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

Tried to go shopping today, post-pride. Wanting to not waste petrol, and since I was already warm from walking around at the pride festival, I biked over to Barracks Row to hit the local bike shop and the local yarn shop. Someone, however, had other ideas for me.

• Strike One: Local Bike Shop no longer carries nutrition products, the sole thing I needed.
• Strike Two: Local Yarn Shop doesn’t have any of the notions I wanted to pick up.
• Strike Three: Picked up my mail from yesterday on the way back into the building, and the every-two-years-like-clockwork jury duty summons was in there.

I get the picture, I’m staying in the rest of the day.

Earlier I did go down to the Pride festival for DC. Was nice, nothing particularly smashing, but I enjoyed it. Saw several folks I don’t see much of these days, picked up a bracelet (bike chain pattern), got some sun (no burn though – yay SPF 30). I didn’t go out to the parade last night – I didn’t want to go drinking after or during after yesterday morning’s race, and honestly I prefer the festival for people watching and talking. Instead I finished up Half-Life 2: Episode One on the Xbox (didn’t take long, actually), finished a knitting sampler I was working on (increases and decreases, various methods), and started the next project – BC’s hat, to match the scarf. The hat, after the initial cast on and row, is coming along quite nicely, especially in comparison to the scarf. We’ll see how it goes when I have to start decreasing and slip it over to the double pointed needles.

Question for my knitting friends: Do they not make aluminium or metal needles these days? Mom has a ton (which I will filch from her in due time), and I like the feel of them, but almost everything I see other than Addi Turbos are wood of some sort (or bamboo). What gives?

I was a frustrated shopper earlier this evening. Everything around here closes too damned early. I need a small spring for my bike, but got home to late to zip to the bike store as they close at 7 (thankfully I can pop one off my mountain bike until I can pick one up), and I need to get some sandals for wearing in the house (podiatrist’s orders – he wants me wearing something to support my non-existent arches), but the store I want to go to closes before I leave work during the week. WTF? How do you stay in business when no one who actually works can come to your store during the week? Ugh.

My last shopping blitz (online), however is quickly bearing fruit – lots of notices from amazon that various things are on their way from various merchant partners as of today. I decided to try out different pairs of prescription swim goggles, so I ordered several to see which fit better, which I can see out of better, etc. I’m hoping that actually being able to see while in the water should help with the experience of the open water swim. And just swimming in general. I hate when I can’t see well, which has always made swimming somewhat annoying. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Work is … work. The Project From Heck is currently in abeyance, so I’m catching up on a few other things, but I’m hearing rumblings that the PFH may be back by the end of the week. Let’s hope not, I’d kind of like to catch up on the other things that keep zinging in.

Dragged my ass all over Tyson’s Corner today. Multiple times. Finally settled on the Collins design from Poverty Barn. It’s a nice, simple design and had a solid feel in the hand, and wasn’t all ugly and/or frou-frou like most of the other patterns (patterns seemed to fall into two categories: 1. frou-frou crap; or 2. nice but odd feeling in the hand). The stuff is currently running through a short cycle in the dishwasher.

Did finally find Mom’s old pattern online after confirming that it was an Oneida branded pattern, called Betty Crocker: My Rose. You can see why I wasn’t terribly upset to part with it, though it’s not been an awful pattern. Not one I would have picked out, but it worked.

The only problem with the new stuff is that it had about 6 serving pieces, 4 of which were useless to me (gravy ladle, pie server, etc.). Ah well, means I get to hunt for more serving spoons when and if I need them, and can mix & match. Means a more interesting table, I think.

And yes, I do have secret dreams of being a house husband one day. Not.

Not quite two hours on the bike this morning, and not quite 31 miles. I was pleased, if a tad sore toward the end. The training log for the week actually looks like it should, minus the swimming, without major gaps between workouts. Most, most pleased. And my mood is much better, now that I’m actually exercising regularly again.

Plan for the day is shopping, shopping, shopping. Flatware, various household items, etc. Maybe some clothes. And if I can get in touch with himself I’m dragging him with me. Regardless, I think I’m going to head out soon and hit the ‘burbs to try and track some of this stuff down.

I zipped out to Harris Teeter over at Pentagay City this evening to do some much delayed, much needed grocery shopping. Decided that I really didn’t need to use the local Safeway (which has a deservedly awful reputation, as do most of the Safeways in DC), that I had a car, and could choose to go somewhere nicer, so I did. I hadn’t been in this particular grocery store before, and I have to say, it was an eye-opening experience. The produce was nice, there was plenty of it. The aisles were wide enough to walk down without hitting people (and there were no displays stuck in the middle of them around which one would have to navigate). And people were polite – I heard lots of “please” and “excuse me” and even the young person who almost backed into me while on his cell phone had the good social graces to look slightly embarrassed and stutter out “my bad, my bad” when he saw me. Oh, and they had wine and beer in the store, so no need to run to a different one to pick up some of that, too. It was altogether an incredibly pleasant experience.

I realized on the drive home that I was feeling like an abuse victim who had suddenly realized the world didn’t have to be as bad as it had been, that there were better people out there with whom I could associate. It was at once an astonishing and an awful revelation. And a telling one, that living in DC has made my customer service expectations sink to such a low level that minor things like polite phrases and helpful employees make a mere shopping trip feel like a life-altering event.

Yesterday? Pretty much a waste. Between the heat, humidity, and the urchins I slept hardly at all, so was just in a daze for most of the day. Lots of mindless Xbox play, reading, and eventually some knitting and TV watching.

Today, on the other hand, I feel like I’ve biked half of DC. At least I biked the southern half. It was the first ride for our newbie triathletes today, so I was out on ye olde and venerable (and quite heavy) mountain bike. ‘Twas a lot of fun, and as usual I rode sweep so I got to have a good chat with the young lady at the back of the pack. We did an impromptu tire changing demonstration as well. Overall it went very well, and no one got lost or injured.

After that I zipped home, called the parental units, then it was off to Barracks Row for bike and LYS (Local Yarn Shop) shopping. I went a new route to get over there, which is slightly out of the way, but safer than riding across M street, which had been my usual route. This turned out to be a very good thing, as there is evidently a baseball game going on this afternoon, so there were tons of cars all around the stadium. That would have been most unpleasant to bike through. As it was, there were more cars on the “back roads” than there normally are, due in large part to the new temporary parking lots in that part of southeast DC. Strangely there were also a ton of cars unsuccessfully attempting to find parking on the southwest side where I live as well. I guess they didn’t see the “there is no parking except for the parking lots so take Metro, you idiots” advertising all over the place in the weeks leading up to opening day.

Finally home to some lunch and settling in for a bit. I hope to see BC at some point (dinner?) this evening, since he takes off to see his grandparents in England on Tuesday and will be gone until late the following week. Work has had us both stressed out like there’s no tomorrow, so we’ve not gotten together for a bit, not having a ton of energy left after legal writing hell for me and late nights fixing the bad accounting from his predecessor for him. Miss him lots.

Take a note: Don’t go book buying (or to the library) if tilting your head to read spines makes you dizzy.

And don’t tilt your head all the way back when sitting in your office chair, either.

Took off from work a little early (after the office chair incident referenced above) to do some shopping, which I cut somewhat short after the dizziness at the book store. Thankfully that particular store is on the bus route that drops me in front of my building, so after a short wait in the cold I was delivered directly to my front door.

Some Super Mario Galaxy this evening (I can power the spaceship finally), and a few more rows on BC’s scarf (I started a scarf for him Monday – fisherman’s rib). And lots of grousing about not being able to exercise since I can’t exactly bounce around a lot right now. So. Annoyed. At. My. Ears. Hopefully the doc was right and this is just a little viral thing that’ll work its way out in a week or so. We’ll see what the ENT says on Monday.

I do look forward to having something else to write about.

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.