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

Is it bad that I bought a bicycling helmet that was fancy expensive enough to come with its own carrying case? Needed Wanted a new helmet for racing & to train on the tri bike, plus I needed beaucoup hydration equipment (read: I left all my water bottles at the old place), so it was off to the bike shop yesterday evening on the way to the club happy hour to pick up a few things. Was a successful trip, getting their last between-the-aero-bars water bottle, the helmet and a couple regular water bottles. Did forget to pick up arm warmers, but hopefully they won’t be needed any time in the near future.

Ran this morning, another successful run with no calf pain. Went out the same way, along the marina and up to L’Enfant Promenade to zip across the Case bridge, but this time I popped down into the park and ran around the Washington Channel and back that way, so a more varied loop than Monday’s run, and about a 1/3 of a mile or so longer. A lot of concrete out there, which is going to take some getting used to.

I set my old roomba loose on the floors this morning (since I’ve yet to swiffer them *whistles innocently*), and it seems to be running just fine. It didn’t like the old place, but I suspect we had too many obstacles set up for it to run well. Now that most boxes are out of the way, and I have no carpets down yet, it seems to be happily bumping it’s way through the bedroom, sucking up dirt. Let’s hope it helps with some of this dust that’s all over the floors.

I’ve determined that I’m never going to be a good gamer. I’ve not picked up the DS but once or twice since I’ve been here, and that was to place Advance Wars or Sonic Rush. I don’t think I’ve been to Animal Crossing in a couple weeks now; all my ‘neighbors’ will have run away and the place will be overgrown with weeds again. Ah well.

Nothing quite like having your hair stylist ask if you want to have her trim your eyebrows. This after a morning spent plucking the odd long hairs out of my ears. Ah, the joys of aging.

In happier news, I biked a couple loops around Hains Point this morning on the tri bike, nice 40 minute ride (seriously, seriously have to get more water bottles and soon). After getting ready I decided it was time to try biking into work. Commute time, door to door: 10 minutes. 7:40 of that was actually riding (1.3 miles), the rest was getting down in the elevator, locking up the bike and getting up to my office.

It’s hard not to gloat about a 10 minute commute. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m gloating. Full-on, doing the happy Snoopy dance gloating. Gloating with my shaggy eyebrows.

Having food at home is a good thing. Cooked yesterday (just some frozen pasta & sauce) for the first time, and made a good salad this evening. Starting to feel like home, finally, with some food in the fridge & cabinet (and my belly).

Work’s been odd this week, with absolutely no one in the office on Monday when I got in, which is really, really bizarre as I’m usually the very last person to get there in the morning. Easter Monday, go fig. And otherwise it’s just been a strange mix of busy and not-busy. And of course the last place I want to be is at work, preferring to be at home getting things together. Whee.

Calf is still okay, so I’m hopeful it’ll be okay when I run tomorrow or Friday (haven’t decided if I want to run or bike tomorrow). Swam this evening, pretty good swim, and not too busy in the pool, which was a pleasant change from the mornings. I still want to check out the two closer pools, but if an evening swim would be less crowded, that might be a better option (since I do like the YWCA facility overall).

Took my first run in the new place this morning, my first run in about two weeks. I was a tad nervous – the reason I’d not been running was because of chronic calf strain so had taken the time off to let it heal up. I had originally planned to bike this morning, but it’s a tad cool out, I didn’t feel like bundling up for a bike ride, and with the on-and-off rain we’re getting here it was easier to just throw on running clothes and get going.

Ran down to the waterfront, along the marina, up to L’Enfant Promenade and across the Case Bridge (aka the 12th Street Bridge). Made it to the other side of the bridge and was over East Potomac Park, but turned around there (at 15 minutes in) and didn’t enter the park itself. The run was nice, my calf is feeling okay thus far, and I stretched it thoroughly after I got back. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, since I am supposed to do this little 1/2 ironman race in less than two months, and not being able to run would be a slight impediment to that goal.

This is my first day back at work after the move, so I get to see what the commute to work is like. I’m walking, even in the rain, so it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes, especially after I just ran most of the route I’ll take to work. I sense somehow that I’ll manage to bike up there more often than not, just because I’m too impatient to deal with the walking pace. But not this morning; this morning I walk.

Presta valves are now my bitches. Evidently you have to unscrew them to blow ’em up. Who knew? (not I, obviously)

Rode over to the bike store, it was closed (some religious holiday, I think; Happy (C2 H5)20). Thankfully a group had stopped in front, including a fellow club member and one of the shop’s mechanics, who showed me how to work the valve. So no money spent (grr), but the tires are now inflatable and inflated (yay).

I finally broke down and went to get some whole bean coffee from the local grocery store down here just now. Cola and/or napping in the middle of the afternoon wasn’t cutting it, and I wanted the ritual of being up and getting some coffee on the weekends.

Managed to get a good chunk of my clothes out of boxes and into either the closet or the chest of drawers last night, after I put the couch together and got the mattress out of the bedroom (where it was blocking the closet). It was really nice to get the couch together so I had somewhere to sprawl out upon, other than the bed. Also consolidated the boxes of books to one location (all dozen of them) so I had some floor space in which to put the couch. I need to dump empty boxes soon to clear up more space. As boxes have emptied and space has become available it’s been easier to get a feel for the flow of the apartment, even while it’s still in flux.

I am officially annoyed with Presta valves. I can’t seem to get my front tire on the tri bike inflated to save my life, which killed taking a ride this morning, until such time as the bike shop opens and I can figure out where I’m going wrong on the inflation thing. User error, but not sure where the error lies.

I’ve yet to use it on aught but the bathroom floor, but I picked up one of those “swiffer” things to get all the dust and tree sperm off the floor. While wandering around barefoot on Friday I noticed that my feet quickly turned black from all the residual dust. I wish I’d had a chance to clean the place now (hindsight, 20/20, all that) before I moved in, or at least have run a damp mop over the floors to get the dust up. Ah well, working at it bit by bit now.

But having the stuff mostly together in the bedroom has been wonderful. To have one space where I can stop, not be looking at five gazillion boxes in various states of repair and fullness, and just relax, has been invaluable for my mental health. The gorgeous weather we’ve had, which has allowed me to have the doors wide open, has also helped. I say doors because the way this apartment works, the “windows” in the living room are floor to ceiling glass which open onto the screened-in balcony, one of which slides behind the other to open up the room. The windows in the bedroom don’t open at all, but there is a door to the balcony which opens up into the bedroom to allow air in. Has been fun running from the bedroom to the living room via the balcony. I’m sure that’ll stop once it heats up outside, but it’s nice now, and lends to the feeling of openness of the apartment.

Packages seem to be a hit and miss thing. Got my blender and my TV just fine, but haven’t been able to get the toaster out of hock yet. It’s here according to Amazon, but they’ve not given me a package notice on it yet, and the guard couldn’t find it because “there are a lot of packages back there” in the office. Oy. I’m sure it’ll turn up Monday when the regular office folks are back in. Good thing it wasn’t something important like coffee making equipment.

I’ll get some pictures up once I dig out the camera and clear some more floor space.

Yay for neighbors with unprotected wifi networks. I didn’t expect to be back online until tomorrow afternoon after the cable folks showed up.

And yay, yay, triple yay for hiring movers this time around. It came in, with tip, to just under what I’d budgeted for it, and it was worth every freakin’ penny. I did get shooed out of the way when I was trying too hard to be helpful, and I’ve never been called “sir” so much in one morning (outside of a B&D scene), but as I said, every freakin’ penny.

And so far, since they’ve been gone, the only thing I’ve done is find the wifi network and set up my desk. Because honestly, right now I just don’t feel like doing much more than sitting in my chair and enjoying the afternoon sun.

Looking at the boxes spread out all over the living room, I’ve very glad I culled stuff over the past week, and the past year. I can’t imagine having to go through all that stuff again to find homes for it. As it is I still have to go pick it up and dispose of it this weekend, but I don’t have to find a place for it in my life, or my home, and I’m grateful for that.

Tax forms printed and in the mail, 95% of everything I own packed away, all that remains is to head to bed, get up tomorrow and get ready, greet the movers, pack the remaining 5%, and get over to the new place.

You know, packing is fucking depressing.

I think the height (depth?) of that was removing the magnets and comics from the refrigerator. Going through all of these memories, quickly, and having to quickly sort them into ‘want,’ ‘don’t want’ and ‘deal with later at a more leisurely pace’ is really draining. Thankfully most things sort easily into the first two categories with only a few items (old letters, mainly) falling into the third. I used to write multi-page letters to people via snail mail and I have a lot of that correspondence from the early 90s still, and I’m reluctant to part with it as yet. But it does bring back a lot of looking back, both good and bad, on that period in my life. Harder yet has been having Richard shred years upon years worth of financial records, many of which sat in envelopes, unopened, in storage. And I had deluded myself into thinking I don’t suffer from depression. Ha! Those unopened envelopes put the truth to that lie pretty quickly.

Part of the financial mess I got myself into back in the late 90s, after grad school and both while I was living with The Ex and after, was that I just didn’t want to face that I was in so much debt. It took years to get out of that, and finally smacking myself and organizing my finances in such a way that I had a system I could follow (and follow to this day) to pay all my bills on time and not accumulate more debt than I could handle. I’m proud of having gotten out of that, but not so much about having gotten into it in the first place. Thankfully I picked a profession and a career path that’s allowed me to make meaningful progress on my debts and do things like buy this apartment.

Took today off to do more packing. I’m going to need more boxes, but I’m not sure how many at this point. I think I may be at the point where I’m just going to have the movers pack what else is ready. Shouldn’t be a problem, especially seeing as how the bulk of my stuff is packed. I’ll continue to sort my stuff so they only need pack the things I’m taking with me, and I’m glad we packed so much this weekend, but I think I’m tapped out for this mess now.

The house is a mess.

As planned, I packed the majority of my belongings yesterday. The kitchen is 90% done (silverware and utensils remain outstanding), most all of the books are packed, I’ve accumulated a large pile of things to be donated, and I’m feeling a tad bit less overwhelmed than when I started this yesterday.

Headed out to shop today, need to pick up a few things to have on hand once I’m moved on Thursday or shortly thereafter (e.g., mattress). Also want to pop by the new place and pick up any packages that’ve already arrived. Have to arrange time for laundry before the movers get here, too. So much to do…