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

For the good deed, that is. The young friend apparently had a cold at the end and the husband and I have it now. LOL I’m fighting it, he’s got it full blown. I’d tease the friend about it, but he’d take it way too seriously and go into a spiral right now, so I’m just teasing the husband instead.

That said, I still got in a workout this morning. Trying a one-week program from my favorite mobility site. So far so good, though getting in the steps while teleworking is a challenge. Speaking of, scuttlebutt in the office is that rather than a couple months we’re probably looking at 9-12 before we can move into the new building because of all the work that has to happen to get the IT systems up to snuff, including work outside the building to tear up the street and install better external wiring. So much for “move in ready” in the request for proposals. Not complaining, at all, just amazed at how messy this whole thing has been. All because a large agency head hated his building downtown, and his commute. Lawdy.

Got the young friend settled into his new apartment this evening, post-work. He seems to be settling in okay, and he’s doing better at reflecting on the relationship with his ex-fiance. Thank heavens. With the young friend out tonight I was able to set up my bike in the trainer downstairs again, giving me back that option for exercise in the morning. Yay.

Returned to more regular work today. My team used AI in one of the tools we have access to for the first time to summarize a document from another agency for our boss. Reviewed it closely to make sure it was actually accurate, and passed it along verbatim to our boss, with appropriate attribution and a lot of our own analysis as well. I’m still not sold on AI tools, but given that I’m at a science agency, and we’re paying for this thing, I have to get used to it. I’m still cognizant of how much AI hallucinates, hence the careful vetting of the summary, and making sure she knew it was not our own work. I’m reminded of the phrase “change equals stress”.

I’ve been slacking off on my PT exercises for the repaired knee, with the (expected) result that it’s been more sore lately. Splurged for a squat wedge, which is a lot easier to use for heel elevated squats. I can get a lot deeper into a squat than on flat feet, and that was one of the things they had me doing a lot when I was going to PT on the regular. Between that and the slack block my knee is feeling better.

Was back to work today, teleworking. Relatively quiet, so mostly cleaned out email and read a longish memo from justice that pertains to my small gubm’nt agency’s work, though it was written for a different agency. We’ll have to change some of our programs, and cancel some others, under this new guidance. But that’s a problem for next week.

The husband and I are going to take some trips via airplane next year so I’m applying for TSA’s PreCheck clearance. He’s already got it, and I consider it worth the cash to not deal with as much security nonsense at the actual airport. Less valuable in the DC area where it’s well known and so well subscribed, but for flying back I understand it cuts out a lot of hassle.

My coworkers seem to be settling back into the fully remote routine. I think it helps that it’s so close to the year-end holidays, so much of the normal business of the agency is quieter than usual. Not to say that we’re not working, but the normal urgency isn’t quite as bad as the norm.

Comics, dinner, and a Target run. I was surprised at how quickly we were able to get out of Target. The husband’s sister had ordered something for her husband that she had us pick up, and then we went ahead and got the candy for stockings while we were there. I also picked up a Roku stick for the monitor in my office, as I slowly turn my office into a pseudo-man-cave. Hoping that the better seating and some TV will be conducive to more knitting and cross stitching. In unrelated news I finally finished the first section of dark grey yarn for the latest scarf so now I have to refresh my memory of how to switch colors. I know it’s not hard, I just haven’t done it in a while. I did some knitting on it while we were in Ocean City, and managed to finish the section today while waiting to pick up the husband from the Metro.

Had grand plans to wrap the presents that have arrived, but alas, Amazon decided that 7-11am delivery of wrapping paper actually meant 7-11pm. No biggie, but I had to put some of the stuff I’d set up in the kitchen to wrap back in my office before the husband got home. I know it’s rough work this time of year, and this wasn’t pressing, so I’m not stressing over it.

I did go through his lego advent calendar and pull the bricks for the rest of the month so I could catalog which pieces were missing and order them. No clue when they’ll arrive, but hopefully I got them all this time. Has still been a fun process, and I think he enjoys the ships that he has been able to build.

Work is … weird? Like hey, it’s the week before Xmas week, so it should be slowing down, and it sort of is, but the administration is still nuts and sticking to their crazy deadlines, so we still have odd one-off things to do. In the meantime, I have zero motivation for most of it between our ridiculous forced office move and (*waives hands wildly in the air*) all of the rest of it, but I plow through.

Was in my office building today for our holiday open house, and cleaning up the last of the stuff in my office before they kick us out. Was glad to see people, but I am looking forward to the several months of full time telework that we’ll have while they fix up the new building. Here’s hoping it’s a disaster inside so it takes longer to arrange. In the meantime, I just want to sleep for more than 7 hours tonight.

The husband and I are taking off for Ocean City tomorrow for their winter Comic Con. It’s a small affair, but it looks like it’ll be fun. And this will be a nice respite before his sister and her husband and daughter come down the following weekend for Xmas week. I’m actually looking forward to seeing the niece since she was so chatty the last time we saw her in October (which is a pleasant change from her previous quiet self). I’m looking forward to seeing her parents, too, but the teenager promises to be more fun to watch and interact with this time around.

Actually went into the office for a few hours today, to pack things up because we’re getting kicked out some time after the first of the year. We’re moving not quite a mile down the road to a very dated building that another agency vacated a couple years ago. This is mostly because a cabinet secretary who lives in the suburb where my office is located doesn’t want to commute downtown to his agency’s long time (and admittedly quite decrepit) headquarters. As my small gubm’nt agency has no political leadership at the moment, there was no fighting this, so we’re moving. Whee. I went in, packed those things I wanted to drag home with me, boxed the stuff that the agency movers can haul over, and tossed things that were no longer needed. Only other thing I ended up doing was certifying my time for payroll, because nothing was really pressing. As expected, the drive took half as long as usual because of the holiday, and the cart came in handy to get everything back to the car in one haul. Now I just have to figure out where to store and/or put the stuff I brought home.

The husband, in the meantime, was off work, and put up the Xmas trees. Poor guy is under the weather; we suspect food poisoning from something left out too long yesterday (that only he fixed and ate). Once I got home I helped unbox ornaments and stage them for him to hang. He crashed earlyish, after fretting over all the holiday lego sets that were sitting in bags on the kitchen island that needed to be sorted & repaired. I insisted he leave them for tomorrow, then waited a sufficient time before going in and fixing them all so he’ll wake to that tomorrow.

I’m dragging today as well, from two days of not sleeping well. Yesterday was for love – I stayed up until midnight to make sure I could snag his Star Trek lego set online, which I did get after a few minutes wait. I dropped the directions and the legos for the miniature version when I got home from work, but he was so ill that the reaction was … muted. Poor guy. He apologized all over, but he really is sick, so he gets a pass. We’ll see how the advent calendar goes. Unfortunately the last of those bricks aren’t arriving until the later end of next week, so he may have some half built sets until they do.

Half day working, with official admin time given since we don’t have any political leadership at the small gubm’nt agency. Heh.

Comic run for the weekly haul. I was wearing a DC United (our local soccer team) hoodie, and got to tease some of the football people there about the newish (3 years) name of the DC football franchise (the Washington Commies, aka the Commanders). It was all in fun, but they really should have thought out how the name would be shortened. IHOP for lunch because it was there, we didn’t have any strong feelings on food, and our favorite place next to the comics shop is closed for renovations or reimagining or something, though we did see folks hauling in a lot of food this afternoon, so maybe they rented it out for Thanksgiving? Who knows. I just hope when they reopen that they still have the husband’s hotdog on the menu.

Did pop into the local Giant grocery store. While the lot was full, and there were definitely more people than usual, I parked almost exactly where I normally do, near the edge for a faster drive out, and once I got past the idiots who decided to just stop and stand in the entrance to the store while they hauled out and slowly read their shopping list, it went smoothly. For once they had enough checkers at the regular registers, which was a pleasant surprise. We were only picking up a few things because we’re not doing a huge meal tomorrow. Lots of side dishes, and that’s about it. I was once again grateful that I invested in my own shopping cart, a Clax collapsible cart, because checkout’s a lot easier without bags, and when you know everything will fit. Plus it’s hard to overshop when you’re putting everything in the crate you’re going to bring in from the car. And it’s more maneuverable than most store carts.

Caught the first episode of the last season of Stranger Things with the husband this evening. Still enjoying the show, but worried the answer to shutting it all down will end up killing off another character. Fingers are crossed that I’m wrong, but it’ll be months yet before we know.

Been feeling somewhat run down for about a week and a half, with an intermittent cough, and some light chest congestion. No fever, no discolored anything, but finally went to see the doctor this afternoon. The practice I go to is one I’ve been going to since 1998 or 1999, and seeing the same doctor, who’s about ten years older than I am. He’s been making moves to keep the practice going, but clearly looking toward retirement as well, and so is adding more doctors and nurse practitioners to the group (he’s had other doctor partners over the years, but I think they’ve all retired at this point, so he needed more). Saw one of the new guys, welcomed him to the practice. Didn’t find anything specific, because it’s not really presenting as anything, so he gave me a script for an inhaler to calm my lungs down and told me to monitor for any discoloration or change in the no-fever situation. First time using an inhaler, which is an odd thing to get used to. Still glad to have gone in and had it checked.

Work is still playing catch up to get operations back and running. We’ve gotten partial back pay while the payroll processor figures out all of the missing deductions and what not. In theory we should get the rest this week, then I can figure out what goes where and try and clean things up, financially.

The House managed (barely) to pass the Senate’s continuing resolution, so my coworkers will all be back online tomorrow. The House majority is so thin they needed several minority votes to make it happen. What a mess.

Our human capital folks warned that while pay checks will be issued next week on the regular payday, they’ll be a mess as the payroll provider tries to handle all of the calculations, deductions, taxes, etc. Whee.

I just hope they get it sorted before December.

Still on medical telework, so I will not be on the Metro with the rest of the Feds, trying to remember how to commute after 43 days off work.