Dark-thirty at the DogHaus.
Tuesday is “Pay Your Dues Day” at El Rancho Pendejo.
Herself gets up at stupid-thirty to prepare for the first of two weekly 10-hour shifts at the Death Star, and somebody has to make her breakfast and lunch. I keep hoping this somebody will turn up and clock in, but nix.
So I crawl out of my coffin like a dime-store Dracula with the insomnia, head out to that kitchen, and rattle those pots and pans.
By this time Herself has brewed a cup of what she calls “coffee,” given Miss Mia Sopaipilla an amuse-bouche, and returned to her sanctum sanctorum. So I toast a thick slice of bread, slather it with Irish butter and French jam, and deliver it posthaste. Miss Mia gets a butter-finger out of this and another small helping of cat food.
Next it’s lunch, which is usually leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. But honey-chipotle chicken tacos with black beans and Mexican rice seemed a tad aromatic for a business lunch, and so this morning I whipped up a basic tuna salad and built her a sandwich with provolone, lettuce, and tomato, plus a side of watermelon chunks.
Miss Mia is always very interested in tuna or anything even vaguely tuna-adjacent, so she got a couple tidbits in the process.
After Herself hits the door running at 5:30 I’m free to do whatever. Going back to bed always seems attractive, but so does a midafternoon nap, and what the hell, I’m already up.
So I have a couple mugs of authoritative black joe and sit in the dark living room for a while, half-listening as the birds sing up the sun, Miss Mia snores on the back of the couch, and the voices in my head start tuning up.
This is the sweet spot of a Tuesday morning. No NPR, no Zoom meetings, no phone calls, no online exercise/yoga classes … just the Dog, the Cat, and the Voices. And the distant grumble of traffic, which is someone else’s bête noire.
Going nowhere fast is just my speed on a Tuesday morning. I’ve paid the toll and everything.
Tags: Herself, Miss Mia Sopaipilla
Mad Blog Media 
August 2, 2022 at 7:59 am |
I like your idea better than mine. Read the story in the New Mex about the jury throwing the book at Fabian Gonzales for the Victoria Martens butchery and wanted to pound on the walls and scream. But my better half and her sister, who is here visiting, were still asleep. And the neighbors probably don’t want to think a madman is living next door.
August 2, 2022 at 3:42 pm |
I can’t read those stories. I think they’re hazardous to mental health. They’re why I didn’t last long on the police beat (and why there are cop bars and newspaper bars, or used to be, when there were still newspapers).
And I don’t think there’s much, if anything, that newspapers or cops or anyone else can do to prevent these horrors. Some people are just wrong from birth and others get that way down their rocky roads a piece. If you could snatch them off the conveyor belt like bum product the world would be a better place, but I don’t know how you get there without mind-readers.
And then the mind-readers will need their own bars too.
August 2, 2022 at 6:49 pm |
I never wanted to have kids because my parents made sure all of us brothers needed serious mental health repairs as adults; I didn’t want to inflict my own fuckeduppedness on another generation. It staggers me that as lousy as my kidness was, we were mild cases of dysfunction compared to what goes on in New Mexico.
I got called for jury duty once in Hawaii for a domestic violence case. Tried to get off claiming preexisting conditions. Judge would not buy it and I ended up as jury foreman.
Drugs, poverty, illiteracy, violence, worst schools in the nation. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’m on the Public Safety Committee up here in Fanta Se. I have a lot of respect for those cop bars and if there are reporter bars, those too. Its not fun.
August 2, 2022 at 8:21 am |
Good on ya! Stay in the center.
Me? Strapped on the wrist weights and went for a brisk walk. Then some house cleaning. Then some strumming on the new guitar. Yea, went into the guitar store, gave them my wallet, and told them to take what they need. Brace yourself Patrick. My guitar mentor talked me out of the GS Mini, so with a few extra bucks in my hand, I went and bought a Martin 00-15. It’s a disease I tell you!
August 2, 2022 at 3:46 pm |
Well done, sir. I was gonna go for a run but then I decided to bike instead.
I didn’t buy a Martin 00-15, either. Hoo, that rascal’s purdy. Tell us how you like it when you’ve got some time in.
August 2, 2022 at 5:26 pm |
Paddy Me Boyo: Gotta ask …. tongue in cheek …. do guitar shops do “fittings” like bike shops? Just think of the opportunities to improve your talents with a proper guitar fitting! OK … sorry … apologies… rubber side down …. or is it strumming side up??!! 🙂
August 2, 2022 at 8:25 pm |
Hi JD. No fittings for guitars. But, ergonomics is important. Body size, string tension, and reach on the neck are important to make a guitar comfortable to play. Without getting all geeky, that’s why it’s important to play a guitar before you buy it. You will quickly feel if it is comfortable to play and sounds like you want it to. Just like riding a bike before you buy it.
August 3, 2022 at 6:10 am |
Pat: Thanks …. I’d always wondered about that. Makes sense.
August 2, 2022 at 11:16 am |
Your Tuesday sounds like heaven. Got up at about 6 ate an English muffin with sausage, cheese and over easy egg then did an hour of strength and stretches for the new knee watched the news, and tried to cry but it just gets more stupid each day. now for the second round of S & S. then head to m physical therapy this afternoon. Then drag my carcass home and hope to have leftovers for dinner. Soon will start doing real walking on real ground.
August 2, 2022 at 3:49 pm |
You did the knee? How’s it (and you) holding up? I think I told you a neighbor is having one of his done … or he would be, if his surgeon hadn’t injured his cutting arm the day before the operation was scheduled. The surgery got put off 45 days, and I think it’s been put off again.
Stick with the PT, Hoss. I’ll tell the world, it makes recovery from just about anything so much easier. That and the homemade McMuffins.
August 2, 2022 at 11:21 am |
Makes for a long day. I’m sure that well-needed afternoon siesta is very welcome and a great pick me up. I hope you are able to prepare a side of grub for yourself at the same time. And you get to enjoy the fragrant, spicy tacos as a bonus!!
August 2, 2022 at 3:51 pm |
Not as long as Herself’s day down at the Death Star. She’s in a secure location, can’t have her phone or any other personal electronics, and getting in and out of the place is all James Bondish and whatnot.
And I missed my nap, dagnabbit! Had to run a few chores after the morning bike ride and they burned more daylight than I had hoped. My suffering knows no bounds, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.
August 2, 2022 at 7:33 pm |
You wuz robbed!! Hope you get the siesta next time! A ten hour shift would not be my thing. Sometimes I had to work 2 hours overtime for a total of 10 hours and then I wouldn’t get home until 2:30 AM. Most of my overtime was in the form of 8 hour days. I never volunteered; just “forced” due to lack of volunteers and juniority. I found out that my supervisor was ignoring the labor agreement. She was very angry when I told her she was to use a list and rotate through it instead of “forcing” me all the time. She never expected me to find out she was abusing the collective bargaining agreement.
August 2, 2022 at 8:10 pm |
I worked four 10s for a while, though I can’t remember where. I do remember not minding it, because once I was already on the job, the day was shot all to hell anyway, so two more hours was no big deal … especially if I got three days off as a consequence.
People will take advantage, though, collective bargaining agreement or no. Newspapers were basically pirate ships and we swabs were always one dropped marlinspike or poorly tied bowline away from a vigorous keelhaulin’, arrr.
August 2, 2022 at 9:15 pm |
I can rarely remember getting out of the factory, whether it be the U of Hawaii or the LANL Bomb Factory, in eight hours. So schlepping along an extra hour or two in return for having a short work week was great.
August 2, 2022 at 2:23 pm |
You are a well trained Dog indeed and that is how one stays in nuptial bliss for all those years eh? From the descriptions of your cooking and food prep…most of us would marry you straight off. Or at least make you a frequent house guest. If my wife found me making a samich at 5:30 am for her lunch she’d faint on the spot. But I am quick to fetch her a custom Gin & Tonic when she looks like she needs it.
I too enjoy sittlng in a quiet stupor when first arriving in the new day without any goddamn noise from any electronics or people for that matter. Ease on into consciousness….consider and reject those things that Must Be Done. And then follow the course of action with the least amount of stress which will mean a regime of stretching followed by either an hour on the standup board if the waters are flat or maybe a 15 mile spin on the bike.
August 2, 2022 at 3:59 pm |
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, hey? She makes the moneys, I make the sammiches. It’s fair.
I’d make her a G&T too, if she wanted one. But she’s happy with a beer at happy hour and a glass of rosé with dinner.
I have to take that slow boat to consciousness if I get up before 6 a.m. It’s like watching an old Mac boot up. There’s some noise, maybe a bad smell, and not much happens for a while. But finally, if you’re lucky, you get something you can work with, even if its date and time are set to a previous millennium.
August 3, 2022 at 3:29 am |
Loved your comparison to an old Mac!
Thanks. Keep ‘em coming.
August 2, 2022 at 7:44 pm |
Life here in Crested Butte is easy but not free. Just waiting to not have to go down to the basement office and do work(?) for the man. Soon
August 2, 2022 at 8:02 pm |
Usuk! I don’t see your name on the list of entrants for masters nats down here this week. Have you retired from the bike racing? Say it ain’t so!
And now you’re thinking about pulling the plug on the shop? Now that there’s a Trader Joe’s next door? Chihuahua, ese! How many days a week do you get to chill in Crusty Butt? And how many days a week does Hal call up trolling for free shit?
August 2, 2022 at 10:16 pm |
I think we need a reunion.
https://maddogmedia.com/2019/03/07/dogging-it-at-the-santa-fe-century/
August 3, 2022 at 10:04 pm |
Patrick, the knee is doing well so the pt and doc told me. but this is the 5th set of rehab and you forget how much it hurts to feel better. But it is looser and more stable day by day. Joy of joy in 10 days will be on the Bosu ball and exercise ball for strength and balance workouts, plus the PT people are using the electrical stimulation device to really blast the quad. think 30 minutes uphill at 10-15 percent grade twice a day one legged pedaling with a 53 -12 gearing.. loads of fun But in general, I am pleased but whiner that I am I want to feel better NOW DAMMIT,
August 7, 2022 at 8:36 pm |
Careful wishing for rain in the desert. I did and got 1.5 inches in about 30 minutes along with quarter sized hail and 50 mph wind gusts. Might be some cars on sale tomorrow at the dealers in town.