on the catch and release program

about two weeks ago, Mattan wanted me to get toys from behind the couch. i took the most usefull tool in the house - the "rescuer" and grabbed what was in there, it had 4 legs and a short hairless tail, and was also dead. a debate begun, Alla wanted to call Arnold Schwarzenegger , gas the house and use some napalm on the chimney. i proposed that this is a field mice and the only one of its kind, we waited for more "evidence" which came the day before yesterday in the form of the parents of previous sample . i went to Walmart and found my self in the kill a rat isle.they had lots of choices, some are catch only and some are kill, the snappy kind. there was also poison and other friendly methods. i got one catch system and one kill system, but since Mattan goes everywhere,  opted to setup the catch one.the night was without luck and in the morning i found where it has been living, there is a little hole in the edge of the carpet  and i move the trap there and now there is a mice inside trying to get out. the trap says to release it two miles away, perhaps they can return if it is less, so today i will drive for a while and let it go somewhere.

last weekend i was with the kids while Alla was working, i placed Tal in the stroller as we were heading for a gultat "trip" to the duck pond. Mattan is becoming too independent and opened the door to go first, i rushed after him with the stroller and closed the door beyond me, only to realize that the door is locked on the inside, the garage door is closed and the back door as well. the only way in is via mouse pathways but mattan didn't want to crawl. lucky i had a phone with 10% charge. while waiting for rescue we admired the house across the street. strains of toilet paper were covering the trees, lots and lots of them. I heard about this prank and seen it in movies but never saw it for real, very funny if its someone else's house. high schoollers live there and they said the "soccer team" did that. so they called some friends brought ladders and started to remove the TP, they got most of it, but still a week later the tops of the trees are full of TP. if you need to go, you know where to get some.

 anywho, we walked to the pond, no ducks at this time and Mattan decides to baby him self up and sit in the stroller while i carry tal. two mile bottle and my phone are on the stroller.

at one point mattan decided to open the top cover and does it fast. i see the milk bottles and my phone fly out above the cart. i pick up the milk bottles and start looking for my phone, i comb the grass and nothing, there is a drain nearby and i look thorough and see something back glistening in the light , i cant believe it is the phone , the drain is too narrow,i am not that unlucky am i? few more minutes of search and then we had home and Dina comes with the rescue keys, i had back with Mattan and the rescue device, now without holding Tal it is easier to search, we increase the search area, and nothing, i can now better check the drain and find that it was a rock that resembled my phone in the water below. thought i am sure i saw my phone fly in the air, we go back to the pond and search the paths. nothing. there is only one place left, i decide to strip search the stroller and i find another opening i never knew existed and there in a pile of milk i see my phone, alive and ticking.

festival season continues. we went to an Armenian festival. were were there last year. Mattan slid on the metal slide and i caught him and would get static shock every time, now he can go alone. yeh, no more shocks.

yesterday we went to the fall fast. first to Eddies farm for apple picking. beautiful day, blue skies, nice and warm. we took some bags and started picking. the main battle was to slow down Mattan from filling the bag to fast, so i had him pick one in every few trees and run him a round, too much energy, we ate some apples straight from the trees, very yummi, feels much better then the store bought ones, we picked some pears and tried the grapes but they were the wine making kind, just too sweet. we end up with 2.5 bags of apples and no clue as to what to do with them.

 i took Mattanchuck to his first orienteering event. we did the easy course, but still over 2 miles , some in small paths and some in the forest, mattan wanted to find a big fat bear from one of his books which kept him occupied. this hike was in a very nice scouts camp. some people were shooting rockets that fly op a 100 meters of so and then parachute down most cool, cant wait for him to start scouts.

night feeding is a good time to practice skills, broke my record in Words with friends... 582  woowhoo.

cheers from the rat infested house -1

 

on direction, red and impact

sleep deprived and cant sleep at the same time is a strange mix. Alla is sleeping, Mattan needed a night change of diaper and clothes as well, then crawled to our bed. he is not a lie still sleeper, keeps turning and waking me up, Tall chuck woke up starving at midnight and again at 2 and after both feedings i find myself fully awake.  i am not relaxed and have not been for some time. i tried to write a few times but nothing comes out, mental block. my project pressure has finally decreased about a month ago, we moved to the next project where i don't have a lead role, so the pressure is on others and i am kind of costing and trying to recover but i don't really feel it. i think i need a change, but am clueless as to what. i am rambling, but this is maze is in my head and i need to get out.

took a little break, Talchuck is eating for the 3rd time since midnight, unusual, new food.. 

what is the path forward, i want to leave my profession for the last 10 years of so, finished a PMP and MBA but i have no specific thing i want to do. i love traveling , but a traveling job does not work well with the little ones. i was told i can be a teacher, a job i usually ignored as low paying, i just looked it up and top payed teachers actually make a nice pay check, but you dont start as top paying, this is part of my jam, any new field i am starting from a lesser position in terms of experience, but perhaps it is better to take the hit now then continuing to feel stuck.

i am too cheap to buy a sports car, is this my midlife crisis?, usually writing helps me sort my thoughts, but not this time.

well , what's new with the kids you ask.

Mattan fell and said "i fell on my Ama" ama is the name of the middle finger and i was most impressed with his knowledge of digits names, he knows them all. i tried to see if i knew the English digit names and it turns out i didn't , the ring finger is actually the grooming finger..

he is like a sponge, absorbing all languages.

our usually activity is "gulat" a walk out side. mattan likes to go to the pond and visit the ducks. last time mattan decided to takes his own stroller for a walk, wants to feel grown up so we did and we also took some bread for them and half way mattan decided to eat the bread, when we reached the ducks, he threw pieces at them while eating the other half, then he sat in his own stroller and wanted to nap. usually its fine, but i cam carrying tal and the other stroller. one stroller limit m had to convince home to keep going (the 3 minutes till home). on a different gulat, i heard some unusual music for this area, a high pitch melody of common songs, the ice cream truck has arrived! for 30 minutes or so we are waiting out side, we hear the music, but it is in the next street, i am explaining to mattan what the music means and he is excited, he wants the flavor Red. his favorite flavor. so he got a red Popsicle and i got my chocolate. 

Talush is starting to get mobile, trying to sit, he can do it when he is leaning on me, but cant yet from a laying position, he is now turning on his side nd is rumored to have turned over once, i will believe it when i see it.

on Sunday we went to a company fun family day at a small lake resort. came in early and spent the morning chasing Mattan around. we started with a tiny hike around the lake, then slides, swings, jumping on huge air mattresses, horse riding (well, swings that look like horses) , we did paddle boat, then again since Mattan wanted the purple boat.

he wouldn't stop running from one activity to the next and loved every minute of it while Tal was swinging with Babushka.

i had a DnD session later that day and Dina witnessed it for the 1st time and i think she lost all respect for me, thinking its beneath me, but i really enjoy it, need to find  job that is as fun as this.

Tal woke up again, got an ounce of the same food for desert and back to sleep

an ice cream truck, not the one i saw, was robbed in Akron, who robs an ice truck the reporter asked. the perpetrator was described as wearing jeans and a cavaliers shirt. if i were out that day i might be arrested, that is one of the most combinations here,

a teacher went to ceder point (the amusement park) dropped his phone in a ride, then jumped the fence to go get it and got hit.

he was a teacher and a guidance councilor, making an impact on youth. to bad he never learned to read warning signs, was misguided in his direction and the only real impact was the train hitting him. dark thoughts for early in the morning.  

i have a week or so in February planned for a new destination, i was checking out french guinea and asked my Uruguayans friends about it and they didnt know where it was. it is a country next to Guinea, Suriname and close to Venezuela . i'd expect a south american to know all the countries, there are not that many of them... i really cant find much about this place, except you can do jungle eco tours which sounds neat, but i my be going to Portugal instead too early to tell.

that is it for now, maybe i will close my eyes for a bit, its wake up time very soon

5:39 am , directionless in cleveland signing off

israel photos

https://goo.gl/photos/KHdSYDzKEJ2dGzJ1A

back on the trail photos

during the hike photos

https://goo.gl/photos/houhRNsGdNuM2r8ZA

parade de circle photos

https://goo.gl/photos/YTuCirzCzPZ2xA4N9

Mattan and Thomas photos

https://goo.gl/photos/JAxtTv7GyzY468n88

Brit family photos

https://goo.gl/photos/YdzC2AR1DgCHnJMW7

on milk , both in and out

We decided to take a family date on a rainy Saturday morning,  a place Alla was wanting to go recently, a place she never visited. With the kids tied in their car seats we drove till we reached CostCo.

Any of the mega stores can impress people on their first visit, but more so Costco since you see the entire space from the entrance, it seems bigger. I had my worries, how much would this cost… as soon as we entered my more spending half noticed a couch and chairs, after dodging the couch we reached the box isle. Never understood why we need boxes, now we need stuff to put in those boxes… we got 3 different sets of boxes. A set of lunch type boxes for Mattan, a set of filing boxes which are also good for keeping photos, or so the box says. Then we got big boxes, not sure why we need those, probably to hold the smaller boxes. Next Alla wanted to get cabinets to place the boxes it… that was my limit (we have a set of shelves waiting for assembly at home, but why, more shelves?  Argh, now the question is how much stuff we need to get to fit in this new storage nightmare.

Then the food sections, most everything is Costco is 10$ or close to it, piles of peaches, cherries, strawberries, peppers, the credit card chimes. Then clothes… a new sun hat to go with the cabinet full of hats and then some gifts. During this whole experience, Alla was in a must get things kind of mood and I was defending our bank account. In the end it could have been much worse….

 

Last week I took Alla and Tal to his 1^st rock concert at Cain Park. The opening act was a famous band that I never knew Gary and the playboys. They have 10 top 10 hits during the sixties and I like the sixties. I recognized some of their songs, but the fun was plenty of other songs by other artists. In shows my enjoyment is proportional to the number of songs I know and can sing along, the opening act was great ending with Sealed with a kiss. Now for the main act. Herman hermits. Coming to the show there were two songs I really like , No Milk today and, there's kind of hush all over the world. But I found lots of songs I knew. They also sang songs from other bands including mimicking their voice and behavior. Herman (forgot his real name) mimic Tom Jones, Mick Jagger, Elvis. He did the ring of fire with perfect impression. Between songs, he told stories and was extremely entertaining. If you get a chance to go, don't miss it. During the "no milk today" song, I got a selfie holding Tal and the band in the background, Tal was not paying much attention to the songs. He also sang 'ferry cross the mercy (not their original song) but modified the word to be ferry cross lake Erie, much to the joy of the crown. Great show! Ended with hush all over the world… btw, even with Tal there, we didn't even ding the average age…

Last 24 hours were rough, in the middle of the night, Mattan started crying pointing to his throat area. A day before he was playing with coins… so we are slightly on the alert. He wouldn't come down and asked for a doctor, we does not say doctor (in Russian) properly. Nothing was found in the X-Ray but the night is pretty much gone. Next Morning , Tal has  6 week checkup and gets a couple of shots, so he is somewhat fussy, I stayed to work from home and around 4 pm Alla calls saying she hit a kid…

Don't worry, there is no real harm. Apparently during school pick up, a kid dashed out and hit Alla's car. He got some bruises, nothing severe. Cops and ambulance came, and the kids dad (a lawyer) starts probing poor shocked alla, did she use the phone at the time (no), why didn't she see it and threatening a lawsuit, trying to obtain evidence, while his kid is being treated, so now we have chats with insurance and have to worry to what's the worst that might happen. It will be a question of money only.

Mattan started day care last week and so far doing ok, he cried a bit a few times , but that is normal.

After a very long time, my 2.5 year project is finally ending. I am mentally exhausted from never ending pressure and blame… now when they compare metrics, our project is up to par with other projects in terms of quality, so that is good, but during the last year, the perception was otherwise, that didn't much help my stress. Now we finally released to production and wrapping up paper work and the pressure is moving to other projects.

Since last year I am waiting for the project to end to reconsider my options, that moment has finally arrived, I need to start looking but before, its time for R and R and S, rest, Ra'anana and shwarma , we arrive next Sunday and need to forget about work…. Looking forward to have some fun.

 

At the end of this uneventful year, my toastmasters club presidency ended this week, but I am starting a new year as an area director (supporting 4 clubs) , I find I much enjoy this activity, unlike the dissatisfaction at work. I now an planning to hold an area humorous speech competition, so if you want something different on august 22^nd, come watch.. 

I still have my yearly report to give and I am very late…

Oh one more things, so far I absorbed from Tal, pee, poop, vomit, spittle, snot and tears, I think I am covered from all the liquids he can throw at me, but it is fun and relaxing sitting with him napping on me on the couch. He just started smiling (still rare) still waiting for the major functions to kick in. (turning over… to start)

Sorry my mind is clattered , I am jumping all over the place, writing always help me get some order. But enough for tonight

 

Good night