Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Promised myself yesterday that I’d allow myself to sleep in this morning so I’d be better rested for the meeting on the Hill, and I’d head home and do my long run after work. Did the sleeping in, did the meeting (which went fairly well, all things considered), got home and almost wussed out on the run. Quickly decided that I wasn’t feeling blah, I was just feeling lazy, and that wasn’t a good enough excuse not to run, so off I went. Shaved 4 minutes off the 6.6 mile loop I’m currently using for my long run, which felt pretty good.

After the meeting on the Hill and subsequent conversations with my various supervisors, I feel like I have a better grasp on what I’m doing to tighten up this memo. Tomorrow is all about editing and tightening, so it should be interesting. I think we’ve tracked it all down, we just have to do more than just describe the law now (synthesis!).

BC arrived safely in England and seems to be happy to being visiting his relatives there. That was happy news via SMS this morning.

Hopefully it’ll be warm enough in the morning to ride.

I get to go to the Hill tomorrow with my political boss over The Current Project From Heck and listen to one of our appropriators fuss at us for a bit, and then explain why what they did wasn’t good enough (and how they can fix it). Should be an interesting time.

Was very late getting into work, but was worth it, since lateness was caused by attacking BC when we woke up. Definitely worth the 2 hours of leave time, especially since he’s now (hopefully) in the air and on his way to England for the next 10 days.

Just finished skein #2 on BC’s scarf. I suspect, given how tall he is, that it’s going to have to be four skeins instead of the three called for in the pattern. I already have a fourth skein on hand, just in case, so it’ll be easy enough to add it in. Of late I’ve loosened up on how tightly I’ve been pulling the stitches, with the result that it’s flown along a lot more quickly than it had been. Mom was saying something the other day about how her mother is a pretty tight knitter, so her patterns always needed to be increased to make up for it. I haven’t noticed that much of a difference in the finished stitches, but it has been easier to knit into.

Picked up more yarn and another circular needle this past weekend to attempt the matching hat pattern to go with the scarf.

After the Hill visit I’m going to be back into full-on writing mode for The Project. Based on comments from the #2 attorney in our office we’re going to have to flip the memo back around to the pattern I had originally set out for the thing (*smirk*), and tighten it up considerably. I know I can get the flow into place, but the tightening is going to be a bear. Too bad it’s not as easy as knitting.

Yesterday? Pretty much a waste. Between the heat, humidity, and the urchins I slept hardly at all, so was just in a daze for most of the day. Lots of mindless Xbox play, reading, and eventually some knitting and TV watching.

Today, on the other hand, I feel like I’ve biked half of DC. At least I biked the southern half. It was the first ride for our newbie triathletes today, so I was out on ye olde and venerable (and quite heavy) mountain bike. ‘Twas a lot of fun, and as usual I rode sweep so I got to have a good chat with the young lady at the back of the pack. We did an impromptu tire changing demonstration as well. Overall it went very well, and no one got lost or injured.

After that I zipped home, called the parental units, then it was off to Barracks Row for bike and LYS (Local Yarn Shop) shopping. I went a new route to get over there, which is slightly out of the way, but safer than riding across M street, which had been my usual route. This turned out to be a very good thing, as there is evidently a baseball game going on this afternoon, so there were tons of cars all around the stadium. That would have been most unpleasant to bike through. As it was, there were more cars on the “back roads” than there normally are, due in large part to the new temporary parking lots in that part of southeast DC. Strangely there were also a ton of cars unsuccessfully attempting to find parking on the southwest side where I live as well. I guess they didn’t see the “there is no parking except for the parking lots so take Metro, you idiots” advertising all over the place in the weeks leading up to opening day.

Finally home to some lunch and settling in for a bit. I hope to see BC at some point (dinner?) this evening, since he takes off to see his grandparents in England on Tuesday and will be gone until late the following week. Work has had us both stressed out like there’s no tomorrow, so we’ve not gotten together for a bit, not having a ton of energy left after legal writing hell for me and late nights fixing the bad accounting from his predecessor for him. Miss him lots.

I’m attempting to sleep because I have to be up in about 5 hours to go to an early morning swim clinic halfway across the city. I say attempting because there’s about a dozen young persons outside my window playing, foot racing, and generally making far too much noise outside my window (which has to stay open because it’s too warm out to keep the place closed off).

So, being a curmudgeon, for the second or third time since I moved here I just called the police to have them come enforce the DC curfew law. If it’s like the last time, the police’ll be out after a bit, and the kids will be sent home with no arrests made. And I’m fine with that, as long as they urchins go inside and stop keeping me awake.

I was told not to think about The Big Ugly Project this morning by da bosslady, and I was happy to comply. Caught up on other stuff instead, including sending out the weekly happy hour announcement for the work crowd (I’m the office social coordinator) for this Thursday. All in all much nicer than last week, though I know more of TBUP will be coming as the week goes on.

A pretty good swim tonight, though the pool was a bit more crowded than it’s been when I’ve gone in the evenings. I debated running this evening, since I missed running this morning, but the cooler temps made the decision for me. Plus the whole “train your weaknesses” thing (and swimming is most definitely my weakness in triathlon).

I do need to clarify something from yesterday’s posts – I do not have vertigo again. That, thankfully, is done and gone for now, and hopefully for the foreseeable future (though I won’t be going dancing anytime soon to test that particular theory of how it happened). I was lamenting the fact that because of the vertigo I couldn’t train, which then meant I had no base to build up to for the races this spring. Still miffed about it, but there’s naught to do at this point except aim for the next races that I can train for. So there I go.

Busily trying to work through two dozen honey tangelos my parents shipped up from Tampa before they left to drive the RV back to Tidewater. Normally I end up giving a bunch away because I can’t get through them fast enough, but I suspect that’s not going to be the case this time around. They’re very, very sweet, and I find myself bending over the kitchen sink to devour one more often than usual (it’s easier to peel them, and spit the seeds down the disposer, right there). Good stuff.

Okay, when I said I was spent when it came to cleaning for the day, I so lied. The parental units called, and when I’m on the phone with them I generally have to wander the apartment and do minor straightening, which lead to cleaning off all the surfaces in my bedroom. That then lead to tossing out more crap, putting away the latest two medical devices I’ve picked up (the vertigo collar and the plantar faciitis splint), etc. Hell, I even cleaned up the pump bottles of lube by the bed so they aren’t dusty/lubey any more.

Yeah, it’s been that bad today.

I also finally tried out the screws BC got me for the PC’s CPU fan, and they worked. I had forgotten what fun it was to own a PC. Anti-virus software needed updating, there were 10 gazillion Winders updates to download, etc., etc., etc. It’s running a full scan now (not that it needs it, but Norton insisted), while I ignore the thing in the corner.

Thankfully TBS has been playing the Lord of the Ring trilogy all day, so there’s been some noise/distraction going in the background most of the day. Frodo’s just about to get gotten by the giant spider, so all’s right with the world.

Upgraded my install of WordPress, too, which managed to break the LiveJournal crossposter on the front page of the overall site. That’s what I get for following the directions and deactivating the plugins before I upgraded. I forgot to deactivate it on this portion of the site, and it’s supposedly still working. Hopefully that’s true, as I’ve liked having the dual-posting option, and the programmer who wrote the crossposter hasn’t upgraded it in a couple iterations of WordPress.

Heaven willing tomorrow at work won’t be quite as evil as it was the last two work days. I do have more writing to do, I know, but not nearly as much as this past week held. If not, I’m not sure what else I can clean.

Definitely on the upward side of a stress cycle today, as evidenced by a massive cleaning spurt this morning and early afternoon (washed curtains, put tons of things away, tossed a bunch of junk, scrubbed down the bathroom & microwave, etc.). The main bit of it was sorrow over not running the 10 miler this morning. I briefly entertained the idea of going ahead and trying it, but thankfully common sense prevailed and I sat it out, as I have no desire to kill my legs/knees/ankles. That said, I was in a massive funk all day yesterday over it. Damned vertigo.

Am decidedly spent now, at least when it comes to cleaning. And if I keep going I’m afraid my hands will pay for it this week.

Such a predictable reaction to stress. At least it’s a productive one.

You know you work in a government office when you have to tape shut the peeling edge of your office door to keep the laminate covering from hitting the frame each time you close it.

Here’s how the scarf is going.

Tonight:

And back on March 8th:

Just as I was wondering how my other friends who knit find time to do it, I discovered the secret to getting myself to sit down and do it: have a really busy, stressful day at work.

Came home from work, sort of ate. Loaded up the Resident Evil movies on the TiVo, and proceeded to add several inches to the scarf, I’m guessing at little over a third of what’s on it now was added over the past couple of hours tonight. And it was quite soothing, with the movies, the rain and hail, and the repetitive nature of this particular project (31 stitches, RS: k1, *k1b, p1, repeat and k1 at end; WS: *k1, p1, repeat). Precisely what I needed to get law, and work, off the brain.

Going to be interesting soon – I’m almost done with the first skein, so I’m going to have to switch off shortly. Shouldn’t be difficult, but it’s another new step to take. Not tonight, too tired for that, but soon.