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

The local DC area community, no stranger to government funding lapses, has done a good job in stepping up for furloughed Feds. One of my local yarn shops is running free classes to teach knitting and crochet, with donated supplies, other places are offering food or drink discounts, etc. So yesterday the husband and I took advantage of one of these and went out to an alpaca farm. They were shorter than I expected; I think I was thinking llamas, which are taller. Mostly well behaved – no spitting, though there were some disagreements over who got to come up and take the snacks we took out to them. ‘Twas quite fun, and I’m glad we got to do it. Of course I bought some yarn, though I’m not quite sure what I’ll turn it into yet (which is a violation of my recent ‘no yarn buying unless you have a pattern picked out for it’ anti-stash rule). All in all a nice way to spend a late Tuesday afternoon.

Knitting group was nice. Well attended (six of us), and people were just chatty enough without dwelling too much on the Current Unpleasantness. Got to the midpoint of my current scarf, and started the decreases (it starts small, gets wide in the middle, then tapers back down). And I may have bought some chunky yarn for a hat, just in case. We will see how far I get before we take off for Boston and Salem this upcoming weekend, for a tourist visit with friends who’ve never been. Salem will be insane (and crazy crowded), but the husband grew up in the area and I’ve been there in the fall often enough to just appreciate how crazy it gets. Looking forward to the friends’ reaction.

Finally tackled a long-desired task, cleaning out the pantry. Did toss a bunch of overly old things, though nothing from before our move in 2020 this time (we were so ready to get out of the old apartment that we just tossed it all in boxes and dragged it with us, regardless of age). And now we have a better mental map of what’s there and what’s gone, plus we can see everything again. Plus it motivated the husband to use up the bananas on the counter; he’s making banana chocolate chip muffins as I type this. I know what breakfast is going to be the rest of this week.

Men’s knitting group this afternoon. Definitely feeling the need for some social time with knitters today, with all the shutdown stuff leaving me bored out of my mind. The knitting store we’re going to today has been offering free classes to furloughed feds, which is very generous of them. Not that this is the DC area’s first shutdown rodeo, but this one feels very different from previous ones, and not just because I’m directly affected this time (in previous ones my agency had funds so I worked fairly normally).

Done with my Continuing Legal Education credits for the year, as of yesterday. There are more offerings, so I may go ahead and bank credit for next year since I’m not doing anything else. The Virginia bar makes you do twelve hours yearly, but allows you to roll up to a year’s worth of credits from one to the next, so this would save me for next year.

October started with a lot of new things. New toothbrush (once a quarter I swap them out), new paper journal, and a government shutdown where my agency’s salaries and expenses funding actually ran out so I’m dealing with furlough crap for the first time in my almost 27 years as a Fed. I myself am excepted from furlough in this one because I’m working the legal issues around the lack of cash, but in all the previous shutdowns my big gubm’nt agency had funding that carried forward into the new year, or had gotten its regular appropriation already, so we never closed. So the actual rhythm of this all is new, despite being the money lawyer and so very much in the middle of preparations for lapses for decades now.

Mostly it feels like I’m going to be bored. And then, once I finally settle on whatever distraction I want to indulge in (reading, knitting, video games, etc.) I feel like I’m going to be annoyed when the inevitable one-off legal question comes in. At least my agency is doing the smart thing and having those of us who are still working do so remotely; I understand some of the bigger agencies are still insisting that people come to the office to do their excepted work, in line with the overall return to office policy. That seems like a nightmare, and a recipe for even worse boredom, especially since you’re not legally permitted to do your normal job duties, only those which fit the narrow legal exceptions to the lack of funding (imminent threats to life or property; constitutional functions; etc.).

I’ve never been able to read these things correctly, so I have no clue how long this one will last. As I like to explain it at work, if I could guess with any accuracy what Congress would do in a given situation I would be making a lot more money somewhere else. So we’ll see. The husband and I discussed finances and I think we’ll weather a protracted (month or so) shutdown with a little tightness but no missed bills. Heaven forfend it go longer than that. Though it would perhaps give me time to start and finish a knitted blanket (with already-purchased yarn) that I have in the queue.

The annual DC tradition of trying to guess whether Congress will fund us before the fiscal year ends at the end of this month has begun. I get asked, because of what I do, but my go-to response is always, “If I could guess with any accuracy what Congress would do on any given day I would be making a lot more money in some other job.”

Easing back into commuting to the office, though still mostly on medical remote work. I tell folks when they ask why I’m in that I’m practicing walking. Which has the virtue of being true. And it allows me to assess the stuff in my office for disposal and/or taking it home before we (eventually?) move office buildings.

The current scarf hit a snag, mostly because I bought a Switch 2 and have been playing on that instead of knitting. The pattern has been fine, the amount of attention has been finite. Speaking of, here’s the niece’s scarf (three links/pics). I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Finished the niece’s scarf this evening. Added some length to it in the middle, and had to use a tiny bit of the second skein to complete it. Will wash & block it tomorrow and get some more pictures. Already have the yarn wound for the next project.

My legs have been killing me. Between the increase in hopping and braking work, the three (!!!) childhood fillings I’ve had to replace the last two weeks, and just the general state of the country, I’ve been completely worn out and sore. Hence the day of knitting today to polish off the scarf. Heck, I even reactivated Netflix so I had something more to play in the background (started Supernatural, which I’d never watched; it made good background for me for knitting). I did make sure to get up every few rows and move around, so I wasn’t a complete lump, and my shoulders are happier for the movement.

Just about halfway through the niece’s scarf and I think I may add some length to it in the middle section. I have the yarn, so what the hey.

At work we continue to lose lawsuits left and right, which frankly is fine, because it means people can continue to do the grants we gave them. Means more work for us (it’s terminated, lawsuit, now it’s reinstated, whee!), but again, whatever. It does make one want to toss the meme from Liar, Liar at 47’s people – the one where Jim Carrey is yelling, “Stop breaking the law, asshole!” into the phone.

It’s been a long six months.

Started the niece’s scarf yesterday to try out the new (to me) dip stitch. It’s one where you reach through three stitches below the current row and pull some yarn through to bring it up to the working row. Makes these fun little textured bits, and once you get going it’s a breeze. I had some long mass meetings where I didn’t need to be on camera, so I worked on it a bunch during those. These ‘skinny scarves’ that Westknits has come out with sit nicely under a coat without adding a lot of bulk, which I really appreciate. The next one I have queued up after this gift does a different dip stitch, but pulls up five stitches instead of just one, and should show off the colors in the variegated yarn nicely.

Took so much time today, but I finished the bloody shawl. Here’s a bunch of photos over on flickr.

Spent the bulk of the day finishing it. Did the math just now, it was about 600 stitches per row at the end (started with 3!). Had a minor panic attack when I was on the next to last row and I dropped a stitch, which promptly laddered down 5-6 rows. There was a lot of swearing, and the fix isn’t pretty, but I got the errant stitch wrangled.

I’m glad it’s done. I’m glad I did it. And now I want to give my shoulders and fingers a rest. Though I think the leftover yarn might make some fun chickens…

Four more rows done today; ten more to go. Cue “little engine that could” noises.

The husband picked up Thunderbolts on blu-ray, so we watched that tonight. We’ve gotten so used to streaming that it was a pleasant surprise to be reminded how much better the picture quality is on physical media, especially blu-rays.

Work is a mess as people try to get the last funds out the door before the end of the fiscal year, plus dealing with lawsuits, cancelling awards at the whim of the administration, reinstating awards at the order of the court, etc. Full employment, but not full engagement. And no news on when our agency will move, if it does (it probably will because it’s a cabinet agency that wants our space, but they haven’t found us a replacement space yet). D-r-a-m-a.