Wild at Ivywild

January 1, 2014January 1, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

I had not yet been set loose upon the world on Jan. 1, 1954. That blessed event occurred nearly three months later, on March 27, in the hospital at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

As family legend has it, Mom’s obstetrician, upon learning I was to be named Patrick Declan O’Grady, proposed inducing labor to get me born on St. Patrick’s Day. Mom declined, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Out west in Colorado Springs, the Ivywild School was already open for business, and had been for years. In fact, it was one year older than my old man, who was born in 1917 in Bogalusa, La.

I didn’t attend Ivywild — by the time we got here in 1967, I was a ninth grader, and anyway, after a brief flirtation with a bomb-shelter-equipped home in the Skyway area we settled well outside downtown proper in what a newspaper colleague would later confirm was most emphatically not part of Colorado Springs, our suburban trilevel being well east of Hancock Avenue.

Ivywild gave up the ghost as a school in 2009, but was reborn recently thanks to local entrepreneurs Joe Coleman and Mike Bristol, who turned the picturesque old pile into the new home of Bristol Brewing, plus a number of other ventures: The Principal’s Office (booze and java); The Meat Locker (deli and charcuterie); Old School Bakery (breads and pastries); Hunt or Gather (seasonal foods from area farmers); Bicycle Experience (the second location of a neighborhood shop); and office space.

I hadn’t conducted an inspection tour since Ivywild’s resurrection, but last night Herself and I, along with a neighbor and the latest tenants of The House Back East®, dropped in to scope out a New Year’s Eve bash in the gym (think back-in-the-day sock hop, but with the booze actually sold on site, plus more and older wastrels).

It was pretty damned impressive, as you can see from the pix if you clicked the link above. The music was less so — the gym was a mighty small space, with either an indifferent sound system, poor mixing or a combination of the two, plus lots of chatter in the audience — but still, chapeau to all involved in making the Ivywild revival happen.

Ivywild is a welcome reminder that it’s not all Industrial Christianity and LiberTea here in Bibleburg. I plan on sentencing myself to a few rounds of detention there in 2014.

Happy New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2012December 31, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Shot and a beer, New Year's Eve 2012 — Two dead soldiers.

As 2012 stumbles drunkenly toward its denouement, I’m toasting its imminent and overdue departure with a pair of tasty Colorado beverages — the last shooter from a bottle of Leopold Bros. American Small Batch Whiskey and a chaser of Odell Brewing Co.’s 5 Barrel Pale Ale.

Earlier today I answered emails, viewed the news with the usual alarm, broadcast various snarky bits via Twitter, sent out some final invoices and collaborated with the folks at Red Kite Prayer on their end-of-the-year awards. Finally, after putting it off as long as was humanly possible, I tottered out for a short run in subfreezing temps.

My reward for such diligence? Falling flat on my ass in Monument Valley Park. Thus the medicinal whiskey.

I should know better than to exercise when tired. Technique deteriorates, what’s left of the mind wanders, and the next thing you know you’re hitting the frosty ground with a thud, like a trash bag full of bacon grease, potato peelings and empty bottles.

Yet phoenix-like I arose, cursing, and stumbled on through the cold. determined to shed another gram or two before packing on the pounds at a final holiday gathering, which happily is just across the street.

But before I go, I’d like to thank you for popping round during 2012. The joint remains woefully light on Pulitzers, MacArthur genius grants and (all of a sudden) Leopold Bros. American Small Batch Whiskey. But it continues to be remarkably heavy in lively and intelligent discourse (largely in the comments section, my posts serving as the literary equivalent of a questionable foundation laid by highly unskilled labor).

So slainte to thee and thine, and pop round again next year for some fresh nonsense.

• This just in from The Midnight Rambler: “New Year’s Eve,” via Tom Waits.

No more Mister Nys guy

December 28, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

Some heavily marinated frites-eating knucklehead thought it was amusing to toss beer on Sven Nys at the Azencross today.

Said knucklehead thought otherwise after the Cannibal of Baal — who was having a very bad day on the job — dropped his bike and ducked through the course tape to have a pointed discussion with him, just before a less restrained individual flew past to flatten the beer-pitcher.

Nys returned to the course, jogging with his bike, but eventually abandoned in disgust. Two crashes and seven dousings with beer apparently were enough for one day. Afterward he tweeted: “Throwing beer each lap is a bit much, so I got it into my head to go & ask why. A little bit of respect, please.” Word.

The days of wine and hoses

December 27, 2012December 27, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

This Tavel rosé pairs well with food. It’s also pretty damn’ nice all by its lonesome.

We shipped Herself the Elder back to Tennessee this morning, or so we thought.

Her flight out of Bibleburg, slated for 10:45 a.m., didn’t go wheels up until 12:30 p.m. And her connector in Dallas was canceled, so she’s camped in the Dallas airport awaiting another. If she’s lucky she’ll be back in the loving bosom of her cats at midnight.

Meanwhile, Herself the Younger is driving home from Denver in a light snow and cursing like a sailor, because she (a) hates driving in the dark, (2) hates driving in the snow, and (iii) hates driving in the snow in the dark.

Only I am left unscathed to tell the tale, because I have the great good fortune to be unemployable and thus possessed of abundant leisure to motor hither and thither in the daylight, when it is not snowing. Thus did I hie me to the grog shop, fortified by a largish check for making things up, thence to restock the wine rack stripped bare by our Yuletide revelry.

Now I’m sipping a tart Tavel rosé and sifting mentally through the available leftovers: quite a bit of posole; the makings for a short round of tacos de papas con chorizo; some pintos in chipotle chile; the underpinnings for a second round of beef enchiladas on red chile, save the sauce.

Posole, tacos and beans it is. Even a slacker deserves a day off.

Barking dogs, fat flies and spider webs

November 24, 2012November 25, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

Turkish delight — Turkish enjoys a sunny spot on the drawing board after a hard day of doing … well … not much of anything, really.

Whew. We appear to have survived another Thanksgiving-Black Friday combo. But it was a near thing. I don’t know how professional cooks survive all those hours on their feet — ’bout dark-thirty yesterday my dogs commenced to bark and they haven’t stopped yet.

A couple of friends popped round last night to split a bottle of sparking rosé and eat some leftovers, which I swear to God took nearly as long to reheat as the original meal did to cook. They also brought some killer green-chile-and-jack wontons with a guacamole garnish that put our heat-it-and-eat-it to shame.

Anyway, we stayed up too late and drank too much and today we all felt a tad listless for some reason, even the four-legged crowd, which does not imbibe (see Turkish, at right).

After a few hours of puttering around the ranch Herself toddled off for a short run and I took a break from work to ride the Jamis Supernova around Monument Valley Park, which proved a bad idea. I felt like a fat fly negotiating a spider web constructed of retractable dog leashes and feckin’ eejits.

Now I’m wrapping up the day’s paying chores, sipping a 5 Barrel Pale Ale and contemplating the evening meal. Whaddaya think? Turkey, turkey or … turkey?