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

The local DC area community, no stranger to government funding lapses, has done a good job in stepping up for furloughed Feds. One of my local yarn shops is running free classes to teach knitting and crochet, with donated supplies, other places are offering food or drink discounts, etc. So yesterday the husband and I took advantage of one of these and went out to an alpaca farm. They were shorter than I expected; I think I was thinking llamas, which are taller. Mostly well behaved – no spitting, though there were some disagreements over who got to come up and take the snacks we took out to them. ‘Twas quite fun, and I’m glad we got to do it. Of course I bought some yarn, though I’m not quite sure what I’ll turn it into yet (which is a violation of my recent ‘no yarn buying unless you have a pattern picked out for it’ anti-stash rule). All in all a nice way to spend a late Tuesday afternoon.

October started with a lot of new things. New toothbrush (once a quarter I swap them out), new paper journal, and a government shutdown where my agency’s salaries and expenses funding actually ran out so I’m dealing with furlough crap for the first time in my almost 27 years as a Fed. I myself am excepted from furlough in this one because I’m working the legal issues around the lack of cash, but in all the previous shutdowns my big gubm’nt agency had funding that carried forward into the new year, or had gotten its regular appropriation already, so we never closed. So the actual rhythm of this all is new, despite being the money lawyer and so very much in the middle of preparations for lapses for decades now.

Mostly it feels like I’m going to be bored. And then, once I finally settle on whatever distraction I want to indulge in (reading, knitting, video games, etc.) I feel like I’m going to be annoyed when the inevitable one-off legal question comes in. At least my agency is doing the smart thing and having those of us who are still working do so remotely; I understand some of the bigger agencies are still insisting that people come to the office to do their excepted work, in line with the overall return to office policy. That seems like a nightmare, and a recipe for even worse boredom, especially since you’re not legally permitted to do your normal job duties, only those which fit the narrow legal exceptions to the lack of funding (imminent threats to life or property; constitutional functions; etc.).

I’ve never been able to read these things correctly, so I have no clue how long this one will last. As I like to explain it at work, if I could guess with any accuracy what Congress would do in a given situation I would be making a lot more money somewhere else. So we’ll see. The husband and I discussed finances and I think we’ll weather a protracted (month or so) shutdown with a little tightness but no missed bills. Heaven forfend it go longer than that. Though it would perhaps give me time to start and finish a knitted blanket (with already-purchased yarn) that I have in the queue.

After work the husband and I went to see the newest Marvel film, Captain America: Brave New World. We enjoyed it, was probably a mid-tier Marvel movie (not the best, not the worst). For a couple sitting three rows back from us it was a very expensive nap – they both snored, loudly, through the vast majority of the movie. ‘Twas all we could do not to break out in giggles when it got particularly bad. Thankfully it wasn’t quite enough to drown out the movie itself.

Finally downloaded the Signal app for my personal phone. There are a lot of rumors that the new crew is installing key loggers and automatic transcription for all video meetings on our work devices, with monitoring to see if anyone is being ‘disloyal’ to 47. An incredible breach of several laws and national security requirements, if true. But after the firings of so many probationary employees this week it’s better safe than sorry.

Commuted to work, Metro was behaving. Got to pull out one of my favorite wah-wah court quotes (“However, nowhere does our Constitution extol the virtue of efficiency and nowhere does it command that all our laws be fiscally wise.” Guadamuz v. Ash, 368 F. Supp. 1233, 1243 (D.D.C., 1973)). Was in the context of telling someone that it didn’t matter that it would be cheaper if we paid for individual memberships for people to attend a conference, and that while buying the memberships plus the member registration rate was cheaper than paying the non-member rate, Congress said in law that we couldn’t pay for memberships for individual feds, so they’d just have to suck it up and pay more money. Yes, sometimes the law is like that (and frankly in most instances the law makes sense because you don’t want to use taxpayer funds to pay every employees’ voluntary society membership dues, it’s just that in this particular instance it happens to cost the taxpayer more). My job is weird.

Past that I walked on the treadmill this morning. I think my knee may be hyper-extending and thus causing more issues, so I’m going to dig out some of the lighter knee braces in my collection and see if one of them helps. The walk was fine, and I stretched a lot right after, so it was okay for most of the day. There’s still a lot of ice out there so I was very careful where I put my feet, especially in the Metro parking lot, where ice melt had refrozen as black ice.

Is it really only Tuesday? This week feels like it should be done already.

Checked on the cats this evening for Richard. They’re still alive. Boris was tres fussy, and Natasha was calmer than she’s been in ages.

Went out this weekend, had vodka for the first time in forever. Ugh. I remember why I’ve not been indulging in that particular vice of late. Monday was less than pleasant, though not entirely miserable. Won’t be repeating that particular slip until after the IM, I think.

Happy Hogswatch to all, and to all a good night.

At my last job I used to have this little routine. Someone would come into my office, frantic, saying something to the effect of, “Moose, I need help!” to which I would reply, “Well, my degree is in law, not psychology, but I’ll do my best…”

It usually slowed them down long enough to take some of the edge off the “ZOMGWTF!” attitude.

Today’s been one of those days. Everything has been ZOMGWTF!!! in intensity. And the one office still has not learned the phrase “admission against interest.” I swear, the brain needs to engage before the mouth. Or fingers.

Yet another reason I’m going to hell: I like to watch DC parking enforcement come down and ticket the tourists cars illegally parked past the rush hour start time on Independence Avenue. If it’s a really slow day they’ll even tow them, leaving some family of blond-headed kids and their fanny-pack wearing parents scratching their heads and frantically calling to find out where there car is, just like the ones sitting on the concrete barrier directly across the street from my office window right this moment.

I got hit by a bird when we first started up. Two birds were either fighting or fucking, but in any case they came swooping down in the road, not looking where they were going, and one of them smacked me. Never before have I felt like Fabio. No blood, no scratch, thankfully.

You can tell it’s spring pollen season when you look down and your tire is a lovely shade of light yellow. Ick.

Despite the bird incident it was a good ride. Overcast, cool, mid-60s. The rain that looked threatening never happened, so it was smooth sailing. Got dropped, as I expected, but no worries there, I just got in a good ride, keeping the cadence up and attempting to keep the heart rate at a decent level. Was a tad high, but it’ll get better as the season progresses.

A small plane hit a condominium highrise in Manhattan this afternoon. No terrorism suspected at this time. (see any news site for details)

And yet, despite reading “no connection to terrorism,” upon seeing the images, the chest still grows tighter, the the pulse quickens, the stomach gets all flustered, and feelings from five years ago return.

I suppose this is the side effect of living in the other metropolitan area to get hit back then. Not that I want to move, and not that I feel particularly unsafe here in DC, but it does make me wonder if those feelings will ever fade or if they’ll still this vivid for the rest of my life.