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

I don’t know that I was expecting the OC comic con to be so well attended, but well attended it has been thus far. Got in some good stocking stuffer shopping, and checking out the fun cosplay and art. Back tomorrow for day two for more wandering around, but not until after lunch I think. It’s supposed to snow in the morning, so we’ll see how Ocean City handles that. They’ve been pretreating roads since Friday, so I’m hoping the short drive on the main strip should be okay.

We also wandered out to a little town (Berlin, MD) that had an adorable downtown shopping area. Reminded us a lot of Cape Charles. But in a shocking twist it had not one but two men’s clothing stores, a far cry from other beach towns we’ve been to, which tend to skew female in their shopping.

Then before a later dinner we hit the OC Winterfest of Lights, a fun holiday light set up in a local park. Quite fun wandering through the displays, seeing what was animated, and the husband was looking for things to do to our townhouse next year. Heh.

Overall we’re enjoying the trip a lot. I’d do the event again, and we think we’ll have to pop back out sometime over the summer to see how this place is when it’s hopping with summer tourists.

Was in my office building today for our holiday open house, and cleaning up the last of the stuff in my office before they kick us out. Was glad to see people, but I am looking forward to the several months of full time telework that we’ll have while they fix up the new building. Here’s hoping it’s a disaster inside so it takes longer to arrange. In the meantime, I just want to sleep for more than 7 hours tonight.

The husband and I are taking off for Ocean City tomorrow for their winter Comic Con. It’s a small affair, but it looks like it’ll be fun. And this will be a nice respite before his sister and her husband and daughter come down the following weekend for Xmas week. I’m actually looking forward to seeing the niece since she was so chatty the last time we saw her in October (which is a pleasant change from her previous quiet self). I’m looking forward to seeing her parents, too, but the teenager promises to be more fun to watch and interact with this time around.

Done with holiday shopping. Well, aside from stocking stuffers. But the main presents are done, ordered, and on their way to wherever they’re going, here or directly to family.

Christmas cards are almost done. I had to verify cousins’ addresses, confirm who had and hadn’t moved, etc. Most of the local ones are with the post office, so we should start hearing back on them soon. I hope folks like this year’s silliness. We almost always do something silly for ours, like dress as gnomes, or Bert & Ernie, or hopping in our kilts, etc., and this year is just as silly. No spoilers yet for the folks who’ll get cards.

Actually went into the office for a few hours today, to pack things up because we’re getting kicked out some time after the first of the year. We’re moving not quite a mile down the road to a very dated building that another agency vacated a couple years ago. This is mostly because a cabinet secretary who lives in the suburb where my office is located doesn’t want to commute downtown to his agency’s long time (and admittedly quite decrepit) headquarters. As my small gubm’nt agency has no political leadership at the moment, there was no fighting this, so we’re moving. Whee. I went in, packed those things I wanted to drag home with me, boxed the stuff that the agency movers can haul over, and tossed things that were no longer needed. Only other thing I ended up doing was certifying my time for payroll, because nothing was really pressing. As expected, the drive took half as long as usual because of the holiday, and the cart came in handy to get everything back to the car in one haul. Now I just have to figure out where to store and/or put the stuff I brought home.

The husband, in the meantime, was off work, and put up the Xmas trees. Poor guy is under the weather; we suspect food poisoning from something left out too long yesterday (that only he fixed and ate). Once I got home I helped unbox ornaments and stage them for him to hang. He crashed earlyish, after fretting over all the holiday lego sets that were sitting in bags on the kitchen island that needed to be sorted & repaired. I insisted he leave them for tomorrow, then waited a sufficient time before going in and fixing them all so he’ll wake to that tomorrow.

I’m dragging today as well, from two days of not sleeping well. Yesterday was for love – I stayed up until midnight to make sure I could snag his Star Trek lego set online, which I did get after a few minutes wait. I dropped the directions and the legos for the miniature version when I got home from work, but he was so ill that the reaction was … muted. Poor guy. He apologized all over, but he really is sick, so he gets a pass. We’ll see how the advent calendar goes. Unfortunately the last of those bricks aren’t arriving until the later end of next week, so he may have some half built sets until they do.

Half day working, with official admin time given since we don’t have any political leadership at the small gubm’nt agency. Heh.

Comic run for the weekly haul. I was wearing a DC United (our local soccer team) hoodie, and got to tease some of the football people there about the newish (3 years) name of the DC football franchise (the Washington Commies, aka the Commanders). It was all in fun, but they really should have thought out how the name would be shortened. IHOP for lunch because it was there, we didn’t have any strong feelings on food, and our favorite place next to the comics shop is closed for renovations or reimagining or something, though we did see folks hauling in a lot of food this afternoon, so maybe they rented it out for Thanksgiving? Who knows. I just hope when they reopen that they still have the husband’s hotdog on the menu.

Did pop into the local Giant grocery store. While the lot was full, and there were definitely more people than usual, I parked almost exactly where I normally do, near the edge for a faster drive out, and once I got past the idiots who decided to just stop and stand in the entrance to the store while they hauled out and slowly read their shopping list, it went smoothly. For once they had enough checkers at the regular registers, which was a pleasant surprise. We were only picking up a few things because we’re not doing a huge meal tomorrow. Lots of side dishes, and that’s about it. I was once again grateful that I invested in my own shopping cart, a Clax collapsible cart, because checkout’s a lot easier without bags, and when you know everything will fit. Plus it’s hard to overshop when you’re putting everything in the crate you’re going to bring in from the car. And it’s more maneuverable than most store carts.

Caught the first episode of the last season of Stranger Things with the husband this evening. Still enjoying the show, but worried the answer to shutting it all down will end up killing off another character. Fingers are crossed that I’m wrong, but it’ll be months yet before we know.

The husband and I are big lego collectors – “adult fans of LEGO” in the official parlance. We have sets big and small all over the house; pretty much every room save the bathrooms have lego builds on display. We’ve enjoyed the fandom, our Thanksgiving tradition is to build a large set that day (and typically a couple days after), they’re a part of gift giving, etc. Lots of bricks. But the husband is ridiculously excited because Lego is releasing their first Star Trek themed set this Friday. Like, beyond excited. Because this hits the second of his two big fandoms (the other being X-men, which has already had several Lego sets), and arguably the bigger of the two.

So I’ve also decided to dip my toes into the “MOC” or “my own creation” world of fan designs, and I’ve ordered him two designs and all of the various parts needed to build them. One is a miniature of the giant Star Trek set that comes out on Friday, and one is an advent calendar of miniature Star Trek ships. Most of the bricks have shipped, and supposedly I’ll have all of the parts needed for these two designs (plus extras I, suspect). I’m hopeful the advent calendar bits will all be here before the first so I can start emailing the instructions each morning for him to build the next ship. I’m also hoping the miniature version of the big one gets here before the big one does, to help build his excitement. Fingers are crossed.

Been feeling somewhat run down for about a week and a half, with an intermittent cough, and some light chest congestion. No fever, no discolored anything, but finally went to see the doctor this afternoon. The practice I go to is one I’ve been going to since 1998 or 1999, and seeing the same doctor, who’s about ten years older than I am. He’s been making moves to keep the practice going, but clearly looking toward retirement as well, and so is adding more doctors and nurse practitioners to the group (he’s had other doctor partners over the years, but I think they’ve all retired at this point, so he needed more). Saw one of the new guys, welcomed him to the practice. Didn’t find anything specific, because it’s not really presenting as anything, so he gave me a script for an inhaler to calm my lungs down and told me to monitor for any discoloration or change in the no-fever situation. First time using an inhaler, which is an odd thing to get used to. Still glad to have gone in and had it checked.

Work is still playing catch up to get operations back and running. We’ve gotten partial back pay while the payroll processor figures out all of the missing deductions and what not. In theory we should get the rest this week, then I can figure out what goes where and try and clean things up, financially.

The House managed (barely) to pass the Senate’s continuing resolution, so my coworkers will all be back online tomorrow. The House majority is so thin they needed several minority votes to make it happen. What a mess.

Our human capital folks warned that while pay checks will be issued next week on the regular payday, they’ll be a mess as the payroll provider tries to handle all of the calculations, deductions, taxes, etc. Whee.

I just hope they get it sorted before December.

Still on medical telework, so I will not be on the Metro with the rest of the Feds, trying to remember how to commute after 43 days off work.

The news last night/this morning is all about Congress finally seeming to take a step back from the brink and doing their jobs – talking to one another and coming up with deals that the two parties can agree on. If they’re able to get all of that done this week I’ll finally receive a pay check next week, for the first time since early October, when we got a partial check for the period through September 30th. We’re normally paid on an every-two-weeks basis, so I’ve missed two full paychecks in addition to the partial one already, and that’s beyond ridiculous at this point, especially as I continue to have to work, albeit intermittently.

I get that partisans are pissed that, as expected, the party causing the shutdown got little to nothing out of their efforts, but them’s the breaks. Politics is not for the faint of heart, and ‘you can’t always get what you want’, to quote the Rolling Stones.

In the meantime tomorrow is a Federal holiday, so I’m fully furloughed, which is a nice change (no checking work email). Probably doing some needed grocery shopping, and hunting some more esoteric ingredients for stuff I’d like to try. We have no firm Thanksgiving holiday plans, but the in-laws will be visiting for Xmas as usual, so this is a good time to try out & plan any new things. Especially if I’ll be back to the office next week.

It’s the day the house cleaner comes, so apparently the bug hit me and I decided to do a bunch of random little projects around the house. It’s supposed to get below freezing here early next week for the first time this season, so I knew I needed to switch off the outside faucets, which also entailed (finally) cleaning the sliding glass doors on the back of the ground floor. They get splashed with dirt when it rains, so are perpetually slightly smudged towards the bottom. Cleaned those up, got the water shut off. Then I decided to straighten up a box of winter accessories we keep on the front hall table that had gotten clogged up with a mishmash of junk over several years (soooooo many useless early covid masks), mainly because I wanted to relocate some of the scarves I’ve knit lately down there. Found three gloves missing mates.

For some reason I decided to clean out the glove box in the car (it made sense at the time, I think). Discarded some extra materials from Mini, pared down to just the current insurance and registration info, found out the back seats supposedly can slide forward and backwards (we’ve only had the car since 2017, after all, and never needed that feature). Reorganized some big scented candles that were in multiple places in the garage and kitchen.

And then I was mentally done so I went out to lunch to get away from more straightening up. I think I blame work for cancelling my one meeting this morning, a thrice weekly check-in, which left me feeling antsy and in need of a project to put things back in order, since I can’t control what those idiots in Congress do.