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

My coworkers seem to be settling back into the fully remote routine. I think it helps that it’s so close to the year-end holidays, so much of the normal business of the agency is quieter than usual. Not to say that we’re not working, but the normal urgency isn’t quite as bad as the norm.

Comics, dinner, and a Target run. I was surprised at how quickly we were able to get out of Target. The husband’s sister had ordered something for her husband that she had us pick up, and then we went ahead and got the candy for stockings while we were there. I also picked up a Roku stick for the monitor in my office, as I slowly turn my office into a pseudo-man-cave. Hoping that the better seating and some TV will be conducive to more knitting and cross stitching. In unrelated news I finally finished the first section of dark grey yarn for the latest scarf so now I have to refresh my memory of how to switch colors. I know it’s not hard, I just haven’t done it in a while. I did some knitting on it while we were in Ocean City, and managed to finish the section today while waiting to pick up the husband from the Metro.

Had grand plans to wrap the presents that have arrived, but alas, Amazon decided that 7-11am delivery of wrapping paper actually meant 7-11pm. No biggie, but I had to put some of the stuff I’d set up in the kitchen to wrap back in my office before the husband got home. I know it’s rough work this time of year, and this wasn’t pressing, so I’m not stressing over it.

I did go through his lego advent calendar and pull the bricks for the rest of the month so I could catalog which pieces were missing and order them. No clue when they’ll arrive, but hopefully I got them all this time. Has still been a fun process, and I think he enjoys the ships that he has been able to build.

Work is … weird? Like hey, it’s the week before Xmas week, so it should be slowing down, and it sort of is, but the administration is still nuts and sticking to their crazy deadlines, so we still have odd one-off things to do. In the meantime, I have zero motivation for most of it between our ridiculous forced office move and (*waives hands wildly in the air*) all of the rest of it, but I plow through.

Snow this morning was pretty, and no issues on the roads. The wind, however, picked up in the afternoon as the temperature dropped. As I type this it’s 21F (-6C), feels like -3F (-19C). Brrr. We decided to stay in the hotel for dinner rather than deal with the wind and cold tonight.

The last day of the Con was fun. We went to a session on drawing comics covers, taught by a professor in the art program at the local college. He was a lot of fun, and very informative about how things get put on covers to ‘sell’ the comic, and to draw the eye to various elements of the page. And the husband may reach out to him to coordinate on some research that ties into his own on media representations of higher education.

Quick, light late lunch, then we hit a local bookstore and wine bar, where we happened to run into the author of a book we picked up to buy when his book club came in to sip and talk. That was fun, especially as the author and the husband went to the same graduate school (well, the husband’s first graduate school, as he attended three for his various MAs and PhD, so far).

Quiet afternoon reading and trying to deal with the inevitable stomach upset of eating badly (for me). I look forward to a lot of rice and eggs when I get home.

I don’t know that I was expecting the OC comic con to be so well attended, but well attended it has been thus far. Got in some good stocking stuffer shopping, and checking out the fun cosplay and art. Back tomorrow for day two for more wandering around, but not until after lunch I think. It’s supposed to snow in the morning, so we’ll see how Ocean City handles that. They’ve been pretreating roads since Friday, so I’m hoping the short drive on the main strip should be okay.

We also wandered out to a little town (Berlin, MD) that had an adorable downtown shopping area. Reminded us a lot of Cape Charles. But in a shocking twist it had not one but two men’s clothing stores, a far cry from other beach towns we’ve been to, which tend to skew female in their shopping.

Then before a later dinner we hit the OC Winterfest of Lights, a fun holiday light set up in a local park. Quite fun wandering through the displays, seeing what was animated, and the husband was looking for things to do to our townhouse next year. Heh.

Overall we’re enjoying the trip a lot. I’d do the event again, and we think we’ll have to pop back out sometime over the summer to see how this place is when it’s hopping with summer tourists.

Done with holiday shopping. Well, aside from stocking stuffers. But the main presents are done, ordered, and on their way to wherever they’re going, here or directly to family.

Christmas cards are almost done. I had to verify cousins’ addresses, confirm who had and hadn’t moved, etc. Most of the local ones are with the post office, so we should start hearing back on them soon. I hope folks like this year’s silliness. We almost always do something silly for ours, like dress as gnomes, or Bert & Ernie, or hopping in our kilts, etc., and this year is just as silly. No spoilers yet for the folks who’ll get cards.

Half day working, with official admin time given since we don’t have any political leadership at the small gubm’nt agency. Heh.

Comic run for the weekly haul. I was wearing a DC United (our local soccer team) hoodie, and got to tease some of the football people there about the newish (3 years) name of the DC football franchise (the Washington Commies, aka the Commanders). It was all in fun, but they really should have thought out how the name would be shortened. IHOP for lunch because it was there, we didn’t have any strong feelings on food, and our favorite place next to the comics shop is closed for renovations or reimagining or something, though we did see folks hauling in a lot of food this afternoon, so maybe they rented it out for Thanksgiving? Who knows. I just hope when they reopen that they still have the husband’s hotdog on the menu.

Did pop into the local Giant grocery store. While the lot was full, and there were definitely more people than usual, I parked almost exactly where I normally do, near the edge for a faster drive out, and once I got past the idiots who decided to just stop and stand in the entrance to the store while they hauled out and slowly read their shopping list, it went smoothly. For once they had enough checkers at the regular registers, which was a pleasant surprise. We were only picking up a few things because we’re not doing a huge meal tomorrow. Lots of side dishes, and that’s about it. I was once again grateful that I invested in my own shopping cart, a Clax collapsible cart, because checkout’s a lot easier without bags, and when you know everything will fit. Plus it’s hard to overshop when you’re putting everything in the crate you’re going to bring in from the car. And it’s more maneuverable than most store carts.

Caught the first episode of the last season of Stranger Things with the husband this evening. Still enjoying the show, but worried the answer to shutting it all down will end up killing off another character. Fingers are crossed that I’m wrong, but it’ll be months yet before we know.

Lazy weekend. Picked up yarn for a small scarf for the house, and to make a gift scarf for a niece who just started college (in the green of her new school’s colors). It’s dangerous having a yarn store in walking distance from home.

At the moment I’m listening to the husband wailing in the bedroom as he tortures his poor calves with our massage gun. And I’m quietly giggling at the drama. He went out dancing Friday with friends and is paying the price for jumping around a lot more than he’s used to. I suggested the massage gun, which he initially balked at, but he relented so I got him started. I know the feeling – that sucker really does work your calves, and if they’re sore, it’s quite the change. But he’ll feel a hell of a lot better after. I know I always do.

Haircuts and a trip to BJ’s warehouse for the morning, then a quiet day at home, mostly catching up on comics for me.

What I intended to do while the husband was out was to look at my yarn, see if I had any that would make a good chicken, see what else I needed to knit one, print the pattern, walk to the local yarn/sewing shop for said supplies, and dig in.

What actually happened was I dug out the yarn to finish a Santa hat I started last fall but ran out of yarn for, then waited months to get the same yarn from the local place I got the first batch from, and then never got around to finishing. So I finished that, had some lunch, then walked over to the local yarn store. Got the extra bits, even managing to find it all without help, but then I also spotted two cross stitch kits that were to fun to pass up. Bought it all, brought it home, and immediately dug into one of the two cross stitch kits, because it was very simple and I wanted to surprise the husband with it. Almost had it done by the time he got home – just some extra backstitching I added to make the stars pop. Got it set in the hoop and zipped upstairs to show him the finished pattern, which was five gold stars on the top, with the words “Great place for a shit” underneath.

(here’s where I should explain that we have a half bath on the 2nd floor where we hang all of my cross stitch; I think this new one is going to go right above the cat’s litter box)

Never did start the chicken. Did frog the yarn I’m going to use, which was partially done up in a scarf that I wasn’t loving. The pattern I love, but not necessarily with that yarn.

The other motive for walking over to the yarn shop was just that – walking. Wanted to see how I did on a short (quarter mile/400 meter) walk with no crutch, and it went well, though I think I was paying way more attention than normal to how I was walking. Survived it, so now I need to do more of that.

This morning was the latest check-in with the orthopedist. He’s quite pleased with the progress. The numbness I still have around the bottom of the kneecap, though it’s been receding, is normal. Twelve weeks is this guy’s mantra for recovery, so we power on through PT. Physical therapy is more like a workout now than earlier on, progressively heavier weights as we strengthen the quads. Whee!

But it’s nice to have some external validation that the recovery work is humming right along on schedule.

Past that I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that my small gubm’nt agency keeps humming along. The latest draft budget out of the House wasn’t nearly as much of a cut as 47 proposed, just $2B less than the current budget, as opposed to $5.1B less. We expect the Senate to be even less enthused with his request, but none of this is final until it’s final, so I’m just keeping going as long as they’ll let me.

We did some random out of the house shopping this past weekend. Tried a new (to us) used bookstore, where I found some fun stuff. Tried to go to a thrift store, but the parking lot was full, with more cars in the aisle. Luckily we were able to turn around and get out without getting trapped. Ikea for some shelves for Legos, lunch at some point in there, and home to nap. Did walk a bit too much without the one crutch that I’m using out of the house, but that’s another thing I’m trying to stretch.

My physical therapist definitely upped the weights in our session today, and my quads are complaining about it. Which is all good, because it means the knee is getting stronger. Also the swelling is going down and I can see the normal dimples coming back, so yay.

I did some minimal shopping for prime days, mostly needed upgrades for stuff that was on its last legs, like the toaster oven that has crossed wires somewhere behind the buttons so sometimes the start button turns it on, sometimes it changes the convection settings. Always an adventure with the current one, so out it goes when the new one arrives.

Teleworking after the last few months of return-to-office mandates has been odd, since I’m typically the only person not there in person, and it always has to start with a recitation of having had knee surgery that I’m recovering from. Not that I regret either the surgery or the telework, it’s just an odd situation.