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

I can tell I’m fighting off a cold, and not just sniffling from allergies, because I’m in full “OMG, must eat and eat and eat some more” mode. Stoopid body. Probably caught my friend’s cold from Monday night. No good deed going unpunished and all that.

I finally started knitting on the hat I was requested to make by my friend K for her chemo treatments. Of course last night as I got past the initial ribbing and into the cabling I managed to goof two rows, one of which I couldn’t tell was goofed until I got up a few rows. So, I ripped out four rows at the end and called it a night. Redid them this evening, and they’re correctly done now. Have to say, for a non-wool yarn, Calmer is pretty darned nifty to knit with. Definitely a different (and better) experience than with other non-wools I’ve knitted with.

Work continues to be insane this week, and the early morning insanity continues into next week as well – I’m scheduled for 9 am meetings again all next week. I know most folks don’t think anything of that, but I don’t normally report until 9:30, and adjusting my sleep and waking schedule hasn’t been easy.

Almost forgot to mention the foot’s progress. Had a wee bit of soreness this morning when I took the first few steps, but I had slept in the brace, and made sure to stretch it before I got up. By mid-day I remembered to focus in on it and realized that I hadn’t felt any pain since I’d walked in to work. There was a very mild twinge or two if I paid attention to it, but otherwise didn’t notice it at all. Score one for rehab. I’ll likely try another short run on Wednesday, provided I get enough sleep tomorrow to make the attempt in the morning.

Got a random text from a friend this afternoon asking if I could do him a favor. He wasn’t feeling well, and needed to go to urgent care after work (both to get looked at, and to get a doctor’s excuse so he could stay home – yay stupid HR policies). Said yes, of course, skipping my swim workout and heading down to the wilds of Alexandria. Left home around 6, just got back in now (post-11pm).

I’m a wee bit tired.

Got him checked out, he’s got some non-specific bug that tested out as bacterial, so we got him some antibiotics, some dinner (at almost 10 – we were both pretty darned hungry by then), then I got him home, walking him up and making sure he got a fever reducer in him before I left.

On the upside, since I figured any “after hours” visit to a doctor (read: urgent care center) would involve a waiting room of some sort, I came prepared and managed to knit about 3 more inches onto the leg of a sock I’m working on (bringing the total on it to 5 inches [out of 8 planned], more than doubling the length while I waited). Yes, we were there that long. But at least I managed to be semi-productive while we/I waited.

Very glad I could help, but tomorrow is going to draaaaaaaaaaaag.

This afternoon I ran for the first time since last August 5th. Almost six months.

Headed over to the gym with my running gear, got changed, and headed upstairs to the treadmills. The area was empty, but for two other men, one of whom spent more time talking on his cell phone than actually walking on the treadmill (with a body to match the lack of actual exercise). Warmed up for five minutes, then did three minutes on (running), three off (walking), for half an hour (2.56 miles). During the exercise the foot did fine. My legs protested a bit, which was expected, but the foot itself did fine.

It’s a trifle sore here this evening, but I’ll be sleeping with the brace on, so I’m hopeful that it’ll heal/recover well in the stretched out position. Won’t be rushing back to the treadmill immediately, but will attempt to ease back into it as the foot permits. A good first step, though, and hopefully just the first of many runs this year.

I left a party early rather than overdrink tonight. I knew the hosts (I had thought I only knew one, but it turns out I had met the other, also at a body electric event, a few years earlier), and a few guests, but not many of them. It was starting to get crowded in the house and I could tell if I stayed much longer I was going to end up drinking too much, so rather than do that I gave the excuse of an early morning to the hosts and absented myself from the gathering. Not perhaps the most socially adept thing I’ve ever done, but it was the right thing for me tonight.

I think this has to be one of the most difficult periods to be a fed – we’ve got new management, but only a few actual political appointees (only one, in fact!), a handful of political non-appointees, and they’re not fully integrated yet. We know they want to go in different directions, and on the major things those are clear, but on the details they’re definitely not. We’re trying to react to the various provisions proposed in the competing stimulus bills, and despite the fact that the same party is in charge of the two branches, it’s not a given that we in the Executive will be completely on board with what Congress proposes.

Oh, and at some point they’re going to give us our actual budget for FY 2009 as well. You know, the fiscal year that started back on October 1st. So there’ll be that to deal with soon, too.

At the moment, though, I’m running around like mad getting stuff together, analyzing and reacting, and generally trying to be helpful to management. With little to no clear direction, and a lot of guessing. Fun, fun.

While I am glad we have now inaugurated a new President, the last week at work was somewhat bittersweet. In doing the type of law I do, I come into contact with a lot of the top political office holders at my Big Government Agency, and over the last five years there I’ve worked closely with several of them and gotten to know them well. As with the last change in parties, there were some I was happy to see go, but some whom I will truly miss. I will especially miss the leadership in our General Counsel’s office, they were fantastic to work with and for, and were consummate professionals.

My BGA will have a lot to do, and as will be the case with many other BGAs, there will be changes in direction to absorb and run with, and new faces to have to learn and get used to. I only hope that the political appointees chosen to lead us are personable, fair, and competent, and that they do a good job to support and promote the common welfare of us all.

Just got the alert from DC EMS (yay push email on a phone right beside your ear on the night stand); the bridges into the city have now been closed. And contrary to what I first thought, I am really and truly trapped in DC now – all of the bridges that could get me out of DC to head south (the direction I’m most likely to go, given that close family all lives south of here) are now closed off. Glad I stocked up on groceries.

A shame it woke me up, I was in the middle of a pretty snarky dream wherein I was verbally getting the best (not that it was difficult) of a pair of camp counselor types. Some of the zingers were quite fun.

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.

Despite my best efforts to be a complete and utter slug today, I did actually manage to get something done today, namely laundry. Otherwise I called in to work because I hadn’t really slept, and then crashed until noonish to catch up on sleep. Then there was Dead Space. Lots and lots of Dead Space. I actually beat the game once through just now (started it Saturday; easy mode), and I’m trying to decide how much more I’ll play in the near future to max out achievements. Sounds like a good inauguration day activity (when not watching the events, that is).

Called the SIL this evening, no word back tonight, so I’ll pester again tomorrow. I can tell I’m still on edge because my poor fingers have been gnawed down to nubs (I bite my nails/cuticles when I’m upset). Perhaps throwing myself back into work tomorrow will help assuage some of this, and I’m hoping my SIL will have better news about my brother (and their efforts to clean the apartment). Who knows?

Still need to organize some shelving I picked up on my way home (yay Ikea!) which looks pretty good, but needs to have some sense of what-goes-where on it. It’s given me an idea for the entertainment stuff as well, which might not need to be as large as I’d assumed before. We shall see. But first tomorrow evening is prep work for the new triathlete program for this year. We’re getting off to a slightly later start, and I’m hopeful this will help cut out some of our volunteer burnout from previous years.