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

As he likes to do, the husband wanted to escape to the movies this afternoon, so we went to see Digger. I really enjoyed it, I don’t want to spoil anything about it yet, but I will note that I particularly enjoyed how any scene with a politician in it was completely washed out, color-wise – pale, drab, dull. Thought that was a fun note.

Grocery shopping afterwards, which was good for him to pick up some stuff for work. I normally do the shopping solo, so he doesn’t get to grab stuff he needs unless he specifically asks me to get it.

Wet day today as the remnants of the hurricane work through the area. Living room is a tad warm without the AC running, but I’m not about to let all the humidity in. Just running fans in the meantime, and waiting for the HVAC appointment, which is now confirmed for first thing tomorrow morning.

The husband needed to go clothes shopping, so after hitting the barbershop for cuts it was off to the big outlet mall up near Baltimore. He did very well with sales, and while I wasn’t intended to get anything I found two pair of casual, non-denim pants. Not bad.

Eating has been off today, at odd times because of the barber visit and the shopping. Debating what, if anything, to eat this evening while the husband takes care of the weekly laundry.

Our downstairs HVAC isn’t cooling as of a day and a half ago. Tech service has been called and after talking to a couple different people they’re sending someone out on Monday to look at it, thereby avoiding the emergency service call they wanted to send someone out today. It’s definitely not an emergency, but we do want it addressed before we go into heating season.

Rearranged some of the legos to make room for the new sets. The husband also went through some of our older, unopened sets that we are not likely to build and is listing those for sale, with the proceeds going into a home repairs account for things like the HVAC system. Timely, that.

Called my dad for his birthday today and we talked for a whopping six minutes. The man is not taking care of himself physically, nor is he using his hearing aids consistently, and you can tell the cognitive decline is well underway. Let this be a lesson, folks, there is a well-documented connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline, and I can attest that it’s a real thing. I feel sad for mom and my brother and his family who are there and have to watch it in real time. Yet another reason why I exercise, because I’m not interested in that being how I go through my 80s, assuming I make it there.

Up way too early this morning. Been a rough week for my gut, which has not helped my sleep. FODMAPs hate me, and I haven’t been able to eat at home where I can better control the food as much as I should.

I make it a habit to flip off the statute of the 40th President of the US every time I pass National Airport on the Metro (twice daily on work days). While I’ve found most presidents are a mixed bag, I have a particular dislike of that one because of his inaction on HIV and what it did to wipe out the generations of gay men right before mine.

The husband thanked me this week for insisting that we not look at any properties which were anywhere near a flood zone of any kind on the FEMA flood insurance maps, after one of his coworkers complained he was going to have to completely redo his finished basement in the house he’d just moved into 11 days prior.

Work has asked me to write up my second memo in six months on constitutional issues facing our agency for the folks at Justice to weigh in on. On the one hand, hey, they like me and like my writing. On the other hand, no pressure, it’s just the future of the agency and how it operates. Eeck.

Because of the lack of sleep my personal reading has been light – rereading the Cradle series by Will Wight, which is fun, but by no means a heavy intellectual lift. Thank you, Kindle unlimited.

The husband and his sister are bungee jumping off a bridge this afternoon. Her daughter and I will watch and make fun of the screaming. All good.

Odd because of the holiday, and the heat. It’s forecast to be in the low 100s F (38-40C) here around DC, and combing that and (for Federal workers) the observed holiday today, my boss told us all to telework yesterday. Meant I had to do some cleaning of my desk at home to relocate stuff that had accumulated on it. I am my parents’ child – if there’s a surface, stuff gets put on it, at least in my office; I’m better about the rest of the house because the husband won’t put up with out there. Yesterday was also odd because the local power company reached into our thermostat and set the temperature up 4 degrees, as they do from time to time to avoid brownouts, and in exchange for slightly better electricity rates. Normally those will go for 2-3 hours, typically 4pm to 6pm, but yesterday it ran from sometime in the afternoon all the way to 10pm. And they never sent a notice that they were doing it, even after the fact. Annoying,.

We laid low yesterday, but braved the heat today. Out to an Uno’s Pizzeria for a treat, hit Target for some toiletries (and a clay garden gnome on clearance for the back yard), Barnes & Noble to pick up the third book in a trilogy I’ve really enjoyed (Rebel Blade by Davinia Evans). Hit a theater on the way home to see the new Minions movie, which was cute. It was more an opportunity to do something outside that house that wasn’t impossibly hot than anything else. Remembered to put some internal window covers on the sunroof of our Mini so it wouldn’t get quite so hot inside the car. Also remembered to put bags over the (black) front seats where they’d get sunlight while parked so we didn’t fry our legs when we got back. Makes me ever so glad we bought a townhouse with a garage – that always makes the initial temperature setting easier when taking off from home.

Have a potluck on Sunday with the neighbors but haven’t decided what we want to make yet. Looking forward to meeting more folks in person.

It’s (still) a U.S. Federal holiday today (Juneteenth), and the husband and I have taken advantage. I did my morning workout, then we headed out to the movies to see Masters of the Universe again, mainly so we could get out of our housekeeper’s hair while she cleaned. Then on a lark we hit IKEA to see about new shelves for my office. Picked some out, but didn’t buy because we needed to figure out what to do with the current shelving and cat tree that are in here now.

Came home, and went ahead and rearranged the current shelving (it’s a set of four modular blocks that stack on top of each other – an expensive impulse purchase pre-husband that I’m trying not to get rid of). They fit within the office in some spaces we thought they might, so I went ahead and moved them. Still trying to figure out what to do with some of the stuff that was on them (much of which desperately needs to be put away out of sight somewhere). This has annoyed my male cat because his spot was in the very bottom cube where we kept a heated bed for him. The bed moved with the cube, about 4-5 feet over, but of course he keeps looking for it in the old spot (in his defense, it’s been there for six years, or almost half his life). But hey, now the stuff that used to live on top of the printer is elsewhere so I don’t have to unbury it every month or two when we have to print something. Only thing that truly doesn’t have a home yet is a vacuum cleaner we kept on this floor in my office for the occasional minor mess (because who wants to walk down two floors to get one?).

And somehow now it’s 5:30ish and I am spent.

I always build in a buffer after some time off, especially if it involves travel. There’s always something that needs to get done afterward, like laundry, grocery shopping, etc. This trip was no different. The day after the anniversary trip we had the ground floor of the townhouse power washed, and had our handyman over to finish fixing the owner’s suite bathroom ceiling and wall.* And, naturally, laundry and grocery shopping.

The trip itself was wonderful. While the forecast called for constant rain, that didn’t materialize. There was a lot of rain, but it generally held off to mid-morning, allowing me to get in some morning walks. Only one day did it impinge on the front porch with some wind creating a small lake there. Otherwise was perfect, and I got four and a half books read.

Went into the office Friday for a day of email catch up while it was still the holiday week. Mostly caught up and I know the projects I’ll have to get to this upcoming week. Not that it’s going to be a full week – I’m taking tomorrow off for a doctor’s appointment, and Thursday to see the new Masters of the Universe film with the husband. He’s a HUGE fan, as is his sister – they have matching tattoos of He-Man’s and She-Ra’s swords. So the movie is a big deal, hence the day off.

* Some time last year a bird got into a vent on the front of our townhouse. Called a trapping company, they confirmed there was evidence a bird had gotten in, was no longer there, and they put a new vent cover on. Around the same time we had some water damage on the wall toward where the vent was. I had surmised that the bird had broken the duct when it got in and we were pumping moist air into the wall when we ran the exhaust fan. Finally got someone in to fix the duct, they put a hole in the ceiling to get at it and discovered … there was no duct. As in, the vent cover didn’t connect to anything. Apparently on the other models that’s where the clothes dryer vents out, but on ours the dryer vents to the back. The builder put the hole and cover in the wall for the vent, but didn’t connect it to anything. The exhaust fan piping goes up to the roof. Oy. The water damage was from something else, but wasn’t anything active, just a coincidence with the bird intrusion. Hence the need to get the ceiling patched and painted and the water damage cleaned up and painted.

Puttering around the house this morning, doing all sorts of little maintenance things. Watering the new grass-and-clover mix in the back yard, brushing a cat, refilling the dish soap dispenser. The foaming hand soap dispenser in the kitchen is starting to run low so I looked online to remind myself what the ratio of soap-to-water is (1 part soap to 5 parts water). In doing so I discovered that the designers made it easy for you – fill the clear part at the bottom with soap, then fill the rest to the ‘max fill’ line under the metal portion with water and voila – just the right ratio without needing an external measure. I love little details like that, where designers work with the product to make it easier to use and aesthetically pleasing.

The husband is off with his sister for their annual remembrance of their mother, who died of COVID this weekend in the first wave back in 2020. So I’m on my own, and taking a quiet weekend of it. Catching up on comics – I had a month plus backlog that I’m about halfway through as of this morning. Not helping has been a sore throat that popped up yesterday with a mild fever. Still sore this morning, but no fever. Bodies are such fun.

Did manage to solve a longstanding eyesore of cables and needed accessories by the TV yesterday, relocating and hiding them all inside the entertainment center. This has long been an issue, and was one of the first things you saw when you came around the corner and saw the TV setup. Now, no more loose wires and doodads hanging out, and all the peripherals that needed them are working. Yay!

Got chosen as the president of my HOA. Oh joy. It was something of a game of hot potato, with the three (of three total) board members trying to be nice and defer to each other, but effectively passing the baton around and around before I said yes.

The pressing issues of the day are parking, lighting, and rats. The Facey-B group for the HOA has the torches and pitchforks out for a business in the boundaries of the HOA that has some (if the photos are to be believed) pretty serious rat problems at their foundation. No indication that they’re inside, but the business isn’t doing anything to control them outside, either. City Code Enforcement has been out to inspect and warn the owner to get on it. The owner, however, claims to be an attorney and is threatening slander and libel lawsuits. Which is why we’re going to let the city go at it. In the meantime, the HOA itself does not control the Facey-B group, thankfully, so there’s no there there for a suit. D-R-A-M-A.

Thankfully our newish management company is much more on top of these things than the last one, so the manager has things well in hand with addressing what we can address (calling the city, having the HOA pest people out to handle our stuff).

London was lovely. Didn’t quite sleep on the plane. Rested with my eyes closed (under a mask, with ear plugs in), but didn’t really sleep. Not for lack of trying. Got in easily. Took a very expensive taxi ride to the hotel (we would not have been in a position to figure out the tube right then, though we used it a lot aside from that), got settled, then took off to wander the city. So much walking, which I loved. I miss that from living in SW DC.

Saw most of the main touristy stuff with the husband before he had to do his work stuff. On the days when I was solo I had a massive headache (migraine?), but managed to hit a couple of museums on my own. Did not realize that folks dine there at later hours than we tend to in the states. Several times I was the first person in a restaurant before it filled up completely, because I hit them too early.

When we left, it had snowed just a day or two before, though it melted before noon. We still had large piles of snow left from the previous big snow storm. London was a delightful early spring (mid-50s-F/low teens-C), with daffodils and cherry blossoms going everywhere, and very lush grass. Then we came back to late spring temperatures (it got up to 86F/30C here today). And now we’re leaving tomorrow for what we consider summer weather in deep southern Texas, aka North Mexico, where it’s going to get up to 97F/36C on Sunday. Cultural and weather whiplash, for sure.

Worked for one day yesterday, catching up on email and what not, and now I’m off until next Friday. Unfortunately the time off when we’re back will be spent getting the shelving in our owner’s suite closet fixed because one of them collapsed after we got back from London. Ah well.