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

I swear, they need to licence people to wear cologne or perfume. So few people wear it properly (i.e., subtly). Came into my office this morning and rode up in the elevator with a guy who’s going to be leaving his favorite signature scent all over the building today. It certainly lingered in the elevator long after he’d left. Probably got it for Christmas or something.

Had a horrible dream last night in which I was diagnosed with lung cancer. When given the diagnosis I blurted out, “But I’ve never smoked!” and then I remember that essentially I had smoked for the first 15 years of my life, since Mom smoked up until 1987. Then we segued into having to tell my parents about the cancer without trying to blame Mom for smoking. Whee.

Boring as all heck here at work. I’ve been trying to avoid too much web surfing, but have enjoyed sending semi-snarky emails to co-workers (while keeping in mind that most of them are FOIA-able, so keeping them down to an R rating). Cynical statement of the day (while discussing trophy spouses):

I prefer cats. Yes, they make me sneeze, and they fuss occasionally, but they snuggle well, you can toss them out of bed if you need to, and they’re oh-so-grateful to be fed. And they’re perpetually cute if you pick the right breed.

And now the rest of my office has left (early dismissal announced while I was in the middle of writing). I’m staying to give office coverage until 5, with the reward of 2.5 hours some other day, which I’m thinking may be Tuesday morning after Monday night’s party.

After biking all over creation today (well, not quite, but more than the usual for me as I had errands to run, post-gym), and swimming for an hour, I feel much, much better. Moose + Exercise = Much Better Mood. It also = much hungrier Moose, but that’s par for the course.  It helped that it was insanely warm here in DC today, around 70 F (~21 C) for the high, where the normal high is about 23 degrees cooler than that, around 47 F (~8 C) or so. So after all that it was home to wash clothes, grab some leftover soup and chill out.

Work is in that odd state of not-quite-fully-loaded-up, but not-quite-on-down-time either. We always expect it to be quieter, but somehow the inevitable last minute crises appear. At least it’s not completely dead, though then I would be able to catch up on filing and clear off my desk.

Party tomorrow evening, and seeing MG for probably the last time before he takes off for his trip back home for the holiday. Office party is also tomorrow (my particular section, as opposed to my larger attorney office, which was last week). My boss asked one of the organizers if it was going to be a dry party. We assured her it was not, so she zipped off the requisite mother-may-I letter to the building manager and got our permission (long gone are the days when feds could legally keep liquor in their offices without any check or fear or reprimand).

Not sure if I’ll get a run in tomorrow morning or not. If not, so be it. If so, yay. Would be better with, to stave off the party calories, but that’s what the rest of the week is for.

While home at lunch, I went by the office, asked to swap out my pedestrian fob for one of the car gate radio fobs. Had to fill out a piece of paper, but they gave it to me, no charge. Was quite nice to be able to bike onto the property this evening without stopping. Go squeeky wheel.

Rest of the afternoon was slightly crazy, work-wise, but bearable. Got my monthly haircut (she went even shorter than usual, looks good), then biked back downtown to swim for an hour. Did not have to time to make soup as I’d hoped, but the ingredients will keep until tomorrow, post-gym (with no haircut to take up the extra time). Or perhaps until the weekend when I can take an afternoon to simmer it down nicely. Hmm…

Managed to forget my wallet this morning (d’oh!), which wouldn’t be a big deal, but my monthly haircut is this evening, so I kind of needed it. So, told my team leader I was headed out for lunch today (I normally work through lunch at my desk), and biked back home. Much nicer than doing a veggie burger at work, and it’s nice to come back and check email on a real computer (as opposed to my cell phone). Hopefully the pasta will be done shortly and then it’s back up the hill to try and fix a (hopefully not too) big goof by one of our program offices with regards to their budget. Fun, fun. One of those times when I actually have to put to paper all of the ‘truths’ that folks ‘know’ about how the federal budget gets executed, which means some folks are not going to be happy…

Too much to write about right now, and no time to do it. Will attempt to get more thoughts to ‘paper’ here in the next couple of days.

Good lunch today with RNJTM at his place of employment. This after getting rid of the rental car and somehow managing to get into my BGA, deposit a check in the ATM (I bank at the BGA’s credit union), replace my lost badge, drop off two bags of candy in my office, go to the bathroom and leave, all without seeing any of my co-workers.

Came home, napped, got in a run (first exercise in two weeks – damned cold). Found out the internet was down, watched them release a squirrel who’d gotten into our lobby (yay for the exterminator [who regularly comes in on Mondays] having a live-capture trap), cleaned some, then off to dinner with MG, who is now trying to fix his ailing laptop in the other room since the internet is now back up. Oh, and managed to register for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler (third time’s the charm?). Next step, planning how to approach the race this year.

Lots of thoughts about the family, Mom’s memory, driving, etc., but for now I really, really just want to get to sleep.

I love watching people trying to parallel park. I can see tourists doing so all day long on Independence Avenue outside my office window and it provides no end of amusement.

Speaking of amusement, day two of sudafed (yay head cold) is progressing nicely through the floaty feeling stage of the drug. Makes critical thinking oh so much fun. Did manage to avoid taking it last night before bed, so wasn’t up all night, but I did have several fun dreams as I floated in and out of consciouness (I usually don’t remember dreams unless I’m not really deeply sleeping).

The first was a scenario where I was working at a summer camp, likely a scout camp (but not the one I worked at up in Maine). I remember being really excited because I could keep up my triathlon training, though on my mountain bike, not the tri bike (dirt roads), and get in some much needed open water swimming practice. As well as getting some skin cancer sun exposure.

The second I’ve now forgotten. I don’t recall that it was terribly long.

The third and last one was teaching English to junior high school students in Taiwan, which involved me speaking a lot of Mandarin. While it was good to exercise those attrophying language muscles, it made for an odd dream (trying to explain to these kids where the term “alphabet” came from? why?).

Anyway, was good to sleep without drugs (though with a humidifier), but not the most restful night I’ve had. I’m hopeful I can avoid the almost inevitable sleepless night that comes with most of my head colds (and thus causes me to miss a day of work – because if you can’t infect your co-workers, why bother having a cold?).

I’m fighting off a head cold at the moment. Stayed over at MG’s place on Saturday and he had a fan going to keep the air circulating, and I temporarily forgot that fan blowing across Moose’s face = dry nose = head cold susceptibility. You’d think with the AC drama over the summer I’d remember that, but no. My own fault, but still annoying. Lotsa vitamin C & B being consumed (yay for Emergen-C) at the moment.

Tonight was a non-food night of shopping at the grocery store. Needed those lovely home staples of bleach, toilet paper, etc., so grabbed the requisite coupons and dragged myself up for it. Didn’t get home early enough to do whites (for which I needed the aforementioned bleach), but I can do that later this week. Did get in a swim after work, drill work this time, and felt good doing it and after. The bike ride home tends to feel a tad chilly, even after I dry off thoroughly, but it’s short enough not to be a hassle.

Oh, and I managed to lose my work badge. Which isn’t such a big deal, except that the policy of the security people is to drive you batty by punishing you for being a dork make you wait ten working days to get a new badge, even though the technology exists to print out a new one on the spot (as well as cancelling the old one). So, metal detector city for me for the next two weeks.  Thankfully that’s pretty easy when I bike in since everything but my keys (metal-wise) is already in my bag from the commute in. So once I come back from visiting my family over the weekend of the 8th I’ll be re-badged.

Did a massage exchange yesterday with a gentleman whom I’ve exchanged massages with before (for those unfamiliar, it’s simply a “you massage me, I massage you” arrangement). He could use some technique pointers, but overall is pretty good. Haven’t done one of those in ages, so was nice to get a little body work done.

And now, time to crash to help sleep off the cold.

To say I was busy at work yesterday would be an understatement. Best way to explain how the day went: When I got to the end of the day, I picked up my thermos (the one I pack my good coffee in from home) to put it in my bag. It was still full. I’d never even had my coffee. And if you know me, you know that doesn’t happen; I always have my coffee. I’m sure I’ll make up for the caffeine consumption today, but, yeah, busy.

Am hopeful this upcoming holiday week will be a tad easier, and let me concentrate on two semi-big projects and get them out the door. That and time to do some research on the new vision and dental plans that the Feds are offering as a choice this year.

Today is about catching up on my games (there were weeds all over my town of Crobuzon in Animal Crossing:Wild World) and cleaning. The off-season is so thrilling. I did swim last night, so I’m not totally slacking, but it’s nice to lay off the exercise for a little bit.

I love going to the dentist for a filling. First they numb you up so even now, hours later, I still feel like a stroke victim who’s lost control over half of his face. Then they run a drill which was just as annoying to listen to when it wasn’t inside my mouth as it was (I checked, it was).  Then, when it was all over, I find out that evidently while they’re filing insurance on our behalf, they’re not taking payment from the insurance company – now they file, but you pay it all up front and get reimbursed by the insurance company. Whee.

Good thing I love my dentist (who gave me a lottery ticket for referring a co-worker to him – I won $1.00).

Add to the grumpiness the unseasonably warm, wet weather (I like warm weather, I like wet weather, but not together and not in November when it’s supposed to be cooler) and that the anesthetic has lead to a slight nausea and you have a fun morning.

In slightly better news™, my boss loved a memo I wrote yesterday for the front office, had no changes for it, simply asked that it be put on letterhead and signed out. Sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen, so is a good, good thing. Also, had a conference call over a payment issue that’s stretched out for months now, and it looks like we’re finally going to get to make some payments in a law suit now that everyone’s on board with the right database info and numbers. Whew. I will be happy to have that little thing off our plate. Now if I could just kill off the other two big projects that won’t die, I can get back to more normal matters…