The mighty Turk' — a.k.a. Big Pussy, Mighty Whitey, Turkenstein, The Turkinator, et al. — can nap with the best of 'em.
It’s hot. It’s humid. What’s a cat to do? Take a nap in a kitchen window, of course. You miss one, you’re always one behind, y’know. And there’s nothing like a long night of sleep to wear a cat out.
Alas, this picture of serenity is merely the prelude to the incessant prowling and yowling, “I want to go out, I wish to go out, I will go out!“, which commences shortly after the post-breakfast shuteye.
You ignore this remonstration at your peril — should the Turk’s departure be delayed for more than a few moments, you will find him attached by all four clawed feet to either a closed screen door or one of your all-too-open ankles.
Herself has returned from an extended visit to the mysterious East (the DeeCee-Maryland clusterplex) and so things are back to what passes for normal around the DogHaus. Rise and shine way too early, prepare breakfast, commit a little journalism, send her off to work. Someone in this family has to earn an honest dollar, and the cats don’t have much in the way of résumés. (“Eat, shit, sleep. References upon request.”)
In other news, I see Ed McMahon has gone to join Johnny Carson at the Big Talk Show In the Sky. Before he spent some 30 years sitting on that couch, laughing at Carson’s gags, he was a Marine fighter pilot who flew 85 combat missions in Korea. Who knew?
According to The New York Times, Big Ed also shined shoes, sold newspapers and peanuts, dug ditches, worked as an usher and as a traveling bingo announcer in New England, sold stainless-steel cookware door to door, and pitched a gadget called the Morris Metric Slicer to tourists on the Atlantic City Boardwalk and in Times Square. His first gigs on TV were as a clown and the host of a cooking show.
The 2010 VW California, which is not available there.
Again with the rain. ‘Tis a fine soft day so, as my people across the water might say. This filthy weather (and the English) is why the smart Micks risked the long coffin-ship trip to America. How much worse could it be? they thought. At least they got a chance to dry out a bit before they croaked. Well, their clothes did, anyway.
What a guy wants on a day like this is a road trip, and wouldn’t you know that the Germans have been hiding my dream vehicle from me. Dan Neil, the only reason I can think of for reading the Los Angeles Times, drove the 2010 VW California during a recent visit to the Black Forest, and the only news more depressing than the price of the updated Westfalia camper (upwards of $50K) is its availability (not in California or anywhere else on this side of the Big Ditch).
Writes Neil:
Did you go to Humboldt State? Did you vote for McGovern twice (once as a write-in candidate)? Did you stop following the Grateful Dead because they became too corporate? Brace yourself. This is the Westy of your dreams: a state-of-the-art camper van with a gas stove, running water, an electrically deployed pop top, a fold-down double bed, rotating front captain’s chairs and a staggering number of reading lights, climate outlets, cabinets, storage bins and convenience features, and all of it executed with the kind of aerospace precision one might associate with Piaggio corporate jets.
For a guy who on the road used to nap under a leaky topper in an ’83 Toyota truck and today drives a Subaru Forester only rarely, this is the Holy Swiss Army Grail of multipurpose vehicles. Small and fuel-efficient enough for a daily driver, capacious enough to live in for short stretches when one’s hometown weather can no longer be borne, the VW California would be my Rocinante — if only its diesel engine met U.S. emissions standards.
Well, there’s Herself to consider, too. I proposed the purchase of an iPhone today and I’m still picking pieces of my piece-of-shit Samsung cell phone out of my left ear.
Well, so much for that Friday morning ride. Regular readers will recall the Shit Monsoon and the clusterfuckery that ensued immediately thereafter — it continues this week with the delivery of a second wrongly sized bathroom door. As in No. 2. Hey, it’s a cheap joke, but that’s all I can afford.
These things are custom-built, and take about six weeks to arrive, so when the second botched door shows up all a guy can do is laugh. Rage is absolutely useless. Trust me, I’ve tried both, and I like laughter a lot more.
So instead of going for a pleasant road ride with my boys Big Bill McBeef and Dennis the Menace, I’m sitting on the back deck with a laptop, watching Mia Sopaipilla tear around the yard and waiting to hear whether the second door can be made to fit. I expect Jim Morrison will rejoin The Doors for a Back From the Dead Tour before that happens.
I used to be able to outrun the sonofabitch, if nothing else.
The universe seems intent on driving me from my dank lair and into the sunlight. After a light day’s work for VeloNews.com I slouched anonymously into Bristol Brewing to fetch home a jug of Red Rocket Pale Ale and bumped into Josh Osterhoudt and Bill Sommer, who wished to discuss the drinking of beer, the riding of bikes and life its ownself.
Once home, sipping a pint and cleaning up after a meal of tacos and rice, my old teammate Big Bill McBeef called to discuss the drinking of wine, the riding of bikes and life its ownself. Being fit from a winter and spring of hiking and biking, he is particularly interested in kicking my ass in a genial, two-wheeled sense, never having forgotten the hour he spent chasing me around Monument Valley Park during an epically retarded March cyclo-cross the Mad Dogs promoted back in the early Nineties.
I may have struck a verbal agreement with him to ride the road on Friday. But there are no signed, witnessed and notarized documents to that effect, and my attorney advises me that I can crouch in the basement with my hairy legs and my cats and that jug and refuse to answer e-mail, the phone or the door, should I so choose.
But I suppose I’d better check the garage to see whether I still own a road bike, just in case. A guy has to go out sometime, if only to fetch more beer.
Mad Blog Media 