Category: Applause

Let them eat cake

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
“Cake or death? Cake, please.”

By “them” I mean Herself, and by “cake” I mean “half a cinnamon roll,” and why on earth should Herself be eating cake for breakfast?

Because it’s her birthday, that’s why.

There was but a single candle on the “cake,” because record-low snowpack, record-high temperatures, drought continues, red-flag warnings, etc., et al., and so on and so forth. I lit it up and we hopped around the kitchen like crazed bunnies to The Beatles’ “Birthday,” blaring from a JBL Clip 2 fed a YouTube video by my iPhone 13 Mini. Can’t say we Revered Elders are helpless when it comes to managing all these doggone, consarned, newfangled whizbangs, whatchamacallits, and comosellamas, even the ones whose “new” is mostly wore off leaving only the “fangled” bits.

Once breakfast is in the rear view there will be a short trail run followed by some medium-light shopping, a lunch without so much cake in it, and a delicious dinner that may or not conclude with cake, depending upon whether we can get to The Range before they run out and/or close, which happens early in these dire days, when no one can afford gasoline, much less three servings of cake per diem.

You wouldn’t believe the tariff on cake. And you can trust me, because I’m in the media.

Avis rara legalis

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
“The State? Yeah, that’s me. What of it? What?”

A rare bird indeed — a 6-3 majority of the Supremes — just took a dump on His Excremency’s tariff scheme.

Ho boy. Iran best be bracing for the inevitable dick-punch. You just know he’s gonna tell Kegsbreath to have at it now.

Meanwhile, I want a refund for the $32 ransom I had to pay on that Selle Italia 1990 Flite saddle I bought last October. Insert your own “up the butt” joke here.

• Update: Some deets from the smarties at Scotusblog. And some most excellent snark from Betty Cracker at Balloon-Juice, who opines thusly:

You know he’s going to shit a cat. Ms. Wiles will have to surge housekeeping assets to the TV room to sponge the ketchup off the walls. 

• Another update: No More Mister Nice Blog has some thoughts on war, tariffs and Trump’s brain, including informative links to pieces in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and other outfits a tad better equipped for heavy duty than Your Humble Narrator..

Grocery run

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Top of the morning to ye. …

Yesterday the Geezers made their annual run to the Morning Star Grocery, a 42-mile round trip from El Rancho Pendejo that chalks up about 2,400 feet of vertical gain.

Medals and promotions all around!

Ordinarily we do this ride in the fall, when Tonatiuh steps away from the stove to burn one, to wit, something other than us.

Not so this year. Someone (not Your Humble Narrator) thought it would be a swell idea to make the trip when the forecast was basically “hotter than the hubs of Hell.”

Nevertheless, we persisted. And one of us more than the others.

Yesterday I chose the New Albion Privateer for the Assault on Morning Star Grocery. But for today’s recovery ride in the Elena Gallegos Open Space I chose the gentler gearing of the Soma Double Cross.

Our peloton included three octogenarians and a couple gents sporting aftermarket parts installed after unscheduled getoffs. One of the 80-somethings may have been jealous of the cyborgs and hunting a retrofit of his own, because he crashed coming into Tijeras; alas, not hard enough to require the full Steve Austin makeover.

Bloodied but unbowed, our man soldiered on and made it to the grocery without further incident, accompanied by our senior officer, an 84-year-old motorhead who immediately began grilling a stranger about the technical specs of his BMW motorcycle.

I made it into the lead group, but was not first to the grocery. We were a trio, ticking along nicely at 155 beats per minute, and I knew that I’d have to find another 10 bpm somewhere starting about six miles out to win the roses. This I felt was a dog that would not hunt.

When the terrain shifted from straight climb to rollers one of the cyborgs got the jump on me and that was that. I found another 14 bpm, briefly, but not in time to close the gap. No bouquet, no podium girl, no anthem.

Well, it wasn’t my first rodeo. Sometimes you’re the cowboy, other times you’re the clown. Good times either way.

Like Bilbo Baggins I made it there and back again. Also like Bilbo, I ate and drank prodigiously afterward, and treated myself to a short nap. It was my fourth trip to the Morning Star and back, so I suppose you could say I’m making a hobbit of it.

Weird, huh?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Happy warriors?

OK, remember July? Everybody who thought we’d be here in August, raise your hands.

Herself and I watched Kamala Harris and Tim Walz rally the troops in Philly last night. I can’t say either of them can sing the old chin music Obama-style, but at this point I’m desperate for a ticket that’s younger than me, reasonably healthy, and joyously pugnacious.

Frankly, it was comforting to see a spark of snarky life in the creaky old Donk-O-Tron 9000™. And given the political realities — anyone been paying attention to what’s happened to other party progressives lately, like Cory Bush and Jamaal Bowman? — ol’ Coach looks like a pretty savvy choice.

I’m not even remotely complacent — we have 90 days to go before shit gets real — but they seem to have backfooted the blowhards for the moment, saving their name-calling for the candidates.

Weird? Creepy? You bet your ass they are, that and more. Say it often enough and maybe the Donks can keep a grip on any wobbly centrists, poach a few independents, and maybe even persuade that mythical handful of Republicans who retain some vestigal sense of shame that these creepy weirdos are not their friends.