In the loo and adieu for you.
Hoo-boy. Pee-yew. That’n looks like a double-flusher to me. Might have to break out the plunger. Or a stick of DuPont Extra.
But it’s gotta go, come hell or high water, and I won’t miss it once it’s gone.
Twenty-fuckin’-20.
We put an old woman in a home. My foot in a splint. My cat in an urn. And our lives on hold.
We’re alive to bitch about it, which has to count for something. [Insert thunderous sound of knocking on wood here.] Plenty of other people aren’t.
Also, I finally made it to Social Security, so, yay for me. Plus Herself remains on the clock in a real big way, so, bonus. We want for nothing. Call it a lamp so that we need not curse the darkness from beneath our designer masks.
It feels greedy of me to miss my cat. Running. Road trips. Hot springs. Random acts of shopping. Long bicycle rides. Stand-up comedy. My favorite non-alcoholic beer. Bookstores. Mexican restaurants. Living in a country that helped defeat fascism, not resurrect it.
You know. The little things.
Still, I miss them. I do. And I don’t expect to get a lot of them back just like that, with a simple change of calendars, or administrations.
Especially my cat. Not unless Stephen King gets involved, and that’s a bridge too far for me. Turkish v1.0 could be scary enough.
We already have plenty to be scared of, thanks all the same.
Nevertheless, here we are, on the threshold of a new year. That I am not optimistic is not helpful. Time to show the affirming flame. We must love one another or die.
Tags: New Year's Eve 2020
Mad Blog Media 
December 31, 2020 at 11:15 am |
I like Charlie Sykes’ podcat title for today: F*ck 2020.
December 31, 2020 at 11:27 am |
There should have been a “courtesy flush” a little while back. The Bidens may have to bunk with Harris family for a few weeks while the stench is removed from the white house.
December 31, 2020 at 11:36 am |
I’d scrape it and start over. Some piles just won’t flush.
December 31, 2020 at 12:52 pm |
I’d start with steam cleaning the whole place from top to bottom. I recall one set of tenants we had in Honolulu that left us quite the mess and we pretty much had to acid-wash the whole place.
December 31, 2020 at 2:08 pm |
December 31, 2020 at 11:29 am |
Thank you for this. My sentiments exactly and not just about the negatives. I’m thankful for the good things in my life as well. Happy New Year, Patrick!
December 31, 2020 at 11:36 am |
Thanks to you, and to everyone else, for bearing with me over the course of another year.
Holy hell, have I ever been doing this bloggery nonsense for a long, long time. Eighteen years that I can prove, and I know there are more out there, wandering zombies lost in the digital wildnerness.
Anyway, slainte. To better days.
December 31, 2020 at 12:51 pm |
Well, in this year of living remotely, the blog has been great. Thanks for bringing us together so often, Patrick.
December 31, 2020 at 2:45 pm |
Couldn’t have done 2020 without you, Patrick. Thanks for hanging in there with the rest of us throughout the whole damned year, one that lasted far far too long. Hey, can we get a year ending cartoon?
December 31, 2020 at 6:55 pm |
So let it be scribbled, so let it be done. This is the last Bicycle Retailer cartoon of 2020. Click here for the big’un.
January 1, 2021 at 7:44 am |
That reminds me. BTI was supposed to have built me a set of wheels for this week. I will check tomorrow.
Happy 2021, all!
December 31, 2020 at 11:36 am |
This year I looked into the abyss of the afterlife., must not have cared for the view., Came back and am grateful. Dumped the Trumpster, Lost a couple of friends. But I am back to health, out of Physical Therapy looking forward to the 21st of January as reward for living through the end of the four interminable year of an incompetent president and his corrupt, incompetent and just plain stupid lackeys. I will celebrate by buying a 250.00 bottle of Macallans very fine 24 yr old single malt. Saying AMF to the Donald and Praying to the heathen Gods for a better year.. Good on ya Patrick and your kin, May 2021 be at least a better
December 31, 2020 at 11:46 am |
Och, laddie — the Macallan. Good stuff that. Mistri the Bartender loved it when the Bicycle Retailer mob started hollering for the top-shelf hootch at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Sin City, during Interbike. We left many a Scotch-soaked dollar (and brain cell) on her table. She was a pro and one of the few things I miss about boozing.
Raise one to yourself from me. The abyss can wait.
December 31, 2020 at 5:16 pm |
Glad you decided to stay with us, John.
As Bruce Cockburn said,
“Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
You gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight”
December 31, 2020 at 12:44 pm |
Good poem, and good analogy. We didn’t know it would be six long years and sixty million souls that time. Hopefully, this will be a shorter battle.
“It feels greedy for me to miss…” well when I think about all the little things, it is depressing as life gets a little shallower. That said, I am grateful for the big things: Both of us, knock on my wooden head, are still healthy. I still get the check from Uncle Sam every two weeks, Meena’s retirements are so far secure, the roof over our heads is paid for, the new dog is a joy that takes the darkness of the pandemic away a little bit. Biden beat Trump. Oh, and Buffalo beat New England twice!
Still though, as I stumble towards more advanced geezerhood, I have to wonder if this is the new future or a passing storm.
December 31, 2020 at 3:26 pm |
Before Covid – 2020 – After Donald. Is there a babe, born in a homeless shelter this past year, to lead us in time to a state of grace? As the good Dr Fauci said there are some dark days ahead but also, perhaps, the enlightenment.
December 31, 2020 at 5:20 pm |
With a tip of the brain bucket to my friends across the lake:
December 31, 2020 at 7:36 pm |
The COVID should get better by next fall. Dumpster ain’t done yet. He has 20 more days, and, as we all well know, there is no bottom with this sicko. Another attempted coup and more sedition on the menu again next week. So, 2021 is S2D2.
December 31, 2020 at 8:20 pm |
i’m listening to the locals launch what sounds like a serious artillery assault on the adjoining neighborhood. i hope you have a less grim new year!
January 1, 2021 at 12:35 am |
Not exactly Leonard Cohen but it’ll do for today:
It’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
And it’s one more day up in the canyon
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean
I guess I should
January 1, 2021 at 12:56 am |
Happy New Year to you Mr. POG, and to all you confused and misbegotten educated philosophers that visit Mr. O’Grady here at the chicken coop. It has been an apocalyptic and certainly not apolitical year. May we all attain our desires of a much improving world in the near future. I wish it could have been a better year for us. If I were to have a brief understanding of what it felt like when WWII ended, perhaps the end of this year may be considered a reflection of the time. We will get through it, but it’s hard not to forget all those we have left behind.
But as I wrap up, I gaze at the chronometer and see that I have 5 minutes before a new time descends upon where I am at – You mountain folks have already been dancing for 55 or so minutes. I must go know and perform my constitutional so that Donald is sent on his way. Oh yeah, and I need to load up the shotgun so that at the stroke of midnight I can send bird shot raining down on my re”pub”ican neighbors two blocks down from me.
Adieu !
January 3, 2021 at 11:30 am |
After reading an article in The Atlantic regarding Section 230,
(https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/trump-fighting-section-230-wrong-reason/617497/),
and although it is 2 days later, and out of respect and to hold harmless the fine lad that hosts this forum, I need to clarify that humor, and not action is my intent regarding the last sentence in my post above.