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

Starting to get back into a routine now after a couple of weeks of head cold, travel, complete abandonment of exercise, etc. Ran Monday and this morning (much to the chagrin of my legs), went to the men’s knitting group tonight and got another inch or so done on the leg of the latest sock, cooked a good meal last night, getting into the groove of the new fiscal year at work, etc. A return to semi-normalcy, which is very welcome.

Part of cooking last night was using my microwave convection oven for the first time as an oven and not just a microwave. I knew they didn’t take as long to cook, but didn’t expect quite how much faster it would be. The little 3 lb turkey breast that the label said should take 2.5-3 hours in the oven took 45-60 minutes in the microwave convection oven, and came out quite nicely. Color me impressed. Add to that the butternut squash, roasted in the normal oven, and some asparagus to go with and it was a nice little meal, with some good leftovers. I need to cook more, and this was partly an experiment to see how easily I could cook up something like the turkey breast for taking into work instead of buying the deli meat sandwiches and all the filler they have in them.

Before heading out to the knitting group I raided my stash and managed to find the yarn I was going to make into a scarf last spring (improvised design, didn’t work). I have found a better pattern which is almost exactly what I was envisioning for myself, so was good to find existing stash for it. I should catalog the stash again, and add in all the new sock yarn from the summer, but meh. Also managed to find some stash for a couple of other gift projects. Score.

Spending time with Mike this past weekend was wonderful. Still very much smitten there, and looking forward to seeing how it grows. We just fit together well, and he makes me want to be better.

Running’s getting going again because I have a race in two months, and I will be prepared for this thing and its hills, come hell or high water. Fridays are going to start being hill workout days – heading up toward the Mall via L’Enfant Promenade (that dreadful monstrosity of I.M. Pei’s), and if I can get far enough, up around the ‘hill’ around the Washington Monument. This is the problem with having moved down to the river – it’s relatively flat here, and thus harder to train on hills without traveling. We’ll see how this Friday goes.

Friends visiting over the next three weekends, including Mike in early November. Busy times, and good stuff to do – will help get me out of the apartment, and back into a social groove. While I am doing the IM in August, I need to better balance a social life of sorts, no matter how limited, and settle back into a better pattern of living.

I’m glad I attended the National Equality March (NEM). It’s hard to come up with excuses not to go to an event held in your back yard, though heaven knows I’ve begged out of other things. The last “march” in DC for GLBT rights was the Millennium March (MM), and that one felt more like an extended version of DC pride than an actual “march” (in contrast, the MM had a vendor area much like DC’s pride festival, down to the location). This one, at least for the march itself and the rally afterward at the Capitol, felt more purposeful than the generic feel-good atmosphere of the MM. Perhaps because this one was actually called for something, and didn’t feel like a corporate-abused bit of PR for HRC.

And yes, in case you couldn’t tell, I have an exceedingly low opinion of HRC. They got a lovely new building from all their fundraising, and the rest of us got saddled with DADT and DOMA. Not exactly a wonderful trade-off for paying for all their supposed “expertise” on lobbying.

Got down to the Capitol grounds as the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington was in the middle of their performance. I definitely could have done without the religious BS right after the Chorus sang, but I understand that it’s a necessary evil in our society. Popped out after a bit of the rally to go grab food, a very late lunch, but wandered back afterward to meet a Twitter buddy who’d come down from Pittsburgh, and managed to catch Kate Clinton, Urvashi Vaid, Cleve Jones and the cast of Hair (I left again as Lance Black was talking). Kate was funny, Urvashi was strident and allowed to go on for too long. Cleve was good, and the cast of Hair was amazing (Lance was good as well, but I wanted to get home before it got dark).

Hopefully some progress will come out of this, legislatively, and hopefully Cleve will get his (unspoken) wish – a better organized actually grassroots organization to counter HRC and company’s ineffective money pit, and actually get some work done. Were it not for the specter of how much worse a majority Republican Congress would be now (in the modern, nutso-driven version of that party), I’d like to believe we could do something like withhold donations until we got some progress on our issues, but I suspect that’s not practical. Not that I personally give to anyone other than my local politicos anyway, since I have no vote for Congressional representation as a citizen of the District of Columbia, but that’s a rant for another day. In any case, it would be nice to think that at least some of the folks here will go back and start talking to their representatives, Federal, State and local, and put more pressure on those same representatives to protect all of us.

Not a lot of wildlife out this morning.

Very grateful for the trash cans on Hains Point, so I can toss my empty gel packs immediately.

Had a cut on the side of my lip for about a week, couldn’t figure out what caused it. Wrong place for shaving, not a cold sore, just a little cut. It became evident this morning – sliced the side on an energy gel last week. Grrr.

Ran the entire distance this time. No shortcuts, no walking breaks, all run (6.48 miles). Felt good.

Forgot that the beepy-thingey cuts off after an hour. Was on the waterfront and wondering why it had gotten so quiet – beepy thingey had done its thing and shut down. Do think it’s a good aid, though, for keeping the legs moving at the same rhythm.

This morning I mapped out my long runs for the next month, up to Columbia on the 17th of May. It’s ambitious, but doable. I do wish I were in the situation of last spring where I had been at a 10k long distance for months before, but you run with the endurance you have, not the endurance you want, to paraphrase the former head of defense. In the meantime, my hips and ass are complaining about the extra work from the increase in running and biking. They’ll just have to get over it.

Didn’t really mind the rain this morning. We need it, because water levels in the area are still low, and it merely meant I had to bike on the trainer again. Not my favorite way to bike, but better than not biking. And I got to skim through two of the back log of magazines in the magazine pile, which I suppose is a plus.

Chatted today with a co-worker of mine who’s been out on maternity leave, and caught her up on the last couple months of office drama and intrigue. Again, it’s tons of fun being a lawyer at a BGA when the head of the BGA dislikes anyone not in his particular profession, but especially can’t stand the lawyers. I think he views us merely as an obstacle to carry out his work rather than a protection. That might change the first time something goes wrong (and something will go wrong at some point), but we’ll see. I’d bet he’d just blame us for not being vocal enough, despite his efforts to sideline us. Regardless, it was fun to chat with her again; I’d missed having her in the office as she’s the other lawyer who came in the same year I did, albeit several months later (there was a third, but she switched offices).

When I went running this evening, I saw the most beautiful sight. I ran between the buildings across fourth street from my place in the light rain, came out onto the waterside park, looked across the Washington Channel, and saw a plethora of green all along the edge of Hains Point. And you know what all that green means?

No more frakkin’ cherry blossoms this year.

There are still some small number of hold outs, but it’s the ephemeral nature of these evil pollen-spitting spawn of satan beautiful flowers that makes them so annoying valuable. And thankfully they’re now gone for the season.

I don’t recall having had sinus headaches in previous cherry blossom seasons like I’m having this year. I’m putting the caffeine reduction plan on hold until after the blooms are done to ensure it’s not withdrawal on top of the allergens. In the meantime, this shit hurts like there’s no tomorrow, despite taking my allergy meds as religiously as ever.

The work stress from yesterday was largely diffused this morning and I’m back to grinding away on the usual stuff. Tempest, teapot, etc. Thank heavens.

Now if we could just take a roto-rooter to my sinuses…

Sunrise through the cherry blossoms this morning on my first weekday morning ride of the year. Absolutely gorgeous.

Also pretty darned cold. My little balcony thingey says 46, though the official temperature at the airport across the river says 38. Either way, chilly when you’re cycling. I’m glad I changed my mind at the last minute and put on the fleece tights. As I sit here in the apartment my arms and toes are still a little chilled, but the shower will solve that. This was supposed to be the coldest morning this week, so I’m hopeful it won’t be this bad again this season.

Not my fastest ride ever, but the point was just to get out there and do it, not necessarily to be a speed demon on the roads. Didn’t see anyone else from the club out there (and it’s hard to miss me, between the club jersey, wind vest and arm warmers – I look like superman in the club’s blue with all the red and white on it), but that should pick up as it warms up. I thought I’d see one or two of our die hards, but perhaps they’re avoiding the Point until the blossoms are done and the tourists are gone (and yes, there were tourists out, even at that hour, catching pictures of the sun just hitting the blossoms as it came over the Washington Channel).

I’ve been cutting back on my caffeine intake again, with a goal of eliminating it from my diet during the week. I’m tired of being dependent on it to get going in the mornings, and would prefer to be able to use it more strategically and not as a “must have” drug. So far so good, though yesterday was dragging. All part of getting back to training and getting my body back into shape. I wrote off yesterday for exercise, but I want to get back to the schedule I was on last spring before the injury – MWF Run in the morning, swim in the evening (with Wed as the weekly long run), TuThSa bike, Su completely off. That worked well as I recall, and kept me on track with a single weekend day to be a complete bum (and one night to be able to go out without worrying about the next morning’s workout). I’m still on the fence about the Columbia triathlon (Olympic distance) in May, but if I can stick to that I think I can do it, even if I’ll be slow on the run.

Because it’s positively gorgeous outside here in DC (officially it’s 67 – my balcony temp gauge says 72), I went for a run. Outside. Figured if I ended up having to walk, at least I wouldn’t freeze out there.

It went okay. Heart rate was okay until about 1/2 way in, then it was up and wanted to stay there. Ran the entire thing, slowly, save for a period right at the end when I had to walk to bring my heart rate down to a reasonable level. I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow (yay delayed onset soreness), but at the moment the light muscular soreness feels like heaven. Foot’s doing okay, and I made sure to take the yoga strap and stretch it thoroughly at the end of my stretching routine (which, courtesy the pilates/core class I took last week, now includes a lovely deep stretch for the IT band as well). So far so good. Again, will sleep in the brace as a just in case, but this is definitely heartening.

It was so nice to be able to run outside, too. I really do dislike treadmills. Did do one thing which was not normal for me – I took the new shuffle out for a spin and ran with music on (though turned down fairly low). It wasn’t bad, but I did find that my brain tended to disengage more than I’m used to doing on a run. Running was active meditation time for me, letting my mind wander as it would. Mainly I got the shuffle for use in the gym, and when I have to run on a treadmill, and I think perhaps that’s where it needs to stay. I’ll need to create a more customized playlist, too – while I had it load the thing with 4 & 5 star rated songs, I need to be pickier about putting on more up-tempo stuff if it’s going to be on while exercising.

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.