The Bloo Voodoo Wazoo on Friday, before Old Man Winter laid his icy breath on the ’hood.Break out the sled, hon’, the dog’s rarin’ to go.
One minute you’re tooling around in the Duke City dust, peeling off layers under sunny skies, and the next it’s 10-percenting all over the lawn.
Snowpocalypse it isn’t, but we’ll take every milliliter of moisture we can get.
In a few days we’ll be back at the New Normal — 50s and sunny — and the chains will return to singing “How Dry I Am.”
I may go for a run in this winter wonderland, and then again I may not. I feel like Herself is trying to share her cold with me, the trails may be treacherous, and you know how it is with the elderly, pneumonia and broken hips.
… because pictures of cute kitty-cats are proven to take the sting out of bad news. I read it on the Internet.
Headlines like these are among the reasons why I’m glad I don’t work in tourism or law enforcement. It must be a bitch, coaxing the rubes here for a visit only to mop them up later somewhere along the Mother Road.
It’s gonna be tough for the Duke City to become a “world-class community,” whatever the hell that is, if the locals keep croaking the visitors and everybody can read all about it in the daily blat.
Maybe the city can contract with Sandia National Labs to develop some sort of nuclear street sweeper, a disintegration beam to erase the corpus delicti before the scribes can tally a body count.
“Bob who?” replies the desk sergeant with a quizzical expression. “Nope, nobody by that name in the blotter. We haven’t had a homicide reported all year. Maybe he moseyed on through and up to Bibleburg. They’re killing ’em like crazy up there.”
And why not? It was nearly 60 degrees. Seriously. In January.
I was slouching around El Rancho Pendejo, doing bits of this and that — retaping the handlebar on my Soma Saga Disc, giving the cats a good airing, lunching on some leftover farfalle with sausage, mushrooms and peas — when I noticed the day was slipping away from me.
Or, more accurately, was reminded of it.
Remember seven-speed freewheels? They still work.
“I thought you were going to ride your bike,” intoned Herself, who was in full-on chores mode and eager to see me on my way, as filth and clutter trail me like Homeland Security.
And so I did.
I’d planned a longish ride on the Saga, but instead took the Voodoo Wazoo for a short spin on the southern foothill trails, between ERP and I-40.
Stripped of its townie regalia and sporting a pair of 700×42 Continental CrossRides the Wazoo is almost the perfect rig for these trails, even given the tallish 38×28 low end; it’s easy to forget that’s all the granny I’ve got, which can be an issue at stall point on a dusty, twisting, narrow, occasionally rocky trail packed with pedestrians bearing dogs off leash and babies in backpacks and whatnot.
But all were in an expansive mood, it being nearly 60 degrees in January, and everyone was yielding trail to everyone else, Alphonse-and-Gaston style, and we all forgot for a short, sweet while that our Republic is in the tiny hands of the criminally insane.
Somebody — multiple somebodies, actually — has intercoursed the penguin in dramatic fashion as regards the Albuquerque Rapid Transit (ART) project, which already had all the positive press of a buddy flick called “Hey, Look At My Dick!”, starring Louis C.K. and Harvey Weinstein, directed by Roman Polanski from a script by Woody Allen.
Seriously, how do you fuck up a nine-mile bus line? And the nine miles of retail that goes with it? That takes real talent. I expect these people to go far, and probably soon, too, before the angry mobs kick down their doors.
• Late update: And meanwhile, as expected here at the Duke City Chuckle Hut, the ACLU comes after Albuquerque for its thickheaded, ham-handed anti-panhandling ordinance. Defending this attempt to keep Those People away from the tony real estate is another budget item we could have done without.
Well, kinda, sorta. Still, it was enough for the National Weather Service to declare an end — or at least an intermission — to the fifth longest dry streak since 1891.
“All in all, it’s nothing to write home about,” said NWS meteorologist Randall Hergert.
Oh, I dunno. Maybe a quick email:
Dear Mom,
Not on fire. Yet. Please send fire-retardant jammies for my birthday.
Love,
Patrick
Elsewhere, I see Steve Bannon is at loose ends. Never fear, he’ll land on his feet. Just as soon as he pulls them out of his mouth.
And the Republicans aren’t waiting around to get tossed out like Sloppy Steve. They’re running — not for re-election, but for the exits. Even Obama’s bestie Darrell Issa has seen the light, the way a roach does right before it scuttles under the stove.
Meanwhile, what the fuck is it with The New York Times and its pix of elevator doors closing on fascists? Cut that shit out. Seriously. You can bring the concept back when it’s lids closing on coffins.
Mad Blog Media 