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

I had a whopping one thing planned for today, to make breakfast ahead for this upcoming week. Got it done (a ‘crustless quiche’ – basically an egg bake with some veggies in it), and whipped out some meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner as well. Woo.

Was otherwise mostly a zombie today. I did also get a repeat done on a dishcloth I’m working on. It’s in a two color honeycomb pattern, and I’m treating it as a preview of a honeycomb blanket I have queued up sometime soon (I bought a kit, so the yarn is here and ready). I get it now, and the dishcloth is actually easy enough to do on the Metro, so I might work on it during the morning commute. Or not. Who knows.

Knee is still unstable. *shrug* Which was a large part of sitting on my ass knitting or playing video games today.

Had some friends over for games and a trip to the local Olive Garden. These were city boys who don’t get out to suburban restaurants, so it was a treat for them.

The new drug doesn’t seem much different from the old NSAID? Other than the fact that it’s a 3x a day pill versus 1x a day, which makes it easier to forget to take. Knee is still being obnoxious for walking, and this morning my skin was irritated from the firmer brace overnight.

My credit union sent me a “you haven’t used your credit card with us enough, so we’re going to close it if you don’t use it before this summer” letter, so I ordered the husband a doo-dad for his stand mixer (a cover that fits over the big whisk, that you pull down when you’re done to clean most of the stuff off of it; he’ll love it). Hopefully that’ll mollify them.

Managed to move my next orthopedist appointment to next Friday versus a week from Monday, and they gave me a stronger NSAID to start tomorrow. Going back to a bigger brace is helping, too.

Missed lunch because of a last minute meeting, but managed to finish something that we needed to get done for the agency head, so yay? Also, no real news on the budget yet, though other agencies’ plans have leaked to the press and they’re pretty draconian. I would not be surprised if ours was half of our current level, which would be consistent with the public plans that the think tanks announced prior to the start of this administration.

Ordered in dinner as soon as we got home, watched some fun British TV, then read some.

Knee was definitely worsening today; calling the orthopedist tomorrow to move things up. Pain, and more problems walking, which was highly distracting at work.

The plans for next year’s budget request are starting to hit agencies, and from the rumblings I’m hearing they’re pretty bad, as in pretty drastic cuts. We’ll see if Congress lets that happen as the realities of cuts in their states/districts starts to sink in, but given how cowardly this lot has been you never know.

After doing really well with daily journaling for the first two months of the year I dropped off a month ago. Sorry. I’m just really tired now when I get home and this spot isn’t the first thing on my mind.

Busy as all get out still at work. Still employed, still trying to thread the needle between the various court cases and doing what 47 wants us to do. Still awaiting news on what the budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts in October is going to be like.

Knee began acting up, badly, two weeks ago so I saw the orthopedist, and have a follow up in another week and a half. In the meantime he wanted me to start PT again, but I haven’t had any time to get that scheduled. In the meantime I’ll be walking along and the damned thing will ‘glitch’ on me (not sure how else to describe it). Just for a second, and not badly enough to make me fall, but enough to throw off my gait and require a moment to get back in order before I can start walking again. Yuck.

I did get a couple teeth fixed this morning, and was pleasantly surprised that they had a new, friendly, competent hygienist working today (the one three months ago at my twice yearly cleaning was … useless). Let them know the new one was a lot better.

Plugging along otherwise, trying to check in on the other attorneys in our office, offer them a safety valve to vent, and keeping my eye on how stressed out people are getting to quietly let actual management know if I see a need for them to intervene. We’re going to lose another attorney to a family move out of the area, leaving us with just one in that practice area (which probably needs three, but we’ve had two for forever). I’m eternally grateful that we hired up in parts of my portfolio and those folks are still here.

That’s my life, giving the american taxpayer more government than they’re willing to pay for. Heh.

Which is not to say I’m working extra these days. I’m doing my job, I’m spending the 8.5 hours a day in the office that they’re requiring for that now, but I’m not stressing about too much of it after those hours are done. Heck, I even managed to forget the work phone on the charger on my desk this evening when I left. And that was legitimately forgetting to grab it, not “forgetting” to grab it.

Still trying to adjust the sleep schedule. The weather changes aren’t helping; sinus headaches from the high pressure system are driving me nuts.

A bit better today, for having named the feeling bummed out yesterday. Doing extended periods of couch stretch before bed seems to be helping the knee, and we got one big project completely done today, and another partially done, which also helped.

Then came the expected firing of probationary employees today, which was apparently an emotional mess in the building (understandably!). Folks gathered to applaud the folks who were fired as they left. I’m glad I was teleworking; I would’ve broken down. As I reminded a friend, the chaos and the cruelty are part of the point, to keep the public off balance so they can’t effectively push back. It will be interesting to see what reaction gets wrung out of Congress when they go after Defense, which they are reportedly doing soon.

Feeling drained this evening, a combination of diet, knee, and work. On the diet front I’m trying some new enzymes that are supposed to help with digestion of FODMAPs, and so far it’s early so it’s a little hit and miss, but I’m giving it a try anyway. If it works long term that means more options for eating without digestive discomfort, but for now it’s not quite there (so my gut is feeling off). On the knee front, just feeling annoyed at it in general.

On the work front, the latest exercise is a “find all the legal/regulatory requirements that directly tie to your job as an attorney for the agency” as we attempt to fend off cuts in the legal office (after at least two attorneys took the early out offer). The other two attorneys on my little mini-team are stressed as fuck right now, and that’s bleeding over. I think we have ways to justify all of us, but in the meantime we’re all a bit on edge, understandably.

Walked to a local restaurant for dinner, which was apparently a mistake. Knee is not happy with me now, which means it’s finally time to reconnect with the orthopedist. Ugh. Hopefully it’ll be something more helpful than ‘go do more PT’.

Steadily making my way through Dishonored 2, playing as Corvo. Three missions down.

Latest stupidity at work is trying to pin our exact job duties to particular statutes. Unlike most agencies we’re so small that we do not, by law, have a ‘general counsel’ (there’s a singular reference to our specific office in law, but it’s not an establishing statute). We should probably get that fixed the next time we look for changes to our organic legislation, but in the meantime we’re now having to justify our existence by pointing to all of the things we actually do that are called for in law. What a crock.

Another day, more back and forth with 47’s crew not knowing how to do what they want to do. Oh well. Full employment for me. For now. And no, there’s no way in hell I’m taking their fake ‘quit now, work from home for 9 months’ BS.

Dentist this evening. Thankfully he wasn’t talking down to me this time (I had a whole ‘dude, learn to code switch between clients’ talk ready to go, though). Three months and I’m back to do some sort of tooth repair that sounds unpleasant. Whee.

The husband met me after the dentist and we had dinner over in Dupont, which was nice. I miss the walk home together that we used to have when we lived in Southwest DC; that was a nice way to have some time to talk and bond over our days before the inevitable dinner negotiation. We don’t get that as much now, sometimes in the car from the Metro, but a 10 minute car ride is not the same as a 25 minute walk.