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

I shouldn’t be surprised at it, but I still seem not to grasp quite how much the state of my digestive system can effect my entire mood. The past few days it had been gradually getting worse, the result of allergies run amok. Yesterday was just the culmination of it, combined with a calf that continued to hate me, and a work day that was beyond insane, and I was just in A Mood. So I came hom, stuffed myself silly (my body’s normal reaction to upset stomach – eat, Eat, EAT!, I suspect in an effort to drive out the ickiness), popped a sudafed and proceeded to have a little pity party.

What finally snapped me out of it was being ignored in a chat room while being whiney, and then Richard calling to confirm that not only was the USPS still not forwarding my mail, but that I’d gotten a jury summons yesterday (my fourth in seven years living in DC). I think the jury summons was the last absurd little detail, which finally got me laughing (and by then the sudafed had kicked in and my stomach was settling). Slept well, and today was much better. Just as crazy at work, but without the stomach woes, so the whole attitude was much, much better.

Tonight I managed to clear off a bunch of junk (over a year’s worth of flyers from when the place was empty), finally talk to TiVo (who had never charged me for the lifetime service and had charged me again for a monthly – they’ve now fixed that), tried to hunt up a receipt I need to mail in (unsuccessful), and paid a couple irregular bills.

Had bought flowers on Friday and they’re still looking nice. A simple touch that is very pleasant to look at, and nice to have around. Will have to consider doing that more often. Of course, I need to get plants in here period. Brought none with and haven’t bought any. But first I need to figure out the layout of the living room, and for that I need to drag in outside help.

It looked as if I had killed the Scarecrow in my living room.

My dining room chairs arrived today, and inside the boxes they were padded with this paper wrapping that included some sort of straw stuffing that, no matter how careful I was, got all over everything. Whenever you moved the padding, it fell everywhere, along with the twine that I had to cut off the outside. Even tried to clog up the vacuum cleaner when I went after it that way. But in the end, I have dining room chairs, and can finally sit somewhere other than the couch to eat.

Otherwise it was a calm day. I got rid of the last of the donatables from the old apartment, got hissed at by Boris after I clipped his claws, claimed my flours & other baking sundries, forgot to get my mail, and had a nice time seeing Richard. Took the cart to the grocery store, hauled back some sundries for making some fun things (marinara, anyone?) and some more staples. I’m gradually rebuilding a kitchen, now I just need to cook some more. Tempeh gets made tomorrow – I’ve been craving a good rice dish, and since the rice cooker was among the things reclaimed from the old place, I can make some again. Without picking up the phone, even.

Long bike ride planned for tomorrow, then off to whatever Arena stage is playing at the moment. Might have to talk Lawrence into Jenny’s for dinner, stick down here in the ‘hood.

The boxes are gone.

I just packed up the last of the empty boxes, including the ones from the just-set-up dining table. I have space in the back of the living room (a.k.a. the dining area), there’s no boxes sitting around, and the psychic relief of having it all gone is considerable.

Of course, now that the table’s set up, now I want to rearrange the room entirely. Move the desk around, shift the storage unit. Thinking the table should go as a console behind the couch. Shift the black bookshelf around. Generally see how better to set the room up.

But man, it feels good to have those boxes gone.

I hate when I overschedule.

I’m normally fairly good with putting things in the two different calendars I maintain (work and home), but I forgot to put in an after-work-work-function (aka happy hour with the other young attorneys) and scheduled dinner with a friend this evening as well. Given the relative positions of the friendships and what not, I’m choosing dinner over HH, but I hated having to spill the beans that I’d overscheduled and was not making HH (even with the real and good excuse that I have to run and get my new glasses after work today). Ah well.

Been in a mild funk the last two or three days with a lack of sleep, general feeling of pessimism, and dealing with the last bits of the relationship with CT (a handover of some things I left at his apartment). Not terribly fun, but I know it’s a temporary condition, just have to keep telling myself that.

The dining room table arrives today, as does a stool/side table for the balcony. The chairs are on backorder until the middle of the month, but that just gives me time to clear the remaining junk out of the way. Once the table’s set up I’ll have a chance to look at various designs of couches I’ve been looking at, to see if any of them would work in the space. For the most part the dining room table will be in the folded mode against the wall, so I’ve got some space for a couch in front of it, but I’ll need to actually see the space, as well as measure, etc.

Work’s nuts, with several things bouncing around. Thankfully the bosses are understanding since they’re bouncing on the same issues (as well as others). Fun stuff (not). Hopefully will settle down soon, but if not, oh well!

I was out running this morning, about 20 minutes or so in, was rounding one of the three corners around Hains Point, running on the grass, when I passed under some of the many cherry trees there. It was misting lightly, and some last few hardy blossoms were coming down in the rain, falling nicely across the path. Very pretty, very zen, very cool. And then one of the petals found its way into my mouth.

Nothing like spitting out cherry blossom to ruin a mood.

The good run (an hour, no calf pain!) was had despite sleeping in late, having been out late last night tricking. Tried water sports successfully for the first time (had an abortive attempt once before) and I have to say it did absolutely nothing for me. One set of initials checked off the list and in the ‘nah, don’t need to do that any more’ column. Along with that I also fisted the guy, and again I don’t think it does much for me. Is interesting in an itellectual sense (anatomy, displacement, etc.), and a sensual sense (control, texture, etc.), but it’s just not a very sexual act to me, in the sense of turning me on, because it just doesn’t. I won’t rule it out if a partner’s really into it, but I just need to realize that it’s silly to seek it out because it’s just ‘blah’ on the continuum of turn-ons for me.

Other than that I shopped, a lot (Homo Depot, Target, Pearson’s liquors), got a lot of things for the house, and generally got my money’s worth out of the rental car I had for the weekend. Have a fresh case of wine, replenished the liquor cabinet, got the aforementioned kitchen sink aerator, and got rid of 99% of the stuff that was left at the old place. Still have to haul off the old Kirby vacuum cleaner, and get my flour and stuff, but the big stuff that was being donated is now gone, which I’m sure Richard is glad of.

I just performed my first home repair: I changed out the aerator on the kitchen sink. The previous owner had some sort of water filtration system hooked up at some point, which was long since defunct. The aerator and attachment were still there, however, so I wanted to change it out for something a tad less decrepit looking. So, off to Homo Depot this weekend to get that and a few other things for the house.

Well, just found my plyers this evening, so I ripped off the old aerator and I was appalled at the amount of crud built up inside the old one. No wonder I was getting crap for water pressure in the kitchen, nothing could get out amongst all the gunk that was built up in the aerator! Yuck, yuck, yuck. Had to go run off and grab my old toothbrush (that I use for scrubbing small spaces) and clean the thing off thoroughly to get all the crud off the thing before I could put the new one on. Thankfully it all came off quickly, and the new aerator screwed on pretty easily.

Not bad for a first repair, but yuck on all the crud that was discovered.

Is it bad that I bought a bicycling helmet that was fancy expensive enough to come with its own carrying case? Needed Wanted a new helmet for racing & to train on the tri bike, plus I needed beaucoup hydration equipment (read: I left all my water bottles at the old place), so it was off to the bike shop yesterday evening on the way to the club happy hour to pick up a few things. Was a successful trip, getting their last between-the-aero-bars water bottle, the helmet and a couple regular water bottles. Did forget to pick up arm warmers, but hopefully they won’t be needed any time in the near future.

Ran this morning, another successful run with no calf pain. Went out the same way, along the marina and up to L’Enfant Promenade to zip across the Case bridge, but this time I popped down into the park and ran around the Washington Channel and back that way, so a more varied loop than Monday’s run, and about a 1/3 of a mile or so longer. A lot of concrete out there, which is going to take some getting used to.

I set my old roomba loose on the floors this morning (since I’ve yet to swiffer them *whistles innocently*), and it seems to be running just fine. It didn’t like the old place, but I suspect we had too many obstacles set up for it to run well. Now that most boxes are out of the way, and I have no carpets down yet, it seems to be happily bumping it’s way through the bedroom, sucking up dirt. Let’s hope it helps with some of this dust that’s all over the floors.

I’ve determined that I’m never going to be a good gamer. I’ve not picked up the DS but once or twice since I’ve been here, and that was to place Advance Wars or Sonic Rush. I don’t think I’ve been to Animal Crossing in a couple weeks now; all my ‘neighbors’ will have run away and the place will be overgrown with weeds again. Ah well.

Having food at home is a good thing. Cooked yesterday (just some frozen pasta & sauce) for the first time, and made a good salad this evening. Starting to feel like home, finally, with some food in the fridge & cabinet (and my belly).

Work’s been odd this week, with absolutely no one in the office on Monday when I got in, which is really, really bizarre as I’m usually the very last person to get there in the morning. Easter Monday, go fig. And otherwise it’s just been a strange mix of busy and not-busy. And of course the last place I want to be is at work, preferring to be at home getting things together. Whee.

Calf is still okay, so I’m hopeful it’ll be okay when I run tomorrow or Friday (haven’t decided if I want to run or bike tomorrow). Swam this evening, pretty good swim, and not too busy in the pool, which was a pleasant change from the mornings. I still want to check out the two closer pools, but if an evening swim would be less crowded, that might be a better option (since I do like the YWCA facility overall).

I finally broke down and went to get some whole bean coffee from the local grocery store down here just now. Cola and/or napping in the middle of the afternoon wasn’t cutting it, and I wanted the ritual of being up and getting some coffee on the weekends.

Managed to get a good chunk of my clothes out of boxes and into either the closet or the chest of drawers last night, after I put the couch together and got the mattress out of the bedroom (where it was blocking the closet). It was really nice to get the couch together so I had somewhere to sprawl out upon, other than the bed. Also consolidated the boxes of books to one location (all dozen of them) so I had some floor space in which to put the couch. I need to dump empty boxes soon to clear up more space. As boxes have emptied and space has become available it’s been easier to get a feel for the flow of the apartment, even while it’s still in flux.

I am officially annoyed with Presta valves. I can’t seem to get my front tire on the tri bike inflated to save my life, which killed taking a ride this morning, until such time as the bike shop opens and I can figure out where I’m going wrong on the inflation thing. User error, but not sure where the error lies.

I’ve yet to use it on aught but the bathroom floor, but I picked up one of those “swiffer” things to get all the dust and tree sperm off the floor. While wandering around barefoot on Friday I noticed that my feet quickly turned black from all the residual dust. I wish I’d had a chance to clean the place now (hindsight, 20/20, all that) before I moved in, or at least have run a damp mop over the floors to get the dust up. Ah well, working at it bit by bit now.

But having the stuff mostly together in the bedroom has been wonderful. To have one space where I can stop, not be looking at five gazillion boxes in various states of repair and fullness, and just relax, has been invaluable for my mental health. The gorgeous weather we’ve had, which has allowed me to have the doors wide open, has also helped. I say doors because the way this apartment works, the “windows” in the living room are floor to ceiling glass which open onto the screened-in balcony, one of which slides behind the other to open up the room. The windows in the bedroom don’t open at all, but there is a door to the balcony which opens up into the bedroom to allow air in. Has been fun running from the bedroom to the living room via the balcony. I’m sure that’ll stop once it heats up outside, but it’s nice now, and lends to the feeling of openness of the apartment.

Packages seem to be a hit and miss thing. Got my blender and my TV just fine, but haven’t been able to get the toaster out of hock yet. It’s here according to Amazon, but they’ve not given me a package notice on it yet, and the guard couldn’t find it because “there are a lot of packages back there” in the office. Oy. I’m sure it’ll turn up Monday when the regular office folks are back in. Good thing it wasn’t something important like coffee making equipment.

I’ll get some pictures up once I dig out the camera and clear some more floor space.

Yay for neighbors with unprotected wifi networks. I didn’t expect to be back online until tomorrow afternoon after the cable folks showed up.

And yay, yay, triple yay for hiring movers this time around. It came in, with tip, to just under what I’d budgeted for it, and it was worth every freakin’ penny. I did get shooed out of the way when I was trying too hard to be helpful, and I’ve never been called “sir” so much in one morning (outside of a B&D scene), but as I said, every freakin’ penny.

And so far, since they’ve been gone, the only thing I’ve done is find the wifi network and set up my desk. Because honestly, right now I just don’t feel like doing much more than sitting in my chair and enjoying the afternoon sun.

Looking at the boxes spread out all over the living room, I’ve very glad I culled stuff over the past week, and the past year. I can’t imagine having to go through all that stuff again to find homes for it. As it is I still have to go pick it up and dispose of it this weekend, but I don’t have to find a place for it in my life, or my home, and I’m grateful for that.