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

The computer arrived and is now all set up. Oh, I need to back up.

Ordered a new MacBook last week. The iBook was completely out of memory, and things were running noticeably slower as newer protocols came out, so it was time to move up. A late birthday present to myself.

Anyway, so it arrived yesterday, and after much gnashing of teeth and scrambling to find an extra ethernet cable, all of my settings and files transferred over and everything is all well and good and nice. The screen is wider than the 14″ iBook, at least in appearance (the screen resolution is better, 1280×800 versus 1024×768), even though it’s a smaller screen (13″). It feels more “widescreen” than the iBook did, and I’ve had fun stretching the winders out to match the edges.

The thing that has surprised me the most about the move over was that it moved all of my programs over as well – not just the user data associated with them. So I did not have to go buy a new copy of MS Office, I didn’t have to redownload all of the chat programs, though I have had to upgrade some of the programs as I’ve run across them because this is on the newer Mac OS (10.5), and it’s intel chips versus powerpc chips.

Enough of that for now.

Work was, wow. Had a meeting with another BGA where, after much invoking of the names of senior officials of the other BGA, we got ourselves to where we needed to be (namely, getting the fucking money out of their little paws – hence my involvement). It was fun to get over to a different BGA, see their security procedures, etc. The building reminded me of my co-op, lots of aluminium and glass, very mid-century. Fun stuff.

Then, another agency was getting snippy with us over some policy calls, so I ended up hunting down crap for the political head of our office to go over and give them the smack down. That actually started before I even left home, and I ended up stopping in with our budget office and telling them I didn’t care what a budget analyst at the other agency thought about our legal authorities, and that we weren’t going to play telephone if her counsel’s office had a problem they needed to contact us directly. Which was partially aimed at my own budget office, because they have a ton of new hires, and we might as well set them straight from the beginning, otherwise my head deputy will jump down their throat the first time one of them dares to utter (or even worse, repeat) a legal opinion from a non-lawyer (he’s really touchy about our office’s prerogative there – I’ve seen him summarily dismiss opinions from non-lawyer peons from other agencies and ban them from future meetings, and he gets his way there. Yowch).

So, was running around like mad on those and a couple of other things, which was both fun and exhausting. I like it when we’re that busy, it’s so much more engaging and satisfying.

Overdid the walking a bit today, wandering in old town over in Alexandria, so the heel’s a bit sore this evening. Overall the heel seems to be doing a little better these days, but I’ve been staying off of it, too, which I’m sure helps.

Pain aside, I managed to pick up some needed yarn (for baby stuff) and some needles (for another project for which the yarn arrived yesterday) at a different LYS down there. Finished a couple more rows on the right fingerless glove while on and waiting for Metro today as well. Otherwise I didn’t do much else as far as knitting, or a whole hell of a lot of other things, either. Did get to hang out with a couple friends over the course of it, and generally enjoyed a mostly unscripted weekend.

This past weekend sucked. I finally got productive around Sunday afternoon when I had a cleaning/laundry fit, but prior to that it was a lot of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, avoiding walking, and playing on the Wii. My usual “leave me alone until I feel better” attitude gets compounded when it’s semi-painful to walk as well; doesn’t encourage me to leave the house for a lot when it can potentially hurt to do so.

Did get out Sunday morning to use a gift certificate my newbies had given me at the end of their tri program, picked up some cross-training implements to help with that process. Was a good excuse to get out of the house, but even the walk to and from Metro ended up making my heel sore.

Then, today, not a ton of pain. Wandering around the office was fine, no real pain. The bike ride there and back was fine, of course (biking hasn’t irritated it at all, thankfully). So bizarre, pain the one day at minor stuff, none the next at a more normal course. Wish it would just heal up already, this is long past the point where it got old.

Never schedule a podiatrist appointment on your birthday.

He poked some at the foot. It’s a good sign that there’s no sharp pains, just dull ones that fluctuate. That said, it could be another 2-3 months before I’m fully healed. Ugh.

Got my (expired today) drivers license renewed for another eight years. Good new pic.

My local yarn shop had: a) a sale; b) a full selection of Addi turbos; and b) guy-colored hand-dyed merinos. Heaven.

Dropped off 2/3 of my shirts at the dry cleaners.

After the poking of the heel to determine the level of pain, it started to really, really throb, so the dry cleaners were by bike, and the yarn shop was by car. Otherwise I stayed in and rested the foot.

This past year was not what I thought it was going to be. Between the breakup and the foot injury pretty much nothing that I’d planned has gone right. But, as Dad likes to say, “You drive ’em, you ding ’em.” Or, to quote the Princess Bride, “Life is pain, Highness; anyone who says otherwise is selling something.” I’ll recover, eventually. But for now, I’m just biding my time. And enjoying a nice, quite birthday.

I cannot help but think the four men sitting in front of Congress today were quite full of shit. All of this while the Congress still hasn’t even funded the federal government for the next fiscal year, and can’t seem to decide on how they’re going to temporarily fund us, and for how long. This is, as I’ve often said, no way to run a government.

Long, busy day at work doing things I can’t talk about. Whee. I’ll mention the old adage about not wanting to see laws or sausages being made and leave it at that. And it’s going to start early tomorrow, too. Whee.

Got to see Dean, Richard and Gene for dinner this evening, which was quite nice. I find myself almost wishing for Metro rides across town as it gives me time to sit/stand and knit. I think I got a good 1/2 inch to an inch done on the hat I’m working on now. The downside is that my foot’s now sore again after walking around.

Tomorrow evening should be nice and quiet, with more needed straightening to do, but otherwise nothing is on the schedule, and I’m looking forward to that.

Caught up on bills today, and worked through a backlog of mail and magazines (mostly by just tossing the unread magazines since it was highly unlikely I’d actually read the back issues now). Cleaned some in the process, clearing off the couch and the dining table for the first time in a while. Unboxed the new oven and microwave, in hopes the maintenance folks will be able to get to them this week or next (and in any case they look better without the huge boxes around them now), provided we can connect on the phone soon. And actually did some work (for the BGA) today as well.

Otherwise the day was pretty blue for me. Today was the Nation’s Triathlon, which was to be my last race this season, and what I hoped would be the capping race to what started out as a pretty good darned season. As it was, I couldn’t even bring myself to go down to watch it, or do any of the club events surrounding the event. The fact that I can’t run has weighed very heavily on me this year, and it’s not been pretty, nor very easy to deal with. I miss it, a lot. I didn’t realize how much it affected my entire being to be able to get out and just run. The fact that the lack of running has been the fault of fairly consistent pain in my right foot (which just brings the fact to the fore on a daily basis) contributes to this, I’m sure.

The foot’s actually been more sore, which the aftercare guidelines says is normal for the first couple of weeks after the zapping. Hopefully it’ll get better as I get closer to the follow-up appointment on the 3rd, I’m really getting tired of having pain when I get up in the morning and take that first step (or if I end up walking a bit too much during the day, which is pretty much every day for me).

Anyway, what will happen will happen, and I’ll keep working with the podiatrist until the foot’s back to normal, but in the meantime I’m not much motivated for tri stuff.

Oh, and I finally withdrew formally from the IM race in November, too, so I can get the minimal refund they’ll send for it. Much sadness there, I really wanted to finally do one of those and I thought this was going to be the year for it. Guess not.

Well, the foot is doing better. The ankle finally went down, and stopped being sore. The bottom of the foot hasn’t really been sore, though I had a twinge this morning after not wearing the night brace last night.

Work has started to pick up now that we’re fully into the last month of the federal fiscal year. It’s going to be nuts until early to mid-October, but that’s the norm for me. We’re doing drafting assistance like crazy for the CR that’s coming up in October. Still not sure how long the thing will be for, probably at least 3 months, but it depends on when and if Congress wants to come back for a lame duck session to pass real appropriation bills or just fund the gubmint through to after the inauguration. This is no way to run a government, but it’s what we’ve got.

I’ll write up the last bit of the trip to SF this weekend, promise, but first a foot update.

Got myself zapped yesterday afternoon at my podiatrist’s office. The worst part of the whole procedure was getting anesthetized by the doc, since he had to jab a needle in either side of my ankle to get to the nerves there and numb the bottom of the foot completely without affecting the rest of the foot. The inside took a while, where he found the outside right as he stuck the needle in. Regardless, I was pretty sore today from the jabbing around inside. I was especially annoyed at the “this should last for about an hour” when I was still mostly numb at midnight when I finally went to bed. Was back to normal this morning, aside from being very, very sore around the ankle.

The zapping itself was easy, I just sat there (and knitted) while the machine send sound waves into my foot, and the technician made sure my foot stayed in place for it. Not exactly exciting, which was fine by me.

Was slow going this morning, and I actually ended up leaving work a bit early today as well. Got a little nauseous, and had a nasty headache. Couldn’t take anything for the headache because the aftercare says no anti-inflammatories for the next month if they can be avoided. Part of the ESWT is to induce inflammation so the body will heal the foot, so negating that would be bad. So I left early and came home to do laundry. Well, came home after I got a replacement iPhone for the one I dropped while in SF and cracked the screen on. But that’s for the next update.

Well, I now have the dubious distinction of being the only person in my immediate family who has not had cancer. My brother had a spot removed from his back last week and got the news that it’s a melanoma. So he’s off to a surgeon soon to make sure they carved it all out. Luckily my father and his aunt have both had it and both survived (and are still alive now), so there’s a better than normal chance that my brother will also.

So I finally made a much-needed appointment to get a spot checked out on my face, as well as doing a full body check for spots on myself. Debating going back down home to my old (i.e., high school era) dermatologist, though – I really don’t care much for the guy I have here in DC, and none of the other choices I’ve seen/heard of sound much better. The guy from home was odd, but personable and accessible. And my brother tells me he takes my insurance, so it wouldn’t be a particular hardship to head down there (aside from the drive).

In other, better news, I spoke with one of my colleagues at work about post-employment ethics restrictions, and it sounds like I’m actually pretty well off vis-a-vis the post-employment restrictions, should I choose to leave the BGA. Have lunch tomorrow with a co-worker to chat about her experiences working on the Hill and in the private sector. Started updating my resume this afternoon (yuck!). This promises to be an interesting few months.

I’m bored shitless at my job. There, I’ve said it. I’m not sure what to do about it, either. If I want to stay with the Feds I could jump over to OMB, but frankly I think that would simply be more of the same, with more work, the same pay, more stress and a longer commute. Not exactly an appetizing picture, ya know? The one saving grace of doing what I do where I do now is that there are some boutique sections in several firms in town who might be interested in me. Provided I can get the proper ethics clearance to do that.

But would I want to move to the private sector? I’d certainly be much more mobile there, not necessarily tied to a particular firm, or even to DC itself if I wished to move. There’s something to be said for that.

I actually took a mental health day today. Couldn’t rouse myself this morning, and the thought of going into work was absolutely demotivating. I’m nowhere near where I was in terms of dislike as I was at the last BGA, but I just did not want to go in today, so I didn’t.

I think it’s time to start exploring my options, talking with friends who know a bit more about the market & what various options might entail. Can’t go forward if I don’t know which paths are open to me now. I’m worried that my particular specialty will limit those options, but hopefully there are more creative uses for it than I’m coming up with off the top of my head.

Until then, it’s going to be a challenge to push forward at the current BGA unless I can disengage a bit from it all. Which bugs the fuck out of me – I don’t like thinking that I’m not giving it my all. It’s anathema to working for me. But I’m unclear as to how to proceed.