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

Children should not be allowed out without adult supervision. Case in point, the kids running down the wrong way on the escalator to make the train in the Metro. At least they didn’t stop the thing like the last group of urchins I encountered on their way home from school.

And yes, this does make me a grumpy old man. Which makes the fact that BC’s mom keeps hinting at wanting us to have kids all the more amusing (amusing to me, not so much to him, but then again she’s not my biological mother – my own mother has said nothing of the sort and seemed kind of surprised when I mentioned children).

Heading back to the office after getting a sty looked at. Nothing big, and thank heavens Metro is reliable most days, allowing me to zip out & back without too much delay.

[side note – did we not outlaw mullets yet? Why would someone wear something so bad looking on their head?]

Tourists are out in force today. I’d have expected more of them next weekend rather than this weekend, given the holiday.

Heading to the cooking expo this weekend with BC to drool over ovens & cooktops I can’t yet afford or fit into my kitchen. I enjoyed it last year, and am looking forward to checking out the gadgets. I’d like to find a place that offers a knife skills class that’s both convenient and that won’t try to make me do something like de-bone a duck. I’m not holding my breath on that, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled.

That was an interesting trip ‘home.’ I went down to Tidewater this weekend to see my parents, and my grandparents, and help my brother and his family move their stuff out of their old apartment. Oh, and pick up Mom & Dad’s Cooper Mini to drive back to DC ‘on loan’ from the parental units.

The parents were chipper (though I despair of Mom’s occasional racist outburst – they’re couched in code, but I know what they are. Ugh). My brother was doing much better. At one point I rubbed his fuzzy little head (he’d shaved his head before the latest bout of madness – a sure sign he’s about to go over the deep end – and it’s just growing back) and told him I’d never be able to take him to a bear bar because they’d just keep rubbing the fuzz there. Thankfully he’s quite cool with the queer thing, and wouldn’t freak out at it.

Did not see the oldest niece, but did see the younger two. The youngest was much, much more animated than the last time I was down, which was right after she’d had some eye surgery. The middle one is a trip and a half. Will babble like crazy at you, making no sense (that we can tell), but as long as you are attentive, she’s happy. Must be nice to be 19 months old that way.

The grandparents were, well, a bit sad to see. Granddaddy has terrible balance now, and is starting to lose his hearing. Grandmother’s balance is better, but still a trifle shaky. And thank heavens I’m thin or I’d have been hearing ‘fat’ comments all afternoon like my brother got an earful of. But not within Mom’s earshot – she’s let her father know she does not appreciate such comments and that he needs to quit it, in no uncertain terms. Saw many recent pictures of cousins and their kids, and was greatly saddened that they all seem to be, well, fat. Or at least on the pudgy side of average. One aunt is just plain morbidly obese. Oy. And the family wonders why I do triathlons.

Oh, and in among the pictures was one of the president and first lady. Evidently the grandparents sent his campaign money. I still wore my earrings down there, though.

And appropos of nothing, there was absolutely no cell signal to be had down there. I started feeling like the little geek god from American Gods when they were in the nowhere place.

Traded in my DS for a DS Lite while down there (among other spending) and gave the DS to Dad. He’s had this Brain Age game for a bit, and could only use it when the eldest niece came over with her DS, so now he’s good to go. He also got some vision training game for it when I was getting the Lite (or, rather, I got it for him, though he picked it out). The reviews were right – the Lite’s screen is much nicer, though I’m not completely sold on the feel of the thing yet. The rumble pack sticks out of the front of the Lite, where it was completely inside the DS, and it’s not as comfortable to hold the sides while playing Metroid Prime Pinball as it was on the DS. I suppose I’ll get used to it.

I always forget how much driving is involved with being down there. Driving to stores, driving to restaurants, driving to grocery shopping, etc. I’m so spoiled here in DC, with a bus and rail system that, for all its faults, is pretty good at getting me (and others) around.
The drive back was uneventful. The mini’s a manual transmission, but does have cruise control, so most of the trip was spent with that on. Unlike driving back on a Sunday, traffic was pretty light, and I was able to actually spend most of the trip in the right lane, cruising along without being in other cars’ way, and vice versa. Only when we got into Richmond proper, and on the approach to DC, did I really have to take off the cruise control and dodge folks.

It’s going to be interesting having a car at my disposal again. I have an assigned parking space in one of our lots, so it’s off the street, and I’m supposed to pick up a cover from friends soon so I can keep it cleaner. It does have South Dakota tags, but the handicapped tags (Mom qualifies) were not in yet, so Dad’s going to send them to me later to switch out the plates. Shouldn’t run into problems with DC fussing at me for not registering the car here since it’ll be off-street and so not in the regular view of parking enforcement types. There are a couple maintenance issues which will crop up soon, two things that are going to need replacing/repairing, for which I have estimates, but which are not immediately needed. Otherwise everything which needed to be done to it has been repaired by Dad in anticipation of the trip to DC. Oh, and Dad prefers to put premium gas in it, so there’s that expense as well. But at 30 or so miles to the gallon, that’s not overly burdensome I suppose.

So it’s a mixed blessing, as most cars are. But I’m glad to have it.

I had been thinking about gaming systems, but if my obsession behavior the past two days is any indication of how it would be if I got one, I really, really should not. I picked up the new Zelda game for the DS, and it’s been absolutely fantastic. Some of the elements are a bit slow, but for the vast majority of the game I think they nailed it for my gaming likes. So much so that I’ve been up far, far too late the past two nights playing the game. Only had to revert to guides twice, which is a good sign for me.

Big thanks to the folks who came out on Friday, I had a marvelous time, and it was good to see people. That was precisely the b’day celebration I needed – low key and fun chatting and watching folks chat.

My eldest niece and her mother popped up today to play tourist, so we wandered through the Mall and a few museums. She absolutely loved the Metro. It’s a shame Air & Space is still so disorganized and doesn’t have more hands-on stuff for kids – that’s what she stopped at whenever we were in an exhibit, the ‘I can play with this’ things. She also spent most of the day talking about going to City Lights, my now former favorite Chinese restaurant in town.

The service was, in a word, atrocious tonight. They were busy, that much was readily apparent, but that’s no excuse. No one came by to check on drinks. My niece managed to down her water and her soda fairly early, and even after I specifically asked a server to get her a refill of her soda (even handing him the glass), it never came back. Then I couldn’t manage to flag anyone down because they were all flying by so quickly. The one guy I did finally catch was one of their busboys whose English was somewhat lacking, and unfortunately my Spanish is non-existent, but we did manage to get soda refills, at least, for the niece and her mother. To say I’m miffed would be an understatement – this is a place where the more established wait staff calls me by name, in Chinese, when I come in, so it’s not like I’ve never been there before. Hell, I was lying in bed for about 1/2 an hour just now and all I could do was dredge up much-unused vocabulary for expressing in Mandarin exactly how annoyed I was at the whole thing (and it’s amazing what ancient vocabulary can be dredged up in the service of strong emotions). As it was I did get one of the management staff before we left and let them know that this was the most dismal service I’d ever received there.

Otherwise it’s been a lovely weekend. I’m going to get my newest toy hooked up to the bike tomorrow and head out on a ride with a friend after his bike (re)fitting. Haven’t played with it yet, so this is the inaugural run. Should be interesting to see the data once I’m done.

While out getting a sticky bun from Sticky Fingers this morning, I spotted a bike rack across the way at the Giant. It appears the District Department of Transportation (aka d-dot) has decided they need to do special bike racks now with their d-dot logo on them:

The season for ruining coasters.

You see, it’s a tad humid and warm at the moment here in DC, it being summer in the South, and I like to drink cold drinks when it’s this warm out. The colder the better. Cools your core, comforts you, and all around makes you feel better. Most frequently it’s simply water from the refrigerator, but in any case it’s cold, which means in this humidity that the glass attracts condensation like the Old Country Buffet attracts retired people.

I’ve just about ruined one older one I was using without thinking much about it (the one that holds my usual sipper bottle). Poor sucker’s starting to mold I’ve kept it so wet. So I’ve hauled out the big guns and scattered them around the apartment – the sandstone and metal coasters. Not much gets through those. Hopefully they’ll hold out until the humidity breaks, sometime in December.

On my run this morning (in near-perfect weather – 70s and low humidity), I did two new things. First, I ran all the way to Roosevelt Island and went over onto the island itself. Second, I took my shirt off for the second half of the run.

On the first, I’ve been past Roosevelt Island more times than I can count, but had never gone over to the island to see the statue of ole Teddy. So while I was running north on the Mount Vernon Trail the island was about at my time turn-around, so across the footbridge I went and up to see the memorial grove. It was a nice setting, I enjoyed the brief bit of it I saw (I didn’t stop running). It’s a shame it’s not more accessible – it looked to be a good spot to visit.

On the second, let me start by saying that I NEVER take off my shirt when I run. And I do mean never. I’ve never been particular fond of the bit of belly fat that I carry, and combined with my pasty-white doesn’t-really-tan skin, I’ve not been in a big rush to take off my shirt. I’ve wanted to in the past, but never had. Every time I’d think about it the usual little excuses (“want to lose X lbs,” “not tan enough,” “too much fat showing,” etc.) would pop up in my head. This morning was no different, those same excuses popped up, but I finally told them all to go fuck off and pulled the shirt up and off and tucked it into my water belt.

Then of course all I could think about was how, if I did get any sun, I was going to have a tan line from my heart rate monitor strap.

Was perfectly fine, a bit cooler than normal, and nothing felt like it was going to fall out of place or that I was going to die of embarassment or the like. . The only thing that struck me as different was that scratching an itch on my stomach felt so much more obvious without a shirt in the way. And that there were more itches because of the breeze and lack of shirt.

So, a hurdle overcome. Not sure that I’ll do that much more running that way, and I still do want to lose more belly fat before I’m 100% comfortable with it, but that was a good first step.

Yet another reason I’m going to hell: I like to watch DC parking enforcement come down and ticket the tourists cars illegally parked past the rush hour start time on Independence Avenue. If it’s a really slow day they’ll even tow them, leaving some family of blond-headed kids and their fanny-pack wearing parents scratching their heads and frantically calling to find out where there car is, just like the ones sitting on the concrete barrier directly across the street from my office window right this moment.

Had an incredible meal last night at Vegetate with BC. He said if that were what veggie cuisine were like all the time he’d not really miss meat. Not a bad compliment. We did the restaurant week thing there, and added the wine pairings, which worked well (especially the ruby port with the chocolate-with-hot-peppers torte & ginger sorbet – yum!). Fantastic meal. This is only my second time there, but we’ll definitely go back. I just wish they were a bit more Metro accessible (they are, they’re just a good several blocks walk from the Metro).

Much snuggling and talking followed.

Contrast that meal with the one we had at Viridian on Tuedsday. For a restaurant known (among the veggies I know) as being very veggie/vegan friendly, it was disappointing that none of the prix fixe entrees was vegan. I did end up doing three courses, and the courses were okay, but the restaurant lost out – ordering the vegan entree and the two other pieces separately came out to less than the prix fixe price. Odd. And the video of the house demolition (which played over and over again over the bar) was distracting without being entertaining. I’m sure I’ll go back, but not any time soon.

Phone replacement ordered for my Treo. That’s all I’m saying for now, since it won’t arrive until next week. Suffice to say I’m looking forward to the switch, and thank you, thank you, thank you to a friend, who shall remain nameless, for a nice discount on it.

Took the tri bike in to the shop yesterday, so no riding for a bit. It’s had this persistent creaking noise for the past month and it’s driving me nuts, so I just said, “figure it out and fix it,” and left the bike with them for a week. So, long run this weekend, then some rest, perhaps Sunday a dip in the cult co-op pool and some sun to even out the lovely biker’s tan I have (“you’ve got a built-in wife-beater,” says BC). Looking forward to seeing a bunch of folks (and showing off BC) on Saturday afternoon at a get-together in the inner ‘burbs.

Relatively quiet this week at work. It’s a blessing when Congress goes out of session (a mixed blessing – it’s been hot and humid here like most of the country, but a blessing nonetheless), especially in my practice area. Playing catch up on a couple of things, and managed to dig up a nice source of funds which had been forgotten. That was worth at least my annual pay, so I feel like anything else I do this year is gravy, to paraphrase my first CFO in the government (after I did something similar).

Oh, it’s not the iPod that’s died, it’s the iHome speaker/clock/radio thing – the dock has somehow slipped and won’t connect correctly. I know this because the Apple dock that synchs the iPod with the computer works perfectly with no slippage. Good to know the old 3G is ticking along like clockwork.

Still debating Chesapeakeman, too. I think the low-key setting seems more my style. Won’t be as much crowd energy, but I think I actually prefer that, given my treatment of most exercise as a solo thing. We’ll see, but I’m thinking I may be having a talk with my boss about it this upcoming September.

Hazy morning in DC. Got up for my bike ride, headed out. Had a ton of people out this morning, most of whom were in the ‘fast’ pace group. I had volunteered to lead the slower pace group, so off we went. The ride itself was going great until we got around to do a last short loop of the park. As we entered the one-way section we discovered quickly that the parks service had just turned on the sprinkler system. It’s a big pipe thing they’ve only recently set up, which pipes water in from the Potomac and sprays it over the cherry trees and grass. I thought they were done with it, as it was partially disassembled this weekend, but they’ve hooked it all back up. So for a couple minutes we dodged streams (where we could) and did a lot of laughing as we rode through the sprinklers. Thankfully, while they were getting the back side set up they hadn’t started pumping yet, so we got to dry off a little on the way back up.

At least that answered the question as to whether or not to do a 2nd short loop at the end.

Got up, no exercise planned for the morning, so I got down to the dry cleaners, picked up shirts, dropped off two pair of pants to get hemmed (finally hemming the Nasty Pig jeans I got at MAL), came back, made coffee, went down to the office to check some folders for the cult co-op, then up to get ready to head to work.

Work was work. No biggie.

Swam after work. Was trying to concentrate on relaxing in the water, paying attention to form, but not speed. That was going well until about half to two-thirds of the way through the swim when some guy did a cannonball into the lane beside me. Thankfully I was resting at the edge, but that was a bit of a shock. Most folks are polite and just slip into the end of the pool. He then proceeded to see if he could single-handedly recreate water conditions on the Chesapeake Bay. During a wind storm. Not the most graceful swimmer I’ve ever seen. I kept wanting to point out that you’re supposed to slip your hand into the water, not slap the top of the pool on your way in, but instead tried to continue concentrating on the zen feeling. It mostly worked, despite slappy in the next lane. Overall a good swim.

Still nicely burnt from this weekend’s biking and running. Both Saturday and Sunday I got started late, so was out in way more sun than I usually am, with the usual results. It’s cute – I have a classic farmer’s tan half-way down the upper arm from the bike ride, then a separate set of lines on the shoulders where I wore a tank-style shirt to run on Sunday. Not too bad, save for carrying the bike bag to work and the gym today. Ouch.
A brief bit of laundry tonight, and getting stuff ready for the ride tomorrow.

The crush is still, well, just awesome. We’re both still all googly-eyed and silly and all of that and it’s quite fun. We just seem to fit well together. I think I’ve seen more movies in the theater in the past couple months now than I’ve seen that way in years.
Tomorrow it’s off to Dupont for the usual hair cut, then up to Adams Morgan to put bikes together with the club. Some folks are running a kids’ triathlon camp this summer for DC Parks and Rec and we got a bunch of bikes donated for it, so we’re getting together to assemble the bikes for the kids. Should be fun.