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

Up way too early this morning. Been a rough week for my gut, which has not helped my sleep. FODMAPs hate me, and I haven’t been able to eat at home where I can better control the food as much as I should.

I make it a habit to flip off the statute of the 40th President of the US every time I pass National Airport on the Metro (twice daily on work days). While I’ve found most presidents are a mixed bag, I have a particular dislike of that one because of his inaction on HIV and what it did to wipe out the generations of gay men right before mine.

The husband thanked me this week for insisting that we not look at any properties which were anywhere near a flood zone of any kind on the FEMA flood insurance maps, after one of his coworkers complained he was going to have to completely redo his finished basement in the house he’d just moved into 11 days prior.

Work has asked me to write up my second memo in six months on constitutional issues facing our agency for the folks at Justice to weigh in on. On the one hand, hey, they like me and like my writing. On the other hand, no pressure, it’s just the future of the agency and how it operates. Eeck.

Because of the lack of sleep my personal reading has been light – rereading the Cradle series by Will Wight, which is fun, but by no means a heavy intellectual lift. Thank you, Kindle unlimited.

The husband and his sister are bungee jumping off a bridge this afternoon. Her daughter and I will watch and make fun of the screaming. All good.

As with large swaths of the rest of the upper North America, the DC area got a return of wildfire smoke this week. It sort of hit Thursday, then it really hit on Friday. When I went out to drive to the Metro you could clearly see the haze in the air just looking down my short block. Smacked the ‘recirculate air’ button on the car AC as I headed out. At the Metro parking lot I got out, took a whiff of the charred smell and promptly put on a COVID mask, which actually helped a lot with the smell. Took it off once I got inside the train car, and noticed the smell fading as we rode through the tunnels through most of the District on my way to Virginia.

But each time the train exited a tunnel into the open air, the smoke smell returned.

The views on bridge over the Potomac were surreal. Couldn’t clearly see anything past the two bridges on either side of the Metro bridge – the airport was out of sight, as were any of the memorials and monuments, normally clearly seen in the background. It wasn’t quite as bad once I got down to Alexandria as it had been up at home in Maryland, but it was still pretty bad. The ride home in the evening was more of the same; Maryland was worse, and the smell persisted.

Today we went out shopping for some needed polo shirts for me and it was still hot and smokey. Big rainstorms on the drive home seem to have driven most of it away, however. Am hoping they’re able to take care of the source fires soon, for the sake of the local communities up in Canuckistan, as well as everyone else’s lungs.

Pro-tip: Clip your toenails before you have knee surgery, and not a week afterwards. It’ll be a lot easier. 😉

Sutures are out, balance is good. I drove to PT. Hardest part of driving right now is getting in and out of the car. Strength and coordination while driving were fine, it’s just awkward getting out of the car. So now it’s working on range-of-motion (so much flexing of the knee) and strength (so many variations of squats).

In other news, it’s hot as all get out here in the DC area. Currently around 96F/35C. Which was a perfectly fine temperature when I lived in Taiwan and had acclimated to sub-tropical heat, but not so much now that I’m stuck in AC all the time and fat.

My small gubm’nt agency is getting kicked out of our new (2017) office building in favor of a big gubm’nt agency that wants to move out of their mid-century brutalist monstrosity downtown. We found out definitively yesterday evening, with the press stuff happening this morning. So far the rumor is that we’ll be moved to the federal center in Suitland MD, which would be fine by me because it’s a straight shot down the green line for me – no more switching trains. But I bet it would lead to a lot more attrition, as both the current and former HQ buildings are in Northern Virginia, and people aren’t going to want to go to Maryland.

In better news, since I can drive we can go get haircuts. And comics. And groceries. Yay!

Spent a chunk of yesterday finally getting all four tires replaced on the Mini. The local place was a lot friendlier than BJ’s, and apparently NTB is now Mavis, though the signage (and online) hasn’t caught up yet. Popped by the local carwash on the way back from picking up the car, so the beast looks (and drives) much nicer now.

Continuing to slowly build my running back up on the treadmill.

Up far too early this morning after Benjamin (male cat) decided to puke, twice, in the hallway outside our bedroom. Found it without stepping in it (yay?) and got it all cleaned up. Very grateful that I thought to stash some paper towels under the sink in the bathroom off that hallway so I didn’t have to go downstairs for some.

A good chunk of my office flooded last week. There’s a ledge outside the windows of about 2/3 of the offices (including mine) where water got backed up and came in though the walls. Nothing personal of anyone’s was damaged, and very few official documents were dampened since most of that is electronic now so there was only like one box on the floor in the suite (unlike a flood in my old office that was a nightmare of drying out old paper). While facilities swung into action while the flood was still ongoing thanks to one of our employees alerting them, it apparently still smells according to the few people who’ve braved the place, and they’re going to have to do all sorts of remediation. So who knows if I’ll be going back in immediately after labor day or not? That’s tentatively the plan since the local Metro stations reopen after that weekend, but not if they’re still dealing with walls and carpet and what not.

Our power went out for a little while yesterday afternoon, and it apparently got a good distance around us, because my dental office was also hit. Had an ‘every-six-months’ appointment this morning, and they were still having problems getting into the computers. Thankfully all I needed or wanted was a cleaning, and that didn’t require a computer. All good on that front, and I’ll call them next week to schedule the next appointment and deal with billing.

I was a little worried I was going to have to go into the office today, because the power cord on my work laptop didn’t seem to be charging it after the power outage. I was all set to try a couple different things and then make the drive in, but after sitting powered down all night it was drawing power just fine this morning, post-dentist. Thank heavens. The Metro is current closed down at the office, so it would’ve meant a drive one way or another.

In the meantime, it’s Apple systems update day, so I’ve been updating all of my devices, and getting the husband’s computers for good measure while he’s at work. Much easier to do during the day at home than waiting until everyone is trying to do it when they get home from work.

Despite my declarations that I would be holed up inside my apartment until Wednesday morning, I did wander out into DC today to grab lunch with Chris up in Columbia Heights. Our first choice of restaurant was packed to the gills with a line out the door (at 1 pm, mind you), and the second choice had a 45 minute wait. We took the 2nd choice and zipped over to Best Buy to waste some time (setting a phone timer so we would know when to wander back). Got in relatively quickly after we returned, and had a perfectly nice lunch (not-quite-screaming-but-just-occasionally-fussy-baby notwithstanding).

The city is just abuzz. I haven’t seen it this packed in ages, and everyone is just full of this energy surrounding the inauguration, it’s wild. The Metro was busy, but not insane. Lots of “Is this our stop? This is our stop! Quick, get off the train!” type conversations going on, but for the most part folks were getting tickets and getting through the stalls pretty quickly and not being obnoxious about getting in and out of the cars and generally not being in the way. I am, however, glad I’ll not be going anywhere near Metro tomorrow. As busy as it was today, with 8 car trains and all of them relatively busy, tomorrow will promise to be a madhouse.

I’m glad I went out today, it was neat to see all these folks who are so excited to be here.

The cupcakes went over well last night. ‘Twas a fun evening, and I enjoyed getting to see the various folks who were there.

Waiting for coffee to finish steeping here in the french press this morning, then I’m getting cleaned up and heading out to brunch at Asylum with Stephen and Kevin. I’ve found ’tis better to get to Asylum right at 11 when they open because they’ll actually have the daily specials available (and they’re generally worth it), and you can find seating with a minimum of fuss. 2 pm? Good luck. Haven’t been in a couple of months, so am looking forward to the good food. And time on the Metro to knit, of course. Then I’m going to be stuck reviewing a document for work for a bit, and hoping I don’t get the same reaction I got last year when I pointed out typos in it (“Wait, you can’t change the text now!” Then why have me review it, you wankers? Honestly).

Have my annual physical tomorrow, as well as a dermatologist visit to get checked out. Don’t expect anything earth shattering will be found, but given the family history it’s better to check than not. The worst part is the fasting for the blood tests. No, wait, I take that back, the worst part is the prostate exam, but the fasting comes in a close second. But we do what we must.

Picking JT up from the airport this evening on his way back from London and grabbing dinner with him. Sunday dinners with him seems to be becoming a regular habit, and it’s one I’m glad we’re getting into. He’s one of my longest known friends in the area, and I enjoy the extra time with him now.