We’re rocking out this holiday weekend.
The Bug® has put AAA’s Memorial Day travel forecast up on blocks.
It’s the first time in two decades that AAA hasn’t had a stab at guessing how many Americans might be traveling over the holiday weekend, according to PR manager Jim Stratton.
No worries, Jimbo. I haven’t been big on holiday travel since, well, forever.
If Tony Stark had been a cat, Iron Man might look something like this.
When I was still a newspaperman it was possible (and pleasurable) for a single fella to piss off for points unknown while the breeders were juggling work, school, and the juvenile justice system.
My shift was generally something like 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., with oddball days off like Tuesday and Wednesday, and I got spoiled by not having to deal with crowds whenever I wasn’t on the clock and wished to make a nuisance of myself without billing someone for it.
After mutating into a cycling scribe I often frequented Durango on Memorial Day weekend, getting my ass handed to me en route to Silverton, in the crit at Fort Lewis College, or on whichever stretch of hilly, rocky dirt Ed Zink was using for a mountain-bike course that year.
But holy hell, a long haul to an ass-whuppin’ loses its appeal faster than a kissing booth at the state fair in a plague year. So I decided that if I ever craved a beating I could sass the wife, save myself all that driving time and gas money.
We’ve had the ingredients for this bench lying around the rancheroo for the better part of quite some time.
This time around, as it happens, it is a plague year. So we kicked off the long weekend with a short road ride and some light landscaping.
Parts of the back yard were looking like that part of your neck you always miss with the razor because at age 66 you’ve taken to shaving in the dark to avoid panic attacks, myocardial infarctions, and suicidal impulses, and the whole concept of shaving at all has become meaningless since nobody gives a shit about that part of your neck because mostly they are not looking at it or any other part of you, unless they think you may have wandered away from a nursing home or insane asylum and are wondering whether there might be a cash reward for your return, dead or alive.
But I digress.
So we pulled weeds and dug up junk elms, laid down weed block and river rock, and bagged up unsightly piles of this, that, and the other. There will be more of this sort of thing as the holiday weekend progresses. Or so I am told, anyway.
If Herself posts any FaceButt pix of a new “flower bed” that’s 6 by 6 by 3, you’ll know I’ve given up shaving and yard work for good.
Tags: AAA travel forecast, Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, yard work
Mad Blog Media 
May 23, 2020 at 10:49 am |
Herself says “Patrick out in the garden.” I says, ” was just out there and didn’t see him.” Herself says, “You didn’t dig deep enough.”
May 23, 2020 at 7:30 pm |
“The funny thing is, the lawn looks greener from underneath.”
May 23, 2020 at 11:02 am |
PO’G: Good to see your supplementing your cycling efforts with some whole body, range of motion, flexibility-inducing yard work! It’s one of the few things that allow you to see immediate, (hopefully) productive progress nowadays.
Nice looking bench too!! 🙂
May 23, 2020 at 7:32 pm |
The previous owner had one bench set up and the components for a second scattered about. I just brought all the pieces together.
Tell you what, though. All this fetchin’ an’ diggin’ is an awful lot like work.
May 23, 2020 at 11:22 am |
“junk elms”
Would those be American elms? Just askin’.
May 23, 2020 at 7:33 pm |
Them’s Siberian elms. They tell us all about how the Illuminati killed Vince Foster for the Trilateral Commission using Hillary’s private email server in Benghazi.
May 23, 2020 at 12:34 pm |
Ahhh. You have one of those coniferous trees also eh? I’ve got a bigger-than-the-house Doug Fir that produces a whole lot of needles, pine cones and sticky tree sap that holds the rickety deck together that said sap glops upon. I might suggest examining your fine bench for dollops of sap on those fine summer afternoons before sitting down. “Hey Sweety. I’ve had a hard day of riding. Before I change out of my new bib shorts I’m going to take my cold glass of lemonade and go sit down on the bench out back and watch the sunset.”
May 23, 2020 at 7:38 pm |
It’s Panic in Needle Park around here. Two big ’uns in back, two more up front. Sticky bastards they are too.
May 24, 2020 at 12:41 pm |
Needle Park? I thought that was on the South side of Tucson. Gee, I am a really cheery fellow today, heh?
May 23, 2020 at 6:02 pm |
Think it was John Lennon that yelled out at the end of a Beatles tune “I got blisters on my fingers!” No shit. Today I had these implements in hand and in use. Saws-all, various circular saws, hammer(s), impact driver, drill, crowbar(s), hoe, shovel, a tape measure that lies like hell and heavy wire cutters. I don’t want to talk about it…
May 23, 2020 at 7:41 pm |
Oof. Whatever you were doing it sounds worser than digging up Siberian elms, which have roots all the way to Irkutsk.
May 23, 2020 at 7:41 pm |
Measure twice, cut once, Grasshopper. Here is something else Mr. Lennon had to say.
May 24, 2020 at 11:48 am |
Jeezus I won’t say that tune was uplifting.
May 24, 2020 at 11:58 am |
One of favorites that still resonates today.
May 24, 2020 at 12:00 pm |
It’s a song about Trump family life. Nothing uplifting about that.
May 23, 2020 at 7:06 pm |
“But I digress.” Quite a digression.
May 23, 2020 at 7:42 pm |
My mind has been known to wander. The voices say, “Hey, this sounds fun,” and off we go.
May 24, 2020 at 4:22 pm |
Meanwhile, while NO one was looking summer crept into Michigan with a blowtorch. Hit 88 at my place today. As cold as spring has been it feels like we are being microwaved. No, it is not a dry heat as you sou’westers like to say. More like a sauna. But under a shade tree (leaves came out this week!) it feels just fine.
May 25, 2020 at 6:42 am |
That’s always a stunner when Yahweh flips the thermostat on your, innit? I think cold to hot is worser than hot to cold. With the latter, you can always put on more clothes. But there are only so many that you can take off without risking guffaws and/or arrest.
May 24, 2020 at 8:35 pm |
Went back and looked at that 2009 Iron Horse posting. Laughed my ass off. I wish I had been able to snag a 12th place in even the Race Around the Middle School at North Mesa. Sheesh.
May 25, 2020 at 6:40 am |
Glad you liked that one, Hoss. A moldy oldie, to be sure.
No Iron Hose this year, thanks to The Bug™, but some persistent cusses rode the route and then some.
May 25, 2020 at 9:25 am |
One of these years, if I don’t die first, I want to ride that route. What I’ll have to do is put the 12-30 on the front and the 50-34 on the back.