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

I’ve been avoiding my gym for a couple months now. I know, I know, bad fag. But with a pool at my disposal that was outside in the nice open air for the summer, why go swim inside? Thankfully my locker was still locked, my shoes were still inside, and all was right with the world.

There had been a bit of a scare a couple months ago that they were going to close the pool, but they had a huge outpouring of protest from the members, and instead had the members meet with them and suggest ways to make it all work for them. My montly dues will go up in November, but I’m okay with that, it’s not that large an increase. And I’ve now offset it by discarding my membership in the gym at work. When thinking over stuff, finances, etc., I realized that I had originally joined the gym at work so I’d have access to the showers for when I biked down from my old apartment. Now that I’m a mere 10 minutes away, there’s no need for it, so why pay? So I emptied out that locker today (more shoes – oy), cancelled it, reassured the poor guy at the desk that I had nothing against them, but that I didn’t need it now that I’d moved and that I needed my other gym with the pool more (as a triathlete). If I feel the need for a treadmill I can join the little fitness center here at the cult co-op for a third of what the work gym was costing me.

Speaking of the cult co-op, I had asked the general manager last week if I could get an extra door fob (for the towers) as well as an extra gate fob (for the outer gates) since the instructions for the gates allowed us to get an extra gate fob. She finally replied with the answer that I’d have to petition the board for one and they’d approve/disapprove it. Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ve asked, with a cc to the board president and the head of our security committee, whether we have an accounting of all the outstanding fobs and proof that they were all asked for and approved by the board (I’m certain the answer is no). Not going to let this one go – I want the extra fob because I want MG to be able to get in without having to either go down to get him or making him “sign in” at the front desk in the other building. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

On my morning run this morning I:

Stared at army boys running (the joys of living a block from a base);
Helped a woman who was massively lost get back on her way;
Stared at more army boys running;
Got really, really warm.

Was an okay run. Did feel a touch of the soreness from Sunday’s run, but not too bad. Also had fun staring down a squirrel as I was stretching. Was slow enough that he came down to check things out (not too close to me), but was cute, for a tree rat.

Had a couple friends who live here in the cult co-op over for martinis this evening. Needed to practice on boys who wouldn’t care that I had no clue how to make them. Now that I know how (the gin variety, at least), I’ll have to have some more folks over.

Work continues. Ran 7 miles this morning. Should be doing more, but that’s a good amount for a school day.

Happy hour with co-workers tonight, then back home for some grilled food with a couple I helped set up (rather, they knew each other and I pushed them together – forcefully). Was nice and quiet. Just got done checking LJ for the night, and the other journals I read. Chatting with a couple friends, then will get off to bed. If up early enough I’ll go for a ride. I have a practice tri, a sprint, coming up in a couple weeks and I’m very much not ready for it. Running, yes, but not the other two events. I mean, I’ll swim just fine, but after that, feh.

Today was a wet one. I started it with a shower, then an open water swim out on the Chesapeake Bay with the club sometime around 8:30, another shower after that, then some more swimming at the cult co-op pool, then, of course, another shower. Very, very wet.

Came home from the first swim, hung up the wet suit, finally replaced my shower head (soooo nice to have a real shower head now), did cold wash (so no biking today – all my jerseys were dirty, and currently are drying on the rack).

Went and saw “The Devil Wears Prada” this evening with friends. Was quite cute, I enjoyed it. “That’s all.” Fun.

I’ve been reading a new cookbook I bought on Friday and it’s not helping my urges to add more things to the pantry and the kitchen gadget collection. There are items I need to add to the pantry, and will do so this week, but I don’t need (yet) a cast iron skillet. Nor do I need silicone oven mitts. Le sigh. But it’s been fun reading the cookbook. It’s a vegan one, and all the recipes look very accessible. The author is on my LJ friends list, and I remember hearing her trials of testing and what not, so it’s nice to read the actual book (finally) and see how well put together it is.

Off to crash soon, up for a bike ride, possibly, or more cookbook reading. Meeting of the members’ organization at the cult co-op tomorrow, and a bit of drama with that as a board member has caused a bit of a stir by perhaps getting our general manager to walk out on Friday. Moron.

As I sit here, at almost 11 at night, the neighborhood kids are still setting off firecrackers. And for once I’m not feeling fussy about it. I ran this morning, and Wednesdays are my normal rest days, so won’t be getting up for that, so no worries tonight.

Was a lovely holiday. Hot as all hell in the afternoon when I wandered up to party #1 of the day, then the bottom dropped out and while the humidity levels were obnoxious, the termperatures cooled down nicely. The last part of the evening was spent out on the local marina, chatting, having fun, sipping the last of my good bourbon (I’m so glad I had my brother give me a flask for Xmas), and watching the national fireworks show. And we do put on a pretty good fireworks show here in DC. I miss seeing the peace signs that went off in 2002, but I suspect the administration put the stomp down on those.

Run this morning was hot. It’s in full summer mode here in DC, which means I’m going to have to start getting up earlier to run. 9 am is just too warm now, and let’s not speak of the temps at 11 when I ran on Sunday. Ugh.

All in all was a good holiday. Sipping water now before bed, cooling off from being outside a good chunk of the day, and generally happy that I live where I do. Happy Independence Day.

Just when I thought I’d be hearing the neigborhood kids playing with firecrackers all afternoon, nature decided to open up the skies with her own fireworks. Never have I been happier to see a lightning storm arrive.

Just got out a psuedo contentious meeting of the membership of the cult co-op. We were amending the bylaws, and we just left the meeting room at 11:30, after starting at 8.

This is why I stopped doing city government stuff; I couldn’t take the long meetings late into the night.

It will probably totally kill my chances of being awake enough to run in the morning tomorrow, but we’ll see how that goes. Grrr.

As Richard mentioned this morning, our building decided to call/stop by this morning just before he was leaving for work, well after I’d left to go swim, to let us know they were coming in to replace our windows and oh, as part of that, you have to move all the furniture out of the way and lock up the cats.

Also as he said, when I got the message after my swim, I hit the roof.

No notice (the excuse: the building employee and the contractor who was supposed to send out the “48 hour notices” were both out sick this week), no warning, just show up right as someone is leaving for work and expect them to drop everything and rearrange their entire apartment. Yeah, right. By the time I got the news and got up to the building it was too late to stop them from coming in, they were already halfway done with the work on the windows in the dining room and my bedroom (the other windows will be done in two weeks when they turn that corner of the building). I’ll have to check more thoroughly tonight, but nothing looked like it was damaged in the process.

Then I got to sit and cool my heels for two hours while waiting to yell at the building manager in person. I finally got in when I asked who he reported to in New York and what that person’s phone number was. Then I had to pointedly ask the window contract manager to leave the room when I finally got in there after he popped his head in (“But the other leaseholder gave his permission…” Well, yeah, of course he did when you hit him trying to get out the door to go to work with a window in your hand and not much choice in the matter, you jackass!). And what would they have done if no one had been there? I’ll bet you they’d have gone right in, moved the stuff themselves, and done the work anyway, even without giving notice (forget about damaging anything or losing my cats). The only good thing there was they were done by that time, so I was able to let the cats back out into the unit.

Another taxi ride later, I’m back at work. Told my team leader I put in an extra hour of leave and I was going to go run this afternoon at the gym to work off some steam. Fully intend to do that, too, once lunch settles. Not exactly how I pictured my Thursday going.

I’ve done my southern roots proud and had my black-eyed peas, served up in a vegan version of hoppin’ john. Alas, I did not make cornbread or collard greens, but I did make the peas, and that was the important part, according to my grandmother.

Otherwise, the new year has thus far been nice and quiet.

I did my traditional new years day run. Since recovering from mono back in 99/00, and making my first run on new year’s day 2000, I’ve made it a tradition to run on that day. No heart rate monitor, no watch, no music, just whatever clothes are needed for the weather, my shoes, and me. Was a good run this afternoon, my first outside in a while.

I apologize to those of you who’ve been so kind in your emails, calls or text messages. As you may have figured out by now, I’ve been dealing with some pretty nasty depression of late. Right now I just want to get moved to a new place, get settled there, get away from the bugs and the loud music, and see where it is I’m going from there. This has not been helped by the lovely cold sore that popped up yesterday morning with none of the usual warnings (no tingling, etc.). Woke up and there the little fucker was. Thankfully it’s progressed along just as quickly and the meds I have seem to be helping speed it along. ‘Tis past the painful stage and onto just plain annoying. But it did not help my mood any yesterday, and it just reinforced the decision to stay at home and just ruminate on stuff.

The good part of this, however, has been that I’ve been cooking up a storm. In additon to the aforementioned hoppin’ john, I’ve made roasted butternut squash, breakfast tofu scramble, barbeque baked lentils, and garlic roasted asparagus for various meals. I’ll have leftovers galore this week for lunches, which is better than buying stuff on campus any day of the week.

Still working on this year’s uberlist. Did learn some things from the past year’s list, and I want to make this thing work.

Its four in the morning and I just had to call security to come break up the party next door. There’s loud Tejano music (or is it Norteño? I can’t tell, and frankly I don’t know that I really care) coming through the wall, loud enough for me to understand the lyrics (if I spoke Spanish, that is), as well as drunken Spanish being spoken, over the music, loud enough for me to understand (again, if I spoke Spanish). Oh, and some of them are singing along now, too. Badly.

I may have to kill someone soon if they don’t stop. Four in the morning on a Sunday. And they wonder why I want to move?!?!