet and myst (i know!), spending far too much time with bacterial takeover, a long failed goodnight (i read to him until 9.45 before asking gd to step in)
sunday 1st july:
finally getting up from my pc and heading for bed around 1.20am
a slow morning, finally picking up mr smear's epipen, meeting our seattle friends at the superpark for a great obstacle course hour - not only did mr smear use the climbing wall grips with no involvement from me but he then went straight through most of a thin rope web with me just watching with my mouth open
coffees and babycinos before returning home to pick up gd, an extremely unpleasant journey before we found a softer space and went to a friend's birthday party; mr smear and his friend playing together under a table in the smoky german club, amazing vegan curries and generally good vibes until mr smear had had enough
playing some more bacterial takeover then exorcizing that demon from my phone, but not without htting upon a practical application for such a dastardly addictive system
mr smear's long goodnight, actually managing to chat with scrapper for a while, interrupted by mr smear yelling because he needed a diaper change, scrapper's shock that we're living in this crazy place
mr smear's quote for the day: "the DEA fights the crack, we will put the DEA in the naughty corner"
a long evening of getting stuff done
monday 2nd:
crashing after a violent storm and completing an integral task around 2am
dropping mr smear off with a new teacher for the week and the awful sensation of instructing people in the use of an epipen and being uncertain of whether they understand how to avoid getting to that point (i had a bit of an anxiety attack afterwards)
heading through to cape mail to pick up and pay customs duty on the brainiacs item i'd tried to cancel, taking the opportunity to hunt down the parcel they'd lost and finding it - it was received in october, processed in december and seized in january, i was informed in march, gave up trying to find it in may, and i'm now waiting for the nice SARS lady to pick it up from storage for me
driving back through intense and wonderfully varied weather preoccupied by my earlier anxiety, driving via langa due to a signage error, mr smear seeing me and running up to say "did you miss me, daddy?"
working from the gym and sitting next to and chatting for a while with a guy i'd met at the birthday party the day before
picking up mr smear with gd, viewing an apartment, driving around to get a sense of the area, mr smear passing out on my shoulder at the bollywood cafe while the non-indian manager made sure that we'd be coming back even if they're not the cleanest establishment
passing out for an hour and struggling to get up
coffee and some good physical puzzle performance, leftovers, mr smear standing under the shower again but this time learning not to eat soap - afterwards remanding himself with his catchphrase "NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!"
putting mr smear to bed with rls ruining what would otherwise have been a great reading time, going to bed myself around 10pm as soon as it abated
tuesday 3rd:
and getting up a little after midnight to work until after 3.30am
everyone struggling to get up four hours later, but getting into the day positively
retail therapy can be a thing if i'm actually successful in purchasing stuff i really need (well, that mr smear really needs)
i was never any good at skipping, which anyone who's ever trained with me will happily attest to. one painfully obvious thing i've learned from the jump rope, yet can never seem to remember, is that the more you do it the less effort you need to expend, and if you come back to it after a long time you need to repeat that earlier effort if you don't want to keep slapping your head and feet with the rope.
more workspace-buddy chatting and deploying the code i'd been working on for two weeks, picking up mr smear and taking him to the hospital, a long trek to get to the pathology labs that i didn't know i'd parked right next to
explaining to mr smear that it would hurt and that it was okay to cry and being extremely proud of him exercising breathing control two seconds after it was over, taking him home and doing new puzzles with him
visiting my uncle who could by then barely talk, an embarrassing moment sharing a memory of something racist my father once said in front of the black carer and without context
gd's delicious potato dish that was worth a pyrex exploding, mom visiting and a sad discussion about my sister and her daughter (who's finally filing for divorce after discovering that she's his beard)
wednesday 4th:
our third anniversary
sleeping well the whole night, waking up from an insane dream* with my neck at a bad angle that caused a spasm
* gd and i on a comedian's show, fleeing a psychopath using giant chained metal hoops, trying to steal a helicopter, the psychopath managing to get into the cockpit while i teamed up with the helicopter's owner, surprising the psychopath and throwing him into a chasm like a ragdoll, the owner bumping his head and me giving him a whiskey-soaked sponge
toy story 3 on the ps3 and breakfast, drop-off, home, an exciting interview (for the company i'll start working for in three weeks), cryptocurrency account management, meeting sailor in town (buzzed, possibly all the caffeine), picking up mr smear, playing more toy story 3 and gd's captain america mask, sailor calling, mom calling during that call, gd receiving a phone call just as a british recruiter phoned me, mr smear yelling at me and the security guard buzzing to remind me about a delivery all at the same time
hulk mask park mission: "i'm not a superhero, i'm a HERO"
parking lot anger on the way to a date night
deciding that mr chan is kind of like p.m., but having to complicate the kitchen to get vegan meals
thursday 5th:
a second full night's sleep
emergency bread shopping
little captain america belting out bohemian rhapsody
krybabie's mother calling me for free IT assistance
good run, stretch, jump rope frustration, good planking
lots of work buddy chatter
a joyful captain america, home to puzzles and more toy story 3, general tiredness
a promenade walk that began with mr smear on his plastic bike, had me carrying the bike most of the way, and created a proper tantrum that was utterly infuriating because he cried until he threw up and then expected me to pick him up while i was carrying the bike in one hand and puke-soaked tissues in the other with no trash cans in sight
shower, big dinner, grocery shopping, easy bedtime
a really uncomfortable neck / back spasm, trying out the second season of glow, lots of effort into small chores (business cards in particular)
friday 6th:
working until 2am, everyone having difficulty getting up, gd sore and with a headache and my shoulder still locked up
dropping off little hulk at school, dropping gd at the dentist and getting in some relaxed exercise (why am i not losing any more weight?), a pleasant chat with workspace buddy culminating in him disappearing for a while and returning with a copy of the 4-hour work week for me
restify's latest version's routing changes not only breaking code, but forcing me to find another solution entirely and binning months of hard work
mr smear calling a little boy wonder woman on our way out from the school
a tired afternoon, grocery shopping and task justifying to SxS, taking mr smear to the temple for a pleasant service and fun kids' activities, mr smear dropping his weight on me for a while and eventually arriving at my uncle's in need of a stiff drink
kiddush around his bed, a very nice dinner, generally fun except for the bit where my cousin fired me up with a story about an insult he received in an orthodox synagogue and i let my uncle's girlfriend have a summary of judaism in an angry hebrew rant before learning that she was very busy finding religion to cope with breast cancer
a little difficulty getting mr smear to bed, my mom suspecting that the floors are lifting because of us and suggesting we stop saving water and keeping the windows closed (doesn't seem to have made much difference)
saturday 7th:
waking up late to a warm berg wind and throwing everything open, a long and late morning indoors, mr smear messing about with crayons and me getting deep into pony island
suddenly feeling sick and dizzy, probably nerve pressure
taking mr smear to the park for an enjoyable playdate, mr smear riding off twice and almost getting properly lost, meeting sailor and a few of the playdate parents' friends, eventually grabbing something from newport deli and finding ourselves locked out of the wrong side of the park
completing pony island (superb game), a surprise visit from our cousins, an easy shower and bedtime, ender's game (great movie, a pretty good translation from the book)
sunday 8th:
in bed by 1.30am
being one of two dads surprised by a long park playdate, successful shopping and bumping into my mom, quick coffee and home for a nap / iphone game evaluation (doing it for my son, of course, totally selflessly), jumping up to rush to dischem for baby wipes, picking up laffot and arriving home just after our seattle playdate friends did, coffeeing up and meeting sailor for a walk on the promenade, being joined by protoplasm and returning to our shamefully messy apartment for drinks and dinner and a lot of chatter, eventually driving our playdate friends home and incorrectly believing that mr smear would be ready for bed...
... a long goodnight, falling asleep on the couch
monday 9th:
sleeping late and keeping mr smear home from school for a stuffy nose that turned out just fine, my neck still very messed up, joining sailor at bootlegger and introducing him to my personal telephony project, an hour or two struggling with ibm tech and finding alternate solutions
scavenging leftovers, taking little batman to the aquarium, then to buy another puzzle, vegan chocolate raspberry ice cream (win!), mr smear donating to the soccer man, no naps
VSTS deployment call, going upstairs to steal onions and my uncle's girlfriend's intolerable behaviour, dinner, a good shower experience (mr smear handled shampoo with no stress for the first time ever) followed by a poop-in-the-tub, reading to bed, finishing a leftover laffa then passing out to dirk gently while stretching out my neck
tuesday 10th:
a couple of hours with minor tasks and deployments
up early, a rush to feed mr smear and get us out by 7.45, which is roughly when he started coughing things up... managing to drop him off at school and get the car to the panelbeaters by 8.40
a fascinating interview (and a very confusing office entrance), meeting sailor for a chat
being confused by the suggestion of getting a job offer with no assessment (which i'd forget about until the job offer actually came in)
walking to the car rental, home to wolf down lunch and discover seitan biltong (herbi vohr products are fantastic), picking up mr smear, getting some investigating done, crashing for an hour, taking little spiderman to the blue train during a phenomenal sunset, shower and bedtime, a comixology refund that turned out better than expected, dredd and marshmallows, work
wednesday 11th:
work + installation wait (serial cleaner and pony island) until 3am
mr smear keeping himself awake coughing all night, working from home and becoming increasingly frustrated by the azure nuget packages AGAIN
my aunt's mother's funeral, biggles showing up from london unexpectedly, determining that if somebody needs something to remember me by i'd prefer a cactus to a headstone (oddly enough, a few days ago i saw these organic burial pods)
manic. manic, manic, manic.
mr smear throwing puzzle pieces everywhere, taking him to unsuccessfully find a balance bike, putting him to bed around 5pm, a second grocery shopping, (my) sibling drama prevention, a bit of work
netflix proxy detection and tech support fail - a long time on the phone arguing with their agents
passing out early and exhausted
thursday 12th:
a good night's rest with gd handling mr smear's 5am wakeup call, dropping him off on a rainy day, back into exercising (although lightly, not feeling 100%), good work progress, amazon once again making their interview process unpleasant
explaining to mr smear that mommy and daddy are always in his heart and that he's always in ours, so no need to stress about whether or not he's being picked up from school
working, mr smear's first time standing under the shower directly and enjoying it, my mom babysitting so that gd and i could go to prayers for my aunt's mother
dinner, intriguing news of my sister's willingness to dine with our brother for our uncle's sake
easy bedtime, calling our ISP to discover that the netflix problem was their fault and they hadn't thought to let us know, an impressive first episode of siren
late night coffee and work
friday 13th:
a few incidents with mr smear
too much vegan junkfood when trying to lose a little weight, a revelation in the middle of the night about the source of our azure authentication woes, finally getting up from my desk at 3am
another day of nerve pain, lightning shooting through my neck and shoulders into my biceps, darkening an already unpleasant mood from the usual late morning stress
driving in a hurry in heavy rains, a good hour's work, calling gd an uber from the gym and settling in for big progress
sailor getting in touch with HUGE news
picking up mr smear and taking him to pick up gd's phone and play with a really cool train set
being on our way out to grab coffee and shop and finding a leak caused by the cleaning lady shoving the vacuum cleaner and its parts into a cupboard in a way that i can only describe as utterly incomprehensible
work and managing a particularly defiant mr smear until dinnertime, with gd hit hard by the distressing news that her brother had attempted suicide
a very sombre friday night dinner with my uncle, my siblings managing to be under the same roof without drama
mr smear throwing his bumblebee action figure from the sixth floor corridor on his way to bed
setting up gd's phone and then passing out on the couch, which was a horrible mistake
saturday 14th:
a final little bit of pony island before going to bed around 2.30am
waking up with mr smear for paw patrol, big boy toilet behaviour and happily dressing himself
as soon as i caffeined enough to feel functional my nerve pain returned with a vengeance
"me time" while mr smear napped and getting some work done on my telephony project
joining the family at my uncle's place, confident that i was suffering a migraine when i was actually / also starting a fever and either way making a mistake by drinking whiskey
rushing home to deal with soiled underpants, showering mr smear and getting him into bed fairly quickly then turning in myself
sunday 15th:
a long night of coughing, restlessness, chills and fever dreams, waking up to the relieving news that my uncle passed away in the night
sick / migraine / both, a very long and difficult day, shiva house to playdate to funeral (fortunately i handled being a pall bearer), lying down until prayers, sudden intense and prolonged shoulder pain causing me to almost faint, slowly making my way downstairs
gd: daddy's sick, go give him a hug
*patter patter patter*
*bashing something onto my head repeatedly and giggling while i yell for help*
suddenly remembering it was invoice day at the last minute
monday 16th:
mega shopping with the flu and a defiant three year old
big nap
an awkward conversation with my sister before she told me "don't come back" (because i looked ill)
tuesday 17th:
getting mr smear to school late, remembering to fill up the rental at the last minute, switching cars, filling up mine, meeting gd at the hospital to sign her in and making my own appointment with the neurologist, my aunt's good friend funny high in the same ward (amusingly inappropriate jokes about inhalers), home to let the cleaning lady in, getting unsurprisingly (satisfyingly?) disappointing news from sailor about his presentation, heading out to organize gd a delicious sandwich from the hospital cafe (great move with their "build-your-own"), picking up mr smear and bringing him to the hospital to amuse everyone, home for more brussel sprout snacking, puzzles, and boredom (on his part) before heading to my uncle's to see the family, seeing one of my nephews for the first time in years and having a pleasingly rational conversation with him about nutrition
a pleasant bedtime wasted when i realized we hadn't brushed mr smear's teeth
internetting, stuffing my face and then suddenly
wednesday 18th:
it was 12.30am
a disturbing vision of a human/animal little red riding hood offering me a bowl of overflowing maize meal then giving up and scurrying up gd's shoulder to try her
a completely nightmarish night of restless legs (not rls?) and awful dreams
pirate hulk finally leaving for school on time, picking up a cup of coffee and arriving just in time for a comforting appointment with the neurologist
home to nap restlessly
picking up mr smear who'd been unhappy all day and whose obsession with the pirate bag gd picked up for him interfered to the point where i've had to hide it away
the long nap and a quick visit to my late uncle's to say goodbye (and take one of his old catapults for my wife), almost missing my massage appointment
happening to recite a poem about my father before learning that it was his yahrzeit, which my mother keeps "forgetting" that i don't want to remember
a sad 90th birthday call to my other uncle, toy story 3 for the ps3 is amazing, a smooth-ish bedtime and great experience reading then a sad moment when i turned the light off and he told me an ambiguously vague story that makes me think he might've been mean to his friends
just recovering with gd, going to bed just before midnight which was much later than expected
thursday 19th:
dream: the invisible whale transport whose bones materialize around the passengers and whose skin completes just as he shoots off down the tracks
another tough back / shoulder day, successfully dropping off mr smear without his pirate backpack and feeling strangely proud of his mode transition from singing along with rob zombie - dragula to moody blues - nights in white satin, watching the kids for a bit on a cool obstacle course, picking up coffee at mom's cafe, clearing my desk and getting some good work done before picking up mr smear
enjoying aki alliance
waiting for mr smear to wake up, learning he'd had another bad day, a nice ride home stopping to pick up diapers on the way, then taking mr smear to the park to blow bubbles
fortunately he was too occupied with the bubbles to notice the fighting homeless guys, calling the police twice but they came far too late to do anything
home for a break before heading out again to take him onto the rocklands rocks for a magical sunset
some angry words before sailor popped in for dinner (instigated by our neighbours' weed and cocaine thing getting out of hand), my mom paying us a quick visit, introducing mr smear to system of a down, an easy good night and a positive response when i asked him to remember the sunset as he fell asleep
our neighbours' amusement at seeing me in my onesie, jim jefferies, work
friday 20th:
in bed just before 3am
the irony of lying down on my back and looking for a video to post about how great i felt about it being a beautiful friday after such a tough week and the left side of my neck and shoulder spasming violently and painfully
getting mr smear to school very late, driving to the gym for a motivating meeting with the biokineticist, a couple of hours of work while my neck got progressively worse
finishing aki alliance over lunch and feeling disappointed that she hadn't really learned her lesson
a painful pickup, as much for my neck as for receiving a very sad mr smear coming down with the flu and conjunctivitus
a pitiful afternoon in front of the screen, a little bit of work collaboration, gd going to the temple alone for the first time
mr smear passing out to animaniacs, friday night takeaway leftovers, patterns of evidence: exodus and my niece's husband's grindr outing
the book of eli (beautiful) and some cook, serve, delicious!
saturday 21st:
a long and painful night, including keeping mr smear company for a long time which made it more painful
gd going to see an apartment alone, mr smear waking up and going straight to pee on the toilet (yay!), a long morning in front of the telly with my shoulder getting worse
taking him to see sailor's capoeira group for half a far-too-loud hour of some pretty cool stuff (i'm calling it break-your-face-dancing now), mr smear suddenly picking up a fever just as we arrived at my mom's coffee shop, a latte break with krybabie's mother before bringing him home for medication and the hunchback of notre dame (a mistake, the ending was far too violent)
gd arriving home happy from her outing
[a forgotten evening]
sunday 22nd:
still very sore, a pleasant morning until we needed to go and then an ugly morning for a while; seeing a beautiful apartment next to the company gardens and unanimously and enthusiastically agreeing on it
bringing mr smear home, some relative downtime before taking him to the park for hcc's farewell, some playtime and then dragging him off after he was mean to another kid
nap
taking mr smear shopping, hotel transylvania and dinner followed by a very unhappy shower / tooth brush / bedtime
getting into ruby at 10pm on a sunday night
monday 23rd:
and finally calling it a night around 3.30am, frustrated because it took so long to get things up and running but the actual work (on the backend, at least) was really simple
up at 9am with mr smear out of action, my neck still hurting
a full day of obsessively struggling with erb (ruby backend is a pleasure, the frontend is another story entirely)
mr smear being amazing during his visit to the doctor
a shopping expedition and vegan frozen yoghurt
trying to work on the assessment, gd joining me for a beachfront walk to get him to nap
mom coming over with the apartment application form
mr smear's incredible coughing fit, finishing the book of eli (amazing), crashing
tuesday 24th:
up around midnight with no alarm, working hard until suddenly it was almost 4am again
waking up from a claustrophobic dream - climbing over a post-apocalyptic bridge - to a still-stiff neck and a perpetually coughing mr smear who needed literally constant attention and commanded an unbelievable amount of pity and love
gd's successful conversion to judaism (passing her beit din interview), me finally receiving a good job offer
seeing the physio while gd took mr smear back to the doctor
work (which would result in a very successful deployment) in spite of the coughing, a mission to get stamped bank statements and shelter vouchers, getting the car transponder battery replaced, a little more work until my mom came over
walking with gd to retry a chinese restaurant (the one that previously didn't have tofu), a fantastic dinner, a relatively early night after some patterns of evidence: exodus and a bit of comedy
wednesday 25th:
up around 2/2.30am, getting stuck into doing the assessment *my* way (much easier), climbing back into bed at 4.30 (mr smear still coughing every now and again but mostly sleeping)
up at 9am for a highly stressful / anxious day
working with mr smear on my lap
nervously accepting the job offer
completing the evaluation so that i could submit it along with an email declining the job
mr smear feeling much better, taking him to the aquarium, then enthusiastically agreeing to take him on a boat ride - after carrying him in my arms for twenty minutes while waiting for the boat, he put on the life jacket and promptly passed out sitting upright and missed a gorgeous ride
dinner, shower, penn and teller's fool us, a good bedtime, finishing patterns of evidence: exodus (very convincing), resting and rls
the big conversation with SxS not going down so well, quite a bit of regret for not playing harder with the new employer and a lot of anxiety about burning bridges while leaping into the unknown
thursday 26th:
working through to 2am, the earlier regret building slowly to a deep disappointment in having let myself be dragged into something without stopping to consider my options
mr smear not wanting to get out of bed and getting to school late
successfully pushing back my new employment start date, then being unable to get in touch with SxS
meeting gd at the gym, my biokineticist training plan (stop stressing about form, he tells me)
rushing to pick up mr smear because "he wasn't himself" (meaning he wasn't a superhero? that's how we can tell)
mr smear passing out on my lap in front of fool us, me passing out as soon as i got him into bed
generally exhausted, finally getting in touch with SxS and resolving the notice period story (and learning that the guy i've been working with for two years is paraplegic: mind blown)
lazy evening and falling asleep right after mr smear
getting up for a meeting that was cancelled and crashing again
friday 27th:
nine hours of sleep!
gd's not-hypnotherapy session
a good first prescibed training and jacuzzi
reaching my target weight four weeks early due to the flu
work and lunch
mr smear running to greet me / get his back scratched
work / tedium / emergency showering mr smear / last minute challah shopping (everyone was out)
the temple service, mr smear trying to get his friend to whisper, the bigger kids playing really nicely with the little ones
friday night dinner playdate, mom joining us for kiddush, a busy evening, mr smear voluntarily heading to bed, taking our friends home and chatting for far too long about orthodox hypocrisy
checking out the amazing blood moon
i don't know where or when i picked it up, but samorost 3 is one of the most beautiful games i've ever played. absolutely stunning.
saturday 28th:
playing it until 2am
still sore, a quick breakfast and then taking mr smear to kirstenbosch for a sulky, tantrumy playdate and some fun cold water naked play at 16 degrees celcius
skipping a birthday party because neither myself nor gd have any idea who the little girl is nor which one of us put it in the calendar
mr smear waking up on arrival at home, a little toy story 3 (just brilliant) and a little more samorost 3 (exquisite) before heading to my mom's coffee shop to help install a shelf (the drill broke down 60% of the way through)
a pretty good evening, generally being lazy, then deciding instead of sleeping...
sunday 29th:
... to update my blog instead. good night!
working and playing until 2.40am
the lifting floor becoming a bit freaky
up at 7.30 to a very unhappy gd - it appears that the nerve block procedure was ineffective
not only dropping mr smear off late but forgetting his schoolbag, going all the way home to fetch it, stopping by the vodacom store to learn that the sms informing me that gd's phone was ready was erroneous, delivering mr smear's bag, hitting the gym, struggling a bit with the run but a lot with the jump rope, bag and planking (a bit weak and dizzy), work progress and an infuriating experience with a recruiter prompting me to send an angry email to her boss - that earned me a phone call and it turned out to be the company's fault and not hers...
forgetting to eat until it was too late to order, picking up mr smear who'd napped at school (the teacher was laughing because he messed about for a while, and when he finally did put his head down it was with a naughty smile so they were sure he wasn't asleep)
coming home tired and hungry (and sore, my back and neck were giving me problems); angrily cancelling my GAP insurance policy and trying to contact a montreal consulate on st jean baptiste day, work and puzzles and coffee, taking mr smear out with his plastic bike, running into our neighbours whose uncle had just been murdered in stellenbosch, a big grocery shopping with no loyalty cards, a good dinner and shower and bedtime and passing out myself for an hour, then lying in bed uncomfortably
tuesday 26th:
until 1.30am, getting up in a haze, working well until 4am when gd woke up, chatting and playing a bit more human resource machine befoe before crashing around 4.40am
difficulty getting up at 7.30, choco-banana not working as expected, late for school, hitting the gym only for the workspace and preparing for ios dev
a relatively productive morning (although it could have been more so if xcode hadn't taken so long to download), a delicious lunch (although they have precisely one vegan item on the menu and were out of its main ingredient), taking mr smear home, filling up the car, paying the phone store another pointless visit, upgrading my phone contract at the waterfront, a lot of small shopping, coming home with the weariness of a few days of sciatica (both sides), eating, making a smoothie with oranges (bad idea)
my mom and me visiting my uncle who's clearly on his last legs, his girlfriend forcing him to eat way more than he could handle in spite of our protests
a fast shower and bedtime, gd not feeling good, remembering why i despise the israeli consulate in montreal (i wasted a lot of time on multiple attempts to call them, they pick up and put down)
reading a bit of deadpool, a productive chat with SxS, trying to clear my desk a bit
11pm nightmares
wednesday 27th:
2am bedtime after a night of mixed work and faffing, a slow wakeup but feeling better than the day before, late for school but a quick drop off followed by a good workout, coffee and lunch and learning swift for a bit before diving in to my first ios project
sudden, overwhelming exhaustion about half an hour before i needed to pick up mr smear
*TRIGGER WARNING POOP STORY* at least he was good enough to come and tell me that he'd pooped on the floor. i wish "the floor" hadn't primarily meant "the bathmat". i wish the poop hadn't been soft and slimy. and that i hadn't made the mistake of getting down on one knee to clean him up while wearing nice pants. i really hope i've done a good enough job of cleaning him. and the floor. and the batgirl figurine he was busy playing with at the time. is 3pm too early in the day to start drinking?
discovering that mr smear's problem with solving puzzles was one of motivation - as soon as it was a picture of a superhero who could only be saved by completing the puzzle he performed beautifully and didn't need to start with corners at all
gd's passing grade for her conversion course after retaking some of the exam - it turns out she knows plenty, but just isn't in a good place for writing exams (in addition to the learning difficulties imposed by pain meds)
taking mr smear for a promenade ride, some stressful moments, running into a friend of his and grabbing his dad's skateboard (and standing on it well!)
back home for dinner - putting on hebrew music videos in the background, mr smear and gd both definitely dig karolina - mr smear standing under the shower by himself for the first time in almost four months
only reading in the dark (grimm), entering the second season of luke cage (shades is way overacted), napping until midnight
thursday 28th:
two hours finding documentation for GAP insurance, then two hours working, almost three and a half hours sleeping
the beard trimmer cutting out almost from the start
that awkward moment when you can't identify the other parents walking towards you with the sunlight behind them and you and your kid are in the middle of the chorus of brand new day
going straight to my laser treatment, arriving early and picking up a chai latte at vida, having a laugh with the barista when we realized that the card i'd given up on using had just the amount i needed
a very quick treatment (hopefully meaningful), returning home to scan an out-of-print graphic novel volume, handle some chores (the GAP insurance company's response to my public complaints was to actually start doing their job) and get some work done
picking up mr smear and taking him to play at one of his best friends, sadly not thinking to bring a laptop...
holy **** bacterial takeover is a stupid, and stupidly addictive game
coming home, setting mr smear up with monsters inc as a babysitter so i could take a work call, gd coming home after having resolved an issue around my uncle's "care" (the man's dying, he doesn't need to be force-fed)
work, dinner, exhaustion, coffee, shower, full reading, luke cage with half an eye
friday 29th:
watching some smart entertainment and working until 2.30am, going to bed with a sudden sore throat
dropping mr smear off very late, picking up coffee and racing through the pouring rain to gd's not-hypnotherapist, good work and bacterial takeover inspiration, bumping into my cousin in the gym for a very interesting talk about water and community upliftment, printing issues and a little work and picking up mr smear
the cleaning lady not coming in because it was raining, then not answering her phone
a quick meeting, a lot of paperwork, big grocery shopping, a pleasant service at the temple, trying to arrange chinese but our favourite place was still closed and the option across the road didn't have tofu (?!?), picking up pastas in the rain, gd's being inedibly spicy and having to go back again (the owner was mortified, somebody had accidentally dowsed all their garlic with chili oil)
mr smear dropping out easily, gd watching the rest of thor: ragnarok and me passing out on the couch
saturday 30th:
everyone sleeping in, a generally miserable wintery day spent mostly indoors and grumpy, the door and window guys finally coming in to sort out the leaking frames so we could stop with the masking tape
taking mr smear along to take my mom to builder's warehouse as an "excursion" but his feet barely touched the floor and his mood certainly didn't improve
"practicing patience" by not interfering with my three year old doing a jigsaw puzzle was one of the most stressful and perplexing six minutes of my life. it's funny how things we take for granted as intellectual can be heavily experiential. either that or my son's an idiot...
a short nap, trying out magic carpet and myst (i know!), spending far too much time with bacterial takeover, a long failed goodnight (i read to him until 9.45 before asking gd to step in)
sunday 1st july:
finally getting up from my pc and heading for bed around 1.20am
a slow morning, finally picking up mr smear's epipen, meeting our seattle friends at the superpark for a great obstacle course hour - not only did mr smear use the climbing wall grips with no involvement from me but he then went straight through most of a thin rope web with me just watching with my mouth open
coffees and babycinos before returning home to pick up gd, an extremely unpleasant journey before we found a softer space and went to a friend's birthday party; mr smear and his friend playing together under a table in the smoky german club, amazing vegan curries and generally good vibes until mr smear had had enough
playing some more bacterial takeover then exorcizing that demon from my phone, but not without htting upon a practical application for such a dastardly addictive system
mr smear's long goodnight, actually managing to chat with scrapper for a while, interrupted by mr smear yelling because he needed a diaper change, scrapper's shock that we're living in this crazy place
mr smear's quote for the day: "the DEA fights the crack, we will put the DEA in the naughty corner"
a long evening of getting stuff done
monday 2nd:
crashing after a violent storm and completing an integral task around 2am
dropping mr smear off with a new teacher for the week and the awful sensation of instructing people in the use of an epipen and being uncertain of whether they understand how to avoid getting to that point (i had a bit of an anxiety attack afterwards)
heading through to cape mail to pick up and pay customs duty on the brainiacs item i'd tried to cancel, taking the opportunity to hunt down the parcel they'd lost and finding it - it was received in october, processed in december and seized in january, i was informed in march, gave up trying to find it in may, and i'm now waiting for the nice SARS lady to pick it up from storage for me
driving back through intense and wonderfully varied weather preoccupied by my earlier anxiety, driving via langa due to a signage error, mr smear seeing me and running up to say "did you miss me, daddy?"
working from the gym and sitting next to and chatting for a while with a guy i'd met at the birthday party the day before
picking up mr smear with gd, viewing an apartment, driving around to get a sense of the area, mr smear passing out on my shoulder at the bollywood cafe while the non-indian manager made sure that we'd be coming back even if they're not the cleanest establishment
passing out for an hour and struggling to get up
coffee and some good physical puzzle performance, leftovers, mr smear standing under the shower again but this time learning not to eat soap - afterwards remanding himself with his catchphrase "NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!"
putting mr smear to bed with rls ruining what would otherwise have been a great reading time, going to bed myself around 10pm as soon as it abated
tuesday 3rd:
and getting up a little after midnight to work until after 3.30am
everyone struggling to get up four hours later, but getting into the day positively
retail therapy can be a thing if i'm actually successful in purchasing stuff i really need (well, that mr smear really needs)
i was never any good at skipping, which anyone who's ever trained with me will happily attest to. one painfully obvious thing i've learned from the jump rope, yet can never seem to remember, is that the more you do it the less effort you need to expend, and if you come back to it after a long time you need to repeat that earlier effort if you don't want to keep slapping your head and feet with the rope.
more workspace-buddy chatting and deploying the code i'd been working on for two weeks, picking up mr smear and taking him to the hospital, a long trek to get to the pathology labs that i didn't know i'd parked right next to
explaining to mr smear that it would hurt and that it was okay to cry and being extremely proud of him exercising breathing control two seconds after it was over, taking him home and doing new puzzles with him
visiting my uncle who could by then barely talk, an embarrassing moment sharing a memory of something racist my father once said in front of the black carer and without context
gd's delicious potato dish that was worth a pyrex exploding, mom visiting and a sad discussion about my sister and her daughter (who's finally filing for divorce after discovering that she's his beard)
wednesday 4th:
our third anniversary
sleeping well the whole night, waking up from an insane dream* with my neck at a bad angle that caused a spasm
* gd and i on a comedian's show, fleeing a psychopath using giant chained metal hoops, trying to steal a helicopter, the psychopath managing to get into the cockpit while i teamed up with the helicopter's owner, surprising the psychopath and throwing him into a chasm like a ragdoll, the owner bumping his head and me giving him a whiskey-soaked sponge
toy story 3 on the ps3 and breakfast, drop-off, home, an exciting interview (for the company i'll start working for in three weeks), cryptocurrency account management, meeting sailor in town (buzzed, possibly all the caffeine), picking up mr smear, playing more toy story 3 and gd's captain america mask, sailor calling, mom calling during that call, gd receiving a phone call just as a british recruiter phoned me, mr smear yelling at me and the security guard buzzing to remind me about a delivery all at the same time
hulk mask park mission: "i'm not a superhero, i'm a HERO"
parking lot anger on the way to a date night
deciding that mr chan is kind of like p.m., but having to complicate the kitchen to get vegan meals
thursday 5th:
a second full night's sleep
emergency bread shopping
little captain america belting out bohemian rhapsody
krybabie's mother calling me for free IT assistance
good run, stretch, jump rope frustration, good planking
lots of work buddy chatter
a joyful captain america, home to puzzles and more toy story 3, general tiredness
a promenade walk that began with mr smear on his plastic bike, had me carrying the bike most of the way, and created a proper tantrum that was utterly infuriating because he cried until he threw up and then expected me to pick him up while i was carrying the bike in one hand and puke-soaked tissues in the other with no trash cans in sight
shower, big dinner, grocery shopping, easy bedtime
a really uncomfortable neck / back spasm, trying out the second season of glow, lots of effort into small chores (business cards in particular)
friday 6th:
working until 2am, everyone having difficulty getting up, gd sore and with a headache and my shoulder still locked up
dropping off little hulk at school, dropping gd at the dentist and getting in some relaxed exercise (why am i not losing any more weight?), a pleasant chat with workspace buddy culminating in him disappearing for a while and returning with a copy of the 4-hour work week for me
restify's latest version's routing changes not only breaking code, but forcing me to find another solution entirely and binning months of hard work
mr smear calling a little boy wonder woman on our way out from the school
a tired afternoon, grocery shopping and task justifying to SxS, taking mr smear to the temple for a pleasant service and fun kids' activities, mr smear dropping his weight on me for a while and eventually arriving at my uncle's in need of a stiff drink
kiddush around his bed, a very nice dinner, generally fun except for the bit where my cousin fired me up with a story about an insult he received in an orthodox synagogue and i let my uncle's girlfriend have a summary of judaism in an angry hebrew rant before learning that she was very busy finding religion to cope with breast cancer
a little difficulty getting mr smear to bed, my mom suspecting that the floors are lifting because of us and suggesting we stop saving water and keeping the windows closed (doesn't seem to have made much difference)
saturday 7th:
waking up late to a warm berg wind and throwing everything open, a long and late morning indoors, mr smear messing about with crayons and me getting deep into pony island
suddenly feeling sick and dizzy, probably nerve pressure
taking mr smear to the park for an enjoyable playdate, mr smear riding off twice and almost getting properly lost, meeting sailor and a few of the playdate parents' friends, eventually grabbing something from newport deli and finding ourselves locked out of the wrong side of the park
completing pony island (superb game), a surprise visit from our cousins, an easy shower and bedtime, ender's game (great movie, a pretty good translation from the book)
sunday 8th:
in bed by 1.30am
being one of two dads surprised by a long park playdate, successful shopping and bumping into my mom, quick coffee and home for a nap / iphone game evaluation (doing it for my son, of course, totally selflessly), jumping up to rush to dischem for baby wipes, picking up laffot and arriving home just after our seattle playdate friends did, coffeeing up and meeting sailor for a walk on the promenade, being joined by protoplasm and returning to our shamefully messy apartment for drinks and dinner and a lot of chatter, eventually driving our playdate friends home and incorrectly believing that mr smear would be ready for bed...
... a long goodnight, falling asleep on the couch
monday 9th:
sleeping late and keeping mr smear home from school for a stuffy nose that turned out just fine, my neck still very messed up, joining sailor at bootlegger and introducing him to my personal telephony project, an hour or two struggling with ibm tech and finding alternate solutions
scavenging leftovers, taking little batman to the aquarium, then to buy another puzzle, vegan chocolate raspberry ice cream (win!), mr smear donating to the soccer man, no naps
VSTS deployment call, going upstairs to steal onions and my uncle's girlfriend's intolerable behaviour, dinner, a good shower experience (mr smear handled shampoo with no stress for the first time ever) followed by a poop-in-the-tub, reading to bed, finishing a leftover laffa then passing out to dirk gently while stretching out my neck
tuesday 10th:
a couple of hours with minor tasks and deployments
up early, a rush to feed mr smear and get us out by 7.45, which is roughly when he started coughing things up... managing to drop him off at school and get the car to the panelbeaters by 8.40
a fascinating interview (and a very confusing office entrance), meeting sailor for a chat
being confused by the suggestion of getting a job offer with no assessment (which i'd forget about until the job offer actually came in)
walking to the car rental, home to wolf down lunch and discover seitan biltong (herbi vohr products are fantastic), picking up mr smear, getting some investigating done, crashing for an hour, taking little spiderman to the blue train during a phenomenal sunset, shower and bedtime, a comixology refund that turned out better than expected, dredd and marshmallows, work
wednesday 11th:
work + installation wait (serial cleaner and pony island) until 3am
mr smear keeping himself awake coughing all night, working from home and becoming increasingly frustrated by the azure nuget packages AGAIN
my aunt's mother's funeral, biggles showing up from london unexpectedly, determining that if somebody needs something to remember me by i'd prefer a cactus to a headstone (oddly enough, a few days ago i saw these organic burial pods)
manic. manic, manic, manic.
mr smear throwing puzzle pieces everywhere, taking him to unsuccessfully find a balance bike, putting him to bed around 5pm, a second grocery shopping, (my) sibling drama prevention, a bit of work
netflix proxy detection and tech support fail - a long time on the phone arguing with their agents
passing out early and exhausted
thursday 12th:
a good night's rest with gd handling mr smear's 5am wakeup call, dropping him off on a rainy day, back into exercising (although lightly, not feeling 100%), good work progress, amazon once again making their interview process unpleasant
explaining to mr smear that mommy and daddy are always in his heart and that he's always in ours, so no need to stress about whether or not he's being picked up from school
working, mr smear's first time standing under the shower directly and enjoying it, my mom babysitting so that gd and i could go to prayers for my aunt's mother
dinner, intriguing news of my sister's willingness to dine with our brother for our uncle's sake
easy bedtime, calling our ISP to discover that the netflix problem was their fault and they hadn't thought to let us know, an impressive first episode of siren
late night coffee and work
friday 13th:
a few incidents with mr smear
too much vegan junkfood when trying to lose a little weight, a revelation in the middle of the night about the source of our azure authentication woes, finally getting up from my desk at 3am
another day of nerve pain, lightning shooting through my neck and shoulders into my biceps, darkening an already unpleasant mood from the usual late morning stress
driving in a hurry in heavy rains, a good hour's work, calling gd an uber from the gym and settling in for big progress
sailor getting in touch with HUGE news
picking up mr smear and taking him to pick up gd's phone and play with a really cool train set
being on our way out to grab coffee and shop and finding a leak caused by the cleaning lady shoving the vacuum cleaner and its parts into a cupboard in a way that i can only describe as utterly incomprehensible
work and managing a particularly defiant mr smear until dinnertime, with gd hit hard by the distressing news that her brother had attempted suicide
a very sombre friday night dinner with my uncle, my siblings managing to be under the same roof without drama
mr smear throwing his bumblebee action figure from the sixth floor corridor on his way to bed
setting up gd's phone and then passing out on the couch, which was a horrible mistake
saturday 14th:
a final little bit of pony island before going to bed around 2.30am
waking up with mr smear for paw patrol, big boy toilet behaviour and happily dressing himself
as soon as i caffeined enough to feel functional my nerve pain returned with a vengeance
"me time" while mr smear napped and getting some work done on my telephony project
joining the family at my uncle's place, confident that i was suffering a migraine when i was actually / also starting a fever and either way making a mistake by drinking whiskey
rushing home to deal with soiled underpants, showering mr smear and getting him into bed fairly quickly then turning in myself
sunday 15th:
a long night of coughing, restlessness, chills and fever dreams, waking up to the relieving news that my uncle passed away in the night
sick / migraine / both, a very long and difficult day, shiva house to playdate to funeral (fortunately i handled being a pall bearer), lying down until prayers, sudden intense and prolonged shoulder pain causing me to almost faint, slowly making my way downstairs
gd: daddy's sick, go give him a hug
*patter patter patter*
*bashing something onto my head repeatedly and giggling while i yell for help*
suddenly remembering it was invoice day at the last minute
monday 16th:
mega shopping with the flu and a defiant three year old
big nap
an awkward conversation with my sister before she told me "don't come back" (because i looked ill)
tuesday 17th:
getting mr smear to school late, remembering to fill up the rental at the last minute, switching cars, filling up mine, meeting gd at the hospital to sign her in and making my own appointment with the neurologist, my aunt's good friend funny high in the same ward (amusingly inappropriate jokes about inhalers), home to let the cleaning lady in, getting unsurprisingly (satisfyingly?) disappointing news from sailor about his presentation, heading out to organize gd a delicious sandwich from the hospital cafe (great move with their "build-your-own"), picking up mr smear and bringing him to the hospital to amuse everyone, home for more brussel sprout snacking, puzzles, and boredom (on his part) before heading to my uncle's to see the family, seeing one of my nephews for the first time in years and having a pleasingly rational conversation with him about nutrition
a pleasant bedtime wasted when i realized we hadn't brushed mr smear's teeth
internetting, stuffing my face and then suddenly
wednesday 18th:
it was 12.30am
a disturbing vision of a human/animal little red riding hood offering me a bowl of overflowing maize meal then giving up and scurrying up gd's shoulder to try her
a completely nightmarish night of restless legs (not rls?) and awful dreams
pirate hulk finally leaving for school on time, picking up a cup of coffee and arriving just in time for a comforting appointment with the neurologist
home to nap restlessly
picking up mr smear who'd been unhappy all day and whose obsession with the pirate bag gd picked up for him interfered to the point where i've had to hide it away
the long nap and a quick visit to my late uncle's to say goodbye (and take one of his old catapults for my wife), almost missing my massage appointment
happening to recite a poem about my father before learning that it was his yahrzeit, which my mother keeps "forgetting" that i don't want to remember
a sad 90th birthday call to my other uncle, toy story 3 for the ps3 is amazing, a smooth-ish bedtime and great experience reading then a sad moment when i turned the light off and he told me an ambiguously vague story that makes me think he might've been mean to his friends
just recovering with gd, going to bed just before midnight which was much later than expected
thursday 19th:
dream: the invisible whale transport whose bones materialize around the passengers and whose skin completes just as he shoots off down the tracks
another tough back / shoulder day, successfully dropping off mr smear without his pirate backpack and feeling strangely proud of his mode transition from singing along with rob zombie - dragula to moody blues - nights in white satin, watching the kids for a bit on a cool obstacle course, picking up coffee at mom's cafe, clearing my desk and getting some good work done before picking up mr smear
enjoying aki alliance
waiting for mr smear to wake up, learning he'd had another bad day, a nice ride home stopping to pick up diapers on the way, then taking mr smear to the park to blow bubbles
fortunately he was too occupied with the bubbles to notice the fighting homeless guys, calling the police twice but they came far too late to do anything
home for a break before heading out again to take him onto the rocklands rocks for a magical sunset
some angry words before sailor popped in for dinner (instigated by our neighbours' weed and cocaine thing getting out of hand), my mom paying us a quick visit, introducing mr smear to system of a down, an easy good night and a positive response when i asked him to remember the sunset as he fell asleep
our neighbours' amusement at seeing me in my onesie, jim jefferies, work
friday 20th:
in bed just before 3am
the irony of lying down on my back and looking for a video to post about how great i felt about it being a beautiful friday after such a tough week and the left side of my neck and shoulder spasming violently and painfully
getting mr smear to school very late, driving to the gym for a motivating meeting with the biokineticist, a couple of hours of work while my neck got progressively worse
finishing aki alliance over lunch and feeling disappointed that she hadn't really learned her lesson
a painful pickup, as much for my neck as for receiving a very sad mr smear coming down with the flu and conjunctivitus
a pitiful afternoon in front of the screen, a little bit of work collaboration, gd going to the temple alone for the first time
mr smear passing out to animaniacs, friday night takeaway leftovers, patterns of evidence: exodus and my niece's husband's grindr outing
the book of eli (beautiful) and some cook, serve, delicious!
saturday 21st:
a long and painful night, including keeping mr smear company for a long time which made it more painful
gd going to see an apartment alone, mr smear waking up and going straight to pee on the toilet (yay!), a long morning in front of the telly with my shoulder getting worse
taking him to see sailor's capoeira group for half a far-too-loud hour of some pretty cool stuff (i'm calling it break-your-face-dancing now), mr smear suddenly picking up a fever just as we arrived at my mom's coffee shop, a latte break with krybabie's mother before bringing him home for medication and the hunchback of notre dame (a mistake, the ending was far too violent)
gd arriving home happy from her outing
[a forgotten evening]
sunday 22nd:
still very sore, a pleasant morning until we needed to go and then an ugly morning for a while; seeing a beautiful apartment next to the company gardens and unanimously and enthusiastically agreeing on it
bringing mr smear home, some relative downtime before taking him to the park for hcc's farewell, some playtime and then dragging him off after he was mean to another kid
nap
taking mr smear shopping, hotel transylvania and dinner followed by a very unhappy shower / tooth brush / bedtime
getting into ruby at 10pm on a sunday night
monday 23rd:
and finally calling it a night around 3.30am, frustrated because it took so long to get things up and running but the actual work (on the backend, at least) was really simple
up at 9am with mr smear out of action, my neck still hurting
a full day of obsessively struggling with erb (ruby backend is a pleasure, the frontend is another story entirely)
mr smear being amazing during his visit to the doctor
a shopping expedition and vegan frozen yoghurt
trying to work on the assessment, gd joining me for a beachfront walk to get him to nap
mom coming over with the apartment application form
mr smear's incredible coughing fit, finishing the book of eli (amazing), crashing
tuesday 24th:
up around midnight with no alarm, working hard until suddenly it was almost 4am again
waking up from a claustrophobic dream - climbing over a post-apocalyptic bridge - to a still-stiff neck and a perpetually coughing mr smear who needed literally constant attention and commanded an unbelievable amount of pity and love
gd's successful conversion to judaism (passing her beit din interview), me finally receiving a good job offer
seeing the physio while gd took mr smear back to the doctor
work (which would result in a very successful deployment) in spite of the coughing, a mission to get stamped bank statements and shelter vouchers, getting the car transponder battery replaced, a little more work until my mom came over
walking with gd to retry a chinese restaurant (the one that previously didn't have tofu), a fantastic dinner, a relatively early night after some patterns of evidence: exodus and a bit of comedy
wednesday 25th:
up around 2/2.30am, getting stuck into doing the assessment *my* way (much easier), climbing back into bed at 4.30 (mr smear still coughing every now and again but mostly sleeping)
up at 9am for a highly stressful / anxious day
working with mr smear on my lap
nervously accepting the job offer
completing the evaluation so that i could submit it along with an email declining the job
mr smear feeling much better, taking him to the aquarium, then enthusiastically agreeing to take him on a boat ride - after carrying him in my arms for twenty minutes while waiting for the boat, he put on the life jacket and promptly passed out sitting upright and missed a gorgeous ride
dinner, shower, penn and teller's fool us, a good bedtime, finishing patterns of evidence: exodus (very convincing), resting and rls
the big conversation with SxS not going down so well, quite a bit of regret for not playing harder with the new employer and a lot of anxiety about burning bridges while leaping into the unknown
thursday 26th:
working through to 2am, the earlier regret building slowly to a deep disappointment in having let myself be dragged into something without stopping to consider my options
mr smear not wanting to get out of bed and getting to school late
successfully pushing back my new employment start date, then being unable to get in touch with SxS
meeting gd at the gym, my biokineticist training plan (stop stressing about form, he tells me)
rushing to pick up mr smear because "he wasn't himself" (meaning he wasn't a superhero? that's how we can tell)
mr smear passing out on my lap in front of fool us, me passing out as soon as i got him into bed
generally exhausted, finally getting in touch with SxS and resolving the notice period story (and learning that the guy i've been working with for two years is paraplegic: mind blown)
lazy evening and falling asleep right after mr smear
getting up for a meeting that was cancelled and crashing again
friday 27th:
nine hours of sleep!
gd's not-hypnotherapy session
a good first prescibed training and jacuzzi
reaching my target weight four weeks early due to the flu
work and lunch
mr smear running to greet me / get his back scratched
work / tedium / emergency showering mr smear / last minute challah shopping (everyone was out)
the temple service, mr smear trying to get his friend to whisper, the bigger kids playing really nicely with the little ones
friday night dinner playdate, mom joining us for kiddush, a busy evening, mr smear voluntarily heading to bed, taking our friends home and chatting for far too long about orthodox hypocrisy
checking out the amazing blood moon
i don't know where or when i picked it up, but samorost 3 is one of the most beautiful games i've ever played. absolutely stunning.
saturday 28th:
playing it until 2am
still sore, a quick breakfast and then taking mr smear to kirstenbosch for a sulky, tantrumy playdate and some fun cold water naked play at 16 degrees celcius
skipping a birthday party because neither myself nor gd have any idea who the little girl is nor which one of us put it in the calendar
mr smear waking up on arrival at home, a little toy story 3 (just brilliant) and a little more samorost 3 (exquisite) before heading to my mom's coffee shop to help install a shelf (the drill broke down 60% of the way through)
a pretty good evening, generally being lazy, then deciding instead of sleeping...
sunday 29th:
... to update my blog instead. good night!
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
gym thoughts
the best part of working from the gym’s workspace is that while i don’t have to work out before i sit down, the ease of access makes it easier to work out than not to. over the course of the past couple of weeks i’m noticeably fitter and stronger, even if my sciatica and my upper back have been acting up. i think some of that has to do with what i usually refer to as my body “reconfiguring” itself after a long period without exercise, my back and shoulders may be sore but they’re definitely getting better, and i’m beginning to see a bit of definition rather than being “in shape” that was more round than anything else.
it suddenly occurred to me that a fair amount of my issues might be due to the fact that i trained so hard in my first few years of taekwondo that when i got back to it after a long break i did damage because my body wasn’t ready to change gear as quickly as i expected it to. or the opposite - that once my early training began to have a serious effect i was destined to be in trouble without constant maintenance. i’m kind of hoping it’s the latter, and that with proper maintenance now i might actually be able to reset to some degree.
it suddenly occurred to me that a fair amount of my issues might be due to the fact that i trained so hard in my first few years of taekwondo that when i got back to it after a long break i did damage because my body wasn’t ready to change gear as quickly as i expected it to. or the opposite - that once my early training began to have a serious effect i was destined to be in trouble without constant maintenance. i’m kind of hoping it’s the latter, and that with proper maintenance now i might actually be able to reset to some degree.
Monday, June 25, 2018
filling hours
one of my favourite books to read to my son is gigantosaurus, which is a retelling of the boy who cried wolf. but the lying dino survives, which i think damages the message so i always leave out the last page while repeating to him how naughty and dangerous lying is.
tonight he forced a page turn before i realized what was happening and saw the gigantosaurus walking away from the bad little dinosaur, and i found myself hurriedly explaining that the gigantosaurus had digested him and pooped him out.
i feel like i'm going to pay for this.
--- sunday 10th:
make that 2.30am... and then getting up half an hour later for a wet bed followed by a tantrum triggered by changing his (wet) hulk shirt for another hulk shirt
5.30am dreaming of stepping in the long earth to organize myself for a canadian burning man
a slow morning but feeling much better than in previous days, taking mr smear to kirstenbosch, wasabi chips and sunglasses, stomping on mole hills, disappearing oranges and bubbles ("hulk smash!"), stalking another new friend and splashing in the pleasantly surprisingly full stream, sailor joining us for lunch, a delicious double-hummus and falafel lunch, mr smear becoming impatient but mostly sweet and learning to be polite, a stroll towards the car and a fall by the river hurting his hands, managing to get him into the car without waking him, the sudafed suddenly wearing off while sailor and i said goodbyes
a quiet drive home, mr smear waking up just after we arrived, a quick chat with my mom
my first attempt to scan an old comic, surprised by a grocery run, dinner and shower and bedtime (mostly smooth), manhunt: unabomber
monday 11th:
some productive time, lots of nostalgia, climbing into bed with a sore throat at 1.40am
4.15am up for mr smear's coughing fit and finding it painful to swallow myself
everyone sleeping in a little, feeling a bit better but still needing a sudafed, gd enjoying teen titans at least as much as mr smear, doing a bit of mobile dev research, breakfast and adventure time before heading out to my therapist
a good session, but failure to update and connect with gd which generated a storm; (mostly) calmly facing the storm and feeling quite good about it - although i now suspect that my relative zen was due to the meds
an apartment chase while i was making a call leaving me giggling and choking when an insurance representative picked up, a pleasant drive to hout bay with mr smear falling asleep *just* before we arrived at our destination, going to their vida instead and learning that we'd dodged a bullet before because their falafel snack pot's dip has dairy in it
a moment on hout bay beach, our visit to the world of birds cut short because mr smear couldn't handle being there without the next day's playdate (serious tantrum)
stopping on the llandudno road to take a whizz and some photos, mr smear having a good time; then stopping at camps bay beach for a fantastic late afternoon stroll in and around the water, both myself and mr smear absolutely loving it in the perfect weather (and gorgeous sunset)
straight home and into the shower, toy story and dinner, a pleasant and quick bedtime, meeting prep and most of the second-to-last episode of manhunt: unabomber, a sudden and violent cranial nerve not-mograine (nausea, dizziness, faintness) that i think went (mostly) away fast because of my self-neck-massage, a good meeting, posting a ton of photos on instagram
tuesday 12th:
a bit of work, finally going to bed just before 2am (with a very sensitive thumb, the latest casualty in the winter dry-skin war)
dream: a fox assassin with a stripe, star and crumpled-up tissue on his forehead who warns his targets by approaching them and saying "ah-TISSUE!"
up early, dropping mr smear off late as usual, getting some work done at my mom's coffee shop, meeting gd at the hospital just in time to sign the documents and find her ward, returning home to pick up mr smear's ready bag and some food for him, dropping by gd quickly then picking up mr smear then returning to the hospital just in time to see her off to surgery, taking mr smear to find lunch and making a bad call - royale eatery has a good reputation, but their vegan offerings just don't taste good. mr smear having a great time playing and eating the side orders and going nuts for their chocolate peanut butter shake (that's brilliant, at least), going back to the hospital expecting gd to be out already and discovering that she hadn't gone in yet - i thank all the gods i don't have a regular job or that would have ruined my day. instead i stopped by the neurologist to leave a message, changed mr smear at their baby station and walked him to watch tennis and walk in the park
"the hard way" (carrying him over my shoulder) with him screaming "i want to walk like a big boy!" was an absolute breakthrough moment for us
a happy but frozen gd, fleeing the air conditioning as soon as we could get her discharge papers signed
heavy traffic home and mr smear passing out, a quick emergency grocery run, waking mr smear getting him to the car, leaving right into rush hour
seeing what most capetonians suffer daily was eye-opening and shocking, waze waiting 10 minutes of gridlock before taking me on various alternate routes, after an hour of discovering new dimensions to the problem and finding my fellow drivers increasingly loathsome i gave up, turned around and was home in less than ten minutes.
both kids crying over the cancelled playdate, coming home and taking mr smear and his bike to the promenade as compensation: he amazed me and made me very proud, riding his plastic motorbike at great speed all the way to the mouille point end of the promenade (i had to jog to keep up), and even though he was tired and somewhat out of breath he understood that he wasn't going to be carried home and either walked or rode most of the way back. i left him with gd, picked up falafel and ran into someone we hadn't heard from in a while, mr smear ate well and enjoyed shower time (i gave him what remained of gd's colourful soap and he took painting the shower doors very seriously), finding and reading a hebrew book i'd lost (the cleaning lady really isn't good with books and comics), mr smear going straight to sleep
completing manhunt: unabomber (excellent), getting into work and random chores
wednesday 13th:
and suddenly it was 2.15 and i was *tired*
a very sore thumb, gd feeling better, a good gym session, a good work session, picking up mr smear, no naps but resting on the couch while he watched boss baby, setting him up with little big planet and cheering him on as he completed the intro level by himself!!!
a family photo struggle, taking mr smear to print it, a visit to the park and bumping into one of his friends - who would not relinquish mr smear's bike and at one point even pushed him off roughly (and there was much drama)
coming home, a quick work meeting preventing me from emergency grocery shopping (i hate running out of tissues at the best of times, but in this case my sinuses were still performing)
a pleasant shower and bedtime, trying to watch defendor and passing out on the couch in spite of the sudafed, at some stage moving to the bed
thursday 14th:
getting up at 1.30am and working through to 4-4.15am, struggling to sleep until mr smear slipped into our bed, which was fine until he fell asleep; at that point i'd been cornered and had to move myself to his bed, having managed to hurt my neck and feeling awful
waking up really tired in a proper lightning storm (that got mr smear excited), gd not able to get in the car, a good run and stretch before work with a bit more shoulder mobility than i'm used to
finding entity framework's code first inability to handle a primary key's type change frustrating
mr smear apparently unimpressed by the substitute teacher, a pleasant ride home (i love him singing along to the chorus of danny gilboa's hayom she'ha'osher yagia)
reading some of leah moore's the complete alice in wonderland graphic novel with mr smear, playing ipad jigsaw puzzles, slash fiction inspiration
aquarium fail, grocery rush, protoplasm visit, emergency shower, quick bedtime, lost in space, couch sleeping (not a good idea)
friday 15th:
mr smear's midnight nightmares, followed by sleeping until morning
<that strange moment when you realize you've actually been sick for a few days and didn't take notes>
starting the day with a shitty feeling
gd joining me for twenty minutes of the school's father's day puppet show, an hour's work at gd's not-hypnotherapist, a visit to the olive branch and picking up a book and adventure time top trumps cards
a very productive meeting with the afrikaburn director
visiting my uncle who'd needed three stitches in his head after falling off his bed the night before (he appears to be on his deathbed) and flailing about helplessly for a few hours before falling asleep and being found by his domestic worker
making it to the temple on time, a pride-filled moment of mr smear singing the chorus of lecha dodi loudly and perfectly and everyone else either in awe or laughing - i giggled uncontrollably
the service running late and rushing to buy a laffa for dinner, everyone tired and crashing early
saturday 16th:
a late morning for all, adventure time
taking gd's phone to the waterfront, being sent to the cape quarter who then sent it to canal walk, picking up a bed roll guard for my uncle (which i would forget to deliver)
an exhausting but pleasurable afternoon playdate to make up for turning back on tuesday, mr smear taking a while to warm up to the girls but eventually playing well, aquarium madness (600 girl guides), ice cream nervousness, kale spinach frozen coconut yoghurt win (he remembered that the green was delicious)
adventure time, dinner and roughhousing
freezing after the shower and starting a headache
mr smear's dragon onesie
finally finishing defendor, really enjoying it
not enjoying a tig nogaro special at all but becoming increasingly certain that i had been cooking a migraine all day
sunday 17th:
sleeping better, waking up feeling much better (still sore and spasmed a bit, but less migraine)
adventure time and a slow start while gd prepped and left for her conversion course final exam, mr smear wearing his dragon onesie to a museum / company gardens playdate, gd meeting us there after her exam, everyone coming to our place for lunch, mr smear coughing into the hummus, taking them home and mr smear passing out on the way back, taking advantage of his nap and getting a much-needed back massage as a father's day gift, watching a bit of brother bear as a family then visiting my uncle upstairs to install the bed roll guard and have a chat about aging, priorities and fixing family karma
showering mr smear and turning an almost-accident into a successful poop in the toilet (hooray!), easy bedtime, ice cream and falling asleep during thor: ragnarok
monday 18th:
a long night dreaming about sleeping correctly, waking up still sore (left shoulder, right sciatica), adventure time:
"oh no, finn is being naughty!"
"no, daddy, finn is FINE!"
leaving late (as usual), mr smear enthusiastically singing along to rob zombie - dragula and making appropriately scary faces, taking the car for an insurance assessment (the address given was unhelpful), swimming (good lord, four laps wiped me out and i needed a while to catch my breath before doing another four), a good work session before picking up mr smear
another day without our cleaning lady
working during nap time, a horrible discussion about appropriate shows for mr smear, a walk to mr smear's first mini-golf experience and the group he "helped" giving us seven free passes, coming home to shower and catching him for a second toilet poop experience
a big dinner, a very long bedtime, exhausted but restless and feeling sick towards midnight
tuesday 19th:
getting some good work done, crashing around 1.45am after learning that my mother's flight was delayed
regular morning workout after dropping mr smear off (another half a kilo down, apparently), working well (long slog), picking up mr smear and driving home to unload the car and pick up gd, picking up my mom from the airport and dropping her off at home, key confusion leading to us going back to our place to pick up a spare then returning her to hers then dropping gd off at our place then taking mr smear to the hospital for his annual allergy test
the poop at our appointment time and the poop as we returned to the car
the sad news that his dairy allergy has become much more severe, scripts for blood tests and epipens
clementines in the car, dropping him at home and visiting the pharmacy, a long and interesting conversation at the sunshine food company, sailor coming over, managing to organize babysitting for the next evening, taking sailor home and showering mr smear, easy bedtime, sleeping for an hour or two
wednesday 20th:
working hard until 3am
four hours of crazy forgotten dreams, waking up feeling old in my lower back and joints, taking mr smear to school with frightening instructions, sadly witnessing him make one of his best friends cry, and returning home for a haircut (doing a pharmacy run while waiting for gd to return from acupuncture), quickly transforming into something decidedly not-engineer-like (needs product), picking up mr smear, taking him home, eating and leaving for my massage appointment
a great appointment but the hour going by way too fast, a quick shopping mission, coming home only to be sent out to buy mr smear's dinner, picking up a mystery parcel and dressing up nicely and dropping mr smear off with our cousins and picking up sailor and driving straight into rush hour on the way to stellenbosch
two hours on the road with cranial nerve pressure nausea and discomfort
a mixer with no food and unable to drink the wine
a quick stop for chai latte and "healthy" snacks, a fairly comfortable drive back to cape town, transporting mr smear to his own bed, fauda,
thursday 21st:
chores and work and in bed around 1.45am, getting mr smear to school, working for half an hour, joining gd at the school for mr smear's feedback session, more work, picking up mr smear and driving through to rescue gd, which turned into everyone getting lunch and watching a steel band, then gd going home without us two minutes before we were ready
lots of work, and not at all certain what the rest of the day was like although i am fairly confident that i went to sleep very early
friday 22nd:
up at 4-4.30am (about an hour after gd) and getting work done
mr smear's awful cough, no school and cancelling gd's not-hypnotheraphy session, going to wynberg anyway to visit an arts and crafts shop, mr smear throwing a tantrum when we wanted to leave without him getting what he wanted (i'd gotten him a few small things that he did warm up to, but i wasn't caving), hitting surprisingly heavy traffic and getting home late for a skype interview
a generally positive interview, more work, taking mr smear out for a walk (enormous waves and a sewerage fountain or two), complaining once again to the grocery store manager about the lack of dark chocolate on the shelves, running into sailor then literally running to the doctor, rushing back home and doing a couple of pharmacy runs then hurrying to get to our cousins for dinner
a generally pleasant evening, with some unpleasant bits (my sister and gd don't seem to be vibing, my mom calling me a helicopter parent, my cousin tasting the "test" dark chocolate which was awful)
putting mr smear straight to bed, chilling
saturday 23rd:
going to bed after 1.30am
absolutely nothing day, indoors with paw patrol and mr smear napping heavily after i accidentally gave him too much antihistamine, being impressed and engrossed by human resource machine, gd and i playing unstable unicorns for the first time and both enjoying it
sunday 24th:
1am and tired, then up in the middle of the night to mr smear's calls for me, climbing into his bed until he was asleep and waking up in the same place with a stiff neck to be dragged off to the couch to join him watching paw patrol. after a couple of episodes i switched to the playstation, his motorcross skills are improving somewhat but crash bandicoot wasn't for him. a long time getting ready to go and dealing with his snotty nose, quickly visiting my uncle upstairs then heading to town for a birthday party
1. only a couple of the birthday boy's friends were invited, and it was really nice to watch the three best friends playing together outside of school.
2. it's awesome when your kid's friends' parents are people you'd actually like to hang out with.
3. i'm very glad i held out on the gin and tonic until i'd had coffee. our new serbian friend makes STRONG g&t's.
getting a homeless harrasser off another mother's case, "befriending" a tuque seller by throwing his dumbass salespitch back at him (and as i type this realizing that i need a tuque and i should've bought one), taking advantage of mr smear's nap but still feeling groggy after resting a while, waking up to an urgent dinner mission and finding the chinese place closed, watching a bit of honey i shrunk the kids over dinner, mom stopping by with great gifts for gd, a pleasant shower and bedtime for mr smear, thoroughly enjoying thor: ragnarok in spite of passing in and out of consciousness towards the end and
monday 25th:
posting this before getting a bit of work done before going to bed, still very upset that my new onesie has been shrunk in the dryer
tonight he forced a page turn before i realized what was happening and saw the gigantosaurus walking away from the bad little dinosaur, and i found myself hurriedly explaining that the gigantosaurus had digested him and pooped him out.
i feel like i'm going to pay for this.
make that 2.30am... and then getting up half an hour later for a wet bed followed by a tantrum triggered by changing his (wet) hulk shirt for another hulk shirt
5.30am dreaming of stepping in the long earth to organize myself for a canadian burning man
a slow morning but feeling much better than in previous days, taking mr smear to kirstenbosch, wasabi chips and sunglasses, stomping on mole hills, disappearing oranges and bubbles ("hulk smash!"), stalking another new friend and splashing in the pleasantly surprisingly full stream, sailor joining us for lunch, a delicious double-hummus and falafel lunch, mr smear becoming impatient but mostly sweet and learning to be polite, a stroll towards the car and a fall by the river hurting his hands, managing to get him into the car without waking him, the sudafed suddenly wearing off while sailor and i said goodbyes
a quiet drive home, mr smear waking up just after we arrived, a quick chat with my mom
my first attempt to scan an old comic, surprised by a grocery run, dinner and shower and bedtime (mostly smooth), manhunt: unabomber
monday 11th:
some productive time, lots of nostalgia, climbing into bed with a sore throat at 1.40am
4.15am up for mr smear's coughing fit and finding it painful to swallow myself
everyone sleeping in a little, feeling a bit better but still needing a sudafed, gd enjoying teen titans at least as much as mr smear, doing a bit of mobile dev research, breakfast and adventure time before heading out to my therapist
a good session, but failure to update and connect with gd which generated a storm; (mostly) calmly facing the storm and feeling quite good about it - although i now suspect that my relative zen was due to the meds
an apartment chase while i was making a call leaving me giggling and choking when an insurance representative picked up, a pleasant drive to hout bay with mr smear falling asleep *just* before we arrived at our destination, going to their vida instead and learning that we'd dodged a bullet before because their falafel snack pot's dip has dairy in it
a moment on hout bay beach, our visit to the world of birds cut short because mr smear couldn't handle being there without the next day's playdate (serious tantrum)
stopping on the llandudno road to take a whizz and some photos, mr smear having a good time; then stopping at camps bay beach for a fantastic late afternoon stroll in and around the water, both myself and mr smear absolutely loving it in the perfect weather (and gorgeous sunset)
straight home and into the shower, toy story and dinner, a pleasant and quick bedtime, meeting prep and most of the second-to-last episode of manhunt: unabomber, a sudden and violent cranial nerve not-mograine (nausea, dizziness, faintness) that i think went (mostly) away fast because of my self-neck-massage, a good meeting, posting a ton of photos on instagram
tuesday 12th:
a bit of work, finally going to bed just before 2am (with a very sensitive thumb, the latest casualty in the winter dry-skin war)
dream: a fox assassin with a stripe, star and crumpled-up tissue on his forehead who warns his targets by approaching them and saying "ah-TISSUE!"
up early, dropping mr smear off late as usual, getting some work done at my mom's coffee shop, meeting gd at the hospital just in time to sign the documents and find her ward, returning home to pick up mr smear's ready bag and some food for him, dropping by gd quickly then picking up mr smear then returning to the hospital just in time to see her off to surgery, taking mr smear to find lunch and making a bad call - royale eatery has a good reputation, but their vegan offerings just don't taste good. mr smear having a great time playing and eating the side orders and going nuts for their chocolate peanut butter shake (that's brilliant, at least), going back to the hospital expecting gd to be out already and discovering that she hadn't gone in yet - i thank all the gods i don't have a regular job or that would have ruined my day. instead i stopped by the neurologist to leave a message, changed mr smear at their baby station and walked him to watch tennis and walk in the park
"the hard way" (carrying him over my shoulder) with him screaming "i want to walk like a big boy!" was an absolute breakthrough moment for us
a happy but frozen gd, fleeing the air conditioning as soon as we could get her discharge papers signed
heavy traffic home and mr smear passing out, a quick emergency grocery run, waking mr smear getting him to the car, leaving right into rush hour
seeing what most capetonians suffer daily was eye-opening and shocking, waze waiting 10 minutes of gridlock before taking me on various alternate routes, after an hour of discovering new dimensions to the problem and finding my fellow drivers increasingly loathsome i gave up, turned around and was home in less than ten minutes.
both kids crying over the cancelled playdate, coming home and taking mr smear and his bike to the promenade as compensation: he amazed me and made me very proud, riding his plastic motorbike at great speed all the way to the mouille point end of the promenade (i had to jog to keep up), and even though he was tired and somewhat out of breath he understood that he wasn't going to be carried home and either walked or rode most of the way back. i left him with gd, picked up falafel and ran into someone we hadn't heard from in a while, mr smear ate well and enjoyed shower time (i gave him what remained of gd's colourful soap and he took painting the shower doors very seriously), finding and reading a hebrew book i'd lost (the cleaning lady really isn't good with books and comics), mr smear going straight to sleep
completing manhunt: unabomber (excellent), getting into work and random chores
wednesday 13th:
and suddenly it was 2.15 and i was *tired*
a very sore thumb, gd feeling better, a good gym session, a good work session, picking up mr smear, no naps but resting on the couch while he watched boss baby, setting him up with little big planet and cheering him on as he completed the intro level by himself!!!
a family photo struggle, taking mr smear to print it, a visit to the park and bumping into one of his friends - who would not relinquish mr smear's bike and at one point even pushed him off roughly (and there was much drama)
coming home, a quick work meeting preventing me from emergency grocery shopping (i hate running out of tissues at the best of times, but in this case my sinuses were still performing)
a pleasant shower and bedtime, trying to watch defendor and passing out on the couch in spite of the sudafed, at some stage moving to the bed
thursday 14th:
getting up at 1.30am and working through to 4-4.15am, struggling to sleep until mr smear slipped into our bed, which was fine until he fell asleep; at that point i'd been cornered and had to move myself to his bed, having managed to hurt my neck and feeling awful
waking up really tired in a proper lightning storm (that got mr smear excited), gd not able to get in the car, a good run and stretch before work with a bit more shoulder mobility than i'm used to
finding entity framework's code first inability to handle a primary key's type change frustrating
mr smear apparently unimpressed by the substitute teacher, a pleasant ride home (i love him singing along to the chorus of danny gilboa's hayom she'ha'osher yagia)
reading some of leah moore's the complete alice in wonderland graphic novel with mr smear, playing ipad jigsaw puzzles, slash fiction inspiration
aquarium fail, grocery rush, protoplasm visit, emergency shower, quick bedtime, lost in space, couch sleeping (not a good idea)
friday 15th:
mr smear's midnight nightmares, followed by sleeping until morning
<that strange moment when you realize you've actually been sick for a few days and didn't take notes>
starting the day with a shitty feeling
gd joining me for twenty minutes of the school's father's day puppet show, an hour's work at gd's not-hypnotherapist, a visit to the olive branch and picking up a book and adventure time top trumps cards
a very productive meeting with the afrikaburn director
visiting my uncle who'd needed three stitches in his head after falling off his bed the night before (he appears to be on his deathbed) and flailing about helplessly for a few hours before falling asleep and being found by his domestic worker
making it to the temple on time, a pride-filled moment of mr smear singing the chorus of lecha dodi loudly and perfectly and everyone else either in awe or laughing - i giggled uncontrollably
the service running late and rushing to buy a laffa for dinner, everyone tired and crashing early
saturday 16th:
a late morning for all, adventure time
taking gd's phone to the waterfront, being sent to the cape quarter who then sent it to canal walk, picking up a bed roll guard for my uncle (which i would forget to deliver)
an exhausting but pleasurable afternoon playdate to make up for turning back on tuesday, mr smear taking a while to warm up to the girls but eventually playing well, aquarium madness (600 girl guides), ice cream nervousness, kale spinach frozen coconut yoghurt win (he remembered that the green was delicious)
adventure time, dinner and roughhousing
freezing after the shower and starting a headache
mr smear's dragon onesie
finally finishing defendor, really enjoying it
not enjoying a tig nogaro special at all but becoming increasingly certain that i had been cooking a migraine all day
sunday 17th:
sleeping better, waking up feeling much better (still sore and spasmed a bit, but less migraine)
adventure time and a slow start while gd prepped and left for her conversion course final exam, mr smear wearing his dragon onesie to a museum / company gardens playdate, gd meeting us there after her exam, everyone coming to our place for lunch, mr smear coughing into the hummus, taking them home and mr smear passing out on the way back, taking advantage of his nap and getting a much-needed back massage as a father's day gift, watching a bit of brother bear as a family then visiting my uncle upstairs to install the bed roll guard and have a chat about aging, priorities and fixing family karma
showering mr smear and turning an almost-accident into a successful poop in the toilet (hooray!), easy bedtime, ice cream and falling asleep during thor: ragnarok
monday 18th:
a long night dreaming about sleeping correctly, waking up still sore (left shoulder, right sciatica), adventure time:
"oh no, finn is being naughty!"
"no, daddy, finn is FINE!"
leaving late (as usual), mr smear enthusiastically singing along to rob zombie - dragula and making appropriately scary faces, taking the car for an insurance assessment (the address given was unhelpful), swimming (good lord, four laps wiped me out and i needed a while to catch my breath before doing another four), a good work session before picking up mr smear
another day without our cleaning lady
working during nap time, a horrible discussion about appropriate shows for mr smear, a walk to mr smear's first mini-golf experience and the group he "helped" giving us seven free passes, coming home to shower and catching him for a second toilet poop experience
a big dinner, a very long bedtime, exhausted but restless and feeling sick towards midnight
tuesday 19th:
getting some good work done, crashing around 1.45am after learning that my mother's flight was delayed
regular morning workout after dropping mr smear off (another half a kilo down, apparently), working well (long slog), picking up mr smear and driving home to unload the car and pick up gd, picking up my mom from the airport and dropping her off at home, key confusion leading to us going back to our place to pick up a spare then returning her to hers then dropping gd off at our place then taking mr smear to the hospital for his annual allergy test
the poop at our appointment time and the poop as we returned to the car
the sad news that his dairy allergy has become much more severe, scripts for blood tests and epipens
clementines in the car, dropping him at home and visiting the pharmacy, a long and interesting conversation at the sunshine food company, sailor coming over, managing to organize babysitting for the next evening, taking sailor home and showering mr smear, easy bedtime, sleeping for an hour or two
wednesday 20th:
working hard until 3am
four hours of crazy forgotten dreams, waking up feeling old in my lower back and joints, taking mr smear to school with frightening instructions, sadly witnessing him make one of his best friends cry, and returning home for a haircut (doing a pharmacy run while waiting for gd to return from acupuncture), quickly transforming into something decidedly not-engineer-like (needs product), picking up mr smear, taking him home, eating and leaving for my massage appointment
a great appointment but the hour going by way too fast, a quick shopping mission, coming home only to be sent out to buy mr smear's dinner, picking up a mystery parcel and dressing up nicely and dropping mr smear off with our cousins and picking up sailor and driving straight into rush hour on the way to stellenbosch
two hours on the road with cranial nerve pressure nausea and discomfort
a mixer with no food and unable to drink the wine
a quick stop for chai latte and "healthy" snacks, a fairly comfortable drive back to cape town, transporting mr smear to his own bed, fauda,
thursday 21st:
chores and work and in bed around 1.45am, getting mr smear to school, working for half an hour, joining gd at the school for mr smear's feedback session, more work, picking up mr smear and driving through to rescue gd, which turned into everyone getting lunch and watching a steel band, then gd going home without us two minutes before we were ready
lots of work, and not at all certain what the rest of the day was like although i am fairly confident that i went to sleep very early
friday 22nd:
up at 4-4.30am (about an hour after gd) and getting work done
mr smear's awful cough, no school and cancelling gd's not-hypnotheraphy session, going to wynberg anyway to visit an arts and crafts shop, mr smear throwing a tantrum when we wanted to leave without him getting what he wanted (i'd gotten him a few small things that he did warm up to, but i wasn't caving), hitting surprisingly heavy traffic and getting home late for a skype interview
a generally positive interview, more work, taking mr smear out for a walk (enormous waves and a sewerage fountain or two), complaining once again to the grocery store manager about the lack of dark chocolate on the shelves, running into sailor then literally running to the doctor, rushing back home and doing a couple of pharmacy runs then hurrying to get to our cousins for dinner
a generally pleasant evening, with some unpleasant bits (my sister and gd don't seem to be vibing, my mom calling me a helicopter parent, my cousin tasting the "test" dark chocolate which was awful)
putting mr smear straight to bed, chilling
saturday 23rd:
going to bed after 1.30am
absolutely nothing day, indoors with paw patrol and mr smear napping heavily after i accidentally gave him too much antihistamine, being impressed and engrossed by human resource machine, gd and i playing unstable unicorns for the first time and both enjoying it
sunday 24th:
1am and tired, then up in the middle of the night to mr smear's calls for me, climbing into his bed until he was asleep and waking up in the same place with a stiff neck to be dragged off to the couch to join him watching paw patrol. after a couple of episodes i switched to the playstation, his motorcross skills are improving somewhat but crash bandicoot wasn't for him. a long time getting ready to go and dealing with his snotty nose, quickly visiting my uncle upstairs then heading to town for a birthday party
1. only a couple of the birthday boy's friends were invited, and it was really nice to watch the three best friends playing together outside of school.
2. it's awesome when your kid's friends' parents are people you'd actually like to hang out with.
3. i'm very glad i held out on the gin and tonic until i'd had coffee. our new serbian friend makes STRONG g&t's.
getting a homeless harrasser off another mother's case, "befriending" a tuque seller by throwing his dumbass salespitch back at him (and as i type this realizing that i need a tuque and i should've bought one), taking advantage of mr smear's nap but still feeling groggy after resting a while, waking up to an urgent dinner mission and finding the chinese place closed, watching a bit of honey i shrunk the kids over dinner, mom stopping by with great gifts for gd, a pleasant shower and bedtime for mr smear, thoroughly enjoying thor: ragnarok in spite of passing in and out of consciousness towards the end and
monday 25th:
posting this before getting a bit of work done before going to bed, still very upset that my new onesie has been shrunk in the dryer
Thursday, June 14, 2018
random thoughts
- i've always been glad that i've never worked or studied in a place where i have to travel with traffic during rush hour, but every now and again i forget that that's a thing and i get stuck for a bit. today i left home using waze, though, and once it realized i wasn't going anywhere (ten minutes' gridlock trying to get to the N1/N2 onramp) it took me through all sorts of areas i'd never been in or considered travelling through. and boy, did i get to see what cape town's rush hour traffic really looks like for a LOT of people living in this city. it's horrifying, not just how long it takes to move but the kinds of driving you have to deal with whenever there's a moment's flow. i cannot begin to fathom the depths of patience that any of you who know what i'm talking about have, after an hour of struggle and vying for position while being cut off by buses i turned tail and fled the less than ten minute drive going in the other direction. i just don't know how this is a thing that millions of people have come to accept in their lives, and i know cape town's just one city of (i guess) thousands with this kind of problem. surely people think "let's try something else"?
- if chocolate was sold in half-slabs i probably wouldn't eat as much
- in spite of today's storm, we here in cape town must remain vigilant and water-wise.
do you know how much water we could save if everyone shaved their heads? our local representatives should show how much they care (and some solidarity) and lead by example!
#capetown #watercrisis #shaveandsave #shavewater #wearedryingoverhere
Sunday, June 10, 2018
israeli apartheid
people who claim that israel is an apartheid state to a captive audience upsets me in a special way. to suggest that the palestinians are israeli citizens when they refuse to accept israel's very existence and who operate entirely under the control of the arab nations and their proxies is absurd.
that's like claiming that the pakistanis are suffering under indian apartheid.
do you know who suffers the most from these outrageous and inflammatory claims? the palestinians. as long as they can't see a way to negotiate some kind of resolution with israel they will continue to be neglected, tormented and deluded by their own leadership.
that's like claiming that the pakistanis are suffering under indian apartheid.
do you know who suffers the most from these outrageous and inflammatory claims? the palestinians. as long as they can't see a way to negotiate some kind of resolution with israel they will continue to be neglected, tormented and deluded by their own leadership.
spine align
one shoulder higher than the other, neck and back sore and unstable. after a day of discomfort, possible illness, and compulsively typing this up (kinda) and going to bed. looking forward to tuesday, when gd gets a nerve block, and praying that it's successful.
tuesday 29th may:
going to bed around 3.10am after a sad conversation with my mom about my cousin not supporting his wife; gd and i both unable to sleep and for a while giggling over stories of mr smear
struggling to get up and get the car to the shop early, mr smear's cough keeping him home another day, an empty police station, a long and stressful struggle to get mr smear out the house, a generally fun morning at the waterfront, re-purchasing an expensive gift for my mother because we'd managed to misplace the original during the move, mr smear making friends on the hamley's train and getting away with being super bossy (that hysterically awkward moment when he yelled instructions at the confused five-year-old, then promptly counted to three in hebrew before sending him to a timeout)
the joy of watching him demolish a falafel wrap so eagerly that other people were entertained (he did leave me a couple of bites), home on the bus, slowly checking items off my todo list, a phone call informing me they'd need my car another day but receiving another one later telling me to pick it up, mr smear eating two toasted not-cheeses as well as half of mine, big tantrums before gd's class and taking him with us, a class friend helping me keep him occupied with advanced hide-and-seek, and everyone loving gd's not-cheesecake
terrible coughing fits on the way home, even though he passed out and we had to wake him repeatedly to medicate him
13 reasons why, more checklist stuff then finally going to bed just before midnight
wednesday 30th:
once or twice up for mr smear, but nothing serious; a good start to the day, dropping him off at school (yay!) and going to the new gym
excitedly getting ready to hit the bag then realizing i'd left my gear at home, swimming instead and feeling pretty good about it
a couple of hours getting work done in what is effectively a shared workspace, picking up mr smear and learning he'd pooped at school (amazing!)
mr smear repeating "the boy is such live-ay" the entire way home (with some confusing stories thrown in for good measure), i arrived desperately hungry
the long search for gd's jewish name
(fuzzy memories)
taking mr smear to the aquarium, a sandpit full of smarties, showering him before my mom's big birthday dinner, my sister being distant, being ungraciously awkward about being thanked for picking up the tab, an episode of the mechanism and passing out early
thursday 31st:
early and cold, a tense drive to school, failing to decode mr smear's quote with his friend's "but", grabbing coffee at my mom's shop and easily getting to gd's not-hypnotherapist, work progress, signing gd's gym membership form, a long time filing an accident report in a smelly police station (an almost unpleasant interaction but we resolved it quickly), late picking up mr smear, a waterfront mission that included watching mr smear wolf down another falafel wrap with BIG bites and running into a cousin from johannesburg, getting everyone home then meeting sailor at bootlegger for a couple of productive hours, a quick grocery run, taking mr smear to stomp in promenade puddles and him falling asleep on my shoulder just before my mom came to babysit, gd's last class, spirituality and my revelation about the meaning of "the lord is one", my nose running through guided meditation, hurrying home, a lot of chatter, 13 reasons why, inbox clearing and bill paying and a massive howling rainstorm and
friday 1st june:
lots of work with perpetual regressions because microsoft's devs are f***wits (you can either run load tests or unit tests, but not both; enabling load tests resets your previous choices; you can't choose your endpoint path and it might just disappear altogether) [wow, turned out that all of that was some very weird mystical bug happening]
finally going to bed after 2.30am, but taking about half an hour to get there
waking up in the middle of my four hours' sleep for a painful coughing fit, registering the cold draft while breakfasting (mr smear preferring to eat *my* pancakes, of course), dropping him off and heading to the gym (impatience making me take a much longer detour)
a quick run (jog?), some bag work, a little experimentation with the other equipment, some stretching and then suddenly an hour had passed; a compliment for my tattoo taking me by surprise, a much better experience at a proper desk, figuring out the load testing one stupid design decision at a time
figuring out the parking ticket validation the hard way, picking up mr smear and telling the teacher she'd been spelling mr smear's name wrong the whole term
waze teaching me a new way home (which would've been even faster if i hadn't keep taking wrong turns), gd in bed when we got home so putting on the good dinosaur and at some point remembering to feed him, gd coming out and letting me work for a bit and then taking mr smear to the beach and park
heavy waves and foam, mr smear attaching himself to a beautiful little girl and her nanny, forming a little playgroup and having a great time; eventually going to the supermarket to pick up a few things (with runny noses, and none of those things were tissues) and bumping into an old homeroom teacher (who remembers me surprisingly well)
rushing to meet a friend of mr smear's due to a misunderstanding, twenty minutes of screaming and crying and dropping to the floor to get home because i couldn't carry him and the groceries together
going straight out to the temple, arriving in time for shabbat rina and mr smear making me really proud by singing a whole bunch of the songs, rushing after a friend of his and spending the rest of the service looking after them with his dad
great kiddush, his friend grabbing a fistful of challah before the blessing was finished, coming home to discover that my shirt had been inside out, kiddush and dinner and mom coming over
mr smear falling asleep on gd, 13 reasons why
saturday 2nd:
being displaced at 5am
winter-dry cracked knuckle, waking up in a foul mood and flying straight into deep distress (giving up my appointment with the neurosurgeon so that gd could demand surgery)
recovery, showering mr smear and taking him to the only repeatedly affordable indoor amusement (the aquarium), a milestone moment getting him to pee in a urinal (although of course he had to sneeze a huge blob as he started, which led to touching the urinal, and there was no way to properly wash his hands)
arranging coffee before realizing i was late to take my mom to the airport, mr smear stuffing himself, a long drive to the airport with a detour, mr smear falling asleep just in time to say a sleepy goodbye to his granny
a long, uncomfortable drive back to town (the seat height was wrong and my neck being at a bad angle made me woozy) only to get a call from my mom using a borrowed phone to ask me to bring hers back, there and back again and mr smear waking up when i finally got him home
parking my mom's car, chinese groceries, woolworths (almost not recognizing our old cleaning lady's son), peacefully negotiating mr smear to a healthy playtime while getting things done, a family viewing of an american tail, mr smear loving wasabi seaweed, easily reading him to bed, two episodes of 13 reasons why interrupted by an urgent purchase of an iron man onesie (for me, finally) - mostly great but some of the second season is infuriatingly rewriting the first
sunday 3rd:
nothing much until 2.20am
up around 8.30 with a stiff neck from sleeping badly, and spending an inordinate amount of time (including dev time) trying to cheaply make a call to an israeli number (egged) to book a ticket because their website is indecipherable regardless of which languages you can read
rushing to join friends at the park for a very nice playdate, picking up our favourite artisan bread (i really should learn what it's called) and a smoothie before returning home to slug down a coffee to be able to take mr smear to canal walk to meet our brazilian friends; sitting with them while they ate pizza, toy shopping and putting down a lot of money for a collection of dc female superhero action figures, grabbing coffee and opening the box to discover that it was actually batgirl and a highschool (whoops!), running (literally) to swap for five figures (guessing the prices and coming out with them owing me 40c), coming back to find that they hadn't killed mr smear (although they did give him cocoa powder before realizing that it might've been dairy, fortunately it wasn't), their little girl freaking out about mr smear's new toys (after she'd just gotten a whole bunch of things) and her father caving quickly and taking her to buy a large wonder woman (damn), picking up diapers at game on the way out and standing in an insane queue for a while before a manager told me where to find the express counter
mr smear passing out while waze misdirected me (unclear instructions, i'm sure the route was fine), arriving at the park early for our third playdate in a freezing wind, waking mr smear who was not impressed and taking him home where the playdate resumed instead; aside from lots of spilled drinks, a very nice evening with amazing chinese takeout (it fit with the weekend's general theme of living beyond our means)
showertime fun and using cold water to successfully disincentivize undesirable behaviour, passing out while reading to mr smear and sleeping for a couple of hours,
monday 4th:
watching half an episode of 13 reasons why before getting things done - some important and some not - and eventually going to bed around 2.45 after scribbling these notes
early up feeling slightly better, leaving late, dropping mr smear off and returning home to pick up gd and almost making it to the hospital before the water pipe disconnected and we jumped out of the car worried it was on fire - being grateful to the dudes who stopped to help while i fumbled trying to get hold of roadside assistance, parking safely and running to gd's appointment
a shared appointment, a plan of action for her and a pill for me (apparently i'm suffering from migraine symptoms without the migraines, which i consider very lucky)
walking to the post office to mail documents to vfmp, picking up coffee (and assisting my mom's manager with his phone) and picking up mr smear on a day growing ever hotter, getting him home by bus (a LONG wait at the civic centre), carrying him the last part into bed
roadside assistance not only being unhelpful in finding a place to take the car, but both transposing the digits of my number and failing to instruct the breakdown services to contact me
stuffing myself with avocado and hummus (separately, though, i'm not a fan of the combo) and lying down for half an hour, finally managing to sleep two minutes before my alarm went off
quick coffee, learning that the breakdown truck had been waiting for me and jumping into an uber, loading the car and sitting in traffic for a very long time (discussing homelessness, transport infrastructure and dogs), signing the job sheet and waiting for ten minutes before my uber driver cancelled on me, a mangy man wiggling his loose teeth at me with his finger before justifying his unprofessional physical aggression with what sounded like racism (only with his accent, i'm not completely certain that he said what i heard), a second long uber wait but a relatively (for peak traffic) clear road home
a rush to change mr smear, walk to my mom's car, load it, deliver my mom's bookclub books and then spend some time talking with cousins who've just returned from israel while mr smear watched simon
rushing home for dinner (he ate a lot of kimchi fried rice before making a pie disappear, shower and bedtime, lying on the couch freezing for an episode and a half of 13 reasons why, work and tasks
tuesday 5th:
and eventually discovering at 2.30am that i'd been barking up the wrong tree with test configurations, conveniently the same time my vision went fuzzy with exhaustion
regular sleep interruptions for mr smear crying out in his sleep, running late as usual, learning that mr smear had skipped the toilet the day before and peed in the garden instead (so proud!), the security guard pointing out a flat tire which completely disrupted the second morning in a row; needing a pick-me-up coffee smoothie but the place next door only had dairy, walking to the hospital with a couple of stops to look for helix replacements - the first place didn't have the size i need and the operator at the second couldn't be bothered to pause her personal phone call to ask if i needed anything
arriving on time when the surgeon was running late, a half hour examination / discussion and walking out really excited to schedule an epidural for gd that we hope might actually bring her some relief
ubering to pick up my mom's car, picking up mr smear (who had made his teacher stop dancing by crying), filling the tank, no naps and hunger and sailor and task management solutions (asana fail) and presentation software beating diagram software for making diagrams and a long meeting
mr smear's conjunctivitus
a long pharmacy visit (bad timing and renovations), taking mr smear to the park and needing to tell the homeless guy on the jungle gym to keep his hands off my son (he was being "helpful"), great swing experiencing (mr smear likes my boxing slips), the other park and four little friends and breakdancing, home for dinner and shower and me choosing a nature documentary before bedtime
a difficult bedtime but only because of his eyes, 13 reasons why, meeting prep and a long meeting (my contributions were openly acknowledged, that was gratifying)
learning that gd's important physio appointment was cancelled because she didn't check her mail
wednesday 6th:
learning powerpoint animation and working / doing random things until 2.30am, taking my first pill before bed - it definitely had *an* effect, not sure how much i actually slept but the drowsiness and weariness made getting up lousy and slow (having checked the side-effects, definitely one of them)
taking mr smear to the doctor and forgetting one of the reasons (we'll have to take him back), big grocery shopping (and forgetting a few of the things) and gd's experience with a cashier with a bad attitude, a little stress unpacking while dealing with mr smear's eyes and nose and diapers, returning my mom's car and taking a remarkably comfortable uber to pick up mine (almost falling asleep a few times), worrying warnings about damaging a gasket, driving home feeling relaxed (was it the meds? it must've been the meds), working well then going for my massage
feeling good afterwards, the revelation that i have an old problem with my ac joint i've never had examined, there's nothing like a little road rage to undo a good massage, completing the presentation, taking mr smear to the park (he met a little girl he called wonder woman, and she called him "my superhero boy"), a tough dinner (he was exhausted and frustrated and clingy and not hungry), shower, and a bedtime where i think he passed out before i started reading (he was hiding under the blanket)
finishing 13 reasons why and feeling thoroughly cheated - not only did season 2 rewrite significant chunks of season 1, but even granting them that the finale went from absolutely horrifying to thoroughly underwhelming in the blink of an eye and i was left dissatisfied
taking forever to get into work, becoming nervous about growth charts (not that that helps)
thursday 7th:
and then it was 1am and way past time for bed, and then 1.30am...
... 5.30am wakeup call from mr smear...
... the meds making it difficult to drag myself out of bed, the week of mondays continuing with me forgetting mr smear's schoolbag (the teacher and assistants were very kind about it), arriving at the gym and very slowly getting myself to the treadmill, stretching, and working - signing up for the fancy gym has so far proven completely worthwhile
a big mistake choosing the way to the school to pick up mr smear, the relief of hearing he'd had a good day, getting him home and into bed and passing out myself for a while
more visual studio testing struggles until suddenly everything worked and i hadn't made any significant changes... so that was a waste of a week of effort, with zero satisfaction from completing my task and finally being able to move on
gd feeling really sick, eventually taking mr smear to the waterfront on a miserable day; in time for a ten minute visit at the aquarium, getting falafel was his ploy to be close to the playground, running into our brazilian friends at the pharmacy, leaving them while their little girl threw a tantrum, a very quick grocery run, eating in the car, driving home in the rain, pre-bedtime, shower (super needy, which i realized was exhaustion), straight into bed, killjoys, meeting, enjoying the being canadian documentary,
friday 8th:
suddenly almost 1am and feeling wiped out, establishing after three nights that the meds were making me absurdly gassy and getting me out of bed regularly to pee - maybe they're just aging me really fast?
slightly less tough getting up, successfully reintroducing mr smear to maize meal
gym, running very conscious of my left shoulder, planking, stretching (reconfiguring); an hour's office time
a good drive home, the iron man onesie! coffee, lunch, spar, after ten minutes stuck leaving the parking lot realizing i'd forgotten something
scarf hunt stress followed by missing car keys (they were in my pocket the whole time), taking mr smear to the aquarium where he stalked a boy until they became friends
fast grocery run, home for kiddush, dinner and monster island, a fast bedtime, manhunt: unabomber episodes, a little mini-metro
saturday 9th:
and then it was past midnight, and iron man needed to brush his teeth and go to bed (without meds)
waking up in the middle of the night and seeing an update that SARS finally deposited my refund (relief!)
why doesn't sleeping make me feel rested? going to the temple, running around with mr smear and two little girls until i almost fainted (which preceeded me feeling horrible for the rest of the day)
picking up a musical toilet seat with handles and a step for mr smear... and experiencing that dark feeling when you break an important plastic piece on an unreturnable product's first day. compounded by the guilt that my reaction to breaking it wasn't particularly healthy and my son got to see it :$
song of the day: not shine on you crazy diamond, although mr smear thoroughly enjoyed watching the full video with me. it was the musical toilet's it's a small world after all
napping, watching monster island with mr smear, taking him to the grocery store, then the park, then the grocery store on the way back (for pears he wanted and then didn't eat)
an evening of freaky eaters and manhunt: unabomber
sunday 10th:
posting and going to bed (ooh, 1.30am)
tuesday 29th may:
going to bed around 3.10am after a sad conversation with my mom about my cousin not supporting his wife; gd and i both unable to sleep and for a while giggling over stories of mr smear
struggling to get up and get the car to the shop early, mr smear's cough keeping him home another day, an empty police station, a long and stressful struggle to get mr smear out the house, a generally fun morning at the waterfront, re-purchasing an expensive gift for my mother because we'd managed to misplace the original during the move, mr smear making friends on the hamley's train and getting away with being super bossy (that hysterically awkward moment when he yelled instructions at the confused five-year-old, then promptly counted to three in hebrew before sending him to a timeout)
the joy of watching him demolish a falafel wrap so eagerly that other people were entertained (he did leave me a couple of bites), home on the bus, slowly checking items off my todo list, a phone call informing me they'd need my car another day but receiving another one later telling me to pick it up, mr smear eating two toasted not-cheeses as well as half of mine, big tantrums before gd's class and taking him with us, a class friend helping me keep him occupied with advanced hide-and-seek, and everyone loving gd's not-cheesecake
terrible coughing fits on the way home, even though he passed out and we had to wake him repeatedly to medicate him
13 reasons why, more checklist stuff then finally going to bed just before midnight
wednesday 30th:
once or twice up for mr smear, but nothing serious; a good start to the day, dropping him off at school (yay!) and going to the new gym
excitedly getting ready to hit the bag then realizing i'd left my gear at home, swimming instead and feeling pretty good about it
a couple of hours getting work done in what is effectively a shared workspace, picking up mr smear and learning he'd pooped at school (amazing!)
mr smear repeating "the boy is such live-ay" the entire way home (with some confusing stories thrown in for good measure), i arrived desperately hungry
the long search for gd's jewish name
(fuzzy memories)
taking mr smear to the aquarium, a sandpit full of smarties, showering him before my mom's big birthday dinner, my sister being distant, being ungraciously awkward about being thanked for picking up the tab, an episode of the mechanism and passing out early
thursday 31st:
early and cold, a tense drive to school, failing to decode mr smear's quote with his friend's "but", grabbing coffee at my mom's shop and easily getting to gd's not-hypnotherapist, work progress, signing gd's gym membership form, a long time filing an accident report in a smelly police station (an almost unpleasant interaction but we resolved it quickly), late picking up mr smear, a waterfront mission that included watching mr smear wolf down another falafel wrap with BIG bites and running into a cousin from johannesburg, getting everyone home then meeting sailor at bootlegger for a couple of productive hours, a quick grocery run, taking mr smear to stomp in promenade puddles and him falling asleep on my shoulder just before my mom came to babysit, gd's last class, spirituality and my revelation about the meaning of "the lord is one", my nose running through guided meditation, hurrying home, a lot of chatter, 13 reasons why, inbox clearing and bill paying and a massive howling rainstorm and
friday 1st june:
lots of work with perpetual regressions because microsoft's devs are f***wits (you can either run load tests or unit tests, but not both; enabling load tests resets your previous choices; you can't choose your endpoint path and it might just disappear altogether) [wow, turned out that all of that was some very weird mystical bug happening]
finally going to bed after 2.30am, but taking about half an hour to get there
waking up in the middle of my four hours' sleep for a painful coughing fit, registering the cold draft while breakfasting (mr smear preferring to eat *my* pancakes, of course), dropping him off and heading to the gym (impatience making me take a much longer detour)
a quick run (jog?), some bag work, a little experimentation with the other equipment, some stretching and then suddenly an hour had passed; a compliment for my tattoo taking me by surprise, a much better experience at a proper desk, figuring out the load testing one stupid design decision at a time
figuring out the parking ticket validation the hard way, picking up mr smear and telling the teacher she'd been spelling mr smear's name wrong the whole term
waze teaching me a new way home (which would've been even faster if i hadn't keep taking wrong turns), gd in bed when we got home so putting on the good dinosaur and at some point remembering to feed him, gd coming out and letting me work for a bit and then taking mr smear to the beach and park
heavy waves and foam, mr smear attaching himself to a beautiful little girl and her nanny, forming a little playgroup and having a great time; eventually going to the supermarket to pick up a few things (with runny noses, and none of those things were tissues) and bumping into an old homeroom teacher (who remembers me surprisingly well)
rushing to meet a friend of mr smear's due to a misunderstanding, twenty minutes of screaming and crying and dropping to the floor to get home because i couldn't carry him and the groceries together
going straight out to the temple, arriving in time for shabbat rina and mr smear making me really proud by singing a whole bunch of the songs, rushing after a friend of his and spending the rest of the service looking after them with his dad
great kiddush, his friend grabbing a fistful of challah before the blessing was finished, coming home to discover that my shirt had been inside out, kiddush and dinner and mom coming over
mr smear falling asleep on gd, 13 reasons why
saturday 2nd:
being displaced at 5am
winter-dry cracked knuckle, waking up in a foul mood and flying straight into deep distress (giving up my appointment with the neurosurgeon so that gd could demand surgery)
recovery, showering mr smear and taking him to the only repeatedly affordable indoor amusement (the aquarium), a milestone moment getting him to pee in a urinal (although of course he had to sneeze a huge blob as he started, which led to touching the urinal, and there was no way to properly wash his hands)
arranging coffee before realizing i was late to take my mom to the airport, mr smear stuffing himself, a long drive to the airport with a detour, mr smear falling asleep just in time to say a sleepy goodbye to his granny
a long, uncomfortable drive back to town (the seat height was wrong and my neck being at a bad angle made me woozy) only to get a call from my mom using a borrowed phone to ask me to bring hers back, there and back again and mr smear waking up when i finally got him home
parking my mom's car, chinese groceries, woolworths (almost not recognizing our old cleaning lady's son), peacefully negotiating mr smear to a healthy playtime while getting things done, a family viewing of an american tail, mr smear loving wasabi seaweed, easily reading him to bed, two episodes of 13 reasons why interrupted by an urgent purchase of an iron man onesie (for me, finally) - mostly great but some of the second season is infuriatingly rewriting the first
sunday 3rd:
nothing much until 2.20am
up around 8.30 with a stiff neck from sleeping badly, and spending an inordinate amount of time (including dev time) trying to cheaply make a call to an israeli number (egged) to book a ticket because their website is indecipherable regardless of which languages you can read
rushing to join friends at the park for a very nice playdate, picking up our favourite artisan bread (i really should learn what it's called) and a smoothie before returning home to slug down a coffee to be able to take mr smear to canal walk to meet our brazilian friends; sitting with them while they ate pizza, toy shopping and putting down a lot of money for a collection of dc female superhero action figures, grabbing coffee and opening the box to discover that it was actually batgirl and a highschool (whoops!), running (literally) to swap for five figures (guessing the prices and coming out with them owing me 40c), coming back to find that they hadn't killed mr smear (although they did give him cocoa powder before realizing that it might've been dairy, fortunately it wasn't), their little girl freaking out about mr smear's new toys (after she'd just gotten a whole bunch of things) and her father caving quickly and taking her to buy a large wonder woman (damn), picking up diapers at game on the way out and standing in an insane queue for a while before a manager told me where to find the express counter
mr smear passing out while waze misdirected me (unclear instructions, i'm sure the route was fine), arriving at the park early for our third playdate in a freezing wind, waking mr smear who was not impressed and taking him home where the playdate resumed instead; aside from lots of spilled drinks, a very nice evening with amazing chinese takeout (it fit with the weekend's general theme of living beyond our means)
showertime fun and using cold water to successfully disincentivize undesirable behaviour, passing out while reading to mr smear and sleeping for a couple of hours,
monday 4th:
watching half an episode of 13 reasons why before getting things done - some important and some not - and eventually going to bed around 2.45 after scribbling these notes
early up feeling slightly better, leaving late, dropping mr smear off and returning home to pick up gd and almost making it to the hospital before the water pipe disconnected and we jumped out of the car worried it was on fire - being grateful to the dudes who stopped to help while i fumbled trying to get hold of roadside assistance, parking safely and running to gd's appointment
a shared appointment, a plan of action for her and a pill for me (apparently i'm suffering from migraine symptoms without the migraines, which i consider very lucky)
walking to the post office to mail documents to vfmp, picking up coffee (and assisting my mom's manager with his phone) and picking up mr smear on a day growing ever hotter, getting him home by bus (a LONG wait at the civic centre), carrying him the last part into bed
roadside assistance not only being unhelpful in finding a place to take the car, but both transposing the digits of my number and failing to instruct the breakdown services to contact me
stuffing myself with avocado and hummus (separately, though, i'm not a fan of the combo) and lying down for half an hour, finally managing to sleep two minutes before my alarm went off
quick coffee, learning that the breakdown truck had been waiting for me and jumping into an uber, loading the car and sitting in traffic for a very long time (discussing homelessness, transport infrastructure and dogs), signing the job sheet and waiting for ten minutes before my uber driver cancelled on me, a mangy man wiggling his loose teeth at me with his finger before justifying his unprofessional physical aggression with what sounded like racism (only with his accent, i'm not completely certain that he said what i heard), a second long uber wait but a relatively (for peak traffic) clear road home
a rush to change mr smear, walk to my mom's car, load it, deliver my mom's bookclub books and then spend some time talking with cousins who've just returned from israel while mr smear watched simon
rushing home for dinner (he ate a lot of kimchi fried rice before making a pie disappear, shower and bedtime, lying on the couch freezing for an episode and a half of 13 reasons why, work and tasks
tuesday 5th:
and eventually discovering at 2.30am that i'd been barking up the wrong tree with test configurations, conveniently the same time my vision went fuzzy with exhaustion
regular sleep interruptions for mr smear crying out in his sleep, running late as usual, learning that mr smear had skipped the toilet the day before and peed in the garden instead (so proud!), the security guard pointing out a flat tire which completely disrupted the second morning in a row; needing a pick-me-up coffee smoothie but the place next door only had dairy, walking to the hospital with a couple of stops to look for helix replacements - the first place didn't have the size i need and the operator at the second couldn't be bothered to pause her personal phone call to ask if i needed anything
arriving on time when the surgeon was running late, a half hour examination / discussion and walking out really excited to schedule an epidural for gd that we hope might actually bring her some relief
ubering to pick up my mom's car, picking up mr smear (who had made his teacher stop dancing by crying), filling the tank, no naps and hunger and sailor and task management solutions (asana fail) and presentation software beating diagram software for making diagrams and a long meeting
mr smear's conjunctivitus
a long pharmacy visit (bad timing and renovations), taking mr smear to the park and needing to tell the homeless guy on the jungle gym to keep his hands off my son (he was being "helpful"), great swing experiencing (mr smear likes my boxing slips), the other park and four little friends and breakdancing, home for dinner and shower and me choosing a nature documentary before bedtime
a difficult bedtime but only because of his eyes, 13 reasons why, meeting prep and a long meeting (my contributions were openly acknowledged, that was gratifying)
learning that gd's important physio appointment was cancelled because she didn't check her mail
wednesday 6th:
learning powerpoint animation and working / doing random things until 2.30am, taking my first pill before bed - it definitely had *an* effect, not sure how much i actually slept but the drowsiness and weariness made getting up lousy and slow (having checked the side-effects, definitely one of them)
taking mr smear to the doctor and forgetting one of the reasons (we'll have to take him back), big grocery shopping (and forgetting a few of the things) and gd's experience with a cashier with a bad attitude, a little stress unpacking while dealing with mr smear's eyes and nose and diapers, returning my mom's car and taking a remarkably comfortable uber to pick up mine (almost falling asleep a few times), worrying warnings about damaging a gasket, driving home feeling relaxed (was it the meds? it must've been the meds), working well then going for my massage
feeling good afterwards, the revelation that i have an old problem with my ac joint i've never had examined, there's nothing like a little road rage to undo a good massage, completing the presentation, taking mr smear to the park (he met a little girl he called wonder woman, and she called him "my superhero boy"), a tough dinner (he was exhausted and frustrated and clingy and not hungry), shower, and a bedtime where i think he passed out before i started reading (he was hiding under the blanket)
finishing 13 reasons why and feeling thoroughly cheated - not only did season 2 rewrite significant chunks of season 1, but even granting them that the finale went from absolutely horrifying to thoroughly underwhelming in the blink of an eye and i was left dissatisfied
taking forever to get into work, becoming nervous about growth charts (not that that helps)
thursday 7th:
and then it was 1am and way past time for bed, and then 1.30am...
... 5.30am wakeup call from mr smear...
... the meds making it difficult to drag myself out of bed, the week of mondays continuing with me forgetting mr smear's schoolbag (the teacher and assistants were very kind about it), arriving at the gym and very slowly getting myself to the treadmill, stretching, and working - signing up for the fancy gym has so far proven completely worthwhile
a big mistake choosing the way to the school to pick up mr smear, the relief of hearing he'd had a good day, getting him home and into bed and passing out myself for a while
more visual studio testing struggles until suddenly everything worked and i hadn't made any significant changes... so that was a waste of a week of effort, with zero satisfaction from completing my task and finally being able to move on
gd feeling really sick, eventually taking mr smear to the waterfront on a miserable day; in time for a ten minute visit at the aquarium, getting falafel was his ploy to be close to the playground, running into our brazilian friends at the pharmacy, leaving them while their little girl threw a tantrum, a very quick grocery run, eating in the car, driving home in the rain, pre-bedtime, shower (super needy, which i realized was exhaustion), straight into bed, killjoys, meeting, enjoying the being canadian documentary,
friday 8th:
suddenly almost 1am and feeling wiped out, establishing after three nights that the meds were making me absurdly gassy and getting me out of bed regularly to pee - maybe they're just aging me really fast?
slightly less tough getting up, successfully reintroducing mr smear to maize meal
gym, running very conscious of my left shoulder, planking, stretching (reconfiguring); an hour's office time
a good drive home, the iron man onesie! coffee, lunch, spar, after ten minutes stuck leaving the parking lot realizing i'd forgotten something
scarf hunt stress followed by missing car keys (they were in my pocket the whole time), taking mr smear to the aquarium where he stalked a boy until they became friends
fast grocery run, home for kiddush, dinner and monster island, a fast bedtime, manhunt: unabomber episodes, a little mini-metro
saturday 9th:
and then it was past midnight, and iron man needed to brush his teeth and go to bed (without meds)
waking up in the middle of the night and seeing an update that SARS finally deposited my refund (relief!)
why doesn't sleeping make me feel rested? going to the temple, running around with mr smear and two little girls until i almost fainted (which preceeded me feeling horrible for the rest of the day)
picking up a musical toilet seat with handles and a step for mr smear... and experiencing that dark feeling when you break an important plastic piece on an unreturnable product's first day. compounded by the guilt that my reaction to breaking it wasn't particularly healthy and my son got to see it :$
song of the day: not shine on you crazy diamond, although mr smear thoroughly enjoyed watching the full video with me. it was the musical toilet's it's a small world after all
napping, watching monster island with mr smear, taking him to the grocery store, then the park, then the grocery store on the way back (for pears he wanted and then didn't eat)
an evening of freaky eaters and manhunt: unabomber
sunday 10th:
posting and going to bed (ooh, 1.30am)
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