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

Well, gifts have been ordered. The ones that I’m ordering online, that is. The appropriate parties will receive them in the appointed times. Whee. Thankfully ordering was relatively easy, once the harder part, the deciding, was done. That process took weeks, unfortunately.

After a long, dragging day at work (punctuated only by an office party at one of our program offices – yay for mid-afternoon beer), I came home to whip up some marinara with part of the bounty I brought home from the grocery store yesterday. I hadn’t gone in ages, so yesterday was particularly expensive. Thankfully homemade marinara is relatively inexpensive to produce, and freezes well, even with the addition of some ground turkey. I did manage to forget that it’s better to spice the turkey while ‘browning’ it, but given that it’s been a decade since I last did that, I think I can be forgiven. I’ll try not to forget again. But man, good sauce, completely worth the time to make it. And now I’ll have it to zap for a bit yet.

It looks like it’s going to be nastily wet tomorrow morning for the run, which kinda sucks since my last run up in Provincetown this past Saturday was similarly cold and wet. The joys of winter running. I think it would be prudent to make it a short run and just do 4 rather than the usual ‘long’ run on a Wednesday.

Provincetown was, as I intimated above, pretty darn wet for the one full day there. No snow, thankfully, but plenty of cold rain. Worth every minute of it, though. The concert was fun, as was shopping. And of course, seeing Mike was pretty darned keen. Next visit is in a couple weeks, then again the weekend after. Miss him a lot when he’s not here or I’m not there. But, it goes well, and it makes the time together a bit more special.

Got caught by a “gotcha” today at work that never should have become a gotcha, but did because of other, more pressing concerns. The joys of too much work, too little time. I think we’re now caught up on it, but I don’t like being in that position, nor do I particularly enjoy putting my boss in that position. Yuck.

Slept poorly last night, a result of a bit over overtraining soreness and late eating caused by needing to run to the grocery store right after running and cleaning up (rather than being able to eat first and then get to the store). Slept in a little, but I suspect I’ll sleep better tonight. Which is good, since tomorrow is my long run of the week.

I got a new pod(people) coffee maker for work, and it’s working out well thus far. Won’t get one for home, I still prefer the French press and grinding my own beans, but it’s a good, and cheaper solution for feeding the addiction at work. It was a freebie via a credit card I hold with otherwise relatively worthless “points” so the sole cost is the coffee itself, which is cheaper then buying it brewed from any of the local vendors. Not bad, though it does cut down on the need to walk out of my office, which is perhaps not the best side effect. I’ll have to take more chances to get up and walk.

Starting to get back into a routine now after a couple of weeks of head cold, travel, complete abandonment of exercise, etc. Ran Monday and this morning (much to the chagrin of my legs), went to the men’s knitting group tonight and got another inch or so done on the leg of the latest sock, cooked a good meal last night, getting into the groove of the new fiscal year at work, etc. A return to semi-normalcy, which is very welcome.

Part of cooking last night was using my microwave convection oven for the first time as an oven and not just a microwave. I knew they didn’t take as long to cook, but didn’t expect quite how much faster it would be. The little 3 lb turkey breast that the label said should take 2.5-3 hours in the oven took 45-60 minutes in the microwave convection oven, and came out quite nicely. Color me impressed. Add to that the butternut squash, roasted in the normal oven, and some asparagus to go with and it was a nice little meal, with some good leftovers. I need to cook more, and this was partly an experiment to see how easily I could cook up something like the turkey breast for taking into work instead of buying the deli meat sandwiches and all the filler they have in them.

Before heading out to the knitting group I raided my stash and managed to find the yarn I was going to make into a scarf last spring (improvised design, didn’t work). I have found a better pattern which is almost exactly what I was envisioning for myself, so was good to find existing stash for it. I should catalog the stash again, and add in all the new sock yarn from the summer, but meh. Also managed to find some stash for a couple of other gift projects. Score.

Spending time with Mike this past weekend was wonderful. Still very much smitten there, and looking forward to seeing how it grows. We just fit together well, and he makes me want to be better.

Running’s getting going again because I have a race in two months, and I will be prepared for this thing and its hills, come hell or high water. Fridays are going to start being hill workout days – heading up toward the Mall via L’Enfant Promenade (that dreadful monstrosity of I.M. Pei’s), and if I can get far enough, up around the ‘hill’ around the Washington Monument. This is the problem with having moved down to the river – it’s relatively flat here, and thus harder to train on hills without traveling. We’ll see how this Friday goes.

Friends visiting over the next three weekends, including Mike in early November. Busy times, and good stuff to do – will help get me out of the apartment, and back into a social groove. While I am doing the IM in August, I need to better balance a social life of sorts, no matter how limited, and settle back into a better pattern of living.

Got the results in from last week’s annual physical this morning. Cholesterol is a little higher than last year, but not yet “high”. Getting toward the “should watch it, perhaps” range. Vitamin D was on the low end of normal (meaning I need to be more consistent in taking my multivitamin, since it has D, and I don’t otherwise drink D-fortified cow’s milk). Everything else was perfectly normal, as expected. The annual dermatologist appointment is tomorrow morning, to do the skin check for odd spots. Gotta love getting older.

Tomorrow I have the unenviable task of telling work folks that if we screw up on a new provision in our appropriation this year (when it ever passes and gets signed, that is) we get to report that fact to everyone and his brother because it’ll constitute a violation of the Anti-deficiency Act. Woo-hoo! As if the contracting folks weren’t nervous enough about this. Lawdy. Well, it’ll give ’em some incentive not to screw this one up, at least.

Let me spell out why I’m upset at my field office, the one balking at following the directions from headquarters.

When a contracting officer of the U.S. federal government signs a contract, on behalf of the government, he or she assumes personal liability for any screw-ups he makes in the course of letting that contract. If he orders a contractor to do something, without the funds or authority to compel the contractor to take that action, he can be personally liable for the debt owed by the government to the contractor. That’s a Big Deal, no matter how you look at it, given that a great deal of my Big Gubm’nt Agency’s (BGA’s) contracts are worth multiple-millions of dollars, well in excess of the typical federal government employee’s salary.

In my role as legal counsel, looking at the fiscal responsibilities of the federal government and its accountable officers, my professional opinion rendered in the course of my employment can relieve a contracting officer of personal liability. If I tell an employee to take a certain action and that action is later found to be incorrect by a competent tribunal, the employee who followed my advice will not be held liable for following that advice. He or she sought the advice of counsel, and followed it, for better or worse. That’s a big deal, because we’re dealing with the public’s money, and if someone truly defrauds the taxpayers, they should be held liable for that fraud. So letting someone off that hook is not something to be done lightly.

Obviously I have no desire to defraud the government of funds; this money is my tax money as well as the usual federal taxpayer’s, and I don’t want to see it misspent when I can avoid it. So it’s distressing to me, personally, when a field office of my BGA questions my integrity, implicitly, by continuing to question the opinion my office has rendered in a particular case. The idea that I would casually hang a fellow federal employee out to dry, or that I would place the finances of my BGA in jeopardy, is personally abhorrent to me, and it causes me a great deal of distress when our field personnel assume that I would be so cavalier with their and the taxpayer’s finances. I think that’s what stressing me out about this latest brouhaha with the field, that implicitly they are questioning whether I am acting properly in my role as counsel to protect them and the head of my BGA. And the idea that they think I’m acting against their and the taxpayer’s interests, whether overtly or subtly, is a smirch on my professional integrity, and not something I take lightly. Thus, I’m distressed over the situation, as much as they are likely distressed as they contemplate taking an action which might cause them a great deal of personal debt. I don’t want that for them, nor do I want something to go wrong for the taxpayer or the administration (regardless of party), so I’m stuck in a very difficult situation until I can convince them that we’re not going to subject them to personal liability, something they’re not quite ready to accept.

So, I fagged out this morning and bought the super-duper-mega-deluxe-expensive version of Our Lady Of Pop’s latest collection of music I mostly already own. I must say, I’m kinda enjoying having the vids on ye olde AppleTV thingey (since the TV is the best set of speakers in the apartment, this is a good thing).

(oh, and the champagne flutes she uses in the Music video? That’s my crystal pattern)

I’m also suddenly feeling the urge to knit a sweater. I think I must be getting feverish from the head cold. So instead tonight I’m going to work on the long-neglected sock I’m supposed to be knitting. I have to admit, I’m a little afraid of knitting a sweater. I’m not a fan of wearing them, and I’d be trying to make this to be at least partially fitted (as opposed to looking like a big lumpy sack cloth, like many sweaters do), with a really pretty pattern, but man, that’s a lot of yarn to buy and work with. I’m hoping the feeling will pass, but I suspect it won’t. Hmph.

I did get up and run this morning, so am obviously feeling better than I was this weekend. May bike in the morning if I wake up for it. It’s perfect running weather out there now – 50s in the morning. Not so perfect biking weather, but it’ll do. Better than using the trainer, which I’m not ready to do yet.

(okay, watching older Madonna vids, it’s sooooo obvious that she got serious dance training over the years, because the newer ones are so muh more technically competent than her early ones – I mean, watching Lucky Star makes me feel kinda embarrassed for her it’s so amateurish)

Managed to get through the last day of the fiscal year without major drama, mainly because I completely ignored one of our program offices. They can’t manage their own field offices, and I refused to play referee today. Made the day go much better than it might have otherwise. Of course, they’re trying to drag me in tomorrow, but I think I’m going to ask my management to intervene, both with the program people and with the field personnel who are a piecemealing their objections to what we’ve (HQ) told them to do. Tomorrow will be another day, and another year, and another set of messes. Gotta love it.

One more day left in the fiscal year. Thank heavens. With the impending doom coming (not, though it seems like impending doom from their attitudes), our program offices are increasingly nuts. And we’re pushing back just as hard. See, this is where attorney arrogance comes from – dealing with clients who insist on doing things which are, to legal minds, incredibly stupid.

Ugh.

The head cold stuck around through the weekend and my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary party. It’s still here, not quite going away yet. I suspect the driving Saturday and Monday and the resultant dehydration didn’t help any. It was great to see lots of family, cousins I haven’t seen in years, but was also good to get back to my routine today. I’ve been trying to look at my eating habits, and I counted it as a net gain that I didn’t gain any weight while eating out with the parents. Because eating this weekend was a mess, including far too much cake.

Still having fun flirting with Mike. This cold better be well done and gone by the time I get up there, as this is not how I would like to spend the limited time I get with him, with a sore throat and a drippy nose. In the meantime, I need to go shopping this weekend for more clothes before I head up (and in general).

And now I’m babbling, so it’s time for me to crash.

Ah, the end of the fiscal year, when otherwise reasonable adults turn into rabid nutcases regarding money.

I got a lot of cursing out of my system on the walk to work. Mainly stuff around the lines of, “I can’t get your fucking work done if you keep fucking well summoning me to useless fucking meetings that waste my fucking time.” It was very therapeutic. And much better than yelling at the clients, if perhaps a bit less satisfying.

Needless to say, I still got dragged to meetings today. Wretches.

Otherwise things skate along. This too shall pass in time. Though I think I’m going to limit our program offices to one impossible legal task at a time. One of them has three going at the moment, and that’s just too damned many. One is actually too many, but three is just out of this world. And leads to more cursing on my part, which I’m sure isn’t good for my blood pressure.

Good: Got a new, faster work blackberry today.
Bad: It’s still not fully activated.
Good: I don’t have to listen to it tonight.
Bad: I still brought work home.
Good: Picked up clean dress shirts from the dry cleaners.
Bad: Blew a bike tire while dropping off another load of dress shirts.
Good: I was close to home.
Bad: I don’t think the tubes I got for the bike fit closely enough, hence flat #2 in as many weeks (pinching).
Good: It’s cooler out than yesterday.
Better: The conditions are perfect for thunderstorms, which are currently on their way.

Training, that is. Ran and swam yesterday, biked this morning, running a long run tomorrow. Definitely feeling it tonight; almost didn’t do laundry as planned, but managed to get off my butt and get it done (yay for clean sheets). It’s a good kind of tired though – good, honest physical exhaustion from exercise.

Work’s nuts, which seems par for the course these days. I wonder if all political transitions are this crazy or if the economy being in the crapper has substantially added to it. I’d prefer not to find out for a while. What would be nice is to stop stress eating (why couldn’t I be one of those people who can’t eat when they get stressed instead of the opposite? silly body).

Long run planned for the morning, first in a while. Was prepping things for it tonight (water bottle, etc.) and I think I need to hit Conte’s or the like and pick up nutrition this weekend – down to two gels and two things of shot blocks. Not enough to make it through training or the two races, by a long shot.