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

It’s strange when your body decides not to do what you normally expect it to do. I had a bout with a lovely little thing called Bell’s palsy back in February. Had a head cold, spent a weekend feeling like I had the mother of all ear infections, then on Monday my face decided to stop working quite like it should. I was lucky, it was a very mild case. My eye didn’t want to close correctly, and the side of my mouth didn’t turn when I smiled (I smirked a lot). Couldn’t whistle. And then, in the middle of it all, we went on vacation to Disney. It’s not comfortable when you are someplace, taking lots of pictures, and you can’t smile correctly.

A couple weeks later it was done & gone, almost as quickly as it appeared. Every little smidgeon of pain near that ear starts me worrying, but it’s worrying over nothing. The body repairs itself well, when it can. Thankfully.

While I enjoyed seeing our guests over the weekend, I was also very glad to send them on their way back home this morning. Living with two other people in your apartment, which already feels cramped as it is, even when those two people are related to you, is draining as all fuck. Didn’t help when the 3.5 y/o would get cranky because her uncles wouldn’t put up with as much of her shit as her mother would.

Did get a little bit of sun out in a paddle boat in the Tidal Basin. That was fun, and it showed that the case of runner’s knee I developed back in March/April is finally well on the way to being healed (the boy and I were the paddlers). I’ve been taking it very easy the past few weeks, canceling this race season and letting the knee heal properly. Didn’t want to repeat 2008’s year of the plantar fasciitis goof but continuing to re-injure the knee again and again. While it’s definitely better, I’m still going to take this entire month off from swimming and running. I haven’t tried cycling yet, but I will do so soon on a trainer in the living room, to see how that does. In the meantime I’m doing weights and core strengthening to give myself a good base to come back to when I do start back up with tri training. It’s been annoying as all hell, and my hips are incredibly sore from the strengthening, but the knee’s healing, and that’s the important part.

Surprising the boy with a slow cooker batch of meatballs tomorrow. He’s been at a work retreat the past two nights and gets back tomorrow, and will do so to an apartment that will smell fabulous.

I’m still irritated at myself, with regard to my last post on countfour. And I’m finding it difficult to blog as well. It’s an election year in DC, I can’t really talk about work or politics (yay Hatch act!), and it seems crazier than normal (in no small matter because of the proliferation of political ads, since Virginia is in play this year). I did finally get new orthotics for running, after some drama with the PT shop (the first set was too wide/tall & had to be shaved down to fit; PT guy was clearly not happy when I brought them in for refitting, but we got it resolved). So now I can run again, and have been starting to get back to that.

We’ve put in a request for a proposal for a wedding venue. Like the place, options seem good, then it’s just picking a date. Oy. The only date we know we want/have to work around is July 6, which is next year’s Total 200 ride, which the boy has said he wants to do next year, and I’m game to ride with him.

1. I’m fat (by which I mean I’m well overweight, not that I’m fatally obese).
2. I don’t like what my body looks like, naked.
3. The state of my body and health embarrasses me.
4. Being overweight affects my self-confidence in all aspects of my life.
5. I do not have self-control over junk food.
6. My body is not forgiving, so my diet needs to be exemplary.
7. I’m an emotional eater.
8. When I don’t plan my eating, I don’t eat well.
9. I spend too much energy trying to find a perfect, total solution to these problems, rather than focusing on small, incremental changes.
10. I get angry when small setbacks occur.
11. I give in to the negative talk in my head.
12. I obsess over my flaws.
13. These things hold me back from being the person I want to be.

The “bug” isn’t a bug, it’s just an ulcer. Caused by/exacerbated by stress. So the doc recommended a vacation. It took a lot of effort not to laugh. That definitely isn’t happening any time soon, unfortunately.

Work has been spastic all this past week. Shutdown mania hit, and while we may avoid that for a bit longer with the latest 2 week proposal, it’s been a tense time for most folks. I can survive one without too much pain if I cut back on things, but hopefully it won’t get to that. In the meantime, we’re getting a lot of planning done, and that’ll serve us well for the next one of these things. Which will come with the next big fight, over the debt limit.

The only thing that’s really held up personally is the septoplasty, which I’ve not yet scheduled. Understandably, I think. So it’ll wait until after the shutdown drama is done, until August with the break in the race schedule, or until after race season is over.

Hmph. I seem to have picked up another bug of some sort. This one just seems to be content with giving me a lovely sore throat. But only on the right side of my throat. No fever, no aches, just the one-sided sore throat. Most bizarre thing I’ve ever had. Went to urgent care on Saturday to see if it were strep, and I think I’m rapidly converting to the view that they’re practically useless, because both times I’ve tried them I’ve ended up going to see my primary care doc later anyway. Meh. Oh, and the quickie strep test came back negative. Ugh.

Other than that (which makes eating and talking loads of fun, let me tell you), work is slowly getting spun up with the possibility of a shut down after the current continuing resolution expires next Friday, the 4th. Both parties are playing chicken and government workers are stuck in the middle. You know, make some decisions, fund the damned government, be those levels up, down, or the status quo, but just fund us and let us do what we’re supposed to be doing – we’ll manage if you just give us some direction and let us run with it. The last time they did this back in 95/96 when large numbers of feds were furloughed Congress passed bills giving back pay to the workers sent home, but I just don’t see that happening this time around. Not a fun time, especially being the lead lawyer on fiscal issues. Oh, and bonus, it’s highly unlikely I’d be named as “essential personnel” so I wouldn’t be working or getting paid, either, if we shut down. Joy.

And all this is just a precursor to the fight over the debt ceiling later this winter/early this spring. That’s when the shit really hits the fan because even if an agency has multi-year or no-year funds and can keep operating without new money, the Treasury won’t be able to warrant out any funds to make payments, so it’s likely that at that point everyone will get shut down, period. No money to make tax refunds, to pay social security, make Medicare payments, etc. That’s when we’ll really see the shit hit the fan.

So, yeah, stress city right now. Can this winter be over yet?

Such a little phrase: “severely deviated septum”. Nice. Evidently that’s contributing to the sinus things I’ve had for, well, forever and a day, according to my ENT. So she recommended a septoplasty to straighten it up, open up the passages, and allow things to drain properly. As well as a change in allergy meds to take me to one pill a day rather than 2-3. It’s an outpatient thing, takes 60-90 minutes, general anesthesia, ~5 days recovery time, do it on a Thursday, back to work Monday.

I’m going to do it, as soon as I can, after I arrange things at work, and get a friend or two to help take me home & make sure I’m okay that afternoon/evening.

Not particularly thrilled about the idea of surgery, but if it means not waking up with a nose full of snot, I’m down with it.

In other news, I’m an inch or two short of the end of the second sock I’m working on. Signed up for a sweater class next month, which I’m looking forward to both for training in how to do color work (the pattern I picked alternates stripes) and in doing things like arm holes and the like. Should be fun to learn the new skills, and will be interesting doing something other than self-taught stuff.

Tired today – was a little wired last night because of the appointment, then was fairly miserable for the first half of the day because of the numbing agent the ENT used so she could run a camera up my nose. Stuff tasted awful, then took hours to wear off. Blech.

Ooh, and I finally met my neighbor’s housekeeper yesterday morning and agreed to a cleaning schedule. She starts Wednesday and I am so, so, so looking forward to that. Well worth the money to have a clean bathroom/kitchen again, I think. We’ll see Wednesday night, but I’m psyched.

Coming down off stimulants is obnoxious. Last PA-provided pill was this morning, hoping the crap works out of my system quickly.

Been trying to dig up more stuff on stability training for my newbies. I’m late, thanks to the brain drain of the last month, but finding some good stuff to share with them now. Also starting to make more use of the USA Triathlon web site, which is actually pretty darned useful. I’d skimmed it before, but never really dug into the articles. And since I’m going to be partially signing my life away to them after April, I figured I should get more familiar with the site.

Half the fun of digging up exercises is trying them out myself. I predict I’m going to be somewhat sore in the morning, but it’s worth it.

In knitting news I finished the heel and started the leg on the 2nd dreidel sock. It’s knitting up nicely, and I look forward to finishing up the pair. On the sweater, I’m going to have to frog it. I thought the gauge would be close enough, but it’s not even remotely close (too tight/small). Crap. So I bought the next couple sized needles up last night and I’ll do a proper gauge swatch this time to get it matched up. Annoying, but a learning experience.

Got some much needed cleaning done today, after giving an impromptu tour of the apartment & complex to a co-worker who is looking in the area. She and I had chatted Friday about the neighborhood, and then I ran into her on the street this afternoon while heading home from brunch so I invited her in to see the place. Was a tad embarrassing that I’d let it get so dirty, but hell, I’ve been sick for three weeks, I think I get a pass there.

Does mean I’ll try & call the cleaning person my neighbor recommended, though. I just don’t keep up with this enough, and I have to say I miss having someone else clean up every other week.

Brunch was fun. No mimosas, of course – still have antibiotics in my system and am not going to mess with that. Next week maybe? Very, very tired of being sick now. It’s just a minor lingering thing now, but still, enough already. Plus, would be nice to have it gone before I go see the ENT a week from tomorrow. Not that inflammation isn’t expected, but just the normal stuff, please, and not the cold on top of it.

Set up the exercise bike in the living room again, hoping to get in a ride, no matter how short, in the morning. Several weeks of inactivity have taken their toll and I’m ready to try and start up again.

Definitely feeling much better today. Mood improved, a tad more energy, though still not up for real exercise yet (and I feel like an absolute slug from the lack of exercise. Ugh). But it’s getting there, which is the important part.

Got kicked out of work even before the early dismissal time we got because of the storm here in DC. About half an hour before my 2 hour point da boss called and told us to get the heck outta dodge because the snow was worsening and traffic was starting to turn into a real clusterfuck. I managed to catch a bus, so rode home rather than walking (I was prepared to walk – duck boots and all – but glad for the ride). Traffic was definitely horked, but our driver was pushy and got us through without too much delay. Seeing the news reports from lots of friends without power tonight I am very, very glad I bought close to downtown where the power lines are all buried. And if I do ever buy in an area where the lines aren’t buried, the place had better have a working fireplace and room to stack some wood.

Our newbie program is coming together now, and I think it’s going to be a good one this year, certainly better than last year’s (which I think we let slip some, to be honest). Now that I’ve finally gotten more brain power back I’m putting together some of the training materials to supplement our plan, and liking how it’s coming together. Oh, and I got registered for the USAT coaching class in April, so I’ll be going out for coaching certification then. Not sure how long it’ll take once I take the course and turn in my test to get the results back, but I’m hopeful I’ll get certified and then we’ll have a coach for the newbies finally, like we’ve been adding coaches for the more “advanced” programs we’ve started.