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

Mostly lazy day. Some packing, lots of video gaming, more packing, etc. Did a grocery run for snacks/drinks for the car so we’re not buying other (more expensive) stuff on the road. Filled the car with gas, pretty much all set. Dropped off keys with the neighbors to check on the beasties. Just need to pack the car and go at this point.

Have the work laptop with me as a just-in-case, though I don’t anticipate needing it. But given the rest of the craziness of the last three months (can you believe it’s only been three months?) I’m not taking chances. Another friend was told to make sure he’s in the office tomorrow, at a different agency, so who knows what that will entail. I’d appreciate it if we could get a moment or three of peace amidst 47’s dementia, but that appears to be too much to ask.

That’s my life, giving the american taxpayer more government than they’re willing to pay for. Heh.

Which is not to say I’m working extra these days. I’m doing my job, I’m spending the 8.5 hours a day in the office that they’re requiring for that now, but I’m not stressing about too much of it after those hours are done. Heck, I even managed to forget the work phone on the charger on my desk this evening when I left. And that was legitimately forgetting to grab it, not “forgetting” to grab it.

Still trying to adjust the sleep schedule. The weather changes aren’t helping; sinus headaches from the high pressure system are driving me nuts.

That’s pretty much what I did today – a whole lotta nuthin’. Which was what I needed. Slept in, lots of vegging out in front of the PS5. First day my body battery score has been above rock bottom at the end of the day in over a week. Not a whole lot planned for tomorrow, either, past getting to bed earlier.

Survived another week working for the chaos machine that is the US government these days. Go me.

Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up on some meaningful sleep this weekend. Because it sure wasn’t happening during the week. The Garmin watch I’ve been wearing since December gives you a “body battery” score based on how you’re recovering, sleep, dealing with stress, etc., and all this week it’s been in the low to mid 20s. Out of 100. Yikes.

Only plan I have for the weekend, other than sleep, is looking for some walking shoes at the local REI. And maybe some knitting.

I’m on my feet a lot more now that everyone is back in the office full time. I’m doing some very informal coordinating of some of our joint work, so I’m up and about a lot. I took the standing desk down once for a meeting that ended up over in a conference room instead of my office; otherwise it stayed up all day because I was bouncing in and out of the office all day.

For all that I am an attorney, I don’t have a lot to do with actual court cases. My role is typically to advise and let the program people run and do what they’re going to do (or help clean up after the fact). So having to even tangentially keep track of all of the cases in various courts and all of the sundry temporary restraining orders has been a hoot.

After this week I’m going to need to adjust my sleep & waking schedules to adjust to this new work schedule. I’m making it in, but without any time to exercise. And I know myself well enough to know that if I don’t exercise first thing it’s not going to happen. That’ll be next week’s adjustment, I think; this week has had enough to adjust to with the normal stuff, let along all of 47’s chaos.

Back in the office full time, that is. Lots of friendly grousing about spending 8.5 hours in the building. And of course we were all stressing over the fucking ‘5 things you did last week’ nonsense. There was a lot of inconsistent information around that one, with every agency directing different actions (ignore it; send it; send it only to your supervisor; send it if you choose to but we won’t make you, etc.). Chaos and cruelty, by design.

Unrelated, pooping in the office is officially the worst, since we’ve gotten used to the washlet attachments on all our home toilets. The. Worst.

But hey, no regular telework equals not hauling the work laptop back and forth, so I was able to to consolidate things down to a smaller commuting bag after I got home this evening. That’ll be easier to lug on Metro.

And I managed to get part of the way through one of the books I was supposed to be reading in class this week, Leadership on the Line. Interesting case for dealign with the ways that people may (deliberately or inadvertently) sabotage your efforts to lead change, and how to recognize and prepare for those efforts. Good read thus far, glad they gave it to me before we left in December.

‘Twas time for haircuts, which we’d (the husband and I) scheduled for first thing when they opened at 9. Up and at ’em, then to the local diner for breakfast. Eventually made it back home where I napped with my female cat for a couple of hours.

We decided to get the heck out of the house and went to see Monkey. It had good bones, and we ended up laughing a lot at the film, but it was definitely a stretch of the short story. We enjoyed it, but mostly because we needed the laugh of something silly. And in the middle of that the new came down that 47’s handler decided to send out emails telling all of us feds to justify our jobs by midnight Friday. Cue the rolling of the eyes. “Spitting nails” was the most polite way I could describe my reaction to that wanker’s horseshit. I know I can produce something (after we get guidance from our agency, which they already emailed to let us know would be forthcoming), but what happens to someone who’s on leave Monday, or who otherwise doesn’t have access to their work email to send something? Heaven forfend someone should go on vacation. What a shithead.

Monday is my agency’s return-to-office full time day, for those of us not in the union (which none of the attorneys are here, because we’re too small a shop to differentiate practice areas). That made today was the last full telework day for a while, so of course I stayed home. I do have some random leave scheduled for the end of the week after next, so I’ll get a partial break from eight and a half hours/five days a week, but this is the first time we’ve all been back in since March of 2020. And even then this agency had a fairly robust telework policy so it was normal for people to work from home a couple days a week.

The folks with kids or elder care stuff are the most stressed. I’m just concerned about how crowded Metro is going to get; I haven’t had to Metro this distance to work regularly in decades (I lived in walking distance of my last job). Fully plan to keep masking on Metro, too, because I don’t trust people not to head to work while sick. And the work computer stays in the office unless I arrange for the very limited situational telework that’s available, so I’ll get to go to a smaller commuting bag after Monday.

Otherwise there were no new directives from on high, so we actually got to catch up on odds and ends today.

So much chaos at work. Three attorneys, maybe four, of twenty, took the early out, including our deputy. That I know of so far. The deputy isn’t widely known in the office yet, but she told me this afternoon before we left work, and next week will be her last. Two support staff took it, of eight. So not quite a quarter of the office will be gone soon at this point.

Cancelled the travel authorization for the training, and the agency should get a partial refund of the costs.

And then last night 47 killed off a forty-five-ish year old program that is designed to attract people who are getting graduate degrees into federal service, with an eye toward training them for management. It’s the latest version of the program I came into the gubm’nt under back in the late nineties, and its dissolution is another ‘salt the earth’ tactic to poison the well of civil service so it’ll be that much harder for future administrations to put things back together.

First off, I’m fine. Don’t you love when an entry starts out that way?

Tuesday morning (December 5th, 2023) around 10:30 I was standing in my living room when I had a sudden bout of dizziness, followed by numbness in my right hand and some tingling on the fingertips. Almost felt like my blood sugar had dropped out (the dizziness) and like I’d pinched something so my hand fell asleep. Both passed very quickly, then the hand numbness came back less severely and stopped again. And then the inside of my mouth and tongue on the right side got numb, at which point I started googling stroke and heart attack symptoms, and drove myself over to the local urgent care center. The symptoms were all resolved at that point, in less than ten minutes, but I still wanted to get checked out. They took me back immediately and examined me, then advised me to go to an emergency room.

Drove home, grabbed some things in anticipation of a long wait, summoned an Uber ride, texted the husband to let him know what was up, and went to the ER at the hospital attached to the university he works at, even though it’s twice as far as the two closest. It also happens to be in the same network as the urgent care center, so they had all of my info from the earlier check in. The husband met me there, the team again jumped in on me pretty quickly – you say/describe “stroke symptoms” and medical professionals’ eyes get big and they immediately start doing things. CT scan that afternoon, then they checked me in that afternoon for an overnight stay for more tests and observation. The poor husband had to return home for the tools to get my piercings out so I could have an MRI, which happened around 12:30am (hospital corridors are much less busy at that hour). Echocardiogram with bubble contrast was late morning on Wednesday, plus constant EKG monitoring and more blood draws than I care to think about over the course of the day.

Tested, prodded, and evaluated, the verdict was that I probably had a “low-impact transient ischemic attack (TIA)”, a kind of stroke-like event that quickly resolved itself. No damage, tests all came back normal, not a stroke, but now I get some new medications (baby aspirin and a statin) and a longer discussion about all of this with my primary care physician at a pre-existing appointment on Monday, at which I was already going to be discussing slightly elevated blood pressure (which has not been helped by the lack of ability to do a lot of cardio because of my knee dislocation in September).

All-in-all I’m doing okay now. I feel fine, and other than needing some more sleep everything seems to have returned to status quo ante. I’m annoyed at the elevated blood pressure and adding yet another drug to the morning mix (I hate that I have to take pills to function), but the results came out well for what happened, and I’m glad I got it all checked out and will get an appropriate treatment plan. And maybe a new doctor to add to the deck? Because as you age doctors seem to be like Pokemon – gotta catch ’em all! Heh.