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

I was hit by a car tonight.

I was walking across Independence Avenue, with the crosswalk, and there was an SUV with NJ plates who was partially blocking the crosswalk (as in, over the END of the crosswalk and over in the intersection), and evidently that was enough to block the driver’s sight as he turned left and hit me.

He barely tapped my left knee and I smacked his hood as I was waving at him, yelling at him, and backing up. Insisted he pull over, he was very polite, and very apologetic. I called the police, two women gave me their cards to be witnesses (I’ll email thanks tomorrow), and when the police came he was again very polite and calm. The police cited him for failure to yield to a pedestrian, I refused medical service (wasn’t more than tapped, though I will call my orthopedist tomorrow morning and go in to check it out just in case), and that was that.

Not the way I saw my Wednesday night starting out.

As I said the other day, I’m moving offices soon, to a window office here at the BGA (and no, I can’t take photos of the view – as folks know, I do not identify which BGA I work for and to take a photo would clearly mark which building I’m in and thus which BGA, so no pictures. Sorry). Spent a good part of today: a) moving my furniture around (much to the chagrin of the 78 year old guy we keep around to, I kid you not, move furniture); and b) dusting/cleaning said furniture.

It’s amazing how much dust builds up both on the outside and the inside of furniture when it’s used by the same person for year (and when most of it is about as old as I am – be assured that at this BGA we’re not spending your tax dollars on furniture, nosiree).

Regardless of all this, I am excited about moving in. They painted it yesterday, hence rearranging the furniture today. The phone order went in today, so by Thursday next week it should be switched (yes, it takes that long to flip the phone cables around), and then I’ll be in there for good. I’m going to have to get some more violets and pot them in all the useless unused violet pots I have, since the cats tend to sleep on/eat my violets if I put them in windows at home.

In other news™, I bought Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS yesterday (naming the city I’m in “Crobuzon” since “New Crobuzon” wouldn’t fit). It’s almost too much like real life: buy stuff, go into debt over it, and then go do seemingly silly and useless tasks to earn money to climb out of debt, lather, rinse, repeat. That said, so far I’m liking it. It’s not as fun as Kirby: Canvas Curse, but it’s keeping me occupied.

Well, so much for my doctor’s appointment this morning (the entire reason I took today off from work, truth be told). They just called, emergency came up, blah, blah, can you reschedule to tomorrow? Um, no, I had taken today off just to have this appointment, and I really don’t want to waste more annual leave take more time off from work, it’s not an emergency, so I’ll just see him in February when I come in for my physical. (insert ugly mutterings under breath)

Well, not quite true, I have other errands I need to address today while off from work, like laundry and getting my bike checked/fit adjusted so I don’t get IT band problems Every Time I Ride It More Than 20 Minutes, but hey, those weren’t the reason I took today off. Oh well.

In other news, after the fight CT & I did talk & resolve the issue(s). Still wasn’t fun to experience that, but into each life, rain, &c.

Anyway, time to get started with cleaning before I head down to the bike shop. At least I can get some of that done in lieu of the appointment, though I made pretty good progress on the main room last night.

CT and I had our first real fight tonight. I walked away from him in the middle of it. He was not pleased, I was not happy, we both had ugly words to say to each other over it. We were both slightly intoxicated, in the L’Enfant Metro station, and neither of us was going to back down, which made it really ugly. But you know, I’m not one to get into something in front of Metro police, so when they walked over in the middle of it and started making a big deal about something dumb, I walked away.

I’m particularly proud of the way I acted, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to get arrested over something stupid. We’ll talk tomorrow and we’ll get things straightened out, but tonight, I’m glad we’re not sleeping together.

As Richard mentioned this morning, our building decided to call/stop by this morning just before he was leaving for work, well after I’d left to go swim, to let us know they were coming in to replace our windows and oh, as part of that, you have to move all the furniture out of the way and lock up the cats.

Also as he said, when I got the message after my swim, I hit the roof.

No notice (the excuse: the building employee and the contractor who was supposed to send out the “48 hour notices” were both out sick this week), no warning, just show up right as someone is leaving for work and expect them to drop everything and rearrange their entire apartment. Yeah, right. By the time I got the news and got up to the building it was too late to stop them from coming in, they were already halfway done with the work on the windows in the dining room and my bedroom (the other windows will be done in two weeks when they turn that corner of the building). I’ll have to check more thoroughly tonight, but nothing looked like it was damaged in the process.

Then I got to sit and cool my heels for two hours while waiting to yell at the building manager in person. I finally got in when I asked who he reported to in New York and what that person’s phone number was. Then I had to pointedly ask the window contract manager to leave the room when I finally got in there after he popped his head in (“But the other leaseholder gave his permission…” Well, yeah, of course he did when you hit him trying to get out the door to go to work with a window in your hand and not much choice in the matter, you jackass!). And what would they have done if no one had been there? I’ll bet you they’d have gone right in, moved the stuff themselves, and done the work anyway, even without giving notice (forget about damaging anything or losing my cats). The only good thing there was they were done by that time, so I was able to let the cats back out into the unit.

Another taxi ride later, I’m back at work. Told my team leader I put in an extra hour of leave and I was going to go run this afternoon at the gym to work off some steam. Fully intend to do that, too, once lunch settles. Not exactly how I pictured my Thursday going.

I actually used the work gym, that I pay far too much money per pay period for, this evening. It wasn’t bad, even without towel service. I was a tad nervous when I got in and all but one of the treadmills were taken, but the run proceeded apace. They have the same annoying 30 minute limit on their treadmills that the ones at the YMCA down in Chesapeake had, but I suspect a Quickstart session would get around that. As it was I just did 30 minutes anyway, then got myself going and up to the grocery store.

Even though I was starving I still managed to get out of Whole Paycheck Foods for less than $50, including the lazy taxi home. While there I discovered the Tofurkey sausages, so tried some this evening with some pasta and red pepper pesto, and they weren’t bad. I shall have to try them in my favorite pot luck dish, “Sausage with Red Peppers and Pasta” soon. Now if I could just find a good sub for the chicken in “Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic,” I’d be set on the only two non-vegan dishes I really miss.

Given the experience tonight I may have to filch borrow another towel from the Y and use the work gym for my evening runs instead of going back up to the Y for them. We’ll see. It was certainly nice to just walk downstairs to run rather than bussing up to the Y, then bussing home. And post-move it’ll be even more convenient.

Da Boss came in and told me I was going to be losing a wall on which to hang my office decorations, because she’s moving me to one of the two vacant window offices in two weeks, after it gets painted and the phones move.

And, best of all, it’s the one with the couch in it. I’ll gladly take the couch and lose the privacy (it’s also the office that’s right off our main suite, as opposed to the other one, which is waaaay at the end of the hallway and shares a wall with the Deputy Grand Boss’ office).

Huzzah!

Okay, I take it back, resolutioners can go suck my metal-enhanced cock.

Got to the gym tonight and all 6 treadmills were full. Including with one of my favorite gym goers, the treadmill walker. Yes, I know there are reasons why someone would just want to walk, but honestly, go hop on an eliptical and let someone who wants to actually use the treadmill for what it was designed for, running, use it.

Grrr.

Ah, early January. That time when every Tom, Dick and Sally comes out to the gym with hopes of shaping up for the new year. That time when these ‘resolutioners’ take up space in the pool, cardio and weight rooms, trying (and failing miserably) not to look clueless about how to use the equipment, all the while making the space and the process more confusing than it ever needs to be.

I think I’ve finally mellowed in my approach to them. I used to not-quite-snarl at them, and inside I’m still disdainful, but mainly I ignore them now, or politely ask them to move (and just as politely answer questions if asked), and just general try to stay out of their way until this burst of energy dissipates and they go back into their soda, sweets and (pseudo) Atkins/South Beach/faddish-diet induced comas.

The cooking I started this weekend continued through today. Made a big batch of homemade soy chai (caffeine free) and a similarly large batch of hummus. A touch too much olive oil taste in it right now, but I think that’ll be mellowed out somewhat once I let it sit and meld together. Added cumin this time, and I liked the effect it had. Will have to remember that for the next batch.

Otherwise I did cold wash (yay for having clean exercise gear for the week) and took out the big stack of empty boxes that was in the living room from all the holiday packages. Is nice to have a clean area. Now if I could just get rid of the extra futon mattress (anyone need a full-size futon mattress?) it’d be really and truly empty. Still have some boxes of financial records I need to shred, but those can wait for now.

Drained the batteries on both iPods completely and recharged them. Rode my bike for 40 minutes (still a tad gun shy there as the last ride caused some IT band pain – had a few tinges there today, which seemed to be helped when I rode more forward in the saddle than I normally do – might have to get the seat adjusted forward again when I go in for the first checkup). May do a few more things this evening, but for now, it’s zone out in front of the TV/Nintendo DS time.