April is the cruellest month

April 8, 2022 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

“This is not the Door into Summer,” observes Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

One of Robert A. Heinlein’s lesser-known (and mildly creepy) novels, “The Door into Summer,” takes its name from the protagonist’s snow-phobic cat, who is forever looking for same.

We have one of those, too. Miss Mia Sopaipilla has never been an outside cat — she tours the yard on a harness now and again — but she does love a nice sunny indoor spot on a cool April morning. And after she’s had a nibble, a nap, and another nibble, she insists that I escort her to one with all possible haste.

Thing is, Miss Mia is almost always a few steps ahead of the sun, which doesn’t really give us much love until around 9 a.m. this time of year. So we have to visit the living room, the spare bedroom, and the master bedroom to take sun samples until, like Goldilocks, she finds the spot that’s just right.

Piece of Cake

April 7, 2022 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

OK, I know you folks floating around out there in the Innertubes are dying to know all the deets about the exotic life of the retired velo-scribbler.

So, hold my fake beer and dig this:

Yesterday I went to Lowe’s for some lawn soil to spread over the recently seeded bare patches in the yard and gave ’em a good watering, then mowed the healthier bits of grass. Later I cooked up a big ol’ pot of jambayala.

This morning I toasted and tea’d Herself, who has a full day at the lab. Then I fed and watered Miss Mia Sopaipilla, giving her a few head-bumps in a sunny spot for dessert, and emptied her litter box.

Next I got a loaf of bread going and set about watering a few shrubs and one tree out front, using SuperDuper! to back up The Main Mac to an external drive, downloading an OS update, and washing the breakfast dishes (two cups of strong black coffee and one of strong black tea will lead to multitasking).

And now the garbage is going out. Boom! You can’t stop me, so don’t even try.

I hate to go all Hollywood on you little people like this, but I figure the few of you who still have jobs deserve to know how I’m pissing away your Social Security contributions on my rock-’n’-roll lifestyle.

Particularly bad

April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

The tumbleweeds are not exactly tumbling. More like launching
into low-Earth orbit.

My, but the airborne particulates is fierce around here.

The terra is not too firma lately. It gets up and flits around The Duck! City at 50 or 60 miles per hour, and the pollen goes along for the ride. Together they do drive-bys on everyone’s eyeballs and snotlockers. Snurk, hyyyunk, auuughhhh, honk, gaaack, ptui, etc. I may be compelled to take drugs.

No, not that drug, though I may be alone in that regard. I hear New Mexico’s mota dealers moved a few millions in product the first few days recreational weed was legal here. Makes my youthful adventures in retailing look like a lemonade stand on a dead-end street.

But I’ll stick to my fake beer and Claritin-D, thanks all the same. Get back to me when you legalize microdosing of psilocybin, mescaline, and the ol’ L-S-Dizzy. I don’t know that I want to throw open the doors of perception, as in days of yore, but I wouldn’t mind a little peek through the windows now and then.

The pause that refreshes

April 3, 2022 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 27 Comments

Sure hope y’all didn’t pay no ransom. I wasn’t kidnapped or nothin’ — just decided to check myself out for a little digital detox.

The voices in my head were starting to win most of our arguments, so I swerved the clown car into the breakdown lane and rassled them sumbitches into the trunk, let ’em bounce around in there with the spare tire and all those old whoopie cushions until they remembered who’s driving this rig and shut the fuck up.

I know, poor loser. But my head, my rules.

If it’s been a while since you aimed the leaf blower at the darker corners of your brain-box you might give ’er a whirl. I quit doomscrolling the Innertubes, turned off the TV and NPR, even shelved the magazines and books. All that input had my output by the plums with a downhill pull. When the only channel the palantír gets is Radio Free Mordor it’s time to shut ’er down for maintenance.

Now we’re back on the old Highway to Hell at a safe and sane 666 mph and I don’t feel like I have to flip the bird at every single billboard. Ain’t hearing shit from the trunk, neither.