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

Friday, while still full in my rundown at work feels, I wandered into my supervisor’s office after lunch and asked if he minded if I went home early, “because I really just don’t want to be here.” Heh. He understood, we chatted a little about the current craziness, and I took off for home. Laid on the couch for a bit with cats (the husband was working from home, but between his regular job and his various side teaching and writing gigs he’s swamped at the moment), and generally just vegged for a bit.

Saturday we had plans – the city had one of their occasional bulk trash drop off days that we wanted to take advantage of. Hauled out a ton of old, broken deck furniture, as well as our old bed frame (finally!) and a bunch of paint. Felt very cathartic to get rid of it all. The top deck is now half furnished (an outdoor couch, two chairs, and a coffee table over a rug), but in better stuff that we’re taking better care of (it’s all covered when we’re not using it). Took our friend who helped us haul the stuff to lunch, then the three of us walked over to an arts festival just south of where we live. It was a lot larger than what we were expecting, which was a pleasant surprise. It was also populated with local folks, so not just the same vendors you see every week at the permanent weekend markets in DC. Picked up a drop bowl for the husband, for keys and what not for his dresser, and just enjoyed running into neighbors.

This morning I met up with the local running group, in the same general area as the arts festival. Before we ran they asked us to introduce ourselves and what we were looking forward to later in the day. Favorite answer was the poor parent saying they were going to go home and watch K-Pop Demon Hunters with their small children, as they had been doing since the movie came out. Heh. I said I was looking forward to my knitting group, which led another guy to come up afterwards and give me his email so I can have the other organizer add him to our group. Sweet. The run was a little shorter for me than I have been doing (2.27mi), but given all the rain we got this morning (so. much. rain.) that was fine. Got cleaned up, bought some vegetables for the week, then off to knitting where I made some progress on a scarf for the husband that I had put down several months ago. Back home to make fried rice, start watching Monarch with the husband (I’m intrigued after the first episode), clean up the kitchen, and shortly to crash.

No word back from the financial advisors yet, but it’s also the middle of several jewish holidays so I expect they’re busy and I’ll hear back after those wind down. Which is just fine.

The past few days, and especially today, I’ve just been really down about work. I’ve also been really tired, physically, from all the work I’ve been doing with exercise and running, which is probably contributing. But in reading Brene Brown’s latest (Strong Ground) I’ve been thinking over some of the lessons from the predecessor book, Dare to Lead. There’s one particular exercise she recommends, where you drill down to the 2 factors that really motivate you as a leader. Mine were “Learning” and “Making a Difference”. And in thinking about those this week, I’m really struggling to see where those are kicking in. There’s a little bit of learning, but making a difference? Under this administration? Ugh. And given the direction and partisan polarization that both parties are indulging in (thanks, social media) I don’t really see where it’ll get better any time soon. The Mad King is sure to be nuts, one way or another, and if they retake one or both houses of Congress the other party will just make our (Federal employees) lives miserable as they try and undo some of what the Mad King is doing by flooding us with information requests. I fully expect he’s going to fire all of the “Schedule F” employees (or “Schedule P/C” as it’s now known) on his way out the door. That’s one bullet dodged, since I’m not on that employment schedule, but really, this isn’t what I signed up for when I signed on to public service.

And yes, I know this is exactly what his party wants, to drive off good people, but at a certain point you have to wonder if it’s worth dealing with the dysfunction on a personal level. I really don’t know. I also don’t know what else I would do, but I think it’s time to sit down with a financial advisor who knows Federal benefits and map out what an exit might look like.

In the meantime, I also need a rest day from exercise, so that’ll be tomorrow (and Saturday – I want to check out the local running group on Sunday morning). Based on the stream of curses I let out when I barely touched my calves with the Hypervolt massage gun this evening, they’re a little overworked. That may be contributing to the mood; it certainly isn’t helping.

Had a good coaching call this afternoon with the mobility program folks (yes, one free week back in January turned into a twelve week program, has turned into a twelve month program now – I’m really enjoying it). The prompt for us to talk was about how (if at all) we track our workouts/physical well being. A lot of folks shared that they would use something until it got too much, then give it all up entirely, or for a short period, then resume the same ramping up of intensity regarding the pressure they felt from the tracking. I told them it reminded me of a conversation I had back when cell phones were still relatively new. Was out with friends and when one of them kept stopping in the middle of whatever we were doing to take calls, answer texts, another of my friends looked at him and said, “Remember that it’s your tool, not the other way around.”

That stuck with me (obviously), and I think it’s a useful framing to think about whatever device someone might be using to track activities (garmin, apple watch, etc.). It’s definitely an attitude I make sure people know I have with regard to my work cell phone – that thing is for my convenience; it’s not an electronic leash whereby anyone can reach me at any time.

Got the young friend settled into his new apartment this evening, post-work. He seems to be settling in okay, and he’s doing better at reflecting on the relationship with his ex-fiance. Thank heavens. With the young friend out tonight I was able to set up my bike in the trainer downstairs again, giving me back that option for exercise in the morning. Yay.

Returned to more regular work today. My team used AI in one of the tools we have access to for the first time to summarize a document from another agency for our boss. Reviewed it closely to make sure it was actually accurate, and passed it along verbatim to our boss, with appropriate attribution and a lot of our own analysis as well. I’m still not sold on AI tools, but given that I’m at a science agency, and we’re paying for this thing, I have to get used to it. I’m still cognizant of how much AI hallucinates, hence the careful vetting of the summary, and making sure she knew it was not our own work. I’m reminded of the phrase “change equals stress”.

The news last night/this morning is all about Congress finally seeming to take a step back from the brink and doing their jobs – talking to one another and coming up with deals that the two parties can agree on. If they’re able to get all of that done this week I’ll finally receive a pay check next week, for the first time since early October, when we got a partial check for the period through September 30th. We’re normally paid on an every-two-weeks basis, so I’ve missed two full paychecks in addition to the partial one already, and that’s beyond ridiculous at this point, especially as I continue to have to work, albeit intermittently.

I get that partisans are pissed that, as expected, the party causing the shutdown got little to nothing out of their efforts, but them’s the breaks. Politics is not for the faint of heart, and ‘you can’t always get what you want’, to quote the Rolling Stones.

In the meantime tomorrow is a Federal holiday, so I’m fully furloughed, which is a nice change (no checking work email). Probably doing some needed grocery shopping, and hunting some more esoteric ingredients for stuff I’d like to try. We have no firm Thanksgiving holiday plans, but the in-laws will be visiting for Xmas as usual, so this is a good time to try out & plan any new things. Especially if I’ll be back to the office next week.

It’s the day the house cleaner comes, so apparently the bug hit me and I decided to do a bunch of random little projects around the house. It’s supposed to get below freezing here early next week for the first time this season, so I knew I needed to switch off the outside faucets, which also entailed (finally) cleaning the sliding glass doors on the back of the ground floor. They get splashed with dirt when it rains, so are perpetually slightly smudged towards the bottom. Cleaned those up, got the water shut off. Then I decided to straighten up a box of winter accessories we keep on the front hall table that had gotten clogged up with a mishmash of junk over several years (soooooo many useless early covid masks), mainly because I wanted to relocate some of the scarves I’ve knit lately down there. Found three gloves missing mates.

For some reason I decided to clean out the glove box in the car (it made sense at the time, I think). Discarded some extra materials from Mini, pared down to just the current insurance and registration info, found out the back seats supposedly can slide forward and backwards (we’ve only had the car since 2017, after all, and never needed that feature). Reorganized some big scented candles that were in multiple places in the garage and kitchen.

And then I was mentally done so I went out to lunch to get away from more straightening up. I think I blame work for cancelling my one meeting this morning, a thrice weekly check-in, which left me feeling antsy and in need of a project to put things back in order, since I can’t control what those idiots in Congress do.

The husband and I are prepping for our annual get-the-heck-out-of-the-DC-area-and-away-from-national-politics anniversary getaway to the Eastern Shore of Virginia; we take off tomorrow. Cannot wait to get back to the shore. Supposed to be pleasantly cool, and perhaps a little rainy (which will hopefully keep the more obnoxious tourists out).

Saw the orthopedist at the end of last week. Consensus was that the shot didn’t really help this time around, so he’s sending me to another doc in his practice to see about going in to clean up the tendon on the inside of the knee and maybe the meniscus, a repair short of a full knee replacement at this point. Here’s hoping that will help get it all settled down, as I’m very tired of limping and not being able to walk normally, much less do any sort of exercise.

Work has calmed down somewhat, and I managed to empty my inbox of emails before I went out on leave. In a way the past week has been like “convention drop” – where you’re so keyed up during a convention with all the energy that brings that when you get home and all that energy is done you just collapse and try to recover. My little work group has been delving into some of our backlog, as well as prepping for all of the litigation that has begun and is coming. Full employment, for sure, but I could do without the messiness of it all.

But anyway. Books for the weekend are picked out and ready to go. Cat stuff is mostly ready for the neighbors to check in on them. Just need to pack clothes and head out in the morning.

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.