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

The husband needed to go clothes shopping, so after hitting the barbershop for cuts it was off to the big outlet mall up near Baltimore. He did very well with sales, and while I wasn’t intended to get anything I found two pair of casual, non-denim pants. Not bad.

Eating has been off today, at odd times because of the barber visit and the shopping. Debating what, if anything, to eat this evening while the husband takes care of the weekly laundry.

Our downstairs HVAC isn’t cooling as of a day and a half ago. Tech service has been called and after talking to a couple different people they’re sending someone out on Monday to look at it, thereby avoiding the emergency service call they wanted to send someone out today. It’s definitely not an emergency, but we do want it addressed before we go into heating season.

Rearranged some of the legos to make room for the new sets. The husband also went through some of our older, unopened sets that we are not likely to build and is listing those for sale, with the proceeds going into a home repairs account for things like the HVAC system. Timely, that.

Called my dad for his birthday today and we talked for a whopping six minutes. The man is not taking care of himself physically, nor is he using his hearing aids consistently, and you can tell the cognitive decline is well underway. Let this be a lesson, folks, there is a well-documented connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline, and I can attest that it’s a real thing. I feel sad for mom and my brother and his family who are there and have to watch it in real time. Yet another reason why I exercise, because I’m not interested in that being how I go through my 80s, assuming I make it there.

I needed to refill my frozen lunch supplies (I cook a bunch of stuff to freeze for lunches during the week), so today was all about cooking. Which was slightly ironic because my actual eating was all leftovers from ordering a ton of Chinese food yesterday. Finally trying out the 2 cup freezer cubes with some vegetable beef soup, though even if it doesn’t fit the lunch slow cooker (it should), I can always bag it that way for regular dinners later. But that would be a nice change from the usual mix of squash, fennel & mushroom, rice, and poached chicken. I mean, the stuff is good, and it doesn’t break the bank, but it is getting a little tedious.

Around that I watched a lot of Netflix, and put together two of the lego sets that the husband got me. I ditched the two social things I could’ve gone to today for the cooking (run club and knitting group), which was the fiscally responsible thing to do (eating out is sooo expensive now). Managed to get it all cleaned up and put away as well, so I don’t have to face dishes in the morning. Only thing I didn’t get done is any laundry. The husband does that normally on Sundays but he’s out of town at a conference this weekend and early this upcoming week.

The husband and I have to head to the Boston area next week for a family funeral. Which also, unfortunately, means some suit shopping tomorrow because I don’t have one that fits at the moment. I am once again extremely grateful that the primary practice area for my small agency staffed up well before this administration and that none of them have left, so we have plenty of coverage while I’m out.

The cortisone seems to be more fully kicking in; walking is a bit more normal. But I still want them to go in and see what else can be done.

Easy dinner of eggs & rice tonight for me, mac & cheese for him. We watched The Gorge on AppleTV+, which started out really well, then quickly jumped the shark on the way over the putative gorge. We had fun complaining about how off the rails it went, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

Used the random day off to nap and to catch up on comics. I’m not quite a month behind at this point; the little box I use to hold ‘to be read’ comics is full with overspill. I almost got all the overspill into the box today, but I still have 8-10 comics that won’t quite fit.

Very glad I’m not attending Mid-Atlantic Leather this weekend, the whole thing just sounds like a nightmare. Mostly because gay men tend to be incredibly immature and an event like this brings out the worst in far too many of them. Then you add in generational anxiety (like seriously, fellow Gen-Xers, what in heavens name did y’all do to your kids that they’re this anxious and incapable of functioning on their own?) and all the other kink drama, and no ma’am, not interested. Nice to shop the market sometimes, but the second-hand drama is more than enough for me.

The latest update to WordPress seems to have broken the ‘make new post’ page in Safari. Works alright in Firefox, but the screen just shows up as a blank page in Safari (which is really odd because everything else in WP works just fine in Safari; it’s just the ‘make new post’ screen that’s dead). Here’s hoping the next update fixes it.

Snow day today. We think maybe 5″ (~13cm) here by dinner time, with some more falling at the moment. Respectable. Enough to force the local jurisdictions to close (the DC area does not do snow often, so we tend to close up shop and hunker down), giving me a nice excuse to skip a commuting day in favor of staying home.

Boys are starting to crawl out of the woodwork for Mid-Atlantic Leather this upcoming weekend, or as one friend called it, the annual DC textiles convention. Not attending myself, but glad it’s still going strong.

Got a wild hair this morning so I cleared off some shelves in our owner’s suite closet to try and neaten them up and make room for things. Rearranged shoes so they all fit. Tried on pants and shorts, donating a bunch that no longer fit, and better sorting the remainder. Did laundry, including some of the shorts which had accumulated dust. The husband usually does the laundry, but I offered to take care of mine this week because his schedule is nuts and I’d be home today. Still need to sort some shoes and determine which should stay and which should go, but that’ll involve a consultation with the husband (he’s more a shoe person than I am).

Prepped training I’m giving tomorrow. Two classes – one to other attorneys, and one to our budget folks. Cleaned up work emails. Mailed off a package to a niece and filled the car with gas. Have discovered that the second-closest post office is the way to go. They’re friendly and quite helpful, unlike the closest one, where the folks have universally been surly and brusque (which is a shame because the closest one is walking distance).

I’m taking off for training for two weeks down in the middle of Virginia at the beginning of December and need to start preparing lists of what to pack.

Otherwise I just continue working. There’s zero I can do about the incoming administration’s plans, so I refuse to engage in stressing over said plans. Instead I’ve been spending time at work spreading what my best man refers to as my “calming Moose rays” – talking people off of ledges, listening to their worries, and trying to redirect them away from doom scrolling and obsessive news consumption.

The week between Xmas and New Years can be an odd one. Cleaning up from Xmas, figuring out where new things need to go. Finishing off leftovers. Etc.

Two weeks on the new drugs, and also dropped a decongestant that I’ve been taking for forever (20 years?) because it can raise BP. Other than the withdrawal from the decongestant (felt like a bad head cold, especially on day three), things have settled in. Of course there’s a weird paranoia that comes with having had a TIA – is any odd sensation, which would not have raised an eyebrow prior to three weeks ago, related? They’re not, of course, but that doesn’t stop one from idly questioning each and every one. I’m more likely now to move out of a position that will give me pins-and-needles now than I was previously, if only to prove it’s not my brain misfiring (as opposed to just cutting off nerves/blood supply). Whee! Bodies are such fun.

Picked up new glasses this afternoon, which was a whole other adventure in being more active than I have been. The new Echo frames are fantastic. The other regular frames I picked out back in August seem to be cursed. Second set of lenses, second set of “this isn’t right”/headache inducing oddness. I have to go back next week for a pair of readers (prescription adjusted for close work – yay aging eyes), so I’m trying out the regular ones off and on, but I swear that VSP either did nothing with the lenses, or they just can’t get the prescription right. Especially since the Echo frames are, as stated above, fantastic – no issues seeing out of the new lenses there. *shrug* Hopefully they’ll be able to test the lenses and see what’s going on there.

The in-laws came down for Xmas and we had fun playing card/board games and what not with them. And of course the usual Xmas stuff of gifts and stockings and what not. Fare was relatively simple, no big bird or beast, but the melting potatoes were a hit again.

We have another couple coming over for New Years eve, and I need to plan out dinner. They’re mostly vegetarian, which is easy enough, but I did a risotto already for them pre-Xmas so I need to plan something else this time.

Knee is improving in fits and starts. I’m on my third brace now. I originally had a neoprene one from urgent care and a big complicated one from the orthopedist. Ortho cleared me last month to go back to the neoprene one, which was doing okay but started to tear and get stretched out, so just yesterday I got a replacement brace (recommended by the ortho’s office) which I’m trying to get used to, in terms of the fit and how it goes on. I’m also trying to spend less time in the brace, period, because I started getting some skin irritation under it. Slept for the first time with no brace on last night and it did well, but this morning I was truly sore from that and PT yesterday, so took the rare (for me) step of taking some ibuprofen.

Saw my sister-in-law and niece off this morning, after they popped down for the holiday weekend.

Made some homemade pumpkin spice coffee additive last night (1.5 cups sugar, 1.5 cups water, bring to boil over medium heat, whisk in 4 teaspoons pumpkin spice blend and 1/4 cup pumpkin puree, lower heat to simmer for 20 more minutes. Strain through a fine mesh sieve (and cheesecloth, if you have it, to further reduce the solids) and add 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Stores in the fridge for up to a week). Also made toddy coffee concentrate, so had homemade iced pumpkin spice lattes this morning (1/2 cup concentrate, 3/4 cup milk, 2 Tablespoons PSL mix). Was tasty. I’m normally a black coffee drinker, so anything beyond that is exotic for me, but this was a nice treat. And the SIL was impressed, which is what really counts.

PT this afternoon. I have some pitting edema going on, meaning there’s still a lot of extra fluid in the knee, so if that’s still there at the end of next week I get to ask the orthopedist about that. Flexion was about the same as last week, which may be related to the extra fluid at this point.

Short week last week (and weird because of the almost-government-shut-down), short week this week. My new attorney shadow gets here in two weeks; it’s someone I recruited from my old agency, so I know I’ll work well with him. Looking forward to training him on the new agency, and a new area of law, as well as passing off some of the stuff that I’m not as well versed in but that he has much more experience with.

Oooh, we played Uno Flip last night and really enjoyed it. The husband and I own it, but hadn’t played it, and it was quite a fun variation on the regular uno. Both sides of the cards are playable, a light side and a dark side, and every now and again people can make the deck flip from one to the other, which also flips all the cards in your hand. Kept things lively.

Got some more of the Halloween stuff put up, including the green-purple-orange light strings we bought last year but didn’t get up (maybe we bought them at the end of the season on sale? I don’t remember why they didn’t get put up). Our neighbor does a much better job with it than we do, but we outshine them at Xmas. 😉

Spent a chunk of yesterday finally getting all four tires replaced on the Mini. The local place was a lot friendlier than BJ’s, and apparently NTB is now Mavis, though the signage (and online) hasn’t caught up yet. Popped by the local carwash on the way back from picking up the car, so the beast looks (and drives) much nicer now.

Continuing to slowly build my running back up on the treadmill.

Up far too early this morning after Benjamin (male cat) decided to puke, twice, in the hallway outside our bedroom. Found it without stepping in it (yay?) and got it all cleaned up. Very grateful that I thought to stash some paper towels under the sink in the bathroom off that hallway so I didn’t have to go downstairs for some.

A good chunk of my office flooded last week. There’s a ledge outside the windows of about 2/3 of the offices (including mine) where water got backed up and came in though the walls. Nothing personal of anyone’s was damaged, and very few official documents were dampened since most of that is electronic now so there was only like one box on the floor in the suite (unlike a flood in my old office that was a nightmare of drying out old paper). While facilities swung into action while the flood was still ongoing thanks to one of our employees alerting them, it apparently still smells according to the few people who’ve braved the place, and they’re going to have to do all sorts of remediation. So who knows if I’ll be going back in immediately after labor day or not? That’s tentatively the plan since the local Metro stations reopen after that weekend, but not if they’re still dealing with walls and carpet and what not.