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

I think this has to be one of the most difficult periods to be a fed – we’ve got new management, but only a few actual political appointees (only one, in fact!), a handful of political non-appointees, and they’re not fully integrated yet. We know they want to go in different directions, and on the major things those are clear, but on the details they’re definitely not. We’re trying to react to the various provisions proposed in the competing stimulus bills, and despite the fact that the same party is in charge of the two branches, it’s not a given that we in the Executive will be completely on board with what Congress proposes.

Oh, and at some point they’re going to give us our actual budget for FY 2009 as well. You know, the fiscal year that started back on October 1st. So there’ll be that to deal with soon, too.

At the moment, though, I’m running around like mad getting stuff together, analyzing and reacting, and generally trying to be helpful to management. With little to no clear direction, and a lot of guessing. Fun, fun.

While I am glad we have now inaugurated a new President, the last week at work was somewhat bittersweet. In doing the type of law I do, I come into contact with a lot of the top political office holders at my Big Government Agency, and over the last five years there I’ve worked closely with several of them and gotten to know them well. As with the last change in parties, there were some I was happy to see go, but some whom I will truly miss. I will especially miss the leadership in our General Counsel’s office, they were fantastic to work with and for, and were consummate professionals.

My BGA will have a lot to do, and as will be the case with many other BGAs, there will be changes in direction to absorb and run with, and new faces to have to learn and get used to. I only hope that the political appointees chosen to lead us are personable, fair, and competent, and that they do a good job to support and promote the common welfare of us all.

Despite my best efforts to be a complete and utter slug today, I did actually manage to get something done today, namely laundry. Otherwise I called in to work because I hadn’t really slept, and then crashed until noonish to catch up on sleep. Then there was Dead Space. Lots and lots of Dead Space. I actually beat the game once through just now (started it Saturday; easy mode), and I’m trying to decide how much more I’ll play in the near future to max out achievements. Sounds like a good inauguration day activity (when not watching the events, that is).

Called the SIL this evening, no word back tonight, so I’ll pester again tomorrow. I can tell I’m still on edge because my poor fingers have been gnawed down to nubs (I bite my nails/cuticles when I’m upset). Perhaps throwing myself back into work tomorrow will help assuage some of this, and I’m hoping my SIL will have better news about my brother (and their efforts to clean the apartment). Who knows?

Still need to organize some shelving I picked up on my way home (yay Ikea!) which looks pretty good, but needs to have some sense of what-goes-where on it. It’s given me an idea for the entertainment stuff as well, which might not need to be as large as I’d assumed before. We shall see. But first tomorrow evening is prep work for the new triathlete program for this year. We’re getting off to a slightly later start, and I’m hopeful this will help cut out some of our volunteer burnout from previous years.

I thought I’d expand some on the vacation thing and why this is such an unusual occurrence for me.

Growing up, we never took vacations. I can remember a grand total of two that we did when I was a kid (outside of summer camp) – a trip to Disney World when I turned seven, and a month on the road in an RV going to and from New Mexico. In both cases the travel was combined personal and business travel for Dad. The Orlando trip was actually to attend a convention he was going to for work (which happened to coincide with our two birthdays in early October), and the trip to NM was one week getting to Albuquerque, a week in Albuquerque for a convention for Dad (while Mom, my brother and I took day trips around the state), a week at the big boy scout camp in northern NM so my parents could take adult leader training while I hiked the trails and my brother did cub scount stuff, and a week to get home (that was also the trip when Mom finally quit smoking for good).

But that’s really it, again, outside of summer camp with the scouts. We just weren’t a vacation-going family. Not entirely sure why, but we just didn’t take them.

Add to that, once I got out and started working (at the total exclusion of school, that is), I was an intern with a low salary and a crushing amount of student loan debt. Even after paying on these beasts for a decade now, and paying off a couple of them entirely, I still have six figures worth of education debt that I have to service each month. So when I did get out of school, there wasn’t really any excess cash there that was available for “frivolous” things like vacations. Plus the first couple years as a fed they don’t give you a ton of annual leave (until you hit your 3rd year anniversary, where it goes up considerably), so there wasn’t a lot of that available, either. Leave got used to go see relatives for the usual holiday obligations, or on needed errands around town. But going to see relatives is a poor substitute for a vacation (no offense, Mom & Dad!).

Then factor in that I’ve made a nice little niche practice out of doing appropriations law, which is good in that I’m necessary enough to be fairly layoff-proof, but at the same time it means they’re reluctant to let me go for long periods of time because no one else at work does this type of law, so if I’m not there, they tend to stumble hard. This is why I’m not travelling for the inauguration – the closest thing I have to a backup at work will be out on maternity leave sometime close to the inauguration (she’s “due” the day before), so my supervisors had something of a panic attack when I suggested I didn’t want to be here.

Now I’m finally in a place in terms of leave availability (I’m carrying over 80 hours into 2009, plus what I’ll earn over the year) and cash availability (those loans are still there, but are a much smaller percentage of my monthly income, thanks to directed spending on the more expensive ones, and a steady stream of promotions) that I feel like I can take a real, honest-to-heavens vacation. So I am, finally.

Which is all background on why I’m going to be gushing about this for some time to come, and why my planned trip in June/July is so unusual for me. I still can’t quite believe that work gave me over two full weeks of leave at one time; I think I managed to catch my supervisor in the holiday mood with the request and before she had a chance to think about all the “might-be-happenings” while I’m gone (and I fully intend to ignore the work blackberry during this period).

I find it amusing that I’ve avoided holiday music all year (since I don’t really shop in malls or big retails stores), but couldn’t escape it tonight while eating at a local Chinese restaurant.

A last minute surge in knitting yesterday paid off – all the projects I needed done by the holiday are now done. Hopefully my secretary at work will enjoy the fingerless gloves I made for her. (You can see them here and here) Sadly, my next big project will be a shedir cap for a co-worker of mine who has an advanced case of uterine cancer (stage 3c). We’re not sure when she’ll start the chemo, but it won’t be long. Picked up yarn for it on Saturday, a couple of colors (she only specified “anything but pink”).

Health update: The foot is still improving slowly, but is definitely better than it has been. Still not up for running, but not nearly as painful as it had been. The PA is completely healed again, no pain whatsoever. Huzzah – no more 2 am rude awakenings.

Date from heck on Wednesday of this past week. One of those “why do I bother with this whole thing?” kind of dates. Yuck. Leering at me over dinner? Oy.

My family neglected to give me my brother’s new address, so their present (a nice check) will be late. Oh well. My parents, on the other hand, are a bit more tech-savvy, so their wish lists were updated with the addy for the RV park where they are in Florida.

Started the planning process for next year’s newbie program for the tri club. Good group of volunteers, and I think this is going to go well.

Nice night with friends planned for tomorrow, and a quiet two days after that. Hosting Kelrick and his bf Kenny at some point in there on their way up to NYC. Will be good to see Kelrick, and meet Kenny.

Work approved the two weeks off in late June/early July, so I’m set to go to Comrades this next year. Dean has thoughtfully offered his services as host in the periods around when I’m supposed to be at the retreat, so I will be spending time on either side of it in the Bay area, with lots of time to catch up with folks there.

Took a sleep aid last night, and for the first time had a bad reaction to it. Woke up groggy this morning, went in late, and by noon I hadn’t really woken up, despite coffee, so I went home and napped. Oh, and while on the way to work I managed to leave my badge at home, so I returned to get it rather than go through the rigmarole that work inflicts upon you when you forget it. Nothing like walking back and forth to Metro twice. Totally not my day today.

Once I got up, I did go swim this evening, doing a mile once all was said and done. Felt good to get moving again, and I think it worked the last of the stuff out of my system. What a mess. Won’t be using that again any time soon, which is a shame, because it had worked okay before.

On an unrelated note, if clementines were more readily available, I’d eat more fruit on a regular basis. Love those things, was happy to see them at Safeway on the way home from the pool.

All in all a very good Thanksgiving day. Was nice and quiet for most of it. The store this morning was uncrowded and uncharacteristically quick to get out of. The cooking went well, and I took the better of the two batches of cupcakes with me (made 2 dozen). Unfortunately I’ve broken a ring on my icing piper, so it was slathered on by spreader rather than piped nicely, but they did fine.

Side note: I really, really want to make the margarita cupcakes I found in the cookbook while flipping back to the buttercreme frosting recipe.

The dinner itself was fantastic. I took a zucchini risotto as well as the cupcakes (the mushroom selection stunk, so zucchini it was). The bird came out perfect, which the host was rightly proud of. He also thoughtfully saved me a batch of potatoes sans butter/milk, which was much appreciated. The other selections were equally tasty, with lots of good vegetables.

Some Wii was played, and I set Jon’s Wii up (he hadn’t played with it since he’d moved – in June). Next thing you know he’s going to be getting messages via the Wii from a certain someone who will have him registered here shortly. Bwhahahaha. We did warn him what the blinky blue light on the front means now, too.

Got the kitchen cleaned up just now after getting home, so no mess in the morning. Off work early tomorrow, and will plan to stop by the gym after that, swim, and hand in my receipt for the new shoes & lock. Wonder how they’ll do the credit.

Got the news that early registration for the Nation’s Tri opened for DC Tri Club folks, so signed up for that tonight. Hopefully with the stretching I’ve started doing on my feet will keep the PF under control, and keep it from recurring, and I’ll be able to do the race this time around.

Picked up replacement shoes (shower and gym), as well as a new lock this evening. Both pair were on sale, which is always good even when someone else is paying. Still, the replacement costs is going to be almost as much as they make from me for a year’s worth of locker rental fees.

Quiet night. There are happenings around town, but I got home from the shopping, laid down for a quick nap and woke up an hour later feeling pretty cold (for no apparent reason), so I stayed in and behaved myself. Earlyish morning tomorrow to pick up some last minute food needs for tomorrow night’s dinner, then it’s some cooking and some time spent in Crobuzon (aka my town in Animal Crossing: City Folk) before I zip down to Alexandria.

Friday in the office should be nice and quiet (I hope!). I’d like to get filing done and clear a ton of shit off my desk.

Did much shopping this weekend, and picked up several pair of socks, the first of which did the trick today at work – no heel pain. We’ll see how they do tomorrow after waiting in line to vote. But so far so good, and definitely better than the old thinner ones. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

My plan is to get up early tomorrow morning to get to the polls first thing and be done with it. Not that there’s a question as to which way DC will go, but there are local races I’m interested in voting in, so I’d like to just be done with it first thing. Plus I’m supposed to get into the office slightly before my normal reporting time because for some odd reason my boss scheduled an early meeting the morning of election day. Don’t know what she was thinking.

Ah, the day of the annual physical. Such fun.

First, though, the dermatologist looked me over and said he saw no signs of melanoma. Yay. But because my brother’s had one, yearly visits from here on out to get checked. Boo. Pet peeve: Once again, Dr. Hyper, while thorough, was not in the room for very long, and while there was not quite bouncing off the walls. I think he needs to switch to decaf.

On the actual physical, everything looked and tested out normal (as expected). 105/70 BP, no immediately glaring abnormalities on the EKG (which was new this year – baseline test this time), heart rate’s still low despite the lack of regular exercise, and everything else he prodded and poked seemed satisfactory.

While out & about I popped into the jeweler where I got the necklace that matches my steel ring, as the necklace itself had come out of the clasp (the rubber was pulling away). They didn’t have them in stock, so it’s been ordered in, but they did have the matching watch, so I was bad and got it. Looks quite nice, though I think is more “jewelry” and less “actual timepiece” as the face/hands are small. Like I check a watch more than I check my cell phone, anyway.

Dismal, grey, rainy day here in DC. The rain held off until after the appointments, but has been going on and off since. I came home to nap and catch up on some other things (not work, unfortunately, but I’ll skim that after dinner). Headed out again to catch up with a friend for dinner here in a bit, then it’s back out of that mess for me.