“During the early hours on Tuesday, darkness will slip across the face of the moon before it turns a deep blood red. No, it isn’t an Election Day omen — it’s one of the most eye-catching sights in the night sky.”
Not an omen. Ho ho ho, etc. As if. Fake news!
Then why was the moon a decadent orange during the early hours of this morning as it slipped behind a neighbor’s house?
And why were there Trumpkins scattered along my hiking route this afternoon? I saw at least three, among them the one leering at you from the top of this post.
And finally, why is KUNM bitch-slapping me with “Here Comes the Night?” right this minute? And not the good one, by Them, but some two-bit tosser’s take on the 1964 classic (featuring Van Morrison).
“Well, here it comes … here comes the night.”
So soon? I’m not ready for the night. What else you got, Ma?
How quintessentially capitalistic of you, Ma. Sell me the disease with one hand and the treatment with the other. A mindfulness methadone clinic for the hopeless news addict. This morning’s shaman is this afternoon’s snake-oil salesman.
Here comes the night? Got a news flash for ya, Ma. It’s already here.
Sorel, God of Cold Feet, paid us a surprise visit last night.
Hard to believe the glider boyos were cruising the friendly skies just the other day.
The day before Halloween Herself and I saw three gliders working the thermals near the Menaul trailhead.
But Halloween has come and gone. We “fall back” on Sunday, and then slide at high speed into Thanksgiving, winter solstice, and Christmas. It ain’t always sandals-and-shorts weather, even in The Duck! City.
I’m not ready. I never am. I used to race in this shit? When? Was I still on drugs?
Herself is made of sterner stuff. She bundled up and sallied forth with a fellow Democrat to distribute campaign literature.
Comrade Eeyore is likewise on the hustings, telling The Guardian that Democrats “have not done a good enough job of reaching out to young people and working-class people and motivating them to come out and vote in this election.”
Hey, comrade, Herself is no passenger in this garbage scow. Ain’t her fault the officers are all rumdums.
Being of the Vanguard, I was needed here at Headquarters to propagandize over hot tea and a Taos Bakes bar. Arise, ye prisoners of starvation, and fetch me another mug of tea.
While I await the Revolution I’m also baking a loaf of bread so I don’t have to stand in line for it like the proles.
Here in a bit I’ll go for a run, if only because I never know when I might have to. It’s all this weather is good for. You can’t ski in it, or make snowballs with it, so you might as well pound ground, keep the muscle memory sharp.
The forecast for the day after Election Day is not encouraging. We may be feeling the heat, but not in a good way. I’m thinking of feet held to the fire.
I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps to avoid the full moon/total lunar eclipse on Election Day? Cthulhu only knows who — or what — might turn up at the polling place come Tuesday.
“He sure does, Gustav old scout, and let’s hope he stays there.”
Of course, we could’ve just skipped voting entirely. Plenty of people do.
Others pick losers and then claim the game is rigged, try to tip over the table, send the cards and chips flying.
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
Clearly these knuckleheads have never been to Las Vegas. There are always losers. If there were not, the Paiutes would still hold the mortgage on the place.
And has anyone else noticed that when these gardeners spreading their fertilizer around the Tree of Liberty actually win, they’re totally cool with it?
“Huh? ‘Stop the steal?’ How’d you like to stop some lead, fella? Looks like Hillary forgot to hit ‘save’ after she had the Illuminati reprogram the Dominion machines for the Chicoms, huh? (singing) Gonna hang George Soros from a sour apple tree. …”
And the game continues.
There are times when it feels that it’s not the arm you’re working on that cherry-popping bandit in Uncle Sam’s Casino. But it’s the only game in town.
And what the hell? If you don’t play, you can’t win.
All Hallows’ Eve at El Rancho Pendejo was a total blowout, but not the kind one hopes for.
Some aspect of PNM’s power project in the ’hood unplugged half the cul-de-sac, including our place.
Around midmorning I saw a few trucks pull in and park, disgorging their hard-hatted contents into a neighbor’s yard. And so when a couple minutes later The Compound went dark I trotted out into my yard and spied them beavering away at some task beyond the wall.
“Hey, guys, the power’s out here,” I sez to ’em I sez.
“Oopsie,” they sez to me they sez, or something very much not like that.
Over we go.
Long story short, an autopsy found a transformer had been terminated with extreme prejudice and would not arise in three days or even three years. It would have to be replaced.
In case you were wondering, this is a tad more complicated than swapping in a new fuse after you try to run the box fan and hair dryer simultaneously in the ol’ singlewide.
The defunct transformer was in some impossible cranny in the yard, because of course it was, and the hard hats couldn’t just sherpa a new one in there. Superman was taking a meeting with James Gunn and Peter Safran at Warner Bros-DC, and the Hulk said he wouldn’t work on Halloween.
“This is gonna take some doing,” grumbled one hard hat, giving me the side-eye. Hey, boss, I didn’t hammer a stake topped with a Hillary 2024 placard through your transformer’s heart. I was camped in my office, pounding out the fake news, and free of charge, too.
Or I was until the power went out, anyway.
But I keed, I keed.
What happened next was nothing short of amazing.
We — or at least I — have grown accustomed to the “sucks to be you” school of customer service. “We can pencil you in for between midnight and 4 a.m. on Feb. 31st, if that works for you, or even if it doesn’t.” That sort of thing.
But these dudes got right after it. They disappeared for a while, and I was anticipating a long wait for them to return, perhaps bearing electricity, or more likely, excuses.
Nope. In fairly short order the cul-de-sac was clogged with pickups and flatbeds and a big-ass crane, and before you could say “Thomas Edison” the crane was hoisting a new transformer over the neighbor’s roof and into the yard.
Jack-o-taillights.
As dark fell the hard hats were eating pizza from boxes on the hoods of the trucks, and we were eating jambalaya from bowls, and everyone was watching the crane operator perform his magic.
“That’s something you don’t see every day, hey?” said a hard hat.
For real.
We lit our plastic pumpkin with battery-powered Cygolite tail lights, brightened the front walk with their companion headlights, and used a couple rechargeable lanterns indoors (Biolite and Nite Ize).
But with all the goings-on in the cul-de-sac most of the neighborhood trick-or-treaters decided to give us a pass. Herself handed out some treats to the hard hats, but we have plenty left over. It was easily our worst turnout since the height of the Plague Years.
But the power’s back on, and the hard hats popped round this morning to double-check their work. Well done indeed.
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