At ease, dad.
A historian, former ceremonial bugler, and Marylander (like Your Humble Narrator) explains the origins of “Taps.”
All is well, safely rest. …
May 29, 2023Throwing some Shade
May 28, 2023
The B-25J “Maid in the Shade
Photo lifted from the Commemorative Air Force
We had a blast from the past yesterday in The Duck! City.
As I was out riding trails on the Bianchi Zurigo Disc I heard a low-flying aircraft overhead. Glancing up I saw the unmistakable shape of a B-25 medium bomber rumbling northward.
The Auld Fella, Col. Harold J. O’Grady (USAF), got some time in the B-25 when he wasn’t working his day job flying C-47 Skytrains out of New Guinea during World War II (“The Big One”).
Introduced in 1941, the North American B-25 Mitchell was named in honor of Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell, as was the Bibleburg high school Your Humble Narrator attended without distinction during 1969-71.
This particular model, a B-25J dubbed “Maid in the Shade,” was based out of Serraggia Airbase in Corsica during 1944 and saw service over Italy, which was appropriate, as I was riding a Bianchi.
Happily, the Maid was unarmed, and I escaped unscathed to tell the story.
From hairballs to purrs
May 25, 2023
“We are adequately served. You may go now.”
O, Lord, sometimes a fella feels like he’s barefoot navigating a carpet spotted with hairballs in the dark.
Warner-Discovery bollixed its big switch from HBO Max to Max, forcing subscribers like Your Humble Narrator to dash hither and yon across the Internets, trying to figure out how we could enjoy “content” we were paying for but suddenly not receiving. Handy Household Hint to W-D execs: As error messages go, “Something went wrong” is just a wee bit vague.
E. Lawn Mulch stepped on his own dingus (yet again) with a rapid unscheduled disassembly of Ronald DeSadist’s pestilential campaign on Twatter Spaces. I expect various minions, varlets, and knaves (if any remain) were promptly laid off and escorted from the Twatter offices (for which rent is not being paid). Look for DeSadist to ban Twatter in Florida.
At Verizon, which is shedding customers, employees in “customer experience, loyalty, and technology positions” have been advised to prepare for “transition to the next stage of your career journey.” Your call is important to us. Or not.
Meanwhile, in the vast retail/services landscape, there is at least one happy customer. Miss Mia Sopaipilla got an A++ in her most recent visit to the vet and gives the chef’s kiss — muah! — to her bedcave.
Is there a Meow as well as a Yelp? I’m looking forward to a glowing review.
‘Anti-fat-bastard cream there is none’
May 19, 2023
It’s bucketing down.
Almost a quarter-inch of rain in the past 48 hours! We’ll happily take this little gift from the gods, especially since there’s a chance the Rio will run dry again this year thanks to (a) dust on snow and (2) no storage for the early snowmelt.
The day dawned gray and gloomy, but by noontime Tlaloc had shut off the water works, and I was feeling a tad cabin-feverish and a bit peckish all simultaneous-like.
“Should we go for a jiggety-jog or segue straight into lunch?” I asked Herself.
“A jiggety-jog it is. And keep up, you fat bastard,” she replied, having just learned that “The Full Monty” is getting a 25-years-later reboot as an eight-episode Disney+ TV miniseries.
Ah, not s’bad. …
Herself didn’t actually address Your Humble Narrator in this disrespectful fashion, of course.
The “fat bastard” line is from “The Full Monty” and spoken by the slender Gaz, who is taunting portly Dave during a run as they try to get in shape for a one-off gig as bargain-basement Chippendales.
The original flick also contains a memorable line from Dave: “Anti-wrinkle cream there may be, but anti-fat-bastard cream there is none.”
Truer words, etc.
Big wheel keeps on turnin’
May 18, 2023
The Celestial Gardener is fixin’ to turn on the sprinklers.
Kind of a gloomy morning — we got a wee bit of drizzle last evening, and there’s more in the forecast.
If that pulls a Team Cinzano on the old bikey ridey for a couple of days it’s tough titty for Your Humble Narrator because The Duck! City’s flora and fauna need the moisture. Just because the feds and the Colorado Water Compact states are talking to each other doesn’t mean they’re listening.
Also, weather like this is why Odin invented SKS fenders. And running shoes.
In other news:
• The Journal devoted a little ink to the demise of the Bike Coop; nothing we didn’t already know, but still, damn.
• Another item you’ve probably already seen: A lone cyclist heckles the Patriot Front peacocks in DeeCee and a grateful nation thanks him. If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out the video. The PF parade looks like a community-college production of “Springtime for Hitler” in Gator Bait, Florida.
• And finally, Save the Elena Gallegos wins a second round in its battle with The Duck! City over its plan to erect a “visitor/education center” in our beloved open space, where Your Humble Narrator frequently recreates. The place gets plenty visitors as it is and we have the Internets for education, thanks all the same.
Happy Mothers Day
May 14, 2023
Good times, bad times
May 13, 2023
The wind woke me at midnight, a reminder that despite the warnings from the National Weather Service I had neglected to take down the wind chimes and hummingbird feeders and store the patio furniture’s cushions in their plastic footlocker.
But I’m a light sleeper, and thought drowsily, “Oh, well. How bad could it be?” And rolled over and went back to sleep.
Pretty bad, as it turns out.
About three hours later it sounded like God thought He was John Bonham and our house was His drum kit and it was time to perform “Moby Dick.” The long version.
Well. When God wants to rock out, you gotta get up and dance.
We figured that if the thundering blew us out of a sound sleep, it was probably scaring the bejaysis out of Miss Mia Sopaipilla, who overnights in the half-bath, where a goodly wind can set the fan vent a-flapping like a hi-hat cymbal.
Naturally, she couldn’t have cared less. Nothing scares Miss Mia. But she was delighted to find out that we had suddenly become lovers of the wee small hours like her and immediately set about performing her morning rituals, albeit a few hours early.
Outside, the cushions were up against a wall — we got lucky, the worst of the wind was coming from the south, or else they’d have been spotted flying in formation over the San Luis Valley — but the backyard trees lost a few limbs and our young pistache was bobbing and weaving like a stoner in the front row at Madison Square Garden in 1973.
So I stabilized it with a couple rubber bungee straps, stuffed the cushions in their footlocker, and collected the hummingbird feeders. Then Herself and I stumbled back to bed.
This dude got blown away last year.
Well, that pissed off Miss Mia, who hates a party-pooper the way Clarence Thomas hates feeling a little light in the wallet pocket. And for the next couple of hours she shared her feelings with us at some volume, sounding like Robert Plant wearing pants three sizes too small, until we finally said to hell with it and got up for good.
It was then that I noticed the wind had peeled the outer layer off our “Save the Elena Gallegos” yard sign to reveal a campaign pitch for Khalid Emshadi, a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives, who got blown away last year by incumbent Democrat Elizabeth Thomson.
No such thing as an ill wind, I guess.
Spring training
May 8, 2023
I haven’t ridden this one yet.
It was a good week on the bike.
Actually, make that “bikes.”
The red Steelman Eurocross, Jones, and Sam Hillborne all enjoyed some quality springtime during the week, and the New Albion Privateer got the nod on Sunday.
Nothing outlandish, mind you. I’m not training for anything; just trying to avoid collapsing into a smelly heap of bone splinters and bad ideas. We’re talking 90 minutes per outing, or thereabouts, with a thousand or so feet of vertical gain, and an average speed that wouldn’t impress anyone, especially me.
I’ve never been what you would call fast, but I’ve been faster.
“Listen up, you kids, don’t make me stop this tree and come back there.”
Still, who cares? The idea is to be above ground and moving around, amirite? You know what my dad was doing when he was my age? Nothing! Because he had been dead for seven years.
So when Herself and I rolled out for our Sunday ride we were focused not on heart rate, average speed, or mileage, but on how many Gambel’s quail we might see (that would be a half-dozen, plus a couple deer).
Back at the ranch we have hummingbirds re-enacting the Battle of Midway around our three feeders, finches of various types bellied up to two tubes of birdseed while the doves prowl the ground for dropped morsels, and a northern flicker feeding babies bunkered up in a dead limb on our backyard maple.
And our young Chinese pistache tree is coming along, too.
It’s starting to get warm, so I expect we’ll start seeing buzzworms soon. But it’s OK. Every garden has its snake. Just steer clear of the fruit stand.
¡Que viva Puebla!
May 5, 2023
We’ve got visitors.
It’s Cinco de Mayo, which is not the Mexican Fourth of July, though Americans treat it as comparable, even adding it to their National What the Hell Let’s Drink & Drive Party Calendar.
The neighbors, the ones with the kids, have decided to throw a fiesta in the cul-de-sac this year, possibly because an uncle from Colorado was coming down to do the Turquoise Trail Burro Race at Cerrillos.
• Read “The Treasure of the Sierra Mojada,” in which I recount my own experience as a burro racer.
The uncle got here yesterday and his burros were quite the draw for our sleepy little ’hood.
My man Hal Walter will not be participating in tomorrow’s race at Cerrillos — he will drive pretty much anywhere at the drop of a sombrero, and will drop it himself if need be.
But he is busy retrieving his son Harrison from Colorado Mountain College this weekend; the kid just finished his first year of postsecondary education and will be spending the summer at the family’s Crusty County rancheroo.
This evening, Hal and Harrison will be motoring from Leadville back to Weirdcliffe, the uncle and the burros will return to the cul-de-sac, and we’ll have some quality neighbor time and medium-light refreshments to commemorate the ass-whuppin’ that General Ignacio Zaragoza and his troops laid on the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
One time, one night in America.
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