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

The first weekend of spring was absolutely glorious here in DC. Despite my normal thing that Sundays are supposed to be my one, true “rest” day from exercise during the week I managed to bike across town and back twice, and over to the Hill once. Grabbed brunch with friends this morning up in Dupont, stretched it to an almost two hour affair, until the sun came round the building and started to hit us. The Hill trip was to pick up new tires for the tri bike, which is off the trainer, hopefully for the season, and needed new ones to make up for the wear from using the trainer all winter. I’ll keep the old tires for next winter.

Five gazillion people were on and around the Mall both trips up to Dupont, and in the afternoon coming back from brunch. “When marches/causes collide” could have been the caption. One of the many reasons I love living here, you never know what stuff folks are going to be in town protesting or praising.

Biked back up to Dupont for a last minute dinner/drinks (club soda for moi) thing with my friend M who is vaguely trying to hook me up with another cute friend of his, P. This was the second time we’d met, and P seems a little bit shy, but was generous with a hug both when I got there and when he left, so we’ll see.

In between bike trips I managed to take care of bills, update the financial software, sort mail, and vacuum, but not a lot else. Gotta say, I’m quite happy I picked up a little Dyson 24 from Woot last month, it’s been a peach, and has cleaned a hell of a lot better than my old vacuum did. I’m trying to keep the dust population down this year, hoping that will help with ye olde allergies, and this sucker has been very good for that. The sole complaints I had with it are that there’s no place on the unit to store the extra little non-carpeted-floor attachment that came with it (no biggie, I just toss it in a bucket I keep in the same hall closet), and that the cord is too short to get the entire apartment from one plug (it’s a small apartment), which has been remedied by use of an extension cord I had lying around. It gets under the bed easily with the little floor attachment, and it’s small enough to carry around when I’m using said attachment around the hardwood floors. Definitely a good purchase.

Goal for the week is to complete recovery from the race and prep the schedule for the next two to three races. Really happy with how the season has started, and hope it continues in the same vein.

I can already tell that rather than spending this snowy weekend playing video games and knitting I’m going to be cleaning, sorting, fixing and purging my apartment. I’ve already managed to do some laundry (cleaning pants which I rediscovered in the closet, some to wear again, some to donate); scrub down parts of the bathroom; clean and fix the small bookcase in the front hall, as well resorting the stuff on it; and vacuum several areas of the apartment. All of these are things I need to do, but not exactly how I expected to spend this weekend. Not that I had a lot of expectations for a weekend where we’re expecting the snowfall to be measured in feet, but hey.

I must be unconsciously watching my language around Mike because I actually managed to shock him with a hearty expletive (“fuck!”) this evening. That or I’ve stopped cursing as much, which is entirely possible since I’m stuck around so many political appointees these days.

Orientation day for the newbies is Saturday and we usually do a run afterward. This year, probably not so much, since it’s forecast to be 28 degrees and snowing. Whee! Not what I want to drag a bunch of new triathletes out into, personally. All the docs are current for them, though, including the next month of workouts, so now it’s just getting the clinics set up.

Need to pick up an X-Acto knife this weekend so I can start the process of replacing light switches and electrical sockets. Having looked at the paint jobs in the hallways I think I can say definitively that the estate I purchased the apartment from had the cult’s co-op’s own workers repaint the unit, because like the hallway, all of the electrical sockets and light switches were painted over when I moved in. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, and there’s no reason for it when it’s relatively simple to either tape or remove and replace the covers while painting. So, I’d like to get those fixed, at least the ones that are in public view, so they don’t look so sloppy. And I’m dying to replace the awful (and filthy) blue light switch cover in the bathroom. That can’t happen soon enough for my tastes.

I keep finding good excuses not to get to the pool. That will have to stop soon. Maybe next week. However, the bike and run workouts are going well, and for the most part are happening as planned, which I take as a good sign here in the beginning of training. Getting back into the groove of training can be the hardest part of the training season for me, so I’m liking that I’m getting into the right schedule for it. 8 mile run planned for the morning tomorrow, so crashing here soon to be rested for it.

Today was one of those “OMG, none of the non-lawyers at the BGA can write their way out of a paper bag!” days. Statutory citations I’ll give a very, very wide pass on (since, well, that’s my job to provide and correct them), but basic sentence structure (subject-verb-object), not so much. Things like that make my brain hurt. And there was a lot of it today, as there was yesterday. It’s all a wee bit frustrating, and virtual red ink (track changes) just isn’t as satisfying as whipping out a real red pen and leaving a trail of bloody words strewn across a physical page. Oh, and the next office that asks me where a package is, when the package came in at 7 pm on Friday, at the same time that same office dumped another, 200 page, time-sensitive document on me, I will have them killed. Slowly. With a real red pen. Preferably fountain, with poisonous ink.

The business of every day life continues apace. Laundry was done. The cult’s co-op’s new management team was fussed at over missing notices about impending pest control measures. Talked with Mike. The usual stuff, which is a good thing.

My new mortgage servicing company has made a fine festuche of the escrow statement on my PMI as I moved over to them. Sent them a doc on 12/10/09 to have them correct the error (they somehow assumed I wasn’t going to pay the PMI that was on the bill for December and January, despite never being late with a payment?!?!). Called today because the February bill shows an increase (which was threatened in the incorrect escrow statement) to collect the “missing” PMI. They did indeed get my letter via fax on the 10th, but no one ever bothered to send it to the escrow department to have the thing fixed. Oy. So, step one was having that happen today, and I’ll call to bug them in a week. In the meantime I have to pay the bill with the extra $17 and change on it and then deal later with getting that somehow credited to a future bill or to principle. Right. It’s not a ton of money, but frankly I don’t want to pay them a penny more than I owe them. I have little faith in this new company so far, though the reps I’ve spoken to in the two months I’ve had them have been fairly pleasant to deal with.

Oh, and my favorite part of dealing with them? For the first time since about my third mortgage payment back in 2006 I’m paying my mortgage via check. Why? Because they want to charge me to make the payment online, in an amount that adds about 1% to the bill. No thanks, I’ll happily pay the USPS to deliver it instead. Dingbats.

And there’s some question why people dislike financial institutions?

Anyway. Other than that, training is going okay. My foot began to bother me a little at the end of last week, but several nights of sleeping in the brace has staved off the ever-possible plantar fasciitis. Went absolutely nuts in making soup last week, so I have gobs of the stuff in freezer bags now for easy meals later (whip up some fresh rice and heat up the soup, voila, homemade meal in no time). Curried split pea soup and African bean soup (also slightly curried, but with peanut butter in the broth – yum). Mood is much elevated thanks to regular exercise again.

Mike is looking at condos in Beantown these days. It’s been fun to watch the excitement and apprehension that goes along with that process. In a lot of ways I wish I were up there to look at places with him and watch the possibilities unfold. I did have to admit to him that I was a bit apprehensive when he first said that he was going to buy rather than rent when he moved this spring (it does make the long-distance aspect of the relationship a bit more, well, lasting for the near future), but spitting it out and talking about it with him released that anxiety. Yes, we’ll be traveling back and forth for a while to come, but I think he’s worth it.

Work has been hellacious as we move toward budget hearing time with the President’s budget coming out on Monday. Today was spent going over mind-numbing anticipatory questions and answers (the programs guessing what the Hill is going to ask us, and then answering said questions). On the one hand it’s a good picture of the overall direction of the BGA. On the other, it’s tedious and time-consuming, and one gets tired of correcting grammar and statutory reference mistakes. Eh, as long as they keep paying me. Though I do look forward to getting the ad out on the street for the other appropriations attorney position we’re supposed to be putting out. Soon. I hope. (Help!)

NTP is in full start-up mode. The newbies register on Wednesday and then the fun begins. I have two docs to edit up this week, and then we’re good to get started.

Been thinking a lot about decorating, again. Mainly paint and some minor things around the apartment. It’s been 4 years-ish since I moved in and I’ve not painted a thing. Whoops. I did come up with an idea for the color (though not the exact shade) for the bedroom this afternoon. Looked around when I got home and I think it’ll work. Not saying much past that, but I’m hopeful. Need to find someplace to do some framing for me, too (oooh, and there’s an idea for the front hall. Hmmm…). Anyway, it’s a slow process (re: 4 years, no paint), but is good to get some more concrete ideas. Oh, and cleaning out of closets will happen shortly. Lots to do, lots to do.

Wrestled with my poor, old, non-working dishwasher for a few hours this weekend. It no longer drains completely, perhaps the result of a blockage somewhere, perhaps a broken valve. I explored as much of the interior systems as I could, easily, but at the end of the weekend it was Dishwasher 3, Moose 0.

I did learn that I have an appliance-screw sized attachment for my electric screwdriver, however, and I also found the troubleshooting sheet that came with the DW. Unfortunately I didn’t discover the attachment until the beginning of round 2 of cleaning, and I have to say, trying to get tiny appliance screws out with pliers is not fun. Removing the baskets to get at and clean various filters went much faster after the discovery. The other discovery, the troubleshooting sheet, was a fluke caused by the poor installation of the DW by the previous owner. The area under my sink has no cabinet walls – evidently they got ripped out to install the DW, so while I was putzing around looking at where hoses went, I was able to look at the chassis on it’s right side. There, stuck into the outside of the DW, was the sheet. Who hides such a thing like that? Nonetheless, it was nice to find as it did help identify more places to check.

It’s still not draining, and I’ve done all I can without disconnecting the power and hauling the unit out from the cabinet. I suspect I’m just going to revert back to my original plan and replace the unit this next year with one that’s more energy efficient.

I did learn a lot about the care and feeding of DWs in this whole process, thus once again living out my father’s definition of maturity: Learning to become an expert at those things you never wanted to learn in the first place.

As sometimes happens, I reached clutter saturation this week, so have been spending the day throwing stuff out and putting things away. It’s amazing how much junk accumulates.

Decided to just toss all the various back issues of magazines. I’m never going to read them, and I’ve been letting the various subscriptions lapse as it is, so I just need to get rid of this extra paper. I’m also thinking of finally dumping my subscription to the Sunday newspaper. I sometimes do read it, but more frequently than not it just sits until I put it in recycling. I feel kinda bad about it, I grew up with newspapers, delivered them for four years in high school, but it’s just not the way to get news any more.

New sock is going well. It’s a shame there’s not a bar in town where I could order a beer and flop down in a comfy chair to knit. LOL There’s only but so much coffee one can drink, or knitting one can do on Metro.

Cold’s still here, but better. Not feeling the need for quite so much sudafed to keep the sinuses in check today, more like just the normal allergies dosage. Let myself sleep in, and now I’m sipping coffee from my SF Zoo mug this morning and missing my boys out in San Francisco. And as much as I love my apartment and my neighborhood, it’s times like this when I wish I’d bought a place up in northwest so it were easier to get out & about to places for things like “food”.

Brought some work home this weekend, so that’s what I’ll be doing most of the day. The newest political in my chain of command came from the private sector (with no gubm’nt experience), so I think his expectations don’t quite match the reality of being a federal attorney. He’ll learn. But in the meantime I’m going to try and redo this memo such that it doesn’t suck completely. 17 pages? I don’t think so. 5. Maybe. Note to field counsel: footnotes and glossing are your friends, especially with a busy management chain.

Anyway, off to go give y’all more gubm’nt than you’re willing to pay for.

It’s reached the point in the year where frozen berries in the morning smoothie are no longer just a tasty addition (fruit! vitamins! flavor!), but a necessity (cold!). Better tasting than adding ice cubes, but still good at bringing the temperature down, post-workout.

I’m trying hard to be stoic about the fact that I live in an older building with a combined either-or air system that hasn’t yet changed over to cooling, despite 90 degree temps over the weekend and the next two days. I’m trying, but I daresay not succeeding terribly well. Let’s hear it for unseasonably warm temps after unseasonably cool temps. Not that I’ve run the heat in the past month, but hey. It’s made sleep somewhat elusive, as it does every year when this happens (and it does happen every year, which is why I’m trying to be stoic; I’ve had to deal with it for a decade now, so you’d think it would be easier). Hopefully the run this morning and a swim this evening will help with that tonight.

Speaking of the run, on my run this morning I saw: 1. lots of pollen; 2. the sun rise over the Washington Channel; and 3. a Decepticon sticker on the hood of a parked car.

While last week was clearly allergies, this week feels like I’m fighting off a head cold. Sneezes, stuffy, etc. Did some last minute cleaning this evening while talking to a cousin who’s coming to town tomorrow with her hubby, and then with Richard, and then the new guy, and I probably shouldn’t have attempted any dusting while I have a semi-stuffy nose. It definitely didn’t help the nose. I did find some afrin in the cabinet while looking for my old staples of cold medications – that was a year expired. I generally manage my allergies better these days, with the result that I don’t get nearly the amount of head colds I used to, so I don’t have to keep what used to be my usual standbys on hand any more.

Work’s been semi-quiet, with passover, easter, and spring break sapping much of the work force. Did get one WTF question this evening that made me question the sanity of certain higher managers, but we’ll look into it. I find myself muttering the words “LBS” to my fellow lawyers a lot these days (“Legal, But Stupid”). It’s a useful standard to have for such situations. Not that one phrases it thus to the clients (diplomacy counts, after all), but it is useful nonetheless.