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

I checked my work phone this morning, mainly to look at scheduling, and ended up taking care of two “emergencies” that people were hopping about this morning, then promptly dumped it on the charger to ignore it once more. They can have my time when I’m back on the clock Wednesday. I did end up having to reschedule a doctor’s appointment because the original one is on the day they chose for out office holiday party while I was out on break. No biggie, thankfully. Still need to find out when my current 90 day full-time-remote status dies (next week, I think). I think I’m capable of commuting in now, but I’ll make sure to take the crutch with me for it.

Ortho at the end of the week. Vet for the cats tomorrow. So I’ll be working Wednesday and Thursday, but off the rest of the week, added to the week off last week. Has been a nice break. Knee is progressing still, but definitely not back to normal. I’m able to bike on a stationary trainer now, so that’s becoming my default cardio. The new Garmin GPS watch I bought in August for running works well with the bike accessories, so at least that wasn’t a total waste.

Desperately behind on comics. Like dozens of issues behind at this point. Even reading 4-5 a day I’m still falling behind because of the backlog. Clearly we have a comics problem.

On the third color of my four-color brioche scarf, finally. Just in time to get more yarn for a blanket the husband asked for (which I’m glad I grabbed, because the plum base he wanted is not showing as available any more on the site).

Xmas is all up, and we’re the envy of our street (which apparently got me added to a group text that I hadn’t been on before). Added some strings going from the roof to the group floor, framing the house and windows (lines from the balcony edge straight down to the top of the garage/front door), and some blinking rainbow candy canes for the front walk. And a manual timer to turn them on at 4:30pm and off at 7:30am, roughly around dusk and dawn.

We had the Mini’s windshield replaced back in June, after a particularly large pothole on Route 50 jarred the car badly enough to cause a large crack to develop. And then I kept forgetting to re-coat the new window with Rain-X. I prefer having that on the windows because I find it easier to see out of them, and you can run the wipers less; at highway speeds the water wicks off on its own, and I find wipers distracting. Personal preference, your mileage may vary. Last night we went out to dinner and it was pouring, reminding me again that I hadn’t done the windows. So this morning while coffee was brewing I ran downstairs and finally cleaned and Rain-X’d the suckers. Now watch me not need to go out during any rain any time soon. Which is fine, because I’m prepared now.

Yesterday we found out a friend of ours has been on meth for several years now, when he called about some not-so-smart decisions he’d made the past week and finally confessed that he’d been using. Ugh. I have a lot of sympathy, and a lot of wanting to smack him upside the head. Nasty stuff. Does explain some of the mood swings and workaholism. What a mess.

Knitting on the latest scarf is proceeding apace. I’m on color number two of four. I made the first block a few inches too long, but whatevs. I thought about just extending the others, but that would make the whole thing an extra foot long versus an extra three inches, so no thanks. And I successfully managed not to buy more yarn at the yarn store yesterday for the local men’s knitting group. I did buy another project bag, but no more yarn.

I’m supposed to be working, but mostly I’m cleaning out my home office. I have taken care of a few things, so your (US) tax dollars aren’t a complete waste today, but I really felt the need to change up my home office space, get rid of trash and generally declutter it. And hey, I’ve already found an old gift card that still has a balance on it, so go me.

Xmas was a low-key affair, just the two of us. He made a delightful ‘bold and spicy gingerbread cake’, a bundt cake that used three different forms of ginger (dried ground ginger, fresh ground ginger, and ginger ale in the glaze). It turned out really well, and it’s been a nice breakfast most mornings since. I made melting potatoes (potato rounds cooked at high temperatures, and flipped twice to get them browned on both sides), and some other odds and ends. We both made out like bandits from each other, and had some interesting choices from our families (bags of rubber duckies, anyone?).

Most of the gifts have now been moved away from the tree and to their current homes in the house, which is also part of what’s instigating the home office cleaning. Books needed to be rearranged to make room for more.

I finished 99% of the endless scarf I’ve been knitting for the husband. Just need to weave in the ends and block the sucker. I’m not normally one to do a lot of blocking, but this one needs it – it has a tendency to roll inward toward the wrong side, and I’d like it to be able to sit flat when he wears it. So given the length I’ll be laying it out on the kitchen island once our house cleaner is done tomorrow. Next up is trying some brioche, specifically this pattern, once I get in some practice with the method, using the yarn I just finished playing with for the endless scarf.

Haven’t updated in forever (duh). Been dealing with a lot of messes at work, and not felt terribly motivated to deal with most of them. It’s exhausting when you’re working your butt off, and at the same time (it feels like) the entire country is complaining about what it is you do, and your bosses (Congress and POTUS) are talking about cutting your pay & benefits, on top of already constructively cutting them by freezing your pay, but still piling on additional costs for things like health care and pensions. So, yeah, hard to feel motivated. I suspect there will be a lot more of that going around when and if they implement the plan to increase our share of our pension contributions, since that’ll mean a 5-6% (minimum) cut in take home pay. Blah.

So, yeah, frustrated at work.

Other than that, I’m gearing up for next year’s season for my newbies, and seeing how much more I need to be doing. Trying to catch up on reading (the list of materials never gets smaller!). Trying to tweak/fix my eating habits – I gained way, way too much weight over this past year, between bad eating and lack of regular, sustained training. I wish it weren’t so damned easy to eat badly in this country (and frequently so expensive to eat well, though the salad bar by weight at work has been a cheaper option than the local sandwich shop when I fill the large part of the plate with greens).

Things continue to go well with the boy. Met his family last month, made a good impression. I still spend most nights with him and his beagle up at his apartment, though not every night (do have to do laundry on occasion, after all). It’ll be interesting to see how I’m going to work this with training and my coaching stuff with the newbies. An adventure, as life should be. Made him a scarf, so he’s been deemed knit-worthy. If you want more details past that you have to check my Facebook profile.

Didn’t run this morning, so I ran this evening after picking up the dry cleaning. Am reminded why I don’t run in the evenings on a normal basis – it makes me far, far too hungry for dinner/late night food (he said, as he began devouring a 2nd helping of steamed dumplings). At least I’m getting back to training, which is the important part. Now if it would just warm up enough to bike outside. Phhhbbbttt! Not where I thought I would be at this point in the season, but I’ll get through the first race.

Have a couple more inches to knit on the sweater, then I get to attach the two sides of the shoulders, then it’s cutting the steeks and knitting the trim. Sooooo close. Would have been good to have done this week as it’s been a trifle chilly, but I’m just happy that I’m close now.

Trying to readjust the sleep schedule to a consistent 5:30 wake up. I’m close, but not quite there. Another reason to just stay on “summer time” (as the Brits call it) all year round – none of this stupid adjusting things 2x a year. Hoping the adjustment to a consistent sleep schedule will aid with the workout schedule. It should. In theory.

In the meantime I’ve been reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes; it’s a slightly appalling, very well written, very dense account of the history of scientific research on diet and metabolism in this country. The politics and misinformation involved are more than a bit scary. Food politics just seem to be some of the worst, mostly because of the crazy lobbying by food lobbies.

Lots of things on the brain of late, but no time to put things down to writing. Work’s swamped, GAO inquiries, field offices using new institutional avenues to try to drive advice (which will backfire – annoy me and I’m not willing to bend over to find ways to be helpful, wretches), the possibility of a lapse in appropriations, the Office of Minutiae and Backlogs (OMB) driving us nuts with data calls, drafting assistance for the Hill, etc. Too busy, not enough time. And I have homework for next month’s coaching class. Not to mention the sweater knitting class which is formally done, but none of us have finished our sweaters. I think I’m going to recommend that she make it every other week for 4 sessions. It is, after all, a lot more knitting than most of us are used to.

But, yeah, overstuffed. And that’s part of what I want to write about, but only once I have time. Maybe soon. Maybe not.

Work has calmed down slightly, but is still a bit crazy. Did go down enough to allow the ulcer to finally heal up. Other than that I’ve been knitting like mad. Tonight was class #2 of the sweater knitting class I’m taking over at Stitch. So far so good. Was a little behind this week, but no worries, will be caught up enough to make the “steeks” next week (the spaces for the arm holes and the neck hole, so the stripes can continue across evenly). Carrying the yarn turned out to be surprisingly easy, which was nice to find out. So, new skill #1 learned successfully.

Still not back to an exercise routine, and I’m 2 months out from Columbia. Eeck! Just trying to get up in the morning right now is the struggle. Once I get it started it shouldn’t be hard to stick back with, but it’s the whole push into it that’s been difficult. And I’m sure the time change will help with that. Not. Diet hasn’t been bad, so I just need to push myself to get up and just start already.

So, ran Cupid’s Undies Run this afternoon. Fun event, saw lots of friends in the club, had a good time. But man, after the head cold from hell and just generally not training well of late (still haven’t started regular training again), it kicked my ass. Now, there were environmental factors (mid-40s, no clothing to speak of, etc.), but still, I’m just not at any sort of level of fitness now, which irks the hell out of me. Hoping this was the wake-up call I needed to get back to it.

CPR class tomorrow, last thing I need to do before the training class to get the coaching certification. Watched the little videos, read the book, I think I’m ready.

Finished the sock on Monday and wore ’em to work on Tuesday:

Very comfy – tiny stitches seem to be much better for comfort over long time periods/distances than the bigger ones. Go fig. I’ve cast on a cowl I got from one of my Unique Sheep sock clubs, finally (a men’s accessories club I got last year – this’ll be the first project I’m doing from it!). Finally re-read the pattern and seem to make sense of it, so I’m going for it. Unfortunately it’s not a travel or transit friendly project (very involved pattern), so I hauled out the sock yarn last night and am trying to decide on some patterning to do this time around on the top of the sock & the leg. Plus I am signed up for a men’s sweater class at Stitch DC next month, and of the three choices for patterns chose the Alberta striped vest. Figure it was worth the investment to learn at least two new skills – two yarn knitting and sweater shaping.

Housekeeper came Wednesday. Pleased with the cleaning job, amused at playing “where did this get put in the kitchen”. She moved everything, of course, to clean under and around, and didn’t seem to note where things had been. Similarly on the dining room table where I had far too much junk out to begin with. So, my take away is to reduce the amount of stuff out on surfaces so she doesn’t have to move as much. The cleaner look will be more pleasant anyway, and having the discipline of her coming in every other week should help with that.

Saw another play at Arena Stage this evening. It’s the local theater here in my neighborhood, about 3 blocks from my apartment, and they specialize in American theater. They completely redid the space, gutting the buildings and building a large shell over the whole of it, even adding a third theater. Took ’em a couple of years and this year is the first season back in the new/old space. The renovation also seems to have influenced the quality of the work at the theater, which is much better than it used to be. Previously things were hit or miss (I walked out of one at intermission when the “crimson carpet” they rolled out was day-glo pink; seriously, high school productions do better than that), but I’ve enjoyed each of the productions they’ve done so far this season. I’m glad I bought season tickets, and bought two of them so I can take a guest, it’s been a good investment, and one I’ll repeat next season.

I’m debating a Body Electric retreat in August at Wildwood. They have a price break on the class price through the end of the month, just need to check the budget and the leave situation. Been feeling a craving for some BE work, and it would be nice to get back out to SF for a bit before and after again.

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.