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

A nice, quiet start to the new year. I did go biking with the club. We did about 20 miles (plus to and from the site), most of which was in the rain. Should’ve put on my toe covers, but I don’t know that it would have kept my socks from getting as soaked as they did. Regardless, it was a fun time, and I’m going to try to do more rides with the club from now on. It was just too helpful to be out with other folks on the bike.

Though I suppose it is, as I told one friend tonight, “the masochism tango in all its forms.”

What that would mean is earlier bed times, though, since the weekday rides are at (ugh) 6:30 am. Not a bad thing, overall, but the change will be rough to adjust to. I’ll have to confirm that we’re still biking, since it’s not really winter here yet in DC (no temperature lows are predicted to get below freezing in the next week, and we have highs predicted in the 60s).

(side note: I worry about the areas that are getting neither snow nor rain this winter – that precipitation, no matter the form, though snow is better in some areas, is necessary for the spring and summer or large parts of the country could be in drought, yet again, which is Not A Good Thing)

Lots of cleaning today and all weekend (and two big batches of soup made as well), and likely will continue. I’m still trying to cull down the posessions, even after the culling I did before the move. I emptied out an entire footlocker worth of stuff, so now I have to figure out what to do with the extra locker. I think I know how it all accumulated, but I’m glad to be rid of it.

Anyway, off to bed for this Moose, have to get up and run. That Cherry Blossoom race is only 3 months off now…

I alternate between really bored and really excited about projects at work. There are two long-term things on the desk that I absolutely dread working on because they’re just terribly dull, complicated, and seemingly never-ending. Then there are some more fun projects that I keep trying to get to, that are equally important as the other two dull ones, but which never seem to be able to come to the top of the stack, despite ongoing talks with various folks about the status thereof. I need to just knuckle down and kill off the dreaded tasks, but they always manage to sap my will to live.

And they wonder why I don’t want to be a manager.

Did finally manage to motivate myself to hit the grocery store and pick up a few foodstuffs on the way home. Had meant to yesterday, but came directly home, had something simple from the cupboard, and crashed semi-early after doing a couple of things around the house. Slept really, really well, and really, really late (for me), but needed the catch-up from the weekend and the return to work.

Haven’t touched the uberlist yet for this upcoming year. I’ve thought about it some, but not put thought to file just yet. Soon. Oh, and I’m debating a change in my normal new year’s day routine. Normally I go on a run, commemorating my return to running from 2000 after having mono. Just me, no electronic devices, no watch, nada. Just a run. But this year my club is having a ride that morning at 10, and I think I want to go do that. I joined the club so I’d have folks to train with, and part of moving down to Southwest was to get over to Hains Point and practice with them, but I’ve not really taken advantage of the proximity like I had intended to, so I’m thinking it’s time to get out and practice with them. Still could run, but I suspect a slightly more social beginning to the year should be in order.

I can’t tell if it was a sign of how long it had been since I had last been out doing serious wine shopping or if I’m just a wino, but with J’s help I just picked up three cases of wine from Pearson’s (one mixed, two complete). Probably a little of both. But now I’m set for months. Or at least I hope it’ll last months.

I found it quite nice to be able to shop for spirits on a Sunday. Normally shops that sell both wine/beer and harder liquor have to close on Sunday in DC because of our antiquated Blue Laws. The place was hoppin’, about as busy as I normally see it when I’ve gone in the evening during the week or on a regular Saturday. The clerk allowed as how they’d been that busy all day. Anyway, because Xmas day and New Year’s Day are on Mondays, DC’s liquor laws allow liquor shops to stay open the Sunday before. There’s no real reason they can’t be open 7 days a week normally (aside from outdated hopes for moral suasion), but one lives with the law one has, not the law one wishes one had. Nonetheless, it felt like a bit of a stick in the eye to those ridiculous laws to buy alcohol until my heart was content.

After biking all over creation today (well, not quite, but more than the usual for me as I had errands to run, post-gym), and swimming for an hour, I feel much, much better. Moose + Exercise = Much Better Mood. It also = much hungrier Moose, but that’s par for the course.  It helped that it was insanely warm here in DC today, around 70 F (~21 C) for the high, where the normal high is about 23 degrees cooler than that, around 47 F (~8 C) or so. So after all that it was home to wash clothes, grab some leftover soup and chill out.

Work is in that odd state of not-quite-fully-loaded-up, but not-quite-on-down-time either. We always expect it to be quieter, but somehow the inevitable last minute crises appear. At least it’s not completely dead, though then I would be able to catch up on filing and clear off my desk.

Party tomorrow evening, and seeing MG for probably the last time before he takes off for his trip back home for the holiday. Office party is also tomorrow (my particular section, as opposed to my larger attorney office, which was last week). My boss asked one of the organizers if it was going to be a dry party. We assured her it was not, so she zipped off the requisite mother-may-I letter to the building manager and got our permission (long gone are the days when feds could legally keep liquor in their offices without any check or fear or reprimand).

Not sure if I’ll get a run in tomorrow morning or not. If not, so be it. If so, yay. Would be better with, to stave off the party calories, but that’s what the rest of the week is for.

Went from a week of so-so sleep to a night of no sleep Friday and it absolutely wrecked my Saturday. Couldn’t nap to save my life, didn’t do any of the errands I’d wanted to do, and I was a snarling, irritated mess. Thankfully I was able to spend the majority of it alone, and did get better sleep last night, which meant I was able to run those errands today, but didn’t do a lot more than that.

Part of the sleep thing is that MG is a restless sleeper, and I’m not the deepest sleeper in the world, so when he’s tossing or talking, it can wake me up. I may have to try ear plugs or something. He’s told me to wake him up, but that’s not my wont. Something will have to be found, and I’m sure we will, but working it out in the meantime has left me irritated.

Did take the time to make a good batch of soup today. I’d bought the veggies earlier this week and just hadn’t gotten around to making the soup itself. And let me just say, whoevver invented curry powder has my undying gratitude. Love, love, love the stuff. Combine it with peanut butter and I’m in heaven. Folks who’ve been to my previous soup night parties will have had this, the African Bean Soup. So had good soup, put some in the fridge, and several servings in the freezer.

I’m also thinking it’s finally time to have a soup night party soon. Haven’t had a get-together in the new place yet, so sometime after the new year I’ll have one.

While home at lunch, I went by the office, asked to swap out my pedestrian fob for one of the car gate radio fobs. Had to fill out a piece of paper, but they gave it to me, no charge. Was quite nice to be able to bike onto the property this evening without stopping. Go squeeky wheel.

Rest of the afternoon was slightly crazy, work-wise, but bearable. Got my monthly haircut (she went even shorter than usual, looks good), then biked back downtown to swim for an hour. Did not have to time to make soup as I’d hoped, but the ingredients will keep until tomorrow, post-gym (with no haircut to take up the extra time). Or perhaps until the weekend when I can take an afternoon to simmer it down nicely. Hmm…

I’m a tad worried about Mom’s memory.

She’s been paranoid for years now about getting alzheimer’s, which I think unlikely, but she has been showing signs of “chemo brain” as she calls it (a diminishment of mental capacities after chemo). The most notable thing is that she repeats anecdotes a couple of times within the same conversation. It’s not every conversation, but it’s enough that I’ve started noticing it. Now, I’m not one to talk but so much about repeating the same story to someone, but I at least separate my tellings by a day or so. Doing it in the same conversation is a bit different, like she’s losing short term memory. Will have to discretely mention it to Dad and see if he’s noticed it as well.

Hated, hated, hated driving. It’s loud, it’s boring, and I do not see how people do it on a regular basis. I am so glad I moved a mile and a quarter from work so I can walk or bike. Multi-hour commutes just blow my mind. That’s inhumane, IMNSHO. Didn’t help that the nimrod who rented the car before me smoked in it, using the center console as the ash tray (which the rental car place missed). The only good thing there was it allowed me to ID the sweet smell that occasionally comes out of my air units – I suspect now that the previous owner might have smoked. Not a biggie, it’s not come out in a while, but it was there when I first moved in and had to run the air units.

Speaking of the air units, I’ve asked the building operations guy if there would be issues with installing some programmable thermostats in my apartment. Tired of trying to remember to adjust the heat (which means it usually stays just a trifle cool).

Picked up oodles of veggies this evening to make soup tomorrow. And oatmeal. And other stuff. This after I was too lazy to change out of the shirt I biked home in this evening (I did switch out of the tights in favor of jeans). In this weather I don’t even break a sweat biking home (it’s <10 minutes to home – downhill), and this shirt’s comfortable, so what the heck. Did sit down and pay bills, which was needed, as well as arranging for some other errands I needed to get done. Productive evening, if not the most exciting.

I killed Firefox 2.0 from the iBook this morning. I had already beeen annoyed that I couldn’t close all the windows by hitting control-W as I could under 1.5 and earlier (it would close the last tab, but leave the window open with a blank tab), and that I couldn’t close the tabs by hitting the little ‘x’ button in the upper right corner any more (they put the x on each individual tab, which made them moving targets), but when it wouldn’t let me hold down the trackpad button and get the little function menu, that was the last straw. Thank you for your efforts, but you’re no longer desired. Glad I saved the installation file for 1.5.0.2. Blech.

Up early this morning to go run a turkey trot 5k run. Got to bed by 9:30, and was out like a light, so did get a good eight hours of sleep (for the first time since the weekend). I suspect a nap will be in order as well, but we’ll cross that bed when we get to it. No feasting plans today; I feel no desire to attempt to overeat.

And I’m definitely not making another tofurkey (haven’t tried an unturkey yet). As I put it to a friend of mine yesterday, because they pump it full of chemicals to make it taste better, your shit stinks like tofurkey for the next day and a half or so, and I really don’t need to be reminded of the meal for that long or in that way. Besides, I’m vegan because I don’t want to eat meat, so the idea of a big ole fake meat centerpiece to a meal is, well, kind of tacky to me.

Looks like the predicted rain is holding off this morning, which is good news for those of us running the race this morning.

Was going over my goals for this next year, athletics wise, and part of the exercise was to identify what I thought my three biggest weaknesses were. After some time thinking, I identified:

1. Consistency
2. Strength
3. Diet

Consistency is probably the killer for me. Most of the time I can motivate to do what I need to do, but if/when I fall off the wagon, it’s ugly. And it kills my training. So that’s a key thing to attack this year. Strength training I’m working on. Diet, on the other hand, is not so hot.

It’s not like I don’t get enough to eat, nor a good enough variety, nor do I lack of protein (if my nail and hair growth is any gauge, I get quite enough). I do need to eat a tad less fat, and fewer calories, more often. I suspect overeating may be an issue with the stomach problems I have as well – too many calories at once for my system to handle. In any case, there needs to be fewer calories vis-a-vis energy output. I’ve managed to stay at my current weight/fat level for the past two years, and I don’t want to be here. Certainly racing and training would be easier with a tad less fat on ye olde frame, so I’m going to have to knuckle under and actually get serious about it if I want to see any progress.

To say I was busy at work yesterday would be an understatement. Best way to explain how the day went: When I got to the end of the day, I picked up my thermos (the one I pack my good coffee in from home) to put it in my bag. It was still full. I’d never even had my coffee. And if you know me, you know that doesn’t happen; I always have my coffee. I’m sure I’ll make up for the caffeine consumption today, but, yeah, busy.

Am hopeful this upcoming holiday week will be a tad easier, and let me concentrate on two semi-big projects and get them out the door. That and time to do some research on the new vision and dental plans that the Feds are offering as a choice this year.

Today is about catching up on my games (there were weeds all over my town of Crobuzon in Animal Crossing:Wild World) and cleaning. The off-season is so thrilling. I did swim last night, so I’m not totally slacking, but it’s nice to lay off the exercise for a little bit.