A weekend of not doing a whole heck of a lot of anything was, apparently, precisely what I needed. The time change still screwed with my sleep last night, but overall a weekend of taking down machines in Horizon Forbidden West on the PS5 has been relaxing.

9-to-5 the musical was absolutely delightful. There was a recording of Dolly herself doing some narrator duties at the beginning and end of the show, which nicely anchored the musical with the movie. Some really fun numbers. Would highly recommend it.

After mostly being a couch lump Friday and Saturday I've been plowing through some needed, little to-do list items, like going through the backpack from the cancelled training and putting things away, and doing some of the weekly laundry that the husband normally does before he gets back from his family trip. At the moment I'm on-and-off reading through the backlog of comics that's developed in my box. Down to twenty left. I can usually plow through four or five at a sitting, then I have to get up and do something else. Not sure if that's reading in general or specific to the comic medium, but four to five is my usual limit.

I had taken this Friday off from work as the day after the end of the now-cancelled training. Then the husband and I decided to grab the last open tickets we could get for 9-to-5 the musical at one of our favorite dinner theaters for tomorrow, and given that it's in the opposite side of the area from where I work I went ahead and took tomorrow off so we could get there on time. Then I remembered I have an ophthalmologist appointment Monday where they'll dilate my eyes so I won't be able to work after that, and took Monday off as well. So here I am with an inadvertent five day weekend. Go me. I look forward to some sleep. And the musical. And a clean bill of health from the ophthalmologist.

That's my life, giving the american taxpayer more government than they're willing to pay for. Heh.

Which is not to say I'm working extra these days. I'm doing my job, I'm spending the 8.5 hours a day in the office that they're requiring for that now, but I'm not stressing about too much of it after those hours are done. Heck, I even managed to forget the work phone on the charger on my desk this evening when I left. And that was legitimately forgetting to grab it, not "forgetting" to grab it.

Still trying to adjust the sleep schedule. The weather changes aren't helping; sinus headaches from the high pressure system are driving me nuts.

Did get to bed early last night, and up early this morning. Biked, even (in the trainer). Knee is tolerating both. However, I had dinner with a former coworker to catch up in person, and didn't get home until 9ish, so I'll not be in bed early (for me). 'Twas worth the delay this evening, but I think I'll be dragging more tomorrow.

The five bullet nonsense is back, and is now weekly, because my agency is wussing out and not telling us not to respond. I'm getting my eye exercises in just thinking about them. You know, because I keep rolling them so much.

And this is the last month in our performance review year (april to march). I did pick up a little book about giving feedback that was recommended at the first half of training, which arrived today. Hoping that helps with writing up my own stuff, and giving management some assistance with the folks I'm unofficially helping with.

That's pretty much what I did today - a whole lotta nuthin'. Which was what I needed. Slept in, lots of vegging out in front of the PS5. First day my body battery score has been above rock bottom at the end of the day in over a week. Not a whole lot planned for tomorrow, either, past getting to bed earlier.

Survived another week working for the chaos machine that is the US government these days. Go me.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some meaningful sleep this weekend. Because it sure wasn't happening during the week. The Garmin watch I've been wearing since December gives you a "body battery" score based on how you're recovering, sleep, dealing with stress, etc., and all this week it's been in the low to mid 20s. Out of 100. Yikes.

Only plan I have for the weekend, other than sleep, is looking for some walking shoes at the local REI. And maybe some knitting.

Announced at staff meeting that I'm stepping into a team lead role, albeit informally. We don't want anything formal because then I'd automatically be put into the new employee classification system (as someone who "supervises attorneys"), where otherwise it's still up in the air whether any of our line attorneys would be placed there.

And I managed to get us a win for the agency with a good suggestion this morning, balancing us between complying with court orders, but also minimizing losses if we're ever cleared to proceed with carrying out 47's ridiculous exec. orders. That apparently broke a logjam of dithering upstairs and gave them a safe way to proceed that won't make everyone happy, but gives the relevant parties something to claim as a partial win. Go me.

Hoping for some better sleep tonight, but not holding my breath.

Passed my 8k step goal today just from running around the office. Ended up staying later than I'd intended, but the husband and I still did comics and dinner out, albeit a late one. Almost forgot to grab my work shackle, er, iPhone, because it was sitting on the charger. Alas, I remembered it before I got out of the suite. I do appreciate being able to leave the computer at work now.

If I'm reading the budget resolution correctly (which is kind of a crap shoot, honestly) my agency might just be looking at a 4% reduction below the previous administration's planned budget for this year. It's hard to tell because those are written at a very high level (think "here's the total amount for all national defense spending, by year, for the next decade"; or here's the total amount for all energy spending, or all medical spending, etc. - no breakdown by agency). I'll try and quiz the budget office tomorrow to see what they've heard.

Went shopping for foodstuffs for the office, and I have to say that the canned soup selection at the local Wegman's was sorely lacking (I have a lunch crock pot I like to use in the office). Five gazillion types of wine, but a distinctly soviet feel to the tiny little soup section. I was hoping not to have to cart cans down from home. I'll try a couple and see if they're viable, but I may still need to haul the occasional can down as well.

I'm on my feet a lot more now that everyone is back in the office full time. I'm doing some very informal coordinating of some of our joint work, so I'm up and about a lot. I took the standing desk down once for a meeting that ended up over in a conference room instead of my office; otherwise it stayed up all day because I was bouncing in and out of the office all day.

For all that I am an attorney, I don't have a lot to do with actual court cases. My role is typically to advise and let the program people run and do what they're going to do (or help clean up after the fact). So having to even tangentially keep track of all of the cases in various courts and all of the sundry temporary restraining orders has been a hoot.

After this week I'm going to need to adjust my sleep & waking schedules to adjust to this new work schedule. I'm making it in, but without any time to exercise. And I know myself well enough to know that if I don't exercise first thing it's not going to happen. That'll be next week's adjustment, I think; this week has had enough to adjust to with the normal stuff, let along all of 47's chaos.

Back in the office full time, that is. Lots of friendly grousing about spending 8.5 hours in the building. And of course we were all stressing over the fucking '5 things you did last week' nonsense. There was a lot of inconsistent information around that one, with every agency directing different actions (ignore it; send it; send it only to your supervisor; send it if you choose to but we won't make you, etc.). Chaos and cruelty, by design.

Unrelated, pooping in the office is officially the worst, since we've gotten used to the washlet attachments on all our home toilets. The. Worst.

But hey, no regular telework equals not hauling the work laptop back and forth, so I was able to to consolidate things down to a smaller commuting bag after I got home this evening. That'll be easier to lug on Metro.

And I managed to get part of the way through one of the books I was supposed to be reading in class this week, Leadership on the Line. Interesting case for dealign with the ways that people may (deliberately or inadvertently) sabotage your efforts to lead change, and how to recognize and prepare for those efforts. Good read thus far, glad they gave it to me before we left in December.

'Twas time for haircuts, which we'd (the husband and I) scheduled for first thing when they opened at 9. Up and at 'em, then to the local diner for breakfast. Eventually made it back home where I napped with my female cat for a couple of hours.

We decided to get the heck out of the house and went to see Monkey. It had good bones, and we ended up laughing a lot at the film, but it was definitely a stretch of the short story. We enjoyed it, but mostly because we needed the laugh of something silly. And in the middle of that the new came down that 47's handler decided to send out emails telling all of us feds to justify our jobs by midnight Friday. Cue the rolling of the eyes. "Spitting nails" was the most polite way I could describe my reaction to that wanker's horseshit. I know I can produce something (after we get guidance from our agency, which they already emailed to let us know would be forthcoming), but what happens to someone who's on leave Monday, or who otherwise doesn't have access to their work email to send something? Heaven forfend someone should go on vacation. What a shithead.

Monday is my agency's return-to-office full time day, for those of us not in the union (which none of the attorneys are here, because we're too small a shop to differentiate practice areas). That made today was the last full telework day for a while, so of course I stayed home. I do have some random leave scheduled for the end of the week after next, so I'll get a partial break from eight and a half hours/five days a week, but this is the first time we've all been back in since March of 2020. And even then this agency had a fairly robust telework policy so it was normal for people to work from home a couple days a week.

The folks with kids or elder care stuff are the most stressed. I'm just concerned about how crowded Metro is going to get; I haven't had to Metro this distance to work regularly in decades (I lived in walking distance of my last job). Fully plan to keep masking on Metro, too, because I don't trust people not to head to work while sick. And the work computer stays in the office unless I arrange for the very limited situational telework that's available, so I'll get to go to a smaller commuting bag after Monday.

Otherwise there were no new directives from on high, so we actually got to catch up on odds and ends today.

So much chaos at work. Three attorneys, maybe four, of twenty, took the early out, including our deputy. That I know of so far. The deputy isn't widely known in the office yet, but she told me this afternoon before we left work, and next week will be her last. Two support staff took it, of eight. So not quite a quarter of the office will be gone soon at this point.

Cancelled the travel authorization for the training, and the agency should get a partial refund of the costs.

And then last night 47 killed off a forty-five-ish year old program that is designed to attract people who are getting graduate degrees into federal service, with an eye toward training them for management. It's the latest version of the program I came into the gubm'nt under back in the late nineties, and its dissolution is another 'salt the earth' tactic to poison the well of civil service so it'll be that much harder for future administrations to put things back together.

As maybe sort of expected the (truncated) training I was to go to next week has now been canceled completely, with partial refunds going back to the agency. Wasn't entirely surprised about it, but it's still sad and annoying as fuck.

Spent yesterday and today working on that 'justify your job' exercise, which was extra fun because instead of having us individually work on portions and submit them for adding to one document, they had us all putting the things into one big shared document. Hilarity ensued. Not. If you've never had the pleasure, 20-odd people trying to edit one document in real time is a nightmare of font changes, jumping pages, and formatting whiplash. So when we got it this morning 2/3 of the things I put in yesterday were missing. Added them back in, only for them to give us a new version with all of the missing items mysteriously back in. Ah, bureaucracy.

A bit better today, for having named the feeling bummed out yesterday. Doing extended periods of couch stretch before bed seems to be helping the knee, and we got one big project completely done today, and another partially done, which also helped.

Then came the expected firing of probationary employees today, which was apparently an emotional mess in the building (understandably!). Folks gathered to applaud the folks who were fired as they left. I'm glad I was teleworking; I would've broken down. As I reminded a friend, the chaos and the cruelty are part of the point, to keep the public off balance so they can't effectively push back. It will be interesting to see what reaction gets wrung out of Congress when they go after Defense, which they are reportedly doing soon.

Feeling drained this evening, a combination of diet, knee, and work. On the diet front I'm trying some new enzymes that are supposed to help with digestion of FODMAPs, and so far it's early so it's a little hit and miss, but I'm giving it a try anyway. If it works long term that means more options for eating without digestive discomfort, but for now it's not quite there (so my gut is feeling off). On the knee front, just feeling annoyed at it in general.

On the work front, the latest exercise is a "find all the legal/regulatory requirements that directly tie to your job as an attorney for the agency" as we attempt to fend off cuts in the legal office (after at least two attorneys took the early out offer). The other two attorneys on my little mini-team are stressed as fuck right now, and that's bleeding over. I think we have ways to justify all of us, but in the meantime we're all a bit on edge, understandably.

Walked to a local restaurant for dinner, which was apparently a mistake. Knee is not happy with me now, which means it's finally time to reconnect with the orthopedist. Ugh. Hopefully it'll be something more helpful than 'go do more PT'.

Steadily making my way through Dishonored 2, playing as Corvo. Three missions down.

Latest stupidity at work is trying to pin our exact job duties to particular statutes. Unlike most agencies we're so small that we do not, by law, have a 'general counsel' (there's a singular reference to our specific office in law, but it's not an establishing statute). We should probably get that fixed the next time we look for changes to our organic legislation, but in the meantime we're now having to justify our existence by pointing to all of the things we actually do that are called for in law. What a crock.

The husband and I went to see the last of the preview productions of Waitress up at Olney theater. Very solid production, excellent show. They have some lighting and sound cues to work on, but that's the joy of going to a preview show - you get to see more of the sausage being made.

Quiet day otherwise. Lots of rain washing away the last batch of snow, though apparently we're looking at another possible snow storm mid-week again. If the amounts currently forecasted come to pass it'll mean another snow day or two. Such a shame (he said, sarcastically).

After work the husband and I went to see the newest Marvel film, Captain America: Brave New World. We enjoyed it, was probably a mid-tier Marvel movie (not the best, not the worst). For a couple sitting three rows back from us it was a very expensive nap - they both snored, loudly, through the vast majority of the movie. 'Twas all we could do not to break out in giggles when it got particularly bad. Thankfully it wasn't quite enough to drown out the movie itself.

Finally downloaded the Signal app for my personal phone. There are a lot of rumors that the new crew is installing key loggers and automatic transcription for all video meetings on our work devices, with monitoring to see if anyone is being 'disloyal' to 47. An incredible breach of several laws and national security requirements, if true. But after the firings of so many probationary employees this week it's better safe than sorry.

Pulled back on a couple of subscriptions today, just trying to take stock of spending and rein some in.

Last virtual meeting today with my small group from the training class. Hopefully we'll see most of each other at the end of February. A couple might not make it because of 47's order or other budget woes, but most should be there. What a mess. Also apparently now I need to do a lot of reading before we get there so we have more time to talk and need less reading time. Whee! Good thing I just finished the last big fantasy novel I was working on (the latest Brandon Sanderson tome).

Well, snow telework day. It finally started mid afternoon and we're up to a couple of inches outside now. Lots of leftovers for lunch (ordered pizza last night), and various and sundry work messes to clean up as we attempt to normalize what 47 is doing.

It's unclear if I'll be attending the second half of the training course at the end of this month because he issued an order dissolving the training institute that's putting on the training. Rumor is that as part of an orderly shutdown they'll finish out the class that's there now, and then have my class come down for our last two weeks (because we already paid them for the training last fall), at which point we'll be the last ever class there. The whole point of the institute is to train federal employees in leadership skills, and as we know this team hates the idea of a profession, non-partisan civil service (because he just wants yes-men), so it makes some sick sense that they'd close one of the ways that we maintain that professional civil service. Depressing, really.

We're expecting another big (for DC) snow storm tomorrow through Thursday. Four to eight inches (10-20cm), which is a lot for here. Work laptop came home with me, and I will take advantage of any and all "unscheduled telework" days that pop across, like the "Early Departure ?" DC area Federal offices status message that's posted for tomorrow (the question mark, present in the original message, was my favorite part; like they weren't sure they completely meant it).

Commuted in, met the husband in metro on the way home. Ordered pizza for dinner and watched the last half of season one of Big Boys, a British show on Hulu that we're quite enjoying. Probably an early night tonight as Tuesdays are traditionally busy days for me as people manage to catch up on their weekend/Monday emails and start tossing bombs at the lawyers.

Was out late to a community theater production of Heathers the Musical last night, so no chance to update. Was a fun show, some of what it tried to bring from the movie didn't quite map, but overall it was fun, and the cast did a good job with it. Very welcome distraction.

A bit of knitting on the shawl, and I started a washcloth to have something quick to do. Finished my replay of Dishonored and all the DLC, and started Dishonored 2, playing as Corvo first (before I go back and replay as Emily). I never finished the third game in the series, so here's hoping I get through it this time.

Figuratively and literally. Finally managed to pin down management to provide a final agency position on some things which we need for next week, balancing between court orders and administration priorities. After work I finished a hat I was making for the husband and wove in all the ends (Xmas themed, but he'll be able to use it next year). Learned to use a new pom-pom maker (so much easier than by hand). Then after dinner I picked up the shawl I started last year and made some progress on that. Overall a nicely productive day, without quite as much insanity as the rest of the week.

After work the husband and I went to see Love Hurts, which was just as cheesy and fun as the trailers made it out to be. There's a delightful unexpected romance that made us laugh out loud at several points. Definitely needed the break from current events, and glad we went.

Unscheduled telework because of weather here (the potential for ice all over the roads, and resultant school delays for those with kids). The husband was also home, though we didn't interact much because we both had full schedules.

The rest of this week is going to be a mess of people in the federal government checking news and just generally being stressed out. The Fork offer closes tomorrow night, then it's likely they'll take action against probationary employees shortly thereafter. As for the rest of us? Supposedly reductions-in-force (layoffs) are coming to take agencies down by some arbitrary percentage. And who knows if they'll actually follow the regulations that lay out the procedures there, since this team doesn't seem to care about the law on anything else.

This looks and feels like a coup. I desperately hope I'm wrong here, that somehow we muddle through, but given the capture of all of the branches of government I'm increasingly worried that no one is going to stand up to him, at least not without massive upheaval. I would describe myself as a true believer in the American experiment. I've dedicated half my life to serving this country. And I've never felt so much angst about where the government is going.

Overslept this morning, which was odd because 1. I set an alarm; and 2. I got more than my normal seven hours of sleep. Was okay, was only a little late. And hey, I got stuck there until 7pm trying to fix some other thing that 47 and president fElon broke anyway, so it didn't really matter.

Also, I really hope the folks who stayed home, or who didn't vote for the other party because they 'weren't doing enough' for whatever cause was near and dear to them are happy with everything that's going on, especially today's news about the middle east. And I really hope they don't have the temerity to complain about anything he's doing within earshot of me, because I've had it. These people are bound and determined to destroy 249 years of self governance, without a monarchy, and without (official) aristocracy.

Forgot I needed to go do emissions testing on my mini until someone at work mentioned the DMV. Zipped up to do that after work, passed, then back home again.

Court orders are stopping some of the payment stuff that 47's people put in place, but we're still cranking along on a good chunk of it. The nonsense happening at other agencies isn't happening at mine (yet?), but that could just be that we're too small and not in charge of anything this crew cares about. In the meantime his tariff and other dramas have actually given us time to try and catch up to the last two weeks. As one wag put it, January was a long year.

Made leave plans for our annual anniversary trip, and I'm prepping the travel orders for my training at the end of the month. Things aren't normal, but you can't stop living.

Giving into the clothing store conspiracy, the husband and I went clothes shopping today, after overdue haircuts. Got some dress pants and a couple shirts for myself, so I'll have some fresh options as we careen toward full time in-the-office schedules. He's already mostly in the office full time (he works at a local university, in a student facing position, so he has to be there to deal with the kids), so it's business as usual for him.

Tried Raising Canes for the first time, at the husband's recommendation. Not bad, I'll go again. I appreciated that it was one of the simplest fast food menus in existence - how many chicken fingers did you want, and the sides depended on that number. Easy. Not a bad business model, either. I can see why they're so popular.

At least the car is now clean of new england snow removal chemicals, after sitting in the Metro parking lot in the rain all day. That's one down side of having a garage - fewer chances for natural car washes. That said, I'll take the garage any day, since it means the car is closer to a comfortable temperature when we get in, regardless of season. And it won't get broken into out on the street.

Another exhausting day trying to meet deadlines, and trying to keep everything moving. Was just me, the GC and the Deputy GC in our suite today, though others were online. That situation won't last much longer - another month and we're all supposed to be back in full time. Oodles of rumors flying about over the supposed early out promises (which look quite fishy), and some good discussions with some of my older colleagues who are thinking of getting out sooner rather than later, reassuring them that they should do what's right for them, and that the office & work will go on. Projecting calming rays.

Haircut and clothes shopping tomorrow. I'm in this odd in-between size for dress pants where one size is too tight, but the next size up is too loose. Very annoying. So I'm going to try some different brands, and if I can't find anything that's truly fits I guess I'm off to a dry cleaner for alterations, because I cannot take the too loose pants if I have to go in every day (and I won't wear the too tight size). Ob-nox-ious. Joked yesterday that the return-to-office policy must've been partially pushed by professional work wear merchants to sell more clothes, because I imagine a lot of us will need new wardrobes after 5 years of work-from-home.

Practicing for the full return-to-office in the next month or so by leaving my work laptop at work (I went in today and I'm going in tomorrow as well). Feels weird not having it here at home. I have an iPhone for work stuff, which I do like having, mainly because it helps keep people from bugging me on my personal mobile phone, but it's not the same, though it does let me keep up with email and Teams if I need to. But much like my paper journals, I don't do work on personal devices, and I don't do personal on work devices. The government gets enough of my life, I'm not giving them the whole kit and caboodle.

Stuck in way too much traffic getting to the comic shop post-work, because I keep forgetting that this one intersection of University Blvd near the U-MD campus is a total shit show because of purple line light rail construction. Why the city and/or state haven't retooled the lights there to move things through is a complete mystery. If I actually lived in that city I'd be screaming at my mayor and council members daily until they got it fixed.

Another day, more back and forth with 47's crew not knowing how to do what they want to do. Oh well. Full employment for me. For now. And no, there's no way in hell I'm taking their fake 'quit now, work from home for 9 months' BS.

Dentist this evening. Thankfully he wasn't talking down to me this time (I had a whole 'dude, learn to code switch between clients' talk ready to go, though). Three months and I'm back to do some sort of tooth repair that sounds unpleasant. Whee.

The husband met me after the dentist and we had dinner over in Dupont, which was nice. I miss the walk home together that we used to have when we lived in Southwest DC; that was a nice way to have some time to talk and bond over our days before the inevitable dinner negotiation. We don't get that as much now, sometimes in the car from the Metro, but a 10 minute car ride is not the same as a 25 minute walk.

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.

Was standing at my desk for most of the day (which means a lot of movement in my case; I use a stool to brace my feet, hips, and butt at various times throughout the day), from 9 to 5:30, with a couple breaks, but otherwise in solid meetings all day dealing with 47's directives. Long ass day.

We got the return-to-office date of late February for those of us not in the union's bargaining unit (which as an attorney at the small agency I am not). I'll be in training that week and the next, so I'll miss the initial excitement, but come March I'll be back in the office full time, no telework (save, perhaps, some situational stuff, the boundaries of which remain to be seen). Barbaric. LOL I dread seeing what this is going to do to rush hours in and around DC, both in cars and on the Metro system. At my previous agency they have less than half the available desks for all of their attorneys if they were all to return tomorrow. We have 19 offices (and four cubicles) for 28 people. I'm glad I'm not on the space planning group for the agency.

First purposeful walk on the treadmill after the cold. Bugged the hell out of my knee afterward, but some time spent beating up my shins and quads with a foam roller helped tremendously with that. As did ibuprofen. Here's hoping there's not a repeat cold any time soon; I'm tired of not breathing clearly.

The husband and I had lunch with friends to plan a trip to Boston this fall. Then I made some good progress on the next book for my leadership class while the husband was out a movie with another friend. He's more the social butterfly these days, which is a good thing. Monitored some work stuff that's pending for implementation tomorrow. I don't know that 47's team will appreciate how much people do at odd times because we have the equipment at home because of teleworking, and how much that capability will dry up because many people won't bother taking laptops home just to haul them back to the office the next day. Oh well.

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.

No drugs today. Yay. But stuck in all day meetings which were more like mini-let's-not-panic sessions. I think half of my job right now is calming people down to get them to focus. Eventually I sent some notes to the leaders of the committee after I had some quiet time by myself to think about what we were trying to accomplish and laid out my thoughts in a doc to share.

Then a senior manager who was in the meeting with me all day had a related legal question and instead of emailing me, the guy who had been answering legal questions all day for the group including him, he emailed the general counsel directly. Who, of course, then had to turn around and send it to me to give her the answer. Dork. After everything else that was the "I'm out!" moment of the afternoon. Not really, but I seriously wanted to smack him upside the head.

The day was very busy at work, trying to calm people down, and trying to keep up with demands for information. The calming part is the harder bit, especially as we discover things where other offices have fucked up paperwork that can affect application of 47's memoranda. Ugh.

Quiet night, despite that. Watching a Continuing Legal Education class to maintain my license. Urban Farming and the Law. Pretty interesting, actually.

I've been telling people at work to just focus on the small tasks they have to get done and not try to encompass the entirety of all the new orders coming down the pike; that way lies madness. Like trying to follow the entirety of social media, it's just not possible.

Still sick. Ran to the pharmacy for refills of various cold medications that I've almost run through. Napped for a bit right after lunch. Comics and dinner out, then reading and serving as a cat bed when we got back to the house.

After sort of being in remission the head cold the husband gave me last week came roaring back this morning. That or it's a new things on top of the other thing from someone at one of the rest areas on the way home. Who knows. Still managed to straighten some things in my office and catch up on a few comics, but otherwise was pretty much a lump for most of the day. Back to the job tomorrow, but I may use the excuse of not wanting to infect my coworkers to telework the rest of this week.

Whole lot of changes coming down the pike at work, as expected. I suspect some of them will end up being pulled back as impossible to implement from a practical standpoint, but others will end up creating a lot of work. Eh, elections have consequences and all that. I don't anticipate that it'll be life changing for my little agency, just a lot of busy work changing language around.

The drive down wasn't too bad, just shy of nine hours. The various highway departments from Massachusetts down to Maryland did a good job of clearing the snow and keeping the roads free of hazards, which made the drive down pretty good. Not much use of cruise control this time because there was more traffic, but at least the roads were in good shape.

Cold as hell down here at home, and due to get colder. It's currently 15F (-9.4C), and getting down to 12F (-11C) tonight. High of 20F (-6.7C) on Wednesday when I might or might not have to commute in (I'm scheduled for Thursday, but 47's workforce orders might change that; hopefully not that quickly, though). Planning to get up in time to drive the husband to the Metro in any case so he has that much less time out in that mess.

We are expecting 4-8" (10-20cm) of snow here in the Boston area overnight. We thought about leaving today, but then we would have been driving through the snow in the middle of the route, whereas it's all supposed to be done by the morning, so hopefully the highways will have been well treated by then. Of course we managed to leave our ice scraper/snow brush at home, so I made a last minute trip to Walmart for that, some waterproof gloves, and some snack for tonight/tomorrow. And I spotted a relatively inexpensive gas station so I filled up as well.

Good last day visiting with the in-laws. We went candlepin bowling in the afternoon, which I had not tried before and quite enjoyed, then an early dinner before the snow started. Now we're settled into the hotel for the night, packing what needs to be packed, and glad I remembered to pull the wipers out from the windows. Here's hoping it's a relatively easy drive tomorrow.

Not sure how people sit around all day. We visited some relatives and ended up spending several hours gabbing around the table, but afterward I was so stiff. Had to head to the local mall to walk around afterward to stretch out my legs.

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.

The drive up to Massachusetts wasn't bad. We made good time, and only really hit traffic when we got to the Boston I-95 beltway during rush hour, and even then the maps app had taken that into account with the timing. Checked in, all good. Got an upgrade to a "suite" because we walked into our first room and there were a handful of tools (think hammer, etc.) on the counter, so they switched us. Not bad.

Then dinner took as long as the drive up here did because we had The. World's. Slowest. Waitress. Seriously, she was just bad at her job. Good food, but overly warm in the place and slow service left me slightly cranky. Felt good to get outside into the cold.

All unpacked and ready for whatever we're up to tomorrow. I have a video call from 1-3 for the training class, and the husband is meeting one of his college friends while I do that, but otherwise we've no plans until Saturday.

Uneventful day at work, which was fine by me. The husband and I are headed up to Massachusetts tomorrow morning for a couple of days, so we've been doing the light packing required. Mine is a little heavier than normal because I have to take my work laptop for a video meeting with my little cohort from the training I attended back in early December, a kind of mid-break check-in to see how we're doing and (I suspect) get us back on track, post-holidays.

Commuted to work, Metro was behaving. Got to pull out one of my favorite wah-wah court quotes ("However, nowhere does our Constitution extol the virtue of efficiency and nowhere does it command that all our laws be fiscally wise." Guadamuz v. Ash, 368 F. Supp. 1233, 1243 (D.D.C., 1973)). Was in the context of telling someone that it didn't matter that it would be cheaper if we paid for individual memberships for people to attend a conference, and that while buying the memberships plus the member registration rate was cheaper than paying the non-member rate, Congress said in law that we couldn't pay for memberships for individual feds, so they'd just have to suck it up and pay more money. Yes, sometimes the law is like that (and frankly in most instances the law makes sense because you don't want to use taxpayer funds to pay every employees' voluntary society membership dues, it's just that in this particular instance it happens to cost the taxpayer more). My job is weird.

Past that I walked on the treadmill this morning. I think my knee may be hyper-extending and thus causing more issues, so I'm going to dig out some of the lighter knee braces in my collection and see if one of them helps. The walk was fine, and I stretched a lot right after, so it was okay for most of the day. There's still a lot of ice out there so I was very careful where I put my feet, especially in the Metro parking lot, where ice melt had refrozen as black ice.

I really should have done more aftercare after the walk yesterday, and before taking a rest day today. Quads (and maybe calves) were dragging the knee out of alignment and that was not fun. I beat both legs up with rollers and the Hypervolt this evening, so here's hoping that worked the stiffness out of them.

Commuting tomorrow to the office. One meeting scheduled to touch base on the work emergency from Friday because even more people are involved now. Whee! Also going to use the opportunity to try a breakfast sandwich at Dunks that is supposed to be more tummy friendly for me (their sourdough is supposedly real, made-with-an-actual-starter sourdough). This is important because we have to head up to the home of Dunks this weekend (aka Massachusetts) and it would be nice to have a friendlier option.

Did a three mile walk this morning on the treadmill. The knee did well, which was nice to experience.

Finished sorting the donations with the husband's help. Now I need to document them so we can get rid of them on Wednesday when we're out and about.

Headed to the office on Tuesday, then we're escaping down Thursday to avoid most of the inauguration brouhaha, though we are driving back on Monday. I learned that being out of the city and watching it all from afar is more my cup of tea than being in the middle of the craziness that can strike. While I don't want to drive in it, here's hoping for a very wet and cold next Monday.

Late start to the morning, didn't end up working out until around lunch time (walk 30 minutes on the treadmill; 25 minutes of strength training). Before that I emptied out three drawers in my dresser, sorted shirts into 'yes, no, maybe' piles, put the yeses away, put the nos in a bag, and put the maybes aside for a consultation with the husband. Those will likely be nos in the end, but there some sentimental bits in there so I'll check first. Worked out, cleaned myself up, ate. Then back to the remaining drawers. I'd already done a cull of exercise gear last year, but needed to rearrange the order of things based on what I'm actually doing now (more walking, less cycling). There was a surprising amount of little junk in one of the drawers, which all got pulled out and bagged until I can find a home for some of it. But the dresser has been set back up so all the drawers close cleanly now, which was the major goal.

Went through a storage cube in the bookshelf in my office that really needs to be a set of drawers (the cube is too big for what I store in it, with the result that it's difficult to find and pull out what's needed). IKEA has some, but I'm not going out today.

Read a bunch of comics, but with the late start not as many as I thought I would today. I am down to just the box (huzzah!), and I'll get through more tomorrow before the husband puts more in my pile.