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

Had a really nice Memorial Day weekend. I zipped down to see my parents and my brother and his family. The drives both ways were relatively relaxed, and I was able to keep the mini on cruise control at a reasonable speed for most of them (which very much helped my gas mileage – not quite 38 mpg each way). I’ve started going down to Petersburg and cutting over on 460 to 64 rather than taking 64 down the Peninsula, and I find it a much more pleasant drive. The Peninsula always drives me nuts with it’s constant construction (I’m not kidding – they’ve been widening or fixing or doing something on that damned highway since before I learned how to drive; I hate driving there). Picked up the eldest niece on the way in and had fun scandalizing her with bad singing to Madonna. Fun times.

The parents are doing well, as is my brother (aside from meds-related weight gain, that is). Took the brother to get his belated birthday gift – running shoes. Poor guy has my feet (which is to say, flatter than the proverbial pancake), so got the exact same shoes I wear. They were on sale (yay!) at the local running store, so he got a top and socks, too. He’ll have to find his own shorts. Now I just have to find a 5k for us to do down there this November to get him going.

Past the shoe shopping trip, it was an utterly unscripted weekend. We had no need to be anywhere, no race to do, etc., so we did projects around the yard (or, rather, they did projects and I watched and/or entertained my nieces). And that had to be the best part of it – just hanging out with my family and getting a chance to just be together, without the need to be running hither and yon on someone else’s schedule.

Went through Mom’s knitting stuff. Didn’t steal any of her needles (though she has all these nice old aluminium ones which were tempting), but did take a lovely 1941 “Knit for Defense” booklet with some relatively easy patterns in it (sweaters, gloves, socks – stuff “for the troops”). Copied a couple other easy patterns on their copier/fax/scanner/printer/coffee maker/nail gun/etc. machine. Might try the baby hat pattern before I do BC’s hat, just to get in some practice. Part of the just hanging out included a ton of knitting on the scarf, with the result that I have a couple more hours and it should be done finally. It’s looking pretty good, now that I have a better idea what I’m doing.

Not a lot went on past that. Some gaming on the eldest niece’s Wii with her and my brother. A couple of movies and other bad television. Planting flowers and putting up the blueberry bushes’ bird netting. All in all the perfect little vacation, and exactly what I needed.

Prescription goggles seem to be a hit or miss proposition. Most of them at my approximate prescription are fine, but the one which listed itself merely as “strong” and a pretty broad range of prescriptions seems pretty damned useless. With the others I can see, even on land, almost as well as with my glasses. These, well, might as well be regular goggles for all the good they do. Which is, of course, why I ordered multiple pairs to try them out, both for vision and for fit. Two more to try tomorrow (excluding the bad ones). I really liked the first ones, so these have a lot to live up to.

Spent some time adding people to the Wii and the two games there (see my LJ for the codes). BC and I spent most of yesterday together, over at his place. Bought some Birkenstocks so I have shoes to wear inside the house, as well as outside for pre-race/post-race wear. Damned podiatrist and his sensible orders not to go barefoot. Not pleased with it, but wearing them inside does seem to be helping. Which is even more annoying, that he was right, and that walking around barefoot inside was somehow a bad thing. Blasted flat feet. Did the mom’s day brunch thing with BC’s family. Came home mid-afternoon in the rain (ugh), played some, made some dinner & lunches for the next couple of days. Just chatting and being a bum here tonight before I crash.

Have to take the Mini in at some point. It’s got this neat trick where if I accelerate too quickly, the run-flat tires’ pressure sensor thinks the tires have just gone down by more than 10% pressure, so the warning light cuts on, which then cuts out the ABS brakes and several other lights come on, the car dings at me, and it’s altogether incredible annoying. I know it’s not that the tires are actually going flat, because Dad gave me a plug-in pump that I’ve checked them all with. So it’s a bad sensor. Grrr. It did manage not to do the trick until I got onto the bridge over the Potomac on the way home this evening, thankfully.

Of course, I mention this to Dad and his reaction was to tell me about the other trick it has of cutting off the AC if you accelerate too quickly with the AC on. That, thankfully, resets when you stop the car and turn off the engine, but not until then. Gotta love it when your car’s computer has to reboot itself.

Anyway, off to bed so I can run & swim tomorrow. Taper week, with the race next Sunday, but it’s still got to be done.

Tired this evening for some reason. Long day, but I got the (hopefully) final polish on The Project From Heck before it goes up to our front office to get ripped to shreds. Tomorrow is assembling the associated binder with all the cases and other materials we cite. Joy.

Went to a men’s knitting group tonight. All of three of us showed up, one of whom was way, way late. I stayed two hours, chatted a lot with my friend who showed up at the same time I did while we knitted, got a goof I put in the last time I sat down to knit taken out of the project (ripped out 4-5 rows to get below the goof, got it back on the needles successfully, and now there’s no sign of the goof. yay), and put several more inches on the thing. It’ll be done, eventually. Not like there’s a massive rush to finish a scarf now that Spring’s here (though getting the hot thing out of my lap while knitting will be a plus). It’s only once a month, so I can go again. Was nice to get out of the house and listen to the two-person band who was playing jazz/blues while we were there.

Short run tomorrow, and a swim after work, then it’s making potato salad and getting myself ready for a brick workout up in Columbia with the club. Get to test out the course (which I fully expect to kick my ass, since I’ve done zero hills this year), see what it’s going to be like in 2 weeks for the race itself. Get to see BC that evening, and he’s bringing over Tiger Woods golf to make me practice. I told him that’s fine, but I get to drag him into Super Smash Bros Brawl if he does bring Tiger Woods. I think that’s a fair trade.

Oh, and I almost forgot, called the student loan company to confirm that they credited the payment and I have a zero balance. Won’t get the official letter from them for another month to 45 days, but the helpful woman on the phone did confirm that it is in fact completely paid off now. Hooray!

It was wet and disgusting pretty much all day today, so I spent the vast majority of it sending my minions after various and sundry bugs, zombies and of course gold. Managed to find myself a mistress to redecorate my tower, forged some new armor, and killed off two more of the bosses. ‘Twas fun, if exasperating at times.

Did some tri club work this evening, coding of pages and sending out schedules for the other co-leaders to help decide when our next events are through the beginning of June. No bike today because of the thunderstorms, and didn’t feel like running since I’m supposed to run in the morning tomorrow.

Did get a lovely visit with JT last night – Thai food and good company, always a good combination. Almost dragged myself out to the local garden store, but decided to wait until next weekend when BC’s back in town and make him help. If I can drag him out shopping, that is – dunno what sort of time at home he’s going to need after seeing his grandparents and being out of town.

I swear, tie manufacturers are getting skimpy with the silk these days. It used to be I had to carefully balance most ties to get the little end not to show under the larger piece, but these days I’m lucky if the little end meets the loop they give you to hold the little end in place. And no, my neck has not grown by 3-4 inches, either. Cheap bastards.

Work was an utter waste of a day. Would have been better spent pretty much anywhere else.

Swimming was a mix. There were glimpses of clear, effortless power, and then there were thrashing strokes that would have been more embarrassing had more people been there to see them. The last bits of the stroke drills are hit & miss, too. Mostly hit, but some miss. Felt good when it was “on,” though. The run this morning, on the other hand, was completely on. Stayed in zone 1, kept a good pace, went a little further. Very nicely done.

Also had a fun weekend with BC. His mother did an Easter dinner, and we were mercifully not part of any family drama. Played Apples to Apples with the family after dinner, which is always fun (I kept picking adjectives like “unscrupulous” and “dead,” though. Hmmm…). Didn’t get to the Design Center, but it’ll be there for another weekend. Much talking and general silliness other than the visit to see Mom. Enjoyed that a lot.

Got to the ENT and then had all hopes of having a useful day shattered with a single sentence: “Well, we’re going to give you a neck brace to wear for the next 24 hours to keep your head from moving too much…”

Ugh.

it turns out I have classic Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, or BPPV. Basically some of the little calcium carbonate crystals that are supposed to stay in one place in the ear got out and are wreaking havoc with the innards of my ear, causing the vertigo. So we did a series of slow movements to shake the little things back to where they’re supposed to be, and then they laid the collar on me and sent me home. Well, after paying the co-pay and for the collar they sent me home. Strict instructions not to move the head quickly, no looking down, keep it upright, sleep propped up tonight, etc. Which then meant no going shopping as I’d hoped (holiday sales!), and no laundry or other housework. So, after that I basically bummed around on the Xbox all day, since I can do that and keep my head upright pretty easily. Beat Half-Life 2 and started in on Assassin’s Creed. Fun.

The treatment we did is something like 80% effective with one treatment, so in another week we should know if I have to go back in for a repeat or if we got them all knocked back with the first one. No real cause to pinpoint (no head trauma), and while it’s more likely to recur than not, most cases won’t recur with a 4-5 year period of an episode according to the doc. Which is better than my odds at getting picked for jury duty in DC, so I’ll take ’em.

We should have this “Superbowl” thing more often. I just went to the grocery store and it was dead. I mean, a dozen people in the entire store including all of the employees. Dead. And, on the way there, I literally so no one on the streets, no cars, no nothing, until I got to the grocery store parking lot. Wild.

The day started early with a volunteer stint down at Hains Point with the tri club. They were running a 5k and 10k, so I helped hand out numbers and what not. Then BC and I met a friend in Dupont at the farmers’ market for shopping and lunch.

Since I don’t do the football thing, and BC was headed out to a superbowl party, I instead did a little needed shopping, picking up moisturizer & hand lotion at the mall. Also picked up a couple balls of yarn to knit samplers with (lighter than dark brown, thank heavens) since they were having a sale at the local place. Then I picked up The Orange Box for the Xbox so I could play Portal. Let me just say, GLaDOS is one twisted computer. Love her. Didn’t take long to finish the game, but that was quite fun. No health, no weaponry, just getting from here to there. And, of course, cake.

Quiet rest of the night planned with some volunteer work, and then perhaps some more gaming of some sort.

I am at the point with Zelda: Twilight Princess where I just want the game to fucking well be over and done with. I’m not even really trying to play it any more, I’m just following a game guide to get through it. Nowhere near as fun as Bioshock or Mass Effect (both of which I was able to follow, without the need for a guide, to a successful end). This game has made me cranky from the first, and I will glad when it is done and over with.

And no, stopping is not an option, I want to see the bloody ending at this point. But there better not be any more fucking fishing. If I have to fish in this game one more time I shall kill someone.

Well, that was a pleasant way to spend a weekend. Most of it was, thankfully, spent with BC. Quiet night in on Friday. He went home for a good chunk of Saturday, then came back that evening for an outing.

We headed out with friends for drinks, dinner and Cloverfield Saturday evening. The camera work did not make me sick, though I suspect it was a one-time watch for me (big screen – good; small screen – meh; at least that was my impression of it). I do also have to echo another bloggers comment that “I wanted to see more monster, and less people.” The relationship drama stuff could have been cut down in order to see more of the actual attack, and I suspect any military folks watching (as was the premise at the beginning) would have edited out all that extraneous stuff in favor of “more monster.”

We were very nearly late to dinner because, well, in the spirit of MAL (which we did not attend) I attacked him in some of my Nasty Pig gear when he came in the door about an hour before we had to head out. That was quite fun.

Sunday was langorous. We finally bestirred ourselves from some gaming in the morning after sleeping in (Mass Effect on the Xbox for me, Bioshock on his laptop for him), got a nice big late lunch at Thai Tanic, then picked up stuff at Whole Paycheck for a mushroom & sun-dried tomato risotto that evening. Yum!! Fantastic recipe out of Vegan with a Vengeance, though I modified it slightly (more rice, mainly). We were glad to spend most of the day indoors, since the temps never really made it out of the 20s. Poor BC forgot to bring gloves, so when we hauled the groceries back to the car (two bags total) I handed him one of mine for his bag. He laughed, but still took it gratefully as we wandered back, one gloved hand with groceries out, one hand firmly ensconced in a pocket.

Unfortunately he had to work today, but we have date plans tomorrow – another nice night in with movie and some soup (a curried split pea soup, to be precise). For most of the day I was a bum. Did hop on the bicycle trainer to spin out a few miles for a little over an hour, but mostly played more Mass Effect. Beat the game late this evening playing on “casual” mode, so I’ll have to play it through later on a more difficult level. For now it’s back to one or more of the games on the Wii, I suspect, so I can finish those and perhaps lend them to BC.

Back to the salt mines tomorrow, though even with all the other stuff I was doing this weekend I think I came up with a solution to a sticky wicket one of our programs has gotten into by mis-reading some of my office’s advice. Clarification (to the program; not here) shall be forthcoming tomorrow.

BC and I had a nice, low-key NYE, over at a friend’s house with a few other folks. Much fun was had playing Godzilla Unleashed on his Wii, and aside from a single glass of champagne at midnight I didn’t touch a drop (I drove up there so we didn’t have to deal with taxis or Metro). Driving home was the most challenging part – drunken people popping out in the road at random intervals, all trying to flag down any taxi they could. What. A. Mess.

No new year’s day run this year – we got up too late, and then had to zip off to another get-together at Richard’s place in the afternoon. No matter, we got in a nice 4 miles today which, while cold, wasn’t bad. The cold symptoms are calming somewhat finally, but aren’t completely gone quite yet. Rest, relaxation, lots of water, and no drinking. Am going to begin exercising again, though. I just can’t wait any longer.

Speaking of which, signed up for my third and final triathlon for this year, the Nation’s Triathlon here in DC. So I’m doing Columbia in May (Olympic distance), Nation’s Tri in September (Olympic again), and Ironman Arizona (aka IMZ) in November. And a couple of other running events, I’m sure, sprinkled in between (Lawyers Have Heart 10k in June, the National Press Club 5k in September, etc.). Aside from IMZ, they’re all local things, so not a ton of travel for races this year, which should be a bit easier, especially if I’m transitioning jobs later this year.

We did a little shopping today, and I picked up some extra controllers for the two gaming systems, as well as recharging stations for both – no more disposable batteries.

So, a nice quiet beginning to the year, which I hope bodes well for the rest of it.