April 2008 Archives

I’ve been taking it easy since the whole ten miler debacle. After the first few days my knee seemed to be improving, but I didn’t want to push it. I went to my weight training class, but did not do lunges. I did ok on the elliptical and the exercise bike, but my knee got tired and sore toward the end, so I didn’t do as much as normally would. I skipped spinning class. And really, laziness seemed like a decent course of action for a couple of weeks. I didn’t want to go to the doctor, and I was hoping everything would just clear up with time. Then last Sunday, a massive rainstorm hit while I was at Target. It had been raining all day, but this storm was nuts. You could hear the rain slamming in to the roof, and the thunder rumbling outside, even way at the back of the store. Naturally, I was parked at the end of the parking lot, and I had left my umbrella in the car. It wasn’t a terribly cold rain though, so I decided to go for it, and ran across the parking lot with my cart full of stuff. It actually felt good to run! But then within five minutes my knee started to throb, and I knew I had a problem.

Monday morning I called the orthopedist, and was able to get an appointment for Friday. The visit was fine, but it encapsulated everything I hate about going to the doctor. I saw the doctor for about seven minutes. I was there for an hour and a half. First came the time in the waiting room. I had to fill out forms, and then I got to wait. They had three magazines in the waiting room. Twenty plus chairs for people to sit in, mostly full, and two issues of Parents and a copy of Highlights to occupy their attention. The perfect selection for an infertile like me, and all the old people getting their hips replaced. I amused myself sending cranky and bored emails and listening to the other people in the waiting room. One woman with her arm in a sling was giving her husband all the information for her form. I had to laugh when she flat out lied about her weight to him at one point. I mean, sure, fudge five pounds or so (who doesn’t?), but she underestimated her weight by a good 30 pounds.

I finally got to go back to wait in the exam room, where they did have a decent magazine supply. The nurse was very friendly and efficient and took me off to get x-rays without wasting any time. Then it was back to the exam room to wait for the doctor. He zipped in, listened to my story, had me stand so he could look at my knees, and then had me lie down on the table so he could check range of motion. And then he pushed on one particular spot and asked, “Does that hurt?” Yep, it sure did. You can bend my knee any which way you want, but don’t push on that spot, and don’t ask me to do weight bearing stuff.

According to the doctor, I either have torn cartilage in my knee, or I have an “irritable kneecap.” Who knew kneecaps could even get irritable? If I have torn cartilage, I have to have surgery. If I have an irritable kneecap, I have to strengthen my quads and avoid certain types of activities. For example, I could still run, but I’d have to avoid hills and run on a treadmill. Oh, darn. Although I will admit that as Becky and I trained for the ten miler, I began to see the appeal of outdoor running. Just not in my neighborhood which is too damn hilly. For now I am forbidden to do lunges and squats and I’m supposed to take it easy on stairs. My knee is still sore, and it spends a lot of time feeling hot inside and getting stiff, but I’m not limping anymore.

The next step is to go get an MRI. I’ve never had an MRI, and I’m not particularly looking forward to it, although at least he said I could get one of the open ones. Being stuck in a tube and not being able to move while a machine makes loud noises at me is not my idea of a good time. I also don’t particularly want to have knee surgery, so let’s all root against torn cartilage. In fact, the notion of having a bitchy kneecap kind of appeals to me. Perhaps I can use it to threaten people. “Don’t cross Bad Penguin,” they’ll say. “She seems really nice, but her kneecap will cut you.”

...I haven't fallen in to the great Frederick sinkhole:

I've been just a wee bit busy is all, and it is making me less creative than usual. Perhaps even less intelligent than usual. This morning I was so off kilter that I left the house without my purse, drove to the gas station, and then realized I had no money. Luckily, the house is fairly close to the gas station. I had my gym bag and my lunch bag and my radar detector, but no purse. Kind of an annoying way to start my day.

What's the dumbest thing you've ever left behind at the house in the morning?

In a couple of weeks my company is moving to a new office building. We need more space, so from that standpoint, the move will be great. However, we are transitioning to an open floor plan where we will all have workspaces instead of offices. Supposedly it will foster a more collaborative environment. I am a huge believer in the effectiveness of collaborative teams, and I work really hard to encourage it on my projects, but I am also a huge fan of walls, and privacy and being able to concentrate. However, I am keeping an open mind, and we'll see how it goes.

Part of moving to a new building with no offices means less room in which to keep all my crap. I've been with the company for eight years now, in the current building for five years and in my current office for at least two years, possibly longer. The stuff, it has piled up over the years, and I'm not going to have nearly as much space in the new place. I actually made "the list" of people they are concerned about as we get close to the move. Of course, during the week I'm way too busy to deal with sorting through files and reorganizing stuff. So on Saturday afternoon, after the haircut, shopping and lunch with my mom (all of which were fabulous), I headed in to the office to get a little work done and to start my cleaning out process.

Yeah, it took me FOUR HOURS, and I'm not even done yet. I did achieve my main goal of compressing the contents of my four large file drawers in to two drawers. I filled my recycling bin and half of the large one out in the hall. I maxed out my trash can and the very large one out in the hall. I rediscovered projects I had forgotten that I ever worked on, and realized that I was hanging on to a bunch of stuff that held no meaning whatsoever anymore. I have a habit of saving notepads for a while so that I can refer back to old notes as necessary. That is actually not a bad idea for a notepad I have just finished using, but I had 22 pads filled with cryptic notes that don't mean anything to anyone, including me. I'm a terrible note taker. I get too caught up in the discussion and the ideas to take proper notes. And when I do have a complete write-up or summary, I typically tear the sheet off the pad and stick it in the project folder.

Apparently at some point I was worried there would be a shortage of interoffice envelopes (which, by the way, I almost never use) because I found two separate stockpiles of them. I had two rolodexes that I had inherited from employees who left the company taking up space on my bookcase. I found the Franklin Covey organizer that I quit using ages ago because it just didn't work for me, plus a pile of pages for it from 2004. I found massive amounts of samples that I really did not need. Why did I have all of the print PO's for a newsletter we haven't published in years? No one will ever want to see those! I had binders that carefully documented processes that have changed so much over the years as so be completely unrecognizable. What the hell is wrong with me?

I come by all this packrattiness honestly. If you think I sound bad, you should see my mom. She hangs on to everything. And when I say everything, what I mean is everything. Her house is crammed with books, papers, magazines, business cards from some person she met 12 years ago at a party, random files, knick-knacks and more. John and I once figured out that she had 13 different versions of the phone book in her office. We started sneaking them out to the trash when she wasn't looking.

I make fun of her but secretly, I get it. Part of me is convinced that in six months I'm really going to want something that I threw out on Saturday. Every time I have to do something like this, I vow that I'm going to be better going forward. And I am, for a while, but I always backslide. Perhaps life in my luxurious new workstation will finally cure me of my packrat ways.

That's about the only positive thing I can say about this day. I think I’d like to request a do-over for today. On second thought, perhaps we could just arrange for today to be expunged. That way I don’t have to live through it again.

My day got off on the wrong foot right from the start. I literally got up on the wrong side of the bed when the phone rang and I got up to answer it at 6:15. It was some moron looking for a car repair shop. Hey buddy, NOTHING IS OPEN AT 6:15 am. My alarm was set to go off anyway, so I got up. The grand plan was to get up and out early so that I could get in to work early, because I knew I was going to have a crazy day. And you know how much I hate getting up early – but a look at my to-do list on Wednesday evening convinced me it was time for extreme measures. Unfortunately for me, there was terrible, hideous traffic for some reason. I ended up getting to work at about 8:50. Not quite the bright, shiny start to my day I wanted.

Then I realized I had left my pad with all my current notes and the stuff I had brought home to proofread last night sitting on my desk. So I got to proof some stuff again.

I won’t go in to the details of the rest of my day, but I’ve decided that everyone in my company needs a spring break. Everyone is stressed out and cranky and pushing way too hard. I’d say we all need a few days away from each other and all of the deadlines and projects and meetings and the endless stream of email after email after email. Too bad there isn’t some business-friendly way to do that. I like it much better when we’re not all overloaded and snapping at each other.

Oh well. At least tomorrow is Friday. And I’m expecting a nice day on Saturday. I’m getting my hair cut in the morning, and then having lunch and going shopping with my mom. A little pampering could go a long way for me right now. Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend? Also, I’m bored with my hair, so any curly hairstyle suggestions you have to offer would be greatly appreciated.

...You've got to be ready.

That's the slogan for my new favorite TV show, Torchwood. Imagine a funnier, sexier, British version of the X-Files, with swearing and a cool black Land Rover. I mean, the X-Files had its funny moments, but it typically took itself more seriously. I heard that Torchwood is a spin-off of Dr. Who, but I don't watch Dr. Who, so I wouldn't know. I do like the Mr. Who theme song though. Basically, Torchwood is about a bunch of alien hunters stationed in Wales. They capture rogue aliens and track down artifacts and deal with supernatural stuff in general. The main character is a sort of civilian, a persistent police officer who stumbles across a Torchwood investigation, and then ends up joining them. Then there is a doctor (guy Scully, I guess, except none of them doubt the existence of the spooky stuff), a computer expert who is sort of a hot girl nerd, an all-around cleanup guy, and their fearless leader, who may or may not be an American human named Captain Jack Harkness.

The rest of the characters have Welsh names like Gwen and Cerys and Owen and Rhys, which are names I've always liked. Now I've kind of fallen in love with the Welsh accent too. It's very pretty. Cardiff, where the show is supposed to be set, looks quite lovely. They are big on aerial shots for some reason. Perhaps that conveys more of an alien feel.

Anyway, the series isn't perfect. The writing can be uneven from episode to episode, and sometimes the acting - usually from a non-regular - is a little over the top. And Captain Jack looks a lot like Tom Cruise from some angles, which can be weird. But as we make our way through the first season, the shows are steadily getting better and better. The stories are inventive and usually come to a satisfying conclusion, and not always the ending that you are expecting. If you like sci-fi type shows, I think you'll enjoy Torchwood.

Except lately, that is. Work got a bit overwhelming last week, as a product I'm helping to launch kept running in to delays. I've been on "well, once we get through the launch, I can focus on that" for a week now. But I think it really will happen tomorrow. When I say that work got overwhelming, I don't mean to give the impression that work is bad. It's not. Work is great. We have a particularly good team right now, which means I get to work with a ton of people who I really like and respect. I have fun at my job. I get to do interesting stuff. But it does take over sometimes.

Last week was actually a fine time for work to take over, because I couldn't work out at all. That freed up some time for me to work late. My knee is finally feeling better now, but it is still not right. I wouldn't dare run on it, nor can I do lunges. I'm giving in and going to the doctor. On top of the knee, my TMJ has decided to act up for some reason. That usually means I'm about to experience some sort of dental problem, but my teeth seem ok aside from the jaw pain. I'm not sure what is going on there. Maybe I'm just stressed out. Happily, I am getting back to some exercising, which will help with the stress.

The only non-work thing of much interest that was going on was house hunting. Tonight John and I went to look at a house that, based on the Internet, looked like it had real potential. The Internet can be a wee bit misleading. I was suspicious of this house because it really shouldn't be in our price range, and I was right. Everything they said about the house in the listing was true, but none of it was exactly as you'd expect it to be. The lot was weirdly shaped, and the other houses in the neighborhood were built all crowded in to the corners of the lots so that they were closer together than we thought they'd be. The house was built more recently than where we live now, but our place is in much better shape. It was just shabby, and the kitchen needed updating, and even though they recently dropped the price, they didn't drop it nearly far enough. Oh well. Looking is fun, and we don't really want to buy until the summer sometime anyway. I think I'll go back to obsessing over model home floor plans for a while.

Anyone have any opinions on which is better, new homes or existing ones?

So, the knee. The knee hurts. I can bend it for a while if I’m sitting down, but then it starts to get this stiff/hot feeling, and I have to move it, which hurts. I lurch around like Frankenstein, because bending it while putting weight on it is extra painful. All day long today I had the pleasure of explaining to people that I was supposed to run the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler yesterday, but I only ran part of it because my stupid knee hurt. Having to tell a dozen different people how I failed was a blast, even if they were all sympathetic.

Going up and down the stairs takes approximately 12 years. In fact, it takes me forever to get anywhere, because I can’t walk like a normal person. My entire right leg and hip complex are starting to get sore and tired from all the extra work they are doing while my left leg is all stiff and not bendy. Last night I kept waking myself up, because every time I rolled over or even moved, my knee gave me a jolt. I’m a ridiculously restless sleeper to begin with, so that was a lot of waking up happening. And tonight, as I was telling my mom the story of the race, she chimed in with a helpful story from her own past, saying “I once walked around on a broken patella for two weeks without realizing it. But you probably didn’t break anything.”

Thanks. That was very reassuring. I have to say, there was no real improvement from yesterday to today, which has me a little worried. Let’s hope it is better tomorrow.

Today was the day of the ten mile race I’ve been training for over the last couple of months. To say that it did not go the way I had hoped is an understatement. In fact, it would have been a complete disaster if it were not for the fact that Becky is a truly wonderful friend. She helped turn the day in to an adventure, rather than a nightmare.

We got off to a rocky start almost immediately. You see, in order to be close to the race and not have to get up at 4 am, we had gotten a hotel room in Crystal City. Becky actually found us a good deal in a nice hotel, so we drove down there last night, went out to dinner, and then watched Enchanted on pay per view before turning in early. After some fiddling with the ridiculously complicated clock radio, I set the alarm for six. This morning it went off, and I got up and started getting ready. A couple of minutes later, Becky pointed out that her phone said it was only 5 am. Yep, the clock was an hour fast. We later determined that this was not my fault. It turns out that today is the day that we would normally have moved the clocks forward one hour, and the over-engineered clock radio had reset itself forward.

But, we figured it out and both got a little extra dozing time in before it was really 6 am. When we got outside to walk to the Metro, we realized it was pouring. Luckily, that faded to mostly drizzle pretty quickly. We got over to the start of the race start fine, and then waited around, freezing and wet for while, but in pretty good spirits. The first three miles went well. We passed the 5K mark feeling fine. And then my knee started to hurt. And not just hurt, but HURT. One of the things I’ve learned as I’ve been running is that various body parts will get sore or achy along the way, but if you just keep going, they usually sort themselves out. Not this time. With every step I ran, my knee hurt more. I finally gave up and started walking. Becky and I came up with a plan – walk from mile five to mile six, and then try running again. And so we did, but when we got to mile six, my knee hurt even more when I tried to run. I could tell right then that I was screwed. It is only thanks to Becky and her kindness of spirit and generosity that I didn’t have a total meltdown/temper tantrum right there. We worked so hard, and we’d already done six miles in the freezing cold windy rain, and we weren’t going to finish on time.

But we pressed on. At mile seven, a nasty blue jacketed lady yelled at us, saying we weren’t going to make the cut off time at our pace, and we’d better get on the bus and get off the course. At that point, we still had 45+ minutes left, for crying out loud. All of the other volunteers who we encountered were unflaggingly positive and supportive, yelling “great job” even as I limped on by, but that lady just sucked. Somewhere around eight miles, my knee started hurting even when I walked fast. It was at this point that I realized not bending my knee was the way to go. We kept on going, me stiff legged and freezing, Becky cheerful and freezing. The police came by and said that everyone who hadn’t finished yet had to move on to the sidewalk, so we did. That last mile was a long, painful, wet, cold slog. All around us they were dismantling the race barricades and picking up volunteers in busses. My internal monolog for the last 1200 meters (I know this because they had signs up at 1200, 800 and 400 meters from the finish line) mostly went like this “Ow, step, ow, step, ow, step.” They were taking apart the finish line when we got there, but we did get there. 2 hours, 29 minutes, 31 seconds. Not the time I hoped for, but I’m really proud that we made it to the end. I could have quit, but I didn’t. Part of me didn’t want to give blue jacketed lady the satisfaction, but part of me just plain wanted to finish. Yes, I’m disappointed by my performance, but I did the best I could do today.

Now I just have to figure out what the hell is wrong with my knee. Bending hurts, but the most painful thing is straightening it after bending. Well, ok the most painful was jolting it by running, but I’m not doing that now. I’m just sitting on the couch.

In summary, just let me say THANKS, BECKY! You rock! In spite of everything, I had a great time today, and that was all because of you. (And even though you said I don’t have to be, I’m sorry).

I have some complaints about Chevy Chase Bank. Would you like to hear my problems with Chevy Chase Bank? Here is my review of Chevy Chase Bank: Chevy Chase Bank customer service is terrible. Chevy Chase Bank thinks it is ok to take my money and not give it to me. Chevy Chase Bank is run by a bunch of inept morons who have stupid policies. Chevy Chase Bank certainly does not care about its customers at all.

There, do you think I packed that 1st paragraph with enough phrases that will turn up in online search to ensure that the world will learn of my extreme dissatisfaction with Chevy Chase Bank? Now, let me tell you what they did.

I have had a bank account with Chevy Chase for about 10 years now. At some point after we got married, we added John's name to the account. Now (and this is key to the story), John's name is not actually John. That's what everyone calls him, but his legal name is long and multipart and reflects his ethnic heritage. We have, over the years, deposited many, many checks made out to John Ourlastname, and they have always cleared the bank with no trouble. Until last week. Last week, we deposited what for us was a very large sum of money. In person, at the teller, because we wanted to be sure that everything went ok. We asked questions, like how long would it take for the money to clear, and got answers. At no time did anyone suggest that there would be any problem with our deposit. They sent us something in the mail confirming what the teller told us. The money was in our account...until suddenly it wasn't there anymore. You see, they decided that since the name on the check didn't match the name on the account exactly, it had to go to their security department.

Now, I am all for them being careful about fraud. However, no one asked us about the discrepancy. No one asked the holder of the account who wrote the check if there was a problem. No one contacted the issuing bank to see if there were any concerns. No, they just pulled the money out of our account without telling us. So it was there, and then it wasn't. It is a miracle that I didn't send out any checks spending that money. If it weren't for the fact that I am so cautious about everything that I triple checked before mailing out the first check, I never would have known there was a problem. And then when I called customer service to find out why there was substantially less money in my bank account than there should be, the nice customer service lady didn't know anything.

The next day, instead of calling me at work or on my cell phone as I requested, they called the house. After 9 am. When I was unlikely to be there. Luckily, John was home. They were rude to him, they were rude to me, and they were rude to the person who wrote the check, who called to reassure them that there was no fraud occurring. When John called and asked to speak to the branch manager, she was "at lunch." And then, "oh, she left for a meeting." The person I spoke to had a serious attitude problem. I suppose she expected me to be mad at her, and well, I had reason to be, didn't I? Being preemptively nasty to someone your company is screwing over is an interesting way to approach the situation.

They are refusing to give us the money, by the way. Apparently there is not one person at that bank who has the intelligence to look at the minor difference between the name on the account and the name on the check and make the connection. Or who can see that we've already deposited checks from that account written to that name before. Or who can look at the fact that I've been banking with them for a fucking decade, and we are not shady con artists. Instead, they are cutting a registered check back to the account the original check was drawn on. Once they get around to doing that, we then have to wait for it to get back to the bank, be deposited, and then get a new check written to us. A new check which we will put in the new bank account we are opening. I expect we'll actually get the money about a month later than we were supposed to.

Ok, enough bitching about how evil Chevy Chase Bank is. Got a favorite bank you'd like to recommend? Or perhaps a bank that you'd avoid? So far I've heard PNC Bank is good, and M&T is decent. Apparently Commerce Bank is wonderful, but they don't have them here.