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

Got the results in from last week’s annual physical this morning. Cholesterol is a little higher than last year, but not yet “high”. Getting toward the “should watch it, perhaps” range. Vitamin D was on the low end of normal (meaning I need to be more consistent in taking my multivitamin, since it has D, and I don’t otherwise drink D-fortified cow’s milk). Everything else was perfectly normal, as expected. The annual dermatologist appointment is tomorrow morning, to do the skin check for odd spots. Gotta love getting older.

Tomorrow I have the unenviable task of telling work folks that if we screw up on a new provision in our appropriation this year (when it ever passes and gets signed, that is) we get to report that fact to everyone and his brother because it’ll constitute a violation of the Anti-deficiency Act. Woo-hoo! As if the contracting folks weren’t nervous enough about this. Lawdy. Well, it’ll give ’em some incentive not to screw this one up, at least.

Let me spell out why I’m upset at my field office, the one balking at following the directions from headquarters.

When a contracting officer of the U.S. federal government signs a contract, on behalf of the government, he or she assumes personal liability for any screw-ups he makes in the course of letting that contract. If he orders a contractor to do something, without the funds or authority to compel the contractor to take that action, he can be personally liable for the debt owed by the government to the contractor. That’s a Big Deal, no matter how you look at it, given that a great deal of my Big Gubm’nt Agency’s (BGA’s) contracts are worth multiple-millions of dollars, well in excess of the typical federal government employee’s salary.

In my role as legal counsel, looking at the fiscal responsibilities of the federal government and its accountable officers, my professional opinion rendered in the course of my employment can relieve a contracting officer of personal liability. If I tell an employee to take a certain action and that action is later found to be incorrect by a competent tribunal, the employee who followed my advice will not be held liable for following that advice. He or she sought the advice of counsel, and followed it, for better or worse. That’s a big deal, because we’re dealing with the public’s money, and if someone truly defrauds the taxpayers, they should be held liable for that fraud. So letting someone off that hook is not something to be done lightly.

Obviously I have no desire to defraud the government of funds; this money is my tax money as well as the usual federal taxpayer’s, and I don’t want to see it misspent when I can avoid it. So it’s distressing to me, personally, when a field office of my BGA questions my integrity, implicitly, by continuing to question the opinion my office has rendered in a particular case. The idea that I would casually hang a fellow federal employee out to dry, or that I would place the finances of my BGA in jeopardy, is personally abhorrent to me, and it causes me a great deal of distress when our field personnel assume that I would be so cavalier with their and the taxpayer’s finances. I think that’s what stressing me out about this latest brouhaha with the field, that implicitly they are questioning whether I am acting properly in my role as counsel to protect them and the head of my BGA. And the idea that they think I’m acting against their and the taxpayer’s interests, whether overtly or subtly, is a smirch on my professional integrity, and not something I take lightly. Thus, I’m distressed over the situation, as much as they are likely distressed as they contemplate taking an action which might cause them a great deal of personal debt. I don’t want that for them, nor do I want something to go wrong for the taxpayer or the administration (regardless of party), so I’m stuck in a very difficult situation until I can convince them that we’re not going to subject them to personal liability, something they’re not quite ready to accept.

So, I fagged out this morning and bought the super-duper-mega-deluxe-expensive version of Our Lady Of Pop’s latest collection of music I mostly already own. I must say, I’m kinda enjoying having the vids on ye olde AppleTV thingey (since the TV is the best set of speakers in the apartment, this is a good thing).

(oh, and the champagne flutes she uses in the Music video? That’s my crystal pattern)

I’m also suddenly feeling the urge to knit a sweater. I think I must be getting feverish from the head cold. So instead tonight I’m going to work on the long-neglected sock I’m supposed to be knitting. I have to admit, I’m a little afraid of knitting a sweater. I’m not a fan of wearing them, and I’d be trying to make this to be at least partially fitted (as opposed to looking like a big lumpy sack cloth, like many sweaters do), with a really pretty pattern, but man, that’s a lot of yarn to buy and work with. I’m hoping the feeling will pass, but I suspect it won’t. Hmph.

I did get up and run this morning, so am obviously feeling better than I was this weekend. May bike in the morning if I wake up for it. It’s perfect running weather out there now – 50s in the morning. Not so perfect biking weather, but it’ll do. Better than using the trainer, which I’m not ready to do yet.

(okay, watching older Madonna vids, it’s sooooo obvious that she got serious dance training over the years, because the newer ones are so muh more technically competent than her early ones – I mean, watching Lucky Star makes me feel kinda embarrassed for her it’s so amateurish)

Managed to get through the last day of the fiscal year without major drama, mainly because I completely ignored one of our program offices. They can’t manage their own field offices, and I refused to play referee today. Made the day go much better than it might have otherwise. Of course, they’re trying to drag me in tomorrow, but I think I’m going to ask my management to intervene, both with the program people and with the field personnel who are a piecemealing their objections to what we’ve (HQ) told them to do. Tomorrow will be another day, and another year, and another set of messes. Gotta love it.

One more day left in the fiscal year. Thank heavens. With the impending doom coming (not, though it seems like impending doom from their attitudes), our program offices are increasingly nuts. And we’re pushing back just as hard. See, this is where attorney arrogance comes from – dealing with clients who insist on doing things which are, to legal minds, incredibly stupid.

Ugh.

The head cold stuck around through the weekend and my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary party. It’s still here, not quite going away yet. I suspect the driving Saturday and Monday and the resultant dehydration didn’t help any. It was great to see lots of family, cousins I haven’t seen in years, but was also good to get back to my routine today. I’ve been trying to look at my eating habits, and I counted it as a net gain that I didn’t gain any weight while eating out with the parents. Because eating this weekend was a mess, including far too much cake.

Still having fun flirting with Mike. This cold better be well done and gone by the time I get up there, as this is not how I would like to spend the limited time I get with him, with a sore throat and a drippy nose. In the meantime, I need to go shopping this weekend for more clothes before I head up (and in general).

And now I’m babbling, so it’s time for me to crash.

Ah, the end of the fiscal year, when otherwise reasonable adults turn into rabid nutcases regarding money.

I got a lot of cursing out of my system on the walk to work. Mainly stuff around the lines of, “I can’t get your fucking work done if you keep fucking well summoning me to useless fucking meetings that waste my fucking time.” It was very therapeutic. And much better than yelling at the clients, if perhaps a bit less satisfying.

Needless to say, I still got dragged to meetings today. Wretches.

Otherwise things skate along. This too shall pass in time. Though I think I’m going to limit our program offices to one impossible legal task at a time. One of them has three going at the moment, and that’s just too damned many. One is actually too many, but three is just out of this world. And leads to more cursing on my part, which I’m sure isn’t good for my blood pressure.

Good: Got a new, faster work blackberry today.
Bad: It’s still not fully activated.
Good: I don’t have to listen to it tonight.
Bad: I still brought work home.
Good: Picked up clean dress shirts from the dry cleaners.
Bad: Blew a bike tire while dropping off another load of dress shirts.
Good: I was close to home.
Bad: I don’t think the tubes I got for the bike fit closely enough, hence flat #2 in as many weeks (pinching).
Good: It’s cooler out than yesterday.
Better: The conditions are perfect for thunderstorms, which are currently on their way.

Training, that is. Ran and swam yesterday, biked this morning, running a long run tomorrow. Definitely feeling it tonight; almost didn’t do laundry as planned, but managed to get off my butt and get it done (yay for clean sheets). It’s a good kind of tired though – good, honest physical exhaustion from exercise.

Work’s nuts, which seems par for the course these days. I wonder if all political transitions are this crazy or if the economy being in the crapper has substantially added to it. I’d prefer not to find out for a while. What would be nice is to stop stress eating (why couldn’t I be one of those people who can’t eat when they get stressed instead of the opposite? silly body).

Long run planned for the morning, first in a while. Was prepping things for it tonight (water bottle, etc.) and I think I need to hit Conte’s or the like and pick up nutrition this weekend – down to two gels and two things of shot blocks. Not enough to make it through training or the two races, by a long shot.

Cold’s still here, but better. Not feeling the need for quite so much sudafed to keep the sinuses in check today, more like just the normal allergies dosage. Let myself sleep in, and now I’m sipping coffee from my SF Zoo mug this morning and missing my boys out in San Francisco. And as much as I love my apartment and my neighborhood, it’s times like this when I wish I’d bought a place up in northwest so it were easier to get out & about to places for things like “food”.

Brought some work home this weekend, so that’s what I’ll be doing most of the day. The newest political in my chain of command came from the private sector (with no gubm’nt experience), so I think his expectations don’t quite match the reality of being a federal attorney. He’ll learn. But in the meantime I’m going to try and redo this memo such that it doesn’t suck completely. 17 pages? I don’t think so. 5. Maybe. Note to field counsel: footnotes and glossing are your friends, especially with a busy management chain.

Anyway, off to go give y’all more gubm’nt than you’re willing to pay for.

For some reason the reintegration back into real life has been a bit difficult. There was the inevitable backup of work at the BGA (“vacation is its own punishment”), breaking things off with someone I’d been dating, adjustment back to east coast time (which means I have to try and fight my normal nature to be a night owl), and just doing the little things like unpacking everything and putting it all away, sorting mail, grocery shopping, etc. Still haven’t done the grocery shopping, so I’ve been subsisting on ever-shrinking supplies of staples from the freezer and cabinet. Not a bad thing, it’s good to clear those out every now and again, but not perhaps the healthiest meals I could be eating.

One thing I’ve been doing to integrate some of our practices from DLOC has been to post “appreciations” over on FaceBook. Just little things to acknowledge those things I’m appreciative of for whatever reason. It does help to make one more mindful of what’s going on in your life, which has made it a useful tool for me.

Past that I’m trying to find my motivation to get back to tri training for my last two races this season, and finish up my commitment with the club’s volunteer work this month. “The Pile” of books has grown since coming back, including some re-reading of classics I feel the need to reexamine in light of the DLOC and SF experiences (The Ethical Slut, the Tao Te Ching/Dao De Jing). I’m about 1/2 an inch from finishing sock #2 on pair #2, and I have another pull ball ready to go on the next set, but the one sock’s been sitting here unloved as I try to work myself back into life.

Picked up another bike yesterday. I wanted something a bit better for zipping around town than my mountain bike (which is a good bike, but not the best for commuting). I went in a slightly different direction, a single gear, and put “campus pedals” on it (clipless on one side, regular pedal platform on the other), so I don’t have to throw on bike shoes just to zip somewhere if I wish to bike out. My goal there is to bike about more to things in town, and sweat be damned. It even came with a kickstand! I feel so retro with a kickstand on a bike – I don’t think I’ve had one of those since high school. With the bike, though, comes the last big purchase for the year, I think. Need to back off and pay off the remnants of vacation and the bike and plan for the end of the year and Giftmas. And to plan for the next body electric workshop next year, of course.

It’s hard to fully describe the changes wrought by DLOC, but I’ll be working on them this year.

Been loving being here in the bay area the past two days. I’ve worked on my tolerance for beer, wandered around in town, run into friends on the street, and gotten to meet several folks I know, at least one for the first time. Went dancing last night at the local every-other-week bear get-together. Stayed out late yesterday. Crashed early Friday. Eaten lots and lots of good, inexpensive dim sum.

And I can tell I’ve relaxed considerably because I actually have fingernails and cuticles again (I tend to chew them off when I’m stressed, and so they’ve not much been in evidence lately as they’ve been thoroughly taken down at work). Precisely what I’ve needed, and while I’m looking forward to the retreat this week, I’m also very much looking forward to seeing more friends the week after.