The weather went abruptly and lightly sideways this morning.
We’ve had a bit of everything today, from light snow to rain to sleet to fog, while up north travelers are intercoursing the penguin on a nasty stretch of Interstate 25 at La Bajada. Getting up that hill in evil weather is trouble enough. For getting down, what you want is skis. Or perhaps to stay home.
The various wounds are healing nicely, thanks for asking. Since the weather seems ill-suited to vigorous outdoor exercise I believe I shall award myself a rest day.
If the knee requires ice I have some in the refrigerator. No need to go out looking for it.
Speaking of falls, Austin Murphy (you may remember his writings about HWSNBN Back in the Day®) has gone from working for Sports Illustrated to driving delivery for Amazon. He serves up a good read about how that package gets from Jeff Bezos’ magic kingdom to your doorstep. And yes, like HWSNBN, occasionally these guys have to pee in a bottle. Just not the way you think.
I love this maple in the back yard. It always seems to be reaching out for something. Probably the warmer weather toward the southwest.
Here we are again, gathered around the old bloc na Nalloig beneath the freeway, trying to keep both warm and unnoticed by The Authorities, which is not an easy thing in these days of modern times.
We’ve downsized the old solstice tree. The cats are less likely to try climbing this one.
Now “Performance Today” is rocking the house, ’cause that’s how we roll on Christmas.
There are no gifts under the tree. There’s not much room beneath it, for starters. And we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to buy things as we deem them necessary, rather than delaying gratification until Dec. 25. It helps that we really don’t want much.
So instead of littering the floor with wrapping paper we jotted down some notes about organizations in need of financial support. This year we went heavy on animal rescue, free speech, independent journalism, justice, and outfits that help those whose tribulations often go unnoticed because they don’t have free internet, scads of executive time, and a nice big White House from which to make their case.
Happy happy joy joy to thee and thine. May your days be merry and bright. And if you feel like kicking up your heels a bit, give a listen to “The Rebel Jesus,” from The Chieftains and Jackson Browne. I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheer, from a heathen and a pagan on the side of the rebel Jesus.
Well, I picked up an early gift from my old buddy Satan Claws. Sonofabitch tripped me up on a trail run today and pitched me ass over teakettle.
Tore up the heel of my right hand and my right elbow, wrenched my left knee, and collected a couple other dingers here and there. I expect a few more will manifest themselves about the time I’m trying to get to sleep tonight.
Funny thing is, I didn’t really feel like running, but I did it anyway. Now I really don’t feel like running.
WIth Pat O’B’s bicep on the fritz it looks like the DogHaus is serving up a Paddy melt(down) for Christmas. Deck them halls, all y’all. Fa la la la la, la la, la, la.
I hope jolly ol’ St. Nick remembers to slather on the SPF 50 when he brings all my toys to the Duke City. Unless he wants his snoot to get redder than Rudolph’s.
It’s a maple, not an oak, but it will have to do for now.
“You were just starting to get into your groove,” the dog-walker said apologetically as I yielded the trail, interrupting the run I had just begun.
More of a rut than a groove, I thought. I run this trail pretty much every Monday and Wednesday, and then lift weights afterward. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, I ride. On Fridays, I brood. Especially when the Friday in question happens to be the shortest day of the year, followed by the longest night.
If I ever actually found a groove and was getting into it, I mused, it would probably be something like the groove on an old vinyl LP, spiraling in at 33 1/3 rpm toward the black hole in the center. Stairway to heaven? More like highway to Hell.
Now ruts I know. I had been in an actual rut the day before I encountered the dog-walker, climbing Trail 341 counterclockwise on my second-best Steelman.
Anyone who saw me lurching upward in the 36×28 might have thought me a lost, loopy roadie, Trail 341 being a narrow, serpentine climb, sometimes featuring actual serpents; rocky where it isn’t loose, fenced with cane cholla, with a couple-three blind corners, no passing lanes, and the occasional rut just to keep things interesting.
But I was in the best mental health I could summon in December, especially this December, and as I said, it was my second-best Steelman. Plus I was climbing, not descending, which lets me ease into trouble rather than diving in headlong.
I had been descending Trail 341 when one of these ruts caught me unawares back in July 2017. I was aboard the Voodoo Nakisi, which with its plump Bruce Gordon Rock n’ Roads is ordinarily more than a match for this short, not particularly technical descent.
But my mind had wandered, as it will, and it didn’t wander back until after I had bitten the dust, grabbing a handful of cholla as I went down.
“What the hell are you doing?” my mind asked.
“Oh, shut up,” I replied, yanking spines from my left hand. “This is your fault.”
“What, I told you to yardsale in a rut?” my mind chortled. “I was just trying to get a little work done while you were dicking around. Jeez, I can’t leave you alone for a minute.”
Ever since taking that little digger I’ve ridden Trail 341 as a climb instead of a descent, though the neighborhood Singletrack Sanitation Service has ironed out a few of its nastier wrinkles. It leaves me in something of a metaphorical rut, true, but it’s a problem I don’t need to solve; a nettle I don’t care to grasp.
Especially in December, when there’s never enough sun to really warm your bones, and what there is of it hangs low in the sky, either blinding you to the path or cloaking it in shadows.
My rides and temper shorten with the days. I get up in the dark and by the time I‘ve gotten a handle on current events — what has the Arsehole-in-Chief managed to shit on today? — it’s dark again and time to go back to bed. This makes for unsettling dreams.
Dreams. The ancient Celts saw the solstices as battles between twin kings, Oak vs. Holly, warmth and light pitted against cold and dark.
Neither king is ever truly vanquished. The Holly King is ascendant as the old year wanes, but as the new year approaches the Oak King reclaims the throne.
It was a murky morning as this year’s winter solstice came to Newgrange, and the Oak King did not make an appearance. But this doesn’t mean that the Holly King has finally triumphed. The struggle continues.
And I recall another Irish legend, who once said: “We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.”
Don’t curse the darkness. Light a candle. Grasp the nettle.
• Editor’s note: I had planned to make this an episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, but various ruts kept tripping me up. At least you can give a listen to the music I had in mind for the background — “King Holly, King Oak,” from Johnny Cunningham via “Celtic Christmas,” a Windham Hill sampler I’d forgotten I owned. And happy solstice to you.
The various wounds are healing nicely, thanks for asking. Since the weather seems ill-suited to vigorous outdoor exercise I believe I shall award myself a rest day.
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