Shadows on the wall

Well, it’s been one of those weeks, on the job and off. So I’m just going to leave you with these pix of a shadow cast on my kitchen wall:

Different foliage than what showed up last summer under similar circs. But every once in a while I like to pay attention to things like this.

Unleashed

Thanks, Republican assholes. You’ve released the Kraken.

I hope you choke. Every last one of you.

And Susan Collins—you can do it twice.

Essential

My employer provides a variety of liquid refreshments to staff (in stark contrast to my previous employer, which didn’t even give us coffee or tea). In addition to a Peets multi-coffee beverage machine and two Nespresso espresso jobbers, there are two industrial fridges containing varieties of Red Bull, bottled iced tea, milk (whole and two-percent), both Pepsi and Coke products (including, God save the mark, Fresca) and flavored waters.

The latter includes still and fizzy. What flavors get stocked seems to depend on the whim of the vendor. Recently the sparkling stuff has toggled between Poland Spring bottles and cans of La Croix. Poland Spring has a somewhat narrow spectrum—orange, raspberry-lime, lemon, lime and just plain old. But La Croix is quite exotic—passionfruit, lemon, coconut, peach-pear, tangerine, mango and pamplemousse.

(Why they choose to translate grapefruit into French and not any of the others, I do not know. I don’t make this stuff up, I just report it.)

Well, I’ve tried them all, because why not? Frankly, Poland Spring does a better job of making the flavors taste natural. I love passionfruit, but can’t quite get into the La Croix version. Even their lemon tastes faux, tbh. And I dumped out nearly a whole can of the coconut stuff after a couple of mouthfuls. And I am cuckoo for coconut.

But here’s what really got me—they tout it as “naturally essenced”. (Even spellcheck knows that verbing that noun is an abomination.)

Marketeers, man.

Rewriting history

Back in the dim dark past, February used to have two federal holidays: the 12^th, honoring Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and the 22^nd, honoring George Washington’s. At some point, the feds rolled the two of them into the third Monday of the month and called it Presidents’ Day.

This year, that was yesterday, and I’m really grateful that we got the day off. I needed it. (I honored the two titans in the traditional way: I went to Costco, to stock up on butter and laundry detergent.)

Well, except apparently in the state that touts itself as the Mother of Presidents. At the end of last month I had occasion to visit the local branch of the Fairfax County (home to Washington, as it happens) Public Library, and noticed that they marked it thusly:

They even cut off Lincoln from Rushmore.

Sore losers.

Gratitude Monday: walking future

I’m thinking I put the fear of something into Kayla at OrthoVirginia. (I wrote about my interactions with her of a couple of weeks ago, and her indifference to whether I got treatment or not.) Because she called me on Friday to tell me that my health insurance has graciously condescended to approve the hyaluronate, and now there are only about 14 hoops to jump through before I can start getting the injections.

At least three of the steps involve me taking actions, which is a far cry from the last time I went through this. Back then, and with a different insurance, the orthopod said I needed the shots, he ordered the gel, and a couple of weeks later I was getting them. Well, times change, I guess.

Sadly, it’s clear that I’m not going to get them started this time round before I go to the RSA Conference. That sucker takes up three halls of Moscone Center, and my attendance involves walking about ten miles a day on concrete floors. Fortunately, at least I was able to swap out hotel reservations, going from a $680/night (plus taxes that would bring it to about $800) “junior suite” at the Grand Hyatt (the only thing available that was remotely within walking distance when I booked in early January), half a mile away from Moscone, to one night in a “view room” at $573 and three in a “standard room” at $473 at the Marriott Marquis, which is next to the conference. This should make my company—which has a remarkably parsimonious travel policy—happy, and I don’t have to explain “junior suite” on my travel expenses.

(I did this by calling the hotel last week to see if there’d been any cancellations. The reservationist there sent me to the conference organizers, and an amazing customer rep named Crystal got me set up. At one point in the convo, I asked what the difference is between a standard and view room. She hesitated, then replied, “Well, I think the view room has a nicer…view.” Well, okay; seems legit. I’ll have to switch rooms after the first night—they didn’t have a standard room available for the Monday; but I’ve saved my company a few hundred and now I can afford to have cheese on my hamburger.)

But even with being next to Moscone, I know for a fact that those conference floors are brutal. I’m doing the exercises prescribed by my physical therapist, and I’m taking the NSAID prescribed by my orthopod. But I suspect they will be insufficient to counter those floors. Over the weekend I had a flareup of the pain—possibly caused by new trainers (I’ll have to check with the therapist), and that resulted in crappy sleep, because once I stop moving, my joints, tendons and muscles just give me hell.

I’m sorry I won’t be starting the shots until after the trip, but at least I’ll be getting them. Kayla told me the Rx can be used up to mid-April.

And today I’m grateful that this process is moving forward and that I scared Kayla enough to get her to start overcommunicating. Also—once I have that sorted, I’ll follow my the advice of my friend The Pundit’s Apprentice: I’ll start working with a personal trainer to get the infra- and superstructure of my legs into shape so I won’t need to repeat this mishegoss in the future.