The maple shares the eastern horizon with blue sky
and a few clouds … for now.
The furnace was chugging away when I woke up this morning. This, after some days of riding around and about in knickers and arm warmers. (Not the furnace. Me.)
Our weather widget in the kitchen told me the temp outside was smack dab at freezing — 32° Fahrenheit. No wonder I was wearing pants, socks, and a long-sleeved shirt, I mused.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla says she would like her meals delivered.
In my office Miss Mia Sopaipilla was tucked away in the Situation Room, monitoring developments, largely through closed eyelids.
The forecast calls for snow, which some of you are already enjoying. Any inclination I might have to bitch about it is tempered by the ongoing grim news about the state of the Rio Grande, which is likely to be drier than the proverbial popcorn fart this summer. Pinning our hopes on a stout monsoon season seems about like asking Santa Claus to lay a few bazillion gallons on us. We have not been good girls and boys.
Speaking of water, if you are fortunate enough to find yourself restricted to the great indoors by inclement weather you might have a sip from this week’s episode of Desert Oracle Radio. Ken Layne discusses the “accidental miracles” that spared so much of the American Southwest’s mountains and deserts from growth for growth’s sake, which Ed Abbey dubbed “the ideology of the cancer cell.”
Then change channels to KLZR-FM in Weirdcliffe, where my man Hal Walter — who seems to be Mister Multimedia these days — chats with Gary Taylor about the joys of running and other things.
Hal is enjoying a bit of snow himself up to Weirdcliffe rather than running his ass off at the Desert Donkey Dash in Tombstone, Ariz., where the forecast is for a high in the 70s. If he has any regrets about this as he feeds the woodstove he is keeping them to himself.
Tags: Desert Oracle Radio, drought, Hal Walter, KLZR-FM, Rio Grande
Mad Blog Media 
April 17, 2021 at 9:58 am |
Went to Tucson yesterday to have lunch with my uncle who is visiting from Illinois. It was 73 up there yesterday. He was wearing shorts and a T shirt, and I was sporting jeans and a turtleneck. That’s what I get for 40 years of living in the high desert. Snow? Send some down here. We will take water in any form.
April 17, 2021 at 10:30 am |
73° must feel pretty damn good to someone from Illinois. I don’t mind it myself. Won’t be seeing that around here for a few days.
Happily, I made a pot of hominy stew last night, so we’re good to go.
April 17, 2021 at 12:54 pm |
Does Our Oracle speed up his delivery? He sounds like someone who went through a month’s worth of weed in one night.
Last time I read about the Owens Valley was in Marc Reisner’s “Cadillac Desert”. This is interesting.
April 17, 2021 at 1:18 pm |
“Night … has fallen … on the desert.”
Nope, that’s pretty much it. My man takes his time. I find it relaxing. But then I like Tom Waits.
April 17, 2021 at 1:40 pm |
I can’t stand listening to any podcast on anything other than Overcast. Dude tweaked the audio so 1.5x actually sounds like the original just faster, instead of Alvin and the Chipmunks. It also adjusts on the fly, self-tuning depending on micro-dead air.
But having said that … yeah, half the appeal of DOR is the delivery. Makes you think more slowly and deliberately.
There’s a Northern Exposure where Chris-in-the-Morning talks about his missing year. At one point, he spent a month naked in a cave in the Jemenez Mountains, grazing on all fours. “You think more slowly when you graze.”
April 17, 2021 at 1:41 pm |
(Itchy “post comment” finger)
Anyway, DOR is grazing for your mind.
April 17, 2021 at 2:22 pm |
What a shame “Northern Exposure” isn’t available for streaming. We have most, if not all, of the show on DVD, but after streaming, DVDs seem like smoke signals, log drums, or semaphore flags.
April 17, 2021 at 4:26 pm
Can’t remember the other two, but read somewhere that there were 3 excellent shows, one of which was NX, that were too good for streaming. Problem is they had heavily curated soundtracks, so the licensing fees were both too expensive and too unwieldy to re-release. And the producers cared too much about the product to allow an overdubbed version.
I think Ed, the bowling alley lawyer show, was one of the others.
April 17, 2021 at 5:19 pm
Yep. Complicated music rights did for “NX” and “Ed,” a show I never even heard of, much less watched. Judging by the rooting around I did online, it seems to have been well thought of.
The good news is, you can watch a ton of caped-crusader crapola pretty much anywhere, anytime. Sigh.
April 17, 2021 at 1:24 pm |
If you live in the west or southwest, do not Google “fuel-moisture content” unless you want to be totally depressed for the rest of 2021. Not looking good for this summer.
April 17, 2021 at 2:13 pm |
Here’s another scary one, from John Fleck: A “holy shit” moment for Lake Mead and anyone who uses it.
April 17, 2021 at 2:17 pm |
Dead pool, here we come….
April 17, 2021 at 8:25 pm |
Everyone who payed attention to the science knew it was coming. We have 9 years to dodge the worst of it. We can all do a little, and have been for years. But, it hasn’t been enough. While other folks just can’t have enough.
April 18, 2021 at 9:35 am |
Ain’t we a cheery bunch? Time to lace up the boots and head into Brown Canyon for a little “dirt time” to clear the mind and once again verify my place in the universe.
April 18, 2021 at 10:00 am |
Speaking of places in the universe, Elon Musk better work the kinks out of his Mars bus right quick. We gon’ need us another piece a property directly. This one is starting to look like a repo.
April 18, 2021 at 9:53 am |
Oh that was close. While I was reading I had to go out and move my sprinkler. I let it spray all night so that my green grass stays nice and green. If I didn’t it would fade to the natural background color of “dry” brown. I just couldn’t have that. I mean, water isn’t too expensive here. Our supply is the watershed in the hills to the southwest of my area. There’s plenty of water up there. I mean we got all that snow and everything. I think there’s enough anyway. My lawn is such a small lawn and I don’t know what my dog would do without green lawn.
April 18, 2021 at 10:25 am |
The Universe failed to bless us with rain and/or snow last night. The weatherperson must have been studying the wrong entrails. One gets the impression that the desert wishes we would all piss off back to Europe, or at least the East Coast.