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

Small gay world. Just discovered multiple connections between friends old and new this evening while out at dinner with a friend. Mentioned his new roommate and it went all over from there. As I’ve said before, DC is a big city, but a small town.

Behaving tonight, despite multiple invites to go out. Did pop out to the aforementioned dinner because the friend wanted to look at bikes over on the Hill, but then biked back home to relax here and lay out stuff for the morning.

Work dumped us out about 2 hours early, after the usual rush of “OMG, this has to get done NOW, NOW, NOW!!!!!!!” stuff that always happens on the Friday before a holiday. Shocked folks by wearing jeans today (for maybe the 1/2 dozenth time in the 3+ years I’ve been there?). But got through the majority of the issues and I hope got folks settled and ready for their weekend. Even if I didn’t, da bosslady said to git, so I left.

Almost ready for the race next weekend. Have to email my parents with some last minute stuff to prep my niece, arrange for the rental car, and then I’m good to go. Should be fun.

The past couple weeks have just been entirely too much. Two flat tires last week, one on each bike. My neighbor across the hall, a sweet older gentleman, died of complications from his diabetes on Thursday. Started swimming again in anticipation of the sprint race I have in two weeks in Richmond, and for the 1/2 Ironman triathlon I’m doing in September. Went out a time or two for a birthday party, and taking a friend who needed to get out of his house, and just for the heck of it. Was up just before 4 this morning to run out to Columbia to be race support for my tri club for those folks racing the Columbia Triathlon today. Most definitely been burning the candle at both ends, in the middle, and everywhere else I could find a spot to light, or just melt off a bit.

I hope that the schedule will be calming down somewhat in the next few weeks, moreso since I’ve done much needed laundry and food shopping. Cooking anything more complex than zapping something in the microwave or popping it into the rice cooker or crock pot is going to be difficult as the season progresses, but I’ll make due. Simple meals are my friends in any case.

Despite how nuts this all sounds I’ve mostly been having a pretty good time. Work’s busy, but not overwhelmingly so. We’re in the process of hiring two new attorneys, one of whom is supposed to start learning some of my area of law so we have a backup for me. I’m prepping some training for the other attorneys in my office so they can better spot issues in my practice area and refer them appropriately. I finally reclaimed my living room from the dreaded futon, so it’s a bit more together (and roomba friendly). I have two dressers on the way for the bedroom, and a plan to pass off the last piece of my niece’s bedroom set to my parents when I see them in Richmond in two weeks. So stuff is relatively together, but definitely needs some smoothing at the edges.

A friend of mine is flying in from Australia today, for a week of work and playing tourist. He was supposed to be landing right about now at IAD (Dulles), but because of delays out of home port he’s now re-routed through DFW to DCA (National). Flying into DCA instead of the dreadful IAD is always a better thing, but now he’s going to be landing at quarter after midnight. Ugh. At least Metro is open at that hour, so now I’ll meet him and we’ll head into town rather than the embassy having to pick him up from IAD.

Alternative dinner plans have been secured in the meanwhile, so no sushi tonight as planned, but that can happen tomorrow just as easily.

Playing tourist tomorrow might be a trip; they’re predicting snow to begin here after midnight, somewhere in the nature of 1-3 inches, depending on the forecaster. Wasn’t expecting to turn the major Xian holidays on their heads, what with Easter being colder than this past Christmas (we don’t live in the Southern hemisphere, after all), but these things do happen on rare occasions I suppose. Hopefully it’ll keep all but the most dedicated tourists inside and off the streets.

Early start to the day. Up at 5:30 for a pre-dawn ride with the club. Did an hour, but got smoked early on. The mostly solo ride was good, nonetheless. Hains Point is very well lit, so was no trouble to be out there before the sun came up.

Got home, whipped up a meal for the crock pot, started the dish washer, got cleaned up, biked up to work.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it (and about ready to crash here at 8:30 – will just be up another hour, I think).

No smoke today from the neighbors. Hooray for small things. 😉 Dinner from the crock pot was wonderful. Hot food, no cooking in the evening. Perfect.

Getting rid of the old couch tomorrow evening, yay. Will try to run in the morning as well. Will be cooler than this morning, I think, but easier to run in that than bike.

After deciding I needed to keep myself out of the house as much as possible yesterday, I did just that. Wandered up to Dupont to get coffee (had used the last of it to caffeinate myself yesterday morning), and lunch at City Lights. Devoured two plates of steamed dumplings (was starving by that point), then off to Adams Morgan.

Popped into Skynear, looked at several pieces of furntire, and bought a couch.

Yeah, was just going to window shop, but said “screw it” and got the couch. I’d been eyeing it off and on for a couple of years now, so I screwed up the courage and ordered it. Will come in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got to rearrange funiture again.

Shopped a bit more, popped in to se a friend, then home. Tried to nap, didn’t work, so I hopped online. When I did, friends were setting up a dinner & a movie thing to see “300”, so I said sure, why not, and hopped out again. We met at a loud beer hall restaurant with a large selection of beers, a cousin to the Brickskeller here in DC. Several ciders with dinner (a very, very disappointing pasta – definitely a burger kinda place), then off to the movie, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I think they did a good job staying true to the roots of the story in the graphic novel in the way it was filmed. Very entertaining.

Then it was off to Remingtons for a couple more beers. Met several friends from gay.com, some of whom I’d not seen in years, some of whom I’d not met in person.  Headed home via Metro (15+ minute waits at each station), alone. Was fun, and social, and far, far too late to be out, as is witnessed by the cold sore this morning. All things in balance, and when you push too hard, too fast, you pay. I regret not an instant of it, it was far too much fun, and needed. Though I would prefer not to have the blemished lip, it, too, will fade, and balance will return.

Today… sucked. There’s no two ways about it. It just sucked.

From the moment I walked in the door I was in meetings or running crazy trying to pin things down for the budget office and didn’t get a break until 3:30-ish, at which point I ate a Clif Bar, and then got back to the craziness. Now, understand, I always eat lunch. Without fail. I have never skipped lunch in the three plus years I’ve worked at the Big Government Agency. I missed lunch today. Which sucked. Sucked Elephant Butte (aka a lake full of radioactive waste, as opposed to Elephant Butt, which is merely annoying).

So tonight I chatted online, I drank wine, and I still ate pretty much next to nothing. I couldn’t eat anything, I just wasn’t hungry. Stress + break-up diet (aka more stress) = no eating. Ugh.

Tomorrow better not be as bad. If it is, well, I’ll deal. And I know it’s temporary since we’re just now dealing with this year’s budget, a third of the way through the fiscal year, but it’s still annoying as all hell.

Got tired of picking up certain chocolate stapes of my diet piecemeal, so ordered a bunch online tonight. Is good to have regular snacks that are also good for you. And storable.

Ran through a bunch of ethics reports at work today. I don’t normally do ethics work, but it’s the sole rating factor for our office, so we’re all pitching in. Thankfully they weren’t onerous, I got a good batch, so all but one are done, out of about two dozen or so. Hopefully tomorrow the Senate will take up and pass their version of the year-long budget bill so we can get our funding by the time it runs out on Thursday under the current structure. I’d also kind of like to get the pay raise I’ve been approved to receive, too, which is dependent on the final appropriation. Wretched congressmonsters, do your freakin’ job.

Leg is still sore, so still no running/biking. This is getting more than a little irritating, especially since I have races in two months. Still have plenty of time to get prepped, but I get irritable when I can’t exercise, so there I am.

Somehow I doubt the huge winter storm they keep predicting is going to actually materialize. We’ll see, but regardless I’ll be at work.

Lovely spot of snow out there this morning. And unlike the last batch, when it was melting minutes after finishing falling, this stuff will be sticking around a few days, if the weather report is any indication. Pretty.

I think the tummy woes are a combo of the meds I got for my ear (two more days…) and my usual glass of wine with dinner. No warning on the bottle, but a couple sites warned against that combo, and I think I know why now. So, will lay off the grape for a bit until the meds are out of my system and hope that calms it all down. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy not going to work today in the snow.

Played more with live365.com’s streaming through the TiVo and discovered a streaming Mandarin pop channel. C-pop at its best. Not quite as fun as Bossa Nova Breakfast (my current fave evening channel), but it’s fun this far. Had forgotten what a guilty pleasure C-pop can be, as I don’t have much of it on my iPod (most of what I bought in music waaaaay back in 1992-1993 when I lived in Taiwan is on cassette tapes, not CD). Pure sugar-pop for the most part, with little to no redeeming musical value. Think Spice Girls, and soften that. And they randomly throw in English phrases (my fave is when the old band Beyond would throw in a gratuitous “Go to hell!” in the middle of one of their songs). Fun stuff, but not something I’d inflict on friends unless I were feeling cruel.

I love this description of cheese:

{the scene: some goblins are in a dungeon, having just raided food from above, and are looking over what they’ve found, including some cheese}

Goblin1: What the hell is this stuff made of?
Goblin2: Well, humans live around a lot of cows…
Goblin3: Cows?
Goblin4: Large, Fleshy beasts that eat grass.

Goblin 2: The squeeze the creature’s milk out of large, dangling nipples next to its groin. Then they let the lactation go rotten until it hardens and… and…

Goblin1: [general look of horror]

Yeah, I’d say that about sums it up.

The wind is literally howling outside my windows. Every few minutes it picks up and sounds like animals screaming outside. Spooky.

Was a triathlon weekend. The regional meeting for our region of USAT was held on Saturday. They hand out prize money based on the highest attendance, so went to help bolster the club’s chances (we won). Last year we plowed that back into the newbie program, and there’s a good chance it’ll happen this year as well. Yay for that. Then today I edited docs for the program and sent some along to the other leaders. Hopefully we’ll be all set for next Saturday’s info meeting for this year’s program. Also picked up some more winter/cooler weather gear (hooray for sales).

This past week was absolute hell at work. We had drafting assistance requests for hill staffers out the wazoo, and they’re still not done on action to complete our funding. I think the plan is that the House takes it up on Wednesday, then the Senate does next week. Which is a mess because the President’s budget for the following year gets released a week from tomorrow. Oh, and we were still negotiating bits of that as well. Oy! I look forward to the moment when next year’s is out and this year’s finally gets finalized. Of course, then we’ll start the hearings on next year’s but that’ll be a change of pace from where we’ve been.

Made a mess ‘o chili tonight so I have lunches this week. My usual cheap haunt on site has closed down for the next 2.5 months for renovations, and the other places just give you too darned much food, so looks like it’s time to get on the ball and carry stuff in again. Was good chili, so should be great tomorrow.