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

On my morning run this morning I:

Stared at army boys running (the joys of living a block from a base);
Helped a woman who was massively lost get back on her way;
Stared at more army boys running;
Got really, really warm.

Was an okay run. Did feel a touch of the soreness from Sunday’s run, but not too bad. Also had fun staring down a squirrel as I was stretching. Was slow enough that he came down to check things out (not too close to me), but was cute, for a tree rat.

Had a couple friends who live here in the cult co-op over for martinis this evening. Needed to practice on boys who wouldn’t care that I had no clue how to make them. Now that I know how (the gin variety, at least), I’ll have to have some more folks over.

It’s summer in DC, it’s hot, it’s humid, it’s time to mosey.

That does not mean walking at my normal “get out of my way before I barrel you over like the speed bump that you are” pace, it means getting back to my southern roots and walking at a measured pace designed not to leave you drenched when you get to your destination.

And by heavens, it works.

I managed not to be soaked by the time I got to work this morning. Tomorrow may be another story as I have a run planned in the morning and that tends to make me a tad more prone to sweating on the walk. But at least for one day I was not a total victim of the weather. Thursday should be really fun, what with my normal 7 miler to do.

In wretched news, the YWCA, where I swim, is closing their pool as of the end of August. Evidently it’s too big a financial drain on them, so they’re dumping it. As a result, I will be dumping them. I’ve written to the manager (with a CC to the overall email addy) asking how to cancel the membership. Which means I now have to find a new gym. Grrr. I’ll miss the towel service, but what a pain in the ass. Looks like I may be moving to the (not so hot) gym around the corner after all.

I have a set of pages I read on a regular basis, every evening, and I added my LJ friends list and the page I use to write on my web site, which now prods me to write, ready or not. A purposeful thing, meant to force my fingers to get moving.

I managed a great feat today – I unpacked the last two boxes of books. Most of them are on bookshelves now. Most of them. I discovered that I need more bookshelves to fit them all, even with having dumped as many as I did when I moved. A bunch of paperbacks are now crammed onto some shelves in multiple layers. I’d prefer they be visible now, but in time they will be.

But now I’m completely moved in. Everything might not have a ‘permanent’ home yet, but it’s all out and mostly put away. Even managed to hang another piece of art. Slowly it’s become home.

Life’s a mess, as always. The air thing seems to be fixed now, I’ve killed off the last head cold from that craptacular little adventure, and I’m running again.

I had a visitor over the weekend, a boy (in the BDSM sense) who is perhaps relocating to DC. Had a very fun time with him, despite the head cold. Played tourist, played period, though not as much as either of us would have liked (again, the head cold). Mildly disappointed at that, betrayed by my body. But a fun time with him, nonetheless.

Otherwise I’ve been feeling even more anti-social than my usual wont, killing off the shows on my TiVo, catching up on the DS games I’ve been neglecting, pulling down the books I’ve not yet read and starting in on some of them.

This was a very long weekend. A goodly part of it was spent on the way to, the way from, and in Quakerstown, Pennsylvania to watch my newbie triathletes compete in their first race. The Steelman was a well run, well organized race that had both an olympic and a sprint distance race run at the same time (sprint started 1/2 an hour after the olympic folks). It was a lot of fun cheering them on, seeing them finish their first race, and just generally getting caught up in the race spirit without being in the race myself. I think that’s the first time I’ve been a spectator at a race since 1999 when I went to visit Ironman Canada with RNJTM. Was a lot of fun.

Once I got home, and got showered, I moved things around int he apartment again. The bed placement, even with the air diverters I hunted down, was just not working. The air unit has been blowing over my face when I sleep, which has caused at least one cold, and possibly a second. So I moved the bed around to the opposite wall. It works, though not like I’d prefer to have the room. At least the air thing is now solved so hopefully no more a/c induced colds this year.

Spent an hour tonight doing some yoga practice, something I’ve not done in a while. Did variations of standing poses, getting grounded, feeling how the legs supported the frame, how to adjust the movement of the body to keep centered and balanced. Felt good. Certainly it felt better than sitting online and running my fingers with friends. While I like chatting with folks, I have been spending a little too much time there and not enough working on things like the yoga practice. So it felt good to move the body again. I think perhaps hanging around with hundreds of people, many of whom are incredibly fit, was a motivator. Hmph.

Also starting to play with podcasts. I know, I know, I’m way behind the curve on them, but I typically do not use my iPod except as background noise at work, so listening to radio-type broadcasts where I’d have to pay attention to something isn’t my norm. Nonetheless I hunted down some mandarin-language podcasts through iTunes and will try to listen some more. My mandarin is very rusty, so listening to some currrent talk I think should help arrest and perhaps reverse some of the loss of skill there.

After rearranging the living room, and prior to starting dinner, I had another of those, “OMG, I own all of this” moments looking around at the apartment. It’s funny, both of the major rooms have now been reversed from how they were originally set up when I moved in, and both are probably more functional for the movement. It takes time to get things set up and arranged properly, but it seems like it’s taken longer than usual with my new home. And I haven’t even gone through and done a proper feng shui treatment of it yet, either.

Obviously working out was not meant to happen this morning. Didn’t feel like biking in the cooler temps & wetish weather, still resting my yet-again pulled calf muscle, so no run, & swam last night, so that’s a no-go, too. Couldn’t find the short bike workout DVD, so was going to go with the 50 minute one, but that one seems to have crapped out on me – won’t play on the PeeCee, won’t play on the iBook (caused me to have to reboot the iBook when it wouldn’t eject, in fact). Ugh. So, Tuesday is this week’s rest day, or at least the morning is, we’ll see about getting something to work tonight, though I think I was supposed to do dinner with a friend tonight. Ugh.

I finally broke down and went to get some whole bean coffee from the local grocery store down here just now. Cola and/or napping in the middle of the afternoon wasn’t cutting it, and I wanted the ritual of being up and getting some coffee on the weekends.

Managed to get a good chunk of my clothes out of boxes and into either the closet or the chest of drawers last night, after I put the couch together and got the mattress out of the bedroom (where it was blocking the closet). It was really nice to get the couch together so I had somewhere to sprawl out upon, other than the bed. Also consolidated the boxes of books to one location (all dozen of them) so I had some floor space in which to put the couch. I need to dump empty boxes soon to clear up more space. As boxes have emptied and space has become available it’s been easier to get a feel for the flow of the apartment, even while it’s still in flux.

I am officially annoyed with Presta valves. I can’t seem to get my front tire on the tri bike inflated to save my life, which killed taking a ride this morning, until such time as the bike shop opens and I can figure out where I’m going wrong on the inflation thing. User error, but not sure where the error lies.

I’ve yet to use it on aught but the bathroom floor, but I picked up one of those “swiffer” things to get all the dust and tree sperm off the floor. While wandering around barefoot on Friday I noticed that my feet quickly turned black from all the residual dust. I wish I’d had a chance to clean the place now (hindsight, 20/20, all that) before I moved in, or at least have run a damp mop over the floors to get the dust up. Ah well, working at it bit by bit now.

But having the stuff mostly together in the bedroom has been wonderful. To have one space where I can stop, not be looking at five gazillion boxes in various states of repair and fullness, and just relax, has been invaluable for my mental health. The gorgeous weather we’ve had, which has allowed me to have the doors wide open, has also helped. I say doors because the way this apartment works, the “windows” in the living room are floor to ceiling glass which open onto the screened-in balcony, one of which slides behind the other to open up the room. The windows in the bedroom don’t open at all, but there is a door to the balcony which opens up into the bedroom to allow air in. Has been fun running from the bedroom to the living room via the balcony. I’m sure that’ll stop once it heats up outside, but it’s nice now, and lends to the feeling of openness of the apartment.

Packages seem to be a hit and miss thing. Got my blender and my TV just fine, but haven’t been able to get the toaster out of hock yet. It’s here according to Amazon, but they’ve not given me a package notice on it yet, and the guard couldn’t find it because “there are a lot of packages back there” in the office. Oy. I’m sure it’ll turn up Monday when the regular office folks are back in. Good thing it wasn’t something important like coffee making equipment.

I’ll get some pictures up once I dig out the camera and clear some more floor space.

The sure cure to panic over things like, say, moving, for me at least, is to sit down and make a list. Started that today, writing down those items I’m thinking about buying for the new place (TV, shelving, etc.), putting a cost (item cost, shipping, tax…) to them, and where I’ve found something, the name and vendor. It does help make the whole thing more manageable and not quite so overwhelming. I’m lucky in that the seller’s credit I’m getting at closing will leave me with more cash than I was expecting to have, so I’ll be in a position to pick up a couple of things sooner rather than later (TV…), which should make the home a tad more comfortable.

Overall the image of the place is coming together in my head. The acid test, of course, will be getting the existing furniture in there so I can see what will and will not work, but I’m liking the concepts I’ve got floating around. The one big thing I’m doing that’s different from previous apartments is that my “office space” is not going into the bedroom, it’s going to be out in the living room. I want the bedroom to be just that, a bedroom, and not to spend all of my time sitting in there at the computer. To keep with that, I’m looking at flat TVs that can be an “all-in-one” solution, meaning it can be TV, computer monitor, and (eventually) gaming console monitor. Any thoughts on that are welcome as I do my research (and yes, I’m pretty much set in getting one device rather than at least two).

Heading out to Tysons this weekend to do some in-person shopping at West Elm to get a feel for a couple of their pieces. I’m very much the “I want to see it and touch it and make sure it looks in person like it does on the web site/in the catalog” kind of shopper, when that option is available. Also have to pick out/up a mattress. After the closing Friday I’m going to try and sit down with the desk folks at the building and chat about package delivery and how that works, but that’s not an immediate need, and could be done over the phone if needed.

Wrote this yesterday, but my site was down, so couldn’t post it.

Spring is here, spring is here, time for skittles and time for beer.

Yes, it’s going to get cooler as the week goes one, but it’s glorious here in DC today. Saw daffodils in bloom while out running, that being the first sign of Spring in the DC parks. The second sign was, of course, the sound of lots of bicycle chains which hadn’t been oiled in months (perhaps years) out and about on the local trails. Most of these riders didn’t know to warn you that they were coming up beside you, but you probably heard their chains grinding from a good several feet away (if not that, then the sound of their wheezing as they rode too quickly, too soon).

Ran this afternoon, after the cold meds kicked in and killed the remaining bit of sniffles, and after a nice, hot, steamy shower to help them along (ah, snot in the shower, yum). The run felt pretty good. I was going sooooo slooooow, trying to keep my heart rate down where it’s supposed to be rather than just going out and running like I usually do. I’m very bad about actually using the HRM as it’s supposed to be used, to slow myself down and actually train the heart without overtaxing it. But since we’re fussing at the newbie triathletes about that, I’m trying to follow my/our own advice. So I was slower than molasses, but it was still a good run. Is so nice now that the calf’s back in action.

Did forget to put Body Glide on my nips, which started to tell me that was a very, very bad idea at the turn-around, but which ultimately calmed down and are fine now. Will have to remember that stuff for the long runs again.

Like a lot of people I seem to have missed the final 30-60 seconds of Battlestar Gallactica on Friday (silly TiVo recording times). Got the gist of it, but what a pain to have to re-record it. Otherwise, that was quite a season ender. Glad they took the premise of the original show and went where they have with it, it’s been good television for the most part.

I suspect the fools who made my veggie burger for yesterday’s lunch used some cheese as a binding agent. Too bad it becomes an un-binding agent once released into my gut. Behold, the Power of Cheese! Wicked little dairy products.

Taking it easy tonight. Nice relaxing dinner with Lawrence, then bed. Off tomorrow for my 6 month dental appointment and running other errands (time to buy more TP, bug my real estate agent about stuff, etc.). Might get in a nice bike ride since it’ll be comfortable out. We’ll see when we get there.

Just pulled my right calf while running on the treadmill here at work. Ow, ow, ow. And CT’s going to think I did it intentionally to get out of seeing him on Black Tuesday. *sigh* Right now I just want to head home, prop it up with some ice on it and go to bed (though not with the ice still on it as that would be pretty uncomfortable and/or wet when I woke up).