Actually, yesterday it did both for a while. We could see the lawn and trees greening up like Bruce Banner in “The Incredible Hulk.” It was heavy, wet stuff that kept me indoors, moving pixels around VeloNews.com and furniture around my office, which had begun to resemble a rummage sale at a crack house run by a retired newspaperman. I was starting to feel crowded, like a Republican asked for a fact. Thus, a bunch of books I never read are headed for the library system, and some furniture is bound for the thrift store. Only I remain to tell the tale.
If there was a downside to the precip’, it was that our roof sprung a leak again yesterday. I was headed for my rocker with a largish bowl of Mom’s chile con carne when I noticed a couple of wet spots on my sweats. “You spastic tosspot,” I thought. “You’ve either pissed yourself or spilt perfectly drinkable wine on your drawers.” Then a third drop drilled me in the bald spot, which is pretty easy to hit in that it starts around my upper lip. Oh, shit. Straight down out of the ceiling fan this time.
Into the attic I go with a bucket and a headlamp as Herself makes a terse call to the roofers who plugged the holes around our solar array the last time we had a decent snowfall. The bucket proved more useful, although the roofers are certainly a pleasant outfit, if one has a hurricane and an insurance company close at hand.
With that in mind, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a tornado, hailstorm or falling satellite, as Uncle Sugar has announced his plans to jam both forepaws and one cloven hoof in our pockets come Wednesday. Happily, it’s a small roof, and we already have the bucket.
From a machine translation of a French story quoting Quick Step’s Tom Boonen on winning his third Paris-Roubaix: “Paris-Roubaix is just a very long day. It is important to not die.”
From our Big Yellow Ball Slated to Appear In East Department comes this headline from the Bibleburg Gaslight: “Study: Jobs are shifting from downtown to suburbs.”
Do tell. The source of this staggering revelation is a report by the Brookings Institution, the first in a series to include “Topless Dancing: Performers Mostly Female, Customers Mostly Male,” “Punching Cops: A Great Way to Get Your Ass Kicked,” and “Sticking Butter Knives Into Electrical Outlets: The Shocking Truth.” The upshot seems to be that when a metropolitan area spreads out like a fat ass sinking onto a barstool at a chain “pub,” the jobs do, too. Go figure.
Scenic downtown Bibleburg, at the corner of Walk and Don't Walk.
Everything in Bibleburg has been rushing outward from the center like the Big Bang since before my family arrived in 1967. Urban renewal tried and nearly succeeded in croaking downtown in the Seventies, sprawl continued the pummeling in the Eighties and Nineties, and the Great Recession is getting its licks in as we speak.
We live just north of downtown proper, east of the snooty Old North End in an area called the Patty Jewett Neighborhood. But very few of our neighbors work here, and the shopping is iffy. Java (Dogtooth Coffee) and booze (Coaltrain) are within easy walking or cycling distance, as are The Safeway of the Living Dead and an Ace Hardware store at the Bon Shopping Center. But the closest reliable organic grub is farther off, at Mountain Mama or King Soopers, both on Uintah west of Interstate 25; the Vitamin Cottage-Natural Grocery outlet off Cheyenne Mountain and South Nevada; or the Whole Paycheck on North Academy.
Downtown is a short hop away, easily reached on foot, by bicycle or via scooter. But there’s not much reason to go there, unless you work there, because there just aren’t many shops selling stuff we need. Running gear from Colorado Running Company, check; bike parts from Old Town Bike Shop, check; scooter stuff from Sportique, check; outdoorsy gear from Mountain Chalet, check; bread from La Baguette, check; cooking utensils from Sparrow Hawk Gourmet Cookware, check. The other only reasons to go downtown are to eat something and/or get hammered, sort of a yupscale imitation of homeless people rising up out of the weeds around lunchtime at Marion House.
Is there a specialty grocer downtown? Nope. A solid local bookstore along the lines of the lost, lamented Chinook Bookshop? Nuh uh, though there are a couple of lightweight contenders, Adventures in Books and Poor Richard’s. A consistently solid yet affordable restaurant with a respectable wine list and a selection of the local beers? Nah. The closest thing is The Blue Star, especially on Sunday, when bottles of wine are half price; but it’s still expensive, and well south of downtown proper.
This being a military town, of course, plenty of the local jobs have always been far from the city center — at Fort Carson, the Air Force Academy and Peterson AFB. But these folks are transient, especially during wartime, and a vibrant downtown is probably well down on their lists of must-have items.
Selling stupid shit to tourists is another pillar of the local economy, and downtown takes its best shot at that, with any number of absurd knick-knack shops, but both Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs have the upper hand with their cutesy ambience.
Bottom line, if you want loft-dwelling hipsters, tourists and other dazzling urbanites downtown, plus jobs, there has to be a reason for all of them to be downtown. And these days, in this place, there just aren’t many. Unless they’re into the whole free-soup thing. So we got that going for us.
• Addendum: Another reason to go downtown (though you don’t really need to be downtown to enjoy it) is KRCC, Radio Colorado College, our local NPR affiliate. Right now they’re airing “Hearing Voices,” an episode called “Comedy With a Beat,” hosted by David Ossman of The Firesign Theatre. Greg Giraldo layered over Lazyboy, Charles Mingus jazzing up Jean Shepherd’s “The Clown,” and select bits from TFT — hey, what’s not to like?
• Addendum the Second: Now that I’ve decided to forgo healthful outdoor exercise in favor of cooking and drinking, the sun has come out. Perhaps it’s time for me to emulate Medium Ráre, our mystic chef and guru, and begin meditating on the pure white light of stupidity.
Hey, it's just a little snow — what are you saving yourself for, the Tour? Pussy.
Well, I’m glad I didn’t waste a minute of yesterday watering the lawn. It was snowing when I got up this morning, and now we’re enjoying a bit of chilly drizzle, with the temp just above freezing. Good times.
Doesn’t faze my man Dr. Schenkenstein, though. He ordinarily rides Highway 24 to Woodland Park and back on Saturdays, but today opted for an outing on the cyclo-cross bike, clad in every bit of Mad Dog kit he could find in his closet and grinning like a jackass eating yellowjackets.
Iowa must be America’s Belgium, as the Schenkster is a very hard man indeed. If there were any cobbles in these parts I’m certain he’d be riding them instead of cranking a ‘cross bike up the Chutes, a local trail popular with the gravity gang. And I would’ve been right there with him, too, if it weren’t for this nasty aversion to double pneumonia I picked up somewhere.
We were discussing He Who Is Not To Be Named for Three Days when we left off last night, but I think I’ll let him lie for a while (heh). My favorite road race, Paris-Roubaix, is on tap tomorrow, and it’s nearly always more fun than watching rich white guys get into pointless pissing matches.
That last post regarding He Who Is Not To Be Named for Three Days drew a number of interesting comments, and I’ve seen some of them echoed around the Intertubes today.
The usual clot of chamois-sniffing fanboys is brandishing chain whips and pedal wrenches at the despicable Frogs (from a safe distance, as usual). But a fair number of cycling fans are starting to wonder whether Le Comeback is good for the sport.
It is, if you’re talking to website geeks who track traffic. Pretty much anything about HWINTBNFTD does more hits than Cheech and Chong. But if you’re not into sniffing chamois, or making money off those who do, it’s a topic of some debate.
I want to jabber at some length about this, but right now it’s dinnertime. A man can’t rave properly without food and strong drink. Check back in a bit, or leave your own thoughts in comments.
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