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

The administration’s continued parade of ‘let’s keep everyone off balance’ continued apace today. Full employment for moi, so far. Though I did determine that after some of their actions at higher profile agencies we are not going to paint a target on my office by trying to ‘out lawyer’ their stuff (so long as it’s actually legal, and so far it has been, even if it’s been … odd).

The level of angst in the office is a mess. Every other conversation seems to start with, at minimum, a ‘wtf’ look, if not an outright blurting out of the actual phrase. And it’s nigh impossible to keep up with it all, which is, of course, their intent. Baffle ’em with bullshit, as the saying goes. Nothing like some chaos to keep everyone busy.

Well, 47 is definitely keeping the news companies busy. Haven’t heard whether my small agency’s IG was one of the ones fired last night. I doubt it, we’re too small for that, but one never knows how far his attention will stray to.

Lots of texting with colleagues today. Consensus with the lawyers is that he’s doing this as a way to generate a lawsuit that will eventually get SCOTUS to say that laws which purport to limit his authority to fire people in the executive branch are unconstitutional. Such a decision wouldn’t come for years, but it’s definitely within the sights of the folks he surrounds himself with.

What a time to be alive.

We feds got a message today from the outgoing president about how much he appreciated our work. Well, 46, if you appreciated it so much why did you limit our pay raise this year to 2% instead of matching the military’s at 4.5%, as is customary? For someone who claimed he was a champion for labor he sure didn’t show it. Of course, neither did 44, who agreed to ridiculous pay freezes because he was afraid the opposition party in Congress would say ugly things about him. Fools. Meanwhile, insurance and living costs continue to outpace raises so we’re not even breaking even (a big reason you lost, 46). Again, fools. So thanks, you senile old fool. Enjoy your early retirement, and do us all a favor and take more of the other 70+ year olds with you into the sunset.

Spent the better part of this past week preparing for the government shutdown that almost but didn’t quite happen at the last minute. The good part of the temporary funding extension is that it goes past the time frame for my next tranche of training in late February/early March, so I’ll be able to plan for that to happen on time. The bad part is that we’ll get to do the shutdown dance again in March when I return from training. It was also good trial-by-fire for my backup at work, who hadn’t been through one of these in the role of fiscal attorney before. But hey, we’re through it, and now I can start leave, albeit a day later than planned (I had Friday off, but The Hill had other plans; the leave will roll over to next year).

The training went really well, aside from a cold (or maybe covid?) that someone brought with them, post-Thanksgiving. No closed-circuit TV to the rooms at the facility like there is at my first agency’s training center, so it was show up or miss out. Lots of masking, but the second week drug on with the cold.

But, the whole experience was really, really good. First week was like ‘federal manager boot camp’, with lots of exercises designed to break down emotional/vulnerability barriers with a small team, then the second went into shorter, more applied courses. I took the negotiating class and the difficult conversations workshop. The latter was repetitive of much of the rest of the material, so I could’ve done something else, but it was still good reinforcement of the other materials.

Two more weeks in late February/early March. Difficult part will be keeping up with the reading in the interim, and keeping some momentum to change things at work, both personally and for the office.

I was semi-hopeful that they had a deal to extend funds, but that apparently blew up when some of the majority party balked at doing their basic constitutional duty to fund the government. A shame, because the original date was beyond my training dates, so I could’ve booked the travel and not had to worry about rescheduling if there’s a lapse at that point. Meh.

Got a wild hair this morning so I cleared off some shelves in our owner’s suite closet to try and neaten them up and make room for things. Rearranged shoes so they all fit. Tried on pants and shorts, donating a bunch that no longer fit, and better sorting the remainder. Did laundry, including some of the shorts which had accumulated dust. The husband usually does the laundry, but I offered to take care of mine this week because his schedule is nuts and I’d be home today. Still need to sort some shoes and determine which should stay and which should go, but that’ll involve a consultation with the husband (he’s more a shoe person than I am).

Prepped training I’m giving tomorrow. Two classes – one to other attorneys, and one to our budget folks. Cleaned up work emails. Mailed off a package to a niece and filled the car with gas. Have discovered that the second-closest post office is the way to go. They’re friendly and quite helpful, unlike the closest one, where the folks have universally been surly and brusque (which is a shame because the closest one is walking distance).

I’m taking off for training for two weeks down in the middle of Virginia at the beginning of December and need to start preparing lists of what to pack.

Otherwise I just continue working. There’s zero I can do about the incoming administration’s plans, so I refuse to engage in stressing over said plans. Instead I’ve been spending time at work spreading what my best man refers to as my “calming Moose rays” – talking people off of ledges, listening to their worries, and trying to redirect them away from doom scrolling and obsessive news consumption.

I’m flattered by the number of friends who think I run fast enough to qualify for the Boston marathon. Not even close here, but I appreciate the sentiment. I’m safe, trust me.

That said, the boy’s sister was running it for charity. His family lives in the greater Boston area, and his parents were expected to be at the VIP seating near the second bomb. Thankfully they stopped, earlier, at another spot on the route where they found a better view, so none of them was hurt. My future sister-in-law was still out on the route, and got pulled before she could finish, based on the security concerns.

My first thoughts, after comforting the boy, was how we’d need to marry early, to make it official, so we could take care of his (soon ‘our’) niece. And while I’m happy we don’t have to do the legal shit earlier than the ceremony in late May, it was still scary as all hell to contemplate that his ENTIRE family would be out at something and be killed. Given his sister’s wishes we’d still have gotten his niece to raise, but the lack of legal protections scares this lawyer.

Also annoying is our utter inability to help with blood donations. Despite having a safe profile, despite testing consistently negative for communicable diseases, I can’t donate, because I’ve “had sex with another man since” the year I turned 5. Not before I was legal, but, y’know, the FDA rules don’t make rational sense, they just fuel prejudice rather than public health purposes. So, yeah, I’m gonna make this political; fuck you, FDA, and your stupid rules, and how dare you prevent me from helping my fellow citizens when they need it.

Hmph. I seem to have picked up another bug of some sort. This one just seems to be content with giving me a lovely sore throat. But only on the right side of my throat. No fever, no aches, just the one-sided sore throat. Most bizarre thing I’ve ever had. Went to urgent care on Saturday to see if it were strep, and I think I’m rapidly converting to the view that they’re practically useless, because both times I’ve tried them I’ve ended up going to see my primary care doc later anyway. Meh. Oh, and the quickie strep test came back negative. Ugh.

Other than that (which makes eating and talking loads of fun, let me tell you), work is slowly getting spun up with the possibility of a shut down after the current continuing resolution expires next Friday, the 4th. Both parties are playing chicken and government workers are stuck in the middle. You know, make some decisions, fund the damned government, be those levels up, down, or the status quo, but just fund us and let us do what we’re supposed to be doing – we’ll manage if you just give us some direction and let us run with it. The last time they did this back in 95/96 when large numbers of feds were furloughed Congress passed bills giving back pay to the workers sent home, but I just don’t see that happening this time around. Not a fun time, especially being the lead lawyer on fiscal issues. Oh, and bonus, it’s highly unlikely I’d be named as “essential personnel” so I wouldn’t be working or getting paid, either, if we shut down. Joy.

And all this is just a precursor to the fight over the debt ceiling later this winter/early this spring. That’s when the shit really hits the fan because even if an agency has multi-year or no-year funds and can keep operating without new money, the Treasury won’t be able to warrant out any funds to make payments, so it’s likely that at that point everyone will get shut down, period. No money to make tax refunds, to pay social security, make Medicare payments, etc. That’s when we’ll really see the shit hit the fan.

So, yeah, stress city right now. Can this winter be over yet?

Still haven’t been able to fully motivate back into training yet. When it’s hard to tell if the heavy breathing is from being de-trained, the cold temps (and dry air) on ye olde lungs, or some odd combination of the two, it doesn’t leave me very thrilled with the idea of going out for a run. I have been continuing to bike into work, throwing on some long underwear bottoms, heavy wool socks, and old jeans, and that’s been fine to keep my legs/feet warm enough for the ride in, but the top of the hill at 10th street is kicking my ass in the cold. I end up breathing heavy until after I get into the building and decently heated air.

Give me heat and humidity any day of the week. It’s a shame I’ve forgotten so much of my Mandarin or I’d see about applying for jobs in Taiwan again. Even with the pollution I think I’d prefer the weather.

The familia seemed pleased with their Giftmas largesse. And Mom seems quite pleased with her b’day Kindle. I was a bit worried on that, because she didn’t seem to show much interest in mine when I showed it off back in November, but went ahead with it anyway. The email tonight (she got it this afternoon) was most enthusiastic. Looking forward to geeking out with her on it. Wonder how much Dad will end up trying to steal it from her.

I think I’m going to be able to shoehorn a cleaner into my budget now that we’ve gotten the first paycheck stub of the year. I got a modest increase in pay thanks to a performance increase (and no thanks to the powers that be killing off our COLA for this and next year), and between that and the tax adjustments I think I can swing it. My bathroom certainly needs it, as does the kitchen. That’s one of the things I miss most from living at the Woodner – we paid two women to come in every other week and clean. It was worth every penny. I have a couple of names from neighbors, so I think it’s time to start interviewing.

Speaking of the powers that be, the new Congresscritters are in town now and while it was mostly quiet on that front this week, I did get an email just before I left tonight alerting me to an issue and a proposed powwow with our various appropriations staffers over it. Expected, that with the divide among parties, we’d start getting some crazy, but I was enjoying the lull before the storm. It’s not going to be dull for us the next two years, that’s for sure.

I’m glad I attended the National Equality March (NEM). It’s hard to come up with excuses not to go to an event held in your back yard, though heaven knows I’ve begged out of other things. The last “march” in DC for GLBT rights was the Millennium March (MM), and that one felt more like an extended version of DC pride than an actual “march” (in contrast, the MM had a vendor area much like DC’s pride festival, down to the location). This one, at least for the march itself and the rally afterward at the Capitol, felt more purposeful than the generic feel-good atmosphere of the MM. Perhaps because this one was actually called for something, and didn’t feel like a corporate-abused bit of PR for HRC.

And yes, in case you couldn’t tell, I have an exceedingly low opinion of HRC. They got a lovely new building from all their fundraising, and the rest of us got saddled with DADT and DOMA. Not exactly a wonderful trade-off for paying for all their supposed “expertise” on lobbying.

Got down to the Capitol grounds as the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington was in the middle of their performance. I definitely could have done without the religious BS right after the Chorus sang, but I understand that it’s a necessary evil in our society. Popped out after a bit of the rally to go grab food, a very late lunch, but wandered back afterward to meet a Twitter buddy who’d come down from Pittsburgh, and managed to catch Kate Clinton, Urvashi Vaid, Cleve Jones and the cast of Hair (I left again as Lance Black was talking). Kate was funny, Urvashi was strident and allowed to go on for too long. Cleve was good, and the cast of Hair was amazing (Lance was good as well, but I wanted to get home before it got dark).

Hopefully some progress will come out of this, legislatively, and hopefully Cleve will get his (unspoken) wish – a better organized actually grassroots organization to counter HRC and company’s ineffective money pit, and actually get some work done. Were it not for the specter of how much worse a majority Republican Congress would be now (in the modern, nutso-driven version of that party), I’d like to believe we could do something like withhold donations until we got some progress on our issues, but I suspect that’s not practical. Not that I personally give to anyone other than my local politicos anyway, since I have no vote for Congressional representation as a citizen of the District of Columbia, but that’s a rant for another day. In any case, it would be nice to think that at least some of the folks here will go back and start talking to their representatives, Federal, State and local, and put more pressure on those same representatives to protect all of us.