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

Behold, the power of garlic. Nothing quite like doubling the amount of garlic to go into your favorite hummus recipe. Yum!

Nice run this morning while out in the rain. Was trying to get done with it before the snow, which was predicted to start between 8 and 10 this morning, started. Of course, the snow didn’t actually start until 2:30, 2:45 or so here in town, but it’s coming down to beat the band now. The rain wasn’t bad at all, and I’m glad I got this weekend’s long run done before we get “snowed in.” Can easily do the bike indoors tomorrow, and we’ll see if the gym is open tomorrow for a swim.

Oh good, I see snow sticking down in the park now.

My brother’s being a twit, drinking on his antidepressant meds, scaring his about-to-pop-out-a-child wife and our parents. ‘Twas his “cry for help” (his words) and it certainly worked. Little idiot. Heaven forfend he should just ask for some help, no, instead he has to make a big dramatic scene. And here I thought the gay children were supposed to be the dramatic ones.

I actually used the work gym, that I pay far too much money per pay period for, this evening. It wasn’t bad, even without towel service. I was a tad nervous when I got in and all but one of the treadmills were taken, but the run proceeded apace. They have the same annoying 30 minute limit on their treadmills that the ones at the YMCA down in Chesapeake had, but I suspect a Quickstart session would get around that. As it was I just did 30 minutes anyway, then got myself going and up to the grocery store.

Even though I was starving I still managed to get out of Whole Paycheck Foods for less than $50, including the lazy taxi home. While there I discovered the Tofurkey sausages, so tried some this evening with some pasta and red pepper pesto, and they weren’t bad. I shall have to try them in my favorite pot luck dish, “Sausage with Red Peppers and Pasta” soon. Now if I could just find a good sub for the chicken in “Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic,” I’d be set on the only two non-vegan dishes I really miss.

Given the experience tonight I may have to filch borrow another towel from the Y and use the work gym for my evening runs instead of going back up to the Y for them. We’ll see. It was certainly nice to just walk downstairs to run rather than bussing up to the Y, then bussing home. And post-move it’ll be even more convenient.

I’ve done my southern roots proud and had my black-eyed peas, served up in a vegan version of hoppin’ john. Alas, I did not make cornbread or collard greens, but I did make the peas, and that was the important part, according to my grandmother.

Otherwise, the new year has thus far been nice and quiet.

I did my traditional new years day run. Since recovering from mono back in 99/00, and making my first run on new year’s day 2000, I’ve made it a tradition to run on that day. No heart rate monitor, no watch, no music, just whatever clothes are needed for the weather, my shoes, and me. Was a good run this afternoon, my first outside in a while.

I apologize to those of you who’ve been so kind in your emails, calls or text messages. As you may have figured out by now, I’ve been dealing with some pretty nasty depression of late. Right now I just want to get moved to a new place, get settled there, get away from the bugs and the loud music, and see where it is I’m going from there. This has not been helped by the lovely cold sore that popped up yesterday morning with none of the usual warnings (no tingling, etc.). Woke up and there the little fucker was. Thankfully it’s progressed along just as quickly and the meds I have seem to be helping speed it along. ‘Tis past the painful stage and onto just plain annoying. But it did not help my mood any yesterday, and it just reinforced the decision to stay at home and just ruminate on stuff.

The good part of this, however, has been that I’ve been cooking up a storm. In additon to the aforementioned hoppin’ john, I’ve made roasted butternut squash, breakfast tofu scramble, barbeque baked lentils, and garlic roasted asparagus for various meals. I’ll have leftovers galore this week for lunches, which is better than buying stuff on campus any day of the week.

Still working on this year’s uberlist. Did learn some things from the past year’s list, and I want to make this thing work.

I used to like fall. The comfortable temps, the holiday prep, etc. Since I’ve started running and the like, though, it’s more of a pain in the ass than anything else.

The light is wrong, clear, yet “off” from the norm. Leaves everywhere make the paths treacherous to my klutzy self – either they’re wet and slippery or dry and treacherous. Plus they hide rocks, sticks and other things that can make one, oh, say, break one’s ankle.

Give me summer any day of the week.

In other news™, I made the plunge on Thursday and signed up for the Mooseman 1/2 Ironman for next June 4th. Yup, I’m insane, but I’m looking forward to the challenge. Right after I clicked the “submit” button, I think it hit fully that I was actually going to be doing this. I’ve been wanting to do a 1/2 Ironman distance race this next year, and how could I resist a race named the Mooseman? But yeah, life is going to be a lot different with the training and what not. 2006 promises to be a busy year.

I want to do a fall marathon as well, and I’m undecied as to whether to try to get into the Marine Corps Marathon or to just go for another local-ish fall marathon. Since my eventual timeline is to try for an Ironman race in 2007, I’d kinda like to have done a full marathon first (I did a 1/2 marathon back in 2003 after the bike accident and before the broken ankle – 2003 was a particularly bad year for accidents), before attempting one at the end of a triathlon.

I’ll probably also end up doing Diamond in the Rough to help with the club championship series for my tri club as well. Past that, I’ll have to dig for other races for next season yet. But Mooseman and Diamond will be the two that I’m going to focus on for now, with Mooseman taking priority.

I think I may be fighting off a head cold at the moment. Sudafed has been drafted once more, and I’m hopeful it’ll be a short thing. Been spending a lot of time out of the house lately, and some late nights have probably caught up with me. I’m trying to get stuff out of my system before I become a triathlon hermit. Once I start the training, I don’t anticipate that I’ll have much energy for much else outside work, training and the other minutiae of life. And honestly, I’m okay with that. Triathlon, specifically building toward an Ironman, is something I’ve wanted for a good many years, and now I’m pursuing it, and that’s what’s going to be the priority for me.

Well, as threatened promised, I cleaned my closets for most of the weekend. Not the most thrilling thing to do, but it feels much, much better having gotten rid of so much junk. Still have to inventory the computer junk I found, but that can happen another day.

I also managed to strike something off my uberlist – item 48, “Fix the sagging problem on my large bookcase.” It finally hit me early this morning, after months of trying to figure out how I’d wedge something underneath to even out the bottom (it’s on legs and the middle was sagging rather badly), that I could just take the legs off and set the whole thing on the floor. D’oh! So today it got unloaded, the legs came off and it’s now resting nicely on the floor. It’ll take a while for the bottom to completely un-bow, but it’s looking better than it did. And I can get the bottom doors open without having to wrench them open, a big plus.

Upped the gauge on my earrings as well this weekend, from 18s to 14s. Yes, a two gauge jump, but it works. I wanted something a tad less “delicate” looking, and I’m pleased with the results. Popped the one in without a hitch but the left ear didn’t want to work, so I had to go back down and have it professionally inserted. Yay for piercers’ tools, specifically wedges. In it is, and in it’s staying for a long while. I never take the things out, anyway, so it’s no problem.

Ran this evening. Was pleasantly cool, but not so cool I wanted a long sleeve T. I think I may have to consider dumping the constant use of sudafed, regardless of my allergies. I just can’t get my heart rate down low enough when I’m on the stuff, and it’s annoying to be running at 170-odd beats a minute. So, an experiment – I’ll stop and see what happens. I can always carry it with just in case, but I’d like to see a tad more progress made on my running and it’s not happening with the sudafed in my system. Wish me luck.

Started culling my belongings this evening. A small bit, just going through books that I want to get rid of, but it’s a start. Since reading Affluenza I’ve been feeling the burden of having so much stuff around the house. I don’t use so much of it, so why am I keeping it all? Ugh. So, started the process of getting rid of some of it this evening. I’ll likely donate the books to the library for their use or sale, but if anyone wants any of them, let me know. Lots of my sci-fi paperbacks are gonna go bye-bye shortly.

Next step is the stuffed animal collection – I’ve wanted to cut that down for a while and donate the bulk of it to a charity that could have kids actually using these things rather than having them take up closet space that could use better used. If anyone has a charity suggestion for ’em, here in the DC area, let me know.

I’m also thinking that it makes sense to go through my casette tape collection, write down the albums I’d like to duplicate, and get rid of those, too. I don’t have a tape player and I’m not inclined to go get one, so those can go away as well. It’s a big box. Anyone with a desire to take some Taiwanese pop music off my hands? 😉

I also need to get myself on eBay or Craig’s List and get rid of some more valuable things (vacuum cleaners, antique mixer, Tungsten|C, etc.). Inertia demands that I simply continue to store these things, but why keep them around, especially if I can make a buck or two off of them.

Doesn’t help that I’m a natural hoarder, from a family of natural hoarders. I don’t know how much parents cleaned out their house when they moved. Well, not true, I ended up with several things to “hold” for them when they moved, but there was So Much Stuff in that house that it just boggles the mind when I think about trying to clean it all out. I don’t want to get to that point. Or, rather, I want to draw back from that point, because I certainly have a ton of stuff here that isn’t needed. I’d hate to think what anyone having to clean the place out for me would think of all the crap I’ve kept over the years.

Part of the book culling is being able to get rid of two older, cheap wooden bookshelves that are in the bedroom and therefore are a potential egg laying spot for the bed bugs. Once the books are removed and thoroughly shaken out, the shelves will go down and go into the trash, thrown far enough in that they can’t be salvaged and possibly transmit any bugs. Plus that’ll help unclutter the bedroom a lot. And if I have less space to store books, perhaps I won’t buy as many (yeah, right – they’ll just stack up like they do beside my reading chair now).

Yup, it all comes back to the bugs.

So far, so good from the latest round of treatments; no bites since Wednesday. Well, none since Saturday/Sunday, actually, but none in the bedroom since I’ve been sleeping in there again since Wednesday. I have my fingers crossed, but I’m definitely not holding my breath at this point.

Work’s been busy as all hell, but so far it’s mainly been manageable. I went over my to-do list with da boss today and she seemed okay with my ordering of the priorities, so I’m plugging away at the list now. Should get through a good part of it soon, I hope, which leaves me time to get to some of my more long-term projects. Provided the usual emergencies don’t keep popping up as they always do.

No real plans for the weekend. Earrings I ordered waaaaaaay back a month or two ago came in, so I’ll be stretching my ears up a gauge or two on Sunday when my piercer’s back in the shop. Shouldn’t be too noticeable, it’s going from an 18ga to a 14ga, which isn’t that extreme. But I’d decided I wanted something a tad less delicate than I have in now.

Run planned for the morning (in the rain!), and perhaps a swim on Sunday. Been ages since I’ve been in the pool, but it should be dead Sunday morning, which is always a good thing – no lane sharing needed. The exercise habit’s slowly getting back to normal, which is a very, very good thing. I always feel better when I’m in the exercise groove, and heaven knows my mood’s needed a lift of late.

Better run this morning than Monday. Heart rate stayed more in line with the norm (though that’s too high, thank you sudafed, by which I mean thank you cats for causing such allergies that I need to take sudafed all the time now), and it felt better than Monday’s inaugural run.

Crazy days at work, with crazy questions left and right. Mostly staying above water now, but will be very happy to see the fiscal year close and the new one begin, even if Congress hasn’t gotten off their collective asses and given us a real budget yet. Off tomorrow for a dental appointment, one that was originally scheduled for last week but which had to be put off because I had to be at a meeting Thursday morning that was absolute BS and at which I really was not needed.

Saw K tonight, watched the OC and he was a good sport about me making fun of the characters (“C’mon, Marissa, eat a fucking sandwich!”). Gave him a massage afterward, which was fun for both of us. Was relaxing all around.

Richard arrived home from NYC this evening as well and he liked the new living room arrangement that Mike and I foisted off on the room over the weekend. We moved a couch around to the outside wall to open up the inner space, and cocked everything at a slight angle. It helps. And I also let Richard know this evening that despite my earlier considerations I did not want to get a new couch – I see little point in spending almost $900 on a new couch when we can spend much, much less to simply replace the mattress on the one futon frame that’s still in excellent shape (it just has a mattress that sucks gorilla butt).

Which I think was inspired by my current choice of reading, Affluenza (2nd edition). Definitely making me reconsider some of my choices, and some of my habits. Hopefully for the better.

Sitting around the apartment in a kilt with the AC going, even though it’s in the 60s outside, makes for one cold Moose.

Tonight was a chill-out night. Richard’s in NYC, Mike’s at work, K’s at a concert, the Imp’s at home, so was just me and the TiVo. Cleared out several shows, and just generally decided to do nothing. Was going to play with a template tonight, but wasn’t in the mood to have to hunt down the alterations I needed to make to make it look right. So just some chill-out time with the Teen Titans and the Justice League.

Chatted with a woman I work with who’s signed up for February’s AIDS Marathon training program. She did 5 miles this past weekend and was incredibly excited for having done it. It was really neat to see someone so excited about beginning an exercise program, especially at a time when I’m restarting mine, ever so slowly. I’m trying not to dive in too quickly, which is my usual wont, so I’m just running a couple times this week, with stretching on the “off” days. I know my system’s deconditioned a lot since the start of the bed bug mess back in August, so I’m just trying to get out and do some gentle runs to get back into the swing of things, and gradually add in the other two sports and weights as I feel ready to. No set plan yet, just trying to get back up to a comfortable level, then go from there, hence starting with my favorite event.

Work is in the usual end-of-the-fiscal-year madness season, but I’m doing better with it this year than I have previously. I’ve gotten a better handle on the legal issues involved, which makes these things much more fun to deal with, as well as making it easier to be a relatively calm voice in the middle of the storm. Which is a role that I much prefer to play over the scrambling attorney, trying to play catch-up and/or stay one ahead of the game. Is good to get some experience under ye olde belt.

Anyway, past time to crash here. Gotta try and get up to run tomorrow.