Category: Bibleburg

High and dry

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

When my family moved from Texas to Colorado Springs in August 1967 we saw a thick white blanket of snow on Pikes Peak as we drove into town.

“Holy shit,” I thought. “It snows here in August.”

The first day of summer 2011
The big fella wears his white hat on the first day of summer.

We knew something about snow, having lived three years in Ottawa, Canada. But Randolph AFB, Texas, was “a whole other country,” as the slogan has it. It snowed just twice in our five years there — about a zillionth of an inch each time — and the whole place went batshit. Schools closed, non-essential personnel stayed home, and we scratched our heads, wondering what all the fuss was about.

That glimpse of Pikes Peak was a reminder that in some places, it actually does snow enough to cause a fuss. By arriving in summertime we had been spared a massive winter dumper that had set folks in our new suburban neighborhood to heating with ornamental fireplaces and cooking over camp stoves in the absence of utility service.

I’ve seen plenty of the white stuff since, including a four-footer that had us snowshoeing up and down our road in Westcliffe and a couple lesser storms that let us ski the roads and parks here in Bibleburg.

But it’s been a while, and lately even rain is scarce. So I’m always happy to look up and see a little snow on the big hill. We may catch fire down here, but at least we’ll have water to drink, and something to scare Texans with on the first day of summer.

An evening on the deck

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

It’s 11 p.m. and I’m relaxing with a glass of rosé after two days of medium-heavy cookery and other minor labors in honor of a couple of friends and neighbors who are shuffling off to another area code.

Mexican feast
Cuidado señores ... hot plate! The leftovers are good, too.

I started yesterday, roasting some Whole Foods poblanos and Anaheims on the gas grill, then whipped up a basic posole (a recipe so old I can’t remember where I found it) alongside a pot of pintos with chipotle (from The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook). Herself, meanwhile, got busy on a killer lemon-vanilla pudding, saving the final touches for just before mealtime.

Today I hosed down the back deck and zip-tied down the fabric pergola cover — a good thing, too, as Bibleburg tied a record high of 91 degrees — and broke out the patio table’s umbrella for backup. Then I made a little pico de gallo salsa, roasted potatoes with Chimayo red chile, and a green chile sauce (all three from the Santa Fe folks). Poached a pound of chicken, shredded it, made enchiladas with blue corn tortillas, some Monterey Jack and that pot of green chile, and hey presto! Dinnertime.

There was wine, of course, and also beer. The 2010 Thierry Delaunay Touraine from the Loire Valley seemed a bit thin, so I switched to a 2010 Le Cengle Côtes de Provence, which has a beautiful copper color and a tart flavor that, oddly, reminds me of Jolly Rancher watermelon candies, an item I was addicted to as a much younger dog.

The beers were two seasonal items from Deschutes Brewery — Red Chair NWPA, which is hard to find right now, and Twilight Summer Ale, which should be around until September. I should have Vespa’d on down to Bristol Brewing for a jug of their Red Rocket Pale Ale, but tomorrow is another day, eh? As it is I barely had time to grab a shower before the guests of honor arrived.

We ate and drank and shot the shit until long after sundown, and now I and my wine are surfing Al Gore’s Innertubes in search of evil tidings, which are regrettably easy to find, and enjoying a cooling breeze from somewhere.

Or we were. A small yet authoritative voice in another room has chimed the hour in a style that Big Ben would envy. See you tomorrow.

Voting with my feet

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Rock on
Make a great downhill course, wouldn't it?

Every now and then I get tired of being a vehicle and become a pedestrian instead. Today was one of those days, so I spent 90 minutes hiking various trails in Palmer Park.

I ride the park at least once a week, usually on one cyclo-cross bike or another, which limits my choices from the trails menu. There may very well be people who can ride the entire Templeton Trail on a ’cross bike, for example, but I am not one of them. So today I stomped around on a mess of trails my wheeled self generally gives a wide berth — the Templeton, the Kinnickinnick, the Cheyenne and the Edna Mae Bennet.

It was a nice change of pace, and also a reminder of the price Bibleburg is paying for the honor of serving as a pilot project for Grover Norquist’s wet dream of drowning a shrunken government in a libertarian bathtub. The park crappers are locked and the water faucets shut off, and I get the impression that a lot of the recent trail maintenance was the work not of parks staff but of volunteers, specifically the Guardians of Palmer Park.

Just outside the park sit empty bus benches bearing signs saying the bus doesn’t stop there anymore, and downtown an even hundred of the century-old trees that make the Old North End so homey are coming down because they are either dead or dying thanks to an extended drought and reduced watering by the city. Plenty of our once-green parks are in a similar woeful state.

Elections have consequences, as folks here and elsewhere are learning the hard way. At least I hope they are.

• Late update: Meanwhile, we’re pouring another $21,500 down the five-ringed loo at the U.S. Olympic Committee — which already cost us $42.3 million in taxpayer dollars — for a temporary mural featuring a local gold medalist in an ludicrous attempt to make ourselves look pretty. Once again, satire runs a very poor second to reality.

The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

We’ve been enjoying the kind of weather former Bibleburger Robert A. Heinlein described in “Glory Road” as “the sort that Florida and California claim (and neither has).” If it weren’t for wind bringing us secondhand smoke from the jillion or so massive fires to the south and west of us, I wouldn’t have anything to bitch about.

But I can always find something. I’m funny that way. Maybe not.

Chairman Meow and Mia
Miss Mia Sopaipilla and the headstone on Chairman Meow's grave prepare for a two-cat team time trial.

Today I rode the Voodoo Nakisi south and west, climbing along the trails of Bear Creek Regional Park to Gold Camp Road, where shortly I was passed by a trio of roadies who spoke not a word as they rolled by on their plastic fantastics just past the Section 16 trailhead. They must have been fresh from the 26th Street/Gold Camp ascent, a popular and unofficial time trial in these parts, and I with my dusty steel MonsterCrosser®, burly tires and hairy legs no doubt offended their delicate sensibilities somehow. Maybe it was the VeloNews bibs. Who could know?

What I do know is that they weren’t nearly as nifty as they thought they were, because I was able to hold their wheels on the swift descent along 26th Street to Highway 24, and anyone who knows me will confirm that I do not exactly descend like Lucifer, “hurl’d headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky.” This assholy trinity may be better than me on the uphills, but then that’s not a very high bar to hop, either.

I didn’t recognize any of them, but then I don’t ride the road much, because it is mostly curb to curb with dickheads, some on four wheels, and others on two. On the trails folks say “Howdy!” to each other.

Welcome to the West, buckaroos.