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

Home today with an entirely self-inflicted head cold. Work is, I’m sure, going nuts as they always do when I’m out, but so be it. And I wish the meds (sudafed) that get rid of the more obnoxious symptoms weren’t so damned taxing themselves. That and I wish that I didn’t turn into a 4 year old when I get sick.

Partially fortuitous, actually, as I was home when the USPS dropped off a very important and much-anticipated package (gift check from ye olde parental units for ye olde apartment purchase).

Finished reading two books (the last two of the “Death Gate Cycle” by Weiss & Hickman) today. Not like those are tough reads, but they kept me entertained and off the computer (mmm, monster killing…).

Hopefuly sleep tonight won’t be bad – I actually slept pretty darned well last night, just woke up with a head stuffed with snot and without a will to move.

I’m in the process of putting an offer in on a co-op apartment down in southwest DC, near the Waterfront Metro station. Nothing quite like contemplating more than doubling my debt load (after student loans) in one fell swoop. Thank heavens for the tax benefits that come along with mortgage interest payments in this country.

I’ve otherwise been busy, helping with the club’s new triathlete program, working out myself, and just generally living. My calf is still out of commission; tried running last Thursday, a week and some after the initial injury, but ten minutes in at a moderate pace I could tell it was not ready yet. I’ll take this entire week off and try to be patient. Thankfully swimming and biking have not been affected by the calf’s little injury, so I’ve been able to stay up with those in the meantime.

For reasons I’ll not go into here I broke things off with CT last week. For the first time since the Clinton administration I’m single. And you know, I’m okay with that; I’m looking forward to having some “down time” from dating, to be honest. I want to get the new apartment arranged, do my race, get the new triathletes through their first race(s), and simply take things day by day otherwise. Heaven knows I need to take some of the down time and retool my eating habits; I’ve been eating for stress, not for hunger and fueling my body, and the scale’s been showing it this year. Not that buying the apartment and breaking up are doing wonders for my stress levels, but this has been just plain silly. There’s no reason my eating should have been that out of whack. Ah well, live, learn, and move on.

Got a starter Prince’s Wand (link not safe for work) last week. The starter version was nice, after a ton of cleaning (it was obvious they hadn’t cleaned it before they shipped it), but if I were to continue with one I think I’d have to go and get a custom one done by Steel Werks Extreme (again, link not safe for work). The starter one fits okay, but a more customized version would be needed for more than just hanging out in it, if you will.

(how sad, I just realized I didn’t have a “sex” category for that last bit of text; shows how little I’ve been doing anything in that department lately)

Anyway, brought some work home tonight so I need to go read that and get prepped for a semi-big meeting with my chief deputy poo-bah tomorrow.

I should update those things I’ve already done on the Uberlist, but I’ll save that for later.

Richard came back in the apartment yesterday morning to tell me the wonderful news that they were painting the bed bug boys’ apartment and that the boys were now gone. Hooray! Keep your fingers crossed that the next person/bunch is better than this previous group was.

I’m still vascillating on the whole buying real estate thing, though am leaning more heavily toward buying. The listings aren’t bad, and reading more on the subject makes me more hopeful. Chatted with my bank about some short-term investment options as well, and the rates don’t seem terribly useful for that at the moment. Of course, the flip side of that is that borrowing rates for mortgages aren’t too terrible, either.

Today was the last day of physical therapy left from the car accident last month. Loved the therapist, she was very helpful, and we (finally) went over more stretches for my IT bands that should help with that little problem. Overall she seemed pleased with the stretching I’m doing now after we went over it, which was good to see.

Otherwise I’m staying busy between training and gearing up for the new triathlete program (sign-ups begin next week!).

Saw my new physical therapy person this morning. The verdict: more strength training, more strength training, more strength training. Whee.

Did I mention that I find strength training incredibly dull? Thought so. I guess I have to get over that, and fast. She’s given me a whole regimen of things to get my butt back in the gym to accomplish. <insert grunting noise here>

Oh, and she ultrasounded the knee just to check it and make sure all was good (so I escaped getting X-rayed last week, but got ultrasounded this week), and to give her a comparison to make sure it was healing properly when she checks it next week. The knee had developed a lovely bruise where I got tapped, but is otherwise still fine. She also switched the schedule (which had been 2x/week for 4 weeks) to today, this time next week, and then in 2 weeks after that, which is, I think, more reasonable than the original schedule, and more useful for what I need now, which is to measure progress.

Was still nice to come into work late today, though.

I think, now that more residents have moved into the area around my gym, that we’re going to have to put some pressure on them to keep the gym open on holidays rather than closing for the federal holidays like they do now. That made some sense when most of their business was from federal workers in the, at the time, mostly office complex area they inhabited, but with more residents moving in, it doesn’t make any sense to have the gym closed on holidays, seeing as how those are prime times to be able to get to the gym. I can understand closing for Christmas and Easter (it is the YWCA after all), but not for the other federal holidays.

Otherwise things continue to percolate along as normal. No real rants, no real shout outs.

The knee’s fine, other than a touch of soreness when I press on the side of it. I’m still going to see my orthopedist tomorrow morning before work (and since it’s a “motor vehicle accident” I have to pay up front and submit the paperwork to my insurance company myself – grrr) just to make sure it’s okay, but it’s fine otherwise.

No further calls on the cell from the shysters this morning, though.

I was hit by a car tonight.

I was walking across Independence Avenue, with the crosswalk, and there was an SUV with NJ plates who was partially blocking the crosswalk (as in, over the END of the crosswalk and over in the intersection), and evidently that was enough to block the driver’s sight as he turned left and hit me.

He barely tapped my left knee and I smacked his hood as I was waving at him, yelling at him, and backing up. Insisted he pull over, he was very polite, and very apologetic. I called the police, two women gave me their cards to be witnesses (I’ll email thanks tomorrow), and when the police came he was again very polite and calm. The police cited him for failure to yield to a pedestrian, I refused medical service (wasn’t more than tapped, though I will call my orthopedist tomorrow morning and go in to check it out just in case), and that was that.

Not the way I saw my Wednesday night starting out.

Well, so much for my doctor’s appointment this morning (the entire reason I took today off from work, truth be told). They just called, emergency came up, blah, blah, can you reschedule to tomorrow? Um, no, I had taken today off just to have this appointment, and I really don’t want to waste more annual leave take more time off from work, it’s not an emergency, so I’ll just see him in February when I come in for my physical. (insert ugly mutterings under breath)

Well, not quite true, I have other errands I need to address today while off from work, like laundry and getting my bike checked/fit adjusted so I don’t get IT band problems Every Time I Ride It More Than 20 Minutes, but hey, those weren’t the reason I took today off. Oh well.

In other news, after the fight CT & I did talk & resolve the issue(s). Still wasn’t fun to experience that, but into each life, rain, &c.

Anyway, time to get started with cleaning before I head down to the bike shop. At least I can get some of that done in lieu of the appointment, though I made pretty good progress on the main room last night.

Equifax seems to have finally realized that I am, in fact, Moose II and not Moose, Sr., nor Moose III. I can’t get to the actual file yet – they’ve not yet combined the two – but I did go over the credit accounts in the duplicate account in my name and they were all mine. So now I wait another week and call back to try to weasel them out of get an updated, corrected credit report from them. Finally all three bureas should be up to date and happy now, which makes for a very happy Moose.

Speaking of happy Moose, it’s the solstice, meaning days can get longer once more and I can get more sunlight. More sunlight = happy Moose. I don’t do well in all-dark, and would probably be a total mess if I had to live somewhere near or above the artic circle. Give me warmth and sunlight (and yes, even humidity) any day of the week over this cold, dark crap we lovingly refer to as “winter.”

And on yet another happy Moose note, I have been happily floating through the day on a dose of prescription sudephedrine. Whee! I’m guessing I picked up the cold on the train, as none of my relatives were sick this past weekend (normally there’s one family “assassin” who brings the rest of us the annual holiday cold, but none were in evidence this time). No biggie, it’ll be gone soon enough, but in the meantime I’m nice and mellow (and on legal substances, much to the chagrin of one of the older attorneys here at work who, it seems from his comments, would have preferred me mellow on something more… organic).

Much goings on since the last post, and yet it feels like I don’t have a ton to report, either.

I did indeed wipe out my credit card debt, and the installments have started on the small loan I took out to pay them all off. I’m waiting until the statements cycle in the next week or two to make the final interest payments, and then that part of the debt is retired. Yes, it’s just a restructuring of the debt, but one that will reduce the time and overall cost considerably, so I’m pleased.

I also took out enough to purchase the tri bike I wanted to get. Two pictures, one from the official web site, one from my camera phone:

Am most pleased with the purchase thus far. I also picked up an indoor trainer the following day, a fluid trainer, so I can ride the beastie inside when I’m too lazy to take my ass outdoors it’s too nasty outside to ride there. The aero bars will definitely take some getting used to – the ride home from the shop, even using the Metro, was spent entirely on the outer bars where the brakes were, but then again, I was riding on city streets, not out on open road with no cars. Glad I got it now, though, so I have time to practice on it well before the race in June.

Training otherwise is going well. I’m making most of the planned training sessions, with the exception of the bike ones last week (for obvious reasons – no bike yet!). The double training days on Tu/Th are going pretty well, as is the planned day off on Wednesday. I’m glad to have that rest built into the middle of the week, it definitely helps break up the routine and give me time to remember that I used to have a life outside of training, as well as letting me do errands like, oh, getting my hair cut.

In not so happy news, I broke up with K. It’s a complicated story, and I don’t want to go into a lot of details here, but I’m not seeing him any more.

Work is getting busier by the day, and I’m not keeping up with it, much to my annoyance. I almost suspect we’re getting enough other stuff going on in my area to justify another 1/2 a body (with the other 1/2 to be other “general law” stuff), or even a full body to handle the loan stuff I’m learning now. What a mess that is. Sat through some training today on it and I have to say, I’m almost wishing I’d done the joint JD/MBA degree rather than the JD/MA – the financing stuff would be very useful right about now.

Tired a lot of late from the training. A good tired, but still tired. Oh, and I gave up caffeine the week of Thanksgiving again. Had a decaf that weekend, and some sips of tea one lunch, but otherwise have steered clear of it. Honestly, it’s been a lot easier to dump this time than the original trip back in 2000-2001. Haven’t really felt the need for the stuff, despite the tiredness from the training, and my continuing trips down to the cafeteria in the morning before work (a ritual I do with one of the other new attorneys – used to get coffee together, now she gets coffee and I occasionally get a bagel). Glad I did it, and I look forward to having it completely out of my system again in another couple of months.

No more bites to report, though I find myself increasingly irritated at the management of the building for their (to my mind) poor business decisions in who they’re renting to. They’ve done nothing about the guys next door, only spraying when I fuss about the bugs returning. I had to pound on the wall on Sunday when I got home to get them to turn their music down (like I want to hear their music loudly and clearly through a concrete wall), and while they had the good sense to turn it down (had they not, security would have been called), it was still an incredible annoyance on an otherwise okay day. I so look forward to getting away from them and their unwanted little guests (both the two- and multi-legged varieties).

I need to arrange for a good full body massage sometime soon. It’s funny, I have so many friends who are professional massage therapists now that my problem is deciding which therapist to use for any given issue. But some work on the back/shoulders and legs is needed and soon.

Even though the folks at work seem to universally have a pretty good opinion of me and my work product, I always dread performance reviews. It’s an irrational fear, but it’s there. Did the latest one today, and it was fine, as usual.

We’re experiencing the calm before the storm here in DC, literally. There’s a cold front moving through that’ll drop our temps a good 20 degrees or so this afternoon, but in the meantime it’s hot & humid here inside the Big Government Agency and that’s got a lot of people on edge. Me, I’m staying holed up in my office for as long as I can and avoiding eye contact with stressed out gubmint workers (which is pretty much everyone here).

I think I’ve decided Wednesdays will be my rest days on the tri training plan. I need at least one (other) work day evening with nothing after work, so Wednesdays it is. I’ve been trying out the schedule I want to follow and so far it’s pretty good, aside from needing more sleep time. I expect that to get a tad better as I shake things out and get into more of a routine here soon, but in the meantime I’m coasting through. Made all the more fun because I’m reducing my caffeine use with an eye to kicking it again. I’ve said I wanted to do that, and I think it’s time now. Have gotten myself down to a small decaf in the mornings and that’s it, so I think this is doable. And this is the time of year I did it last time – the normal disruptions of the holiday period were, strangely enough, conducive to dumping the stuff from my diet, so I’m trying what’s worked before. Keep your fingers crossed.

Bought Madonna’s latest but haven’t had much time to listen to it yet. So far so good, much better than the last one (may Mirwais rot in hell for that drivel – one album of it was okay, two was death).

In an odd place, as is probably normal, with Richard. We’re slowly making the transition down to roomies & friends, and I think it’ll be fine, but in the meantime it’s still a touch raw and awkward. I’m helping him with some work stuff, and we’re still chatting (still no thrown dishes or ugly words), so it’s just day by day there.

Looked at some places to rent online. I’m definitely leaning toward one particular building, with an efficiency, 600 square feet with a balcony. Still looking in SW, that’s still the best looking locale for now.