“I thought this was a fan, but it’s not moving and I don’t feel any cooler,” says Miss Mia Sopaipilla.
Another day, another record.
Yesterday’s high of 101° pipped the previous record of 100°, set all the way back in 1944, when America was still fighting fascists rather than electing them.
Every day brings a new high, or a new low, depending upon your perspective.
Now it seems we want to start a pissing match with Brazil. Jaysis H., etc. As if things aren’t already stupid-hot enough around here.
I filled out the paperwork and trudged that long mile between El Rancho Pendejo and our neighborhood Vote Center to begin the process of tossing out various rascals and installing others.
The hope is that in the end we will have elected some folks who will have the common courtesy to sell us out in private, where we don’t have to watch over our coffee and Cheerios. The no-holes-barred, open-air whorehouse that reopened on Jan. 20, 2025, has not been a boon to the Republic or the digestive tract.
In point of fact, it’s been the shits.
I persist in voting because it’s the only real alternative to armed insurrection. There’s always staying home on Election Day, but that helped get us where we are, so, nuh uh. And I don’t have a passport, so running-away is off the table.
What worries me is the suspicion that if we ever reach the “up with halberd, out with sword” point, we may find that His Excremency King Piggy the Sticky-fingered and his gombeen men have deployed a band of A.I. brigands to empty all our accounts before we can armor up at our friendly neighborhood boom-boom rooms.
“Up the rebels!” and all that, but if we’re going after them for keepsies I’d like to be packing something with more authority than my 72-year-old teeth and toenails.
You probably can’t see the scattering of raindrops on my sunglasses, proof that I chose wisely when I decided to go for a run at 7:30 this morning instead of waiting to see whether the skies cleared.
The forecasts from the National Weather Service and Weather Underground were for … well, frankly, they were for shit. No common ground. One declared that it was already raining (it was not) and might be doing so again later. The other? “A chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after noon.”
Well, there’s always a chance of something happening somewhere. It’s what makes life worth living. There’s a chance that Jeebus might come back, give Orange Julius Caesar a sandal right in the ballroom, and deliver a new gospel over his squealing carcass: “This is not what I had in mind at all, y’all.”
But I’m not betting the rancho on it.
I did catch a few sprinkles on my run, mostly on the return trip. But they added up to bupkis on the rain gauge.
So naturally I’m sitting here wondering whether I should’ve gone for a ride instead.
But, chance being the fickle bitch that she is, Jeebus is probably waiting out there to give me the other sandal in the chamois and proclaim, “Nope, not him either. Sheesh, you people and your false prophets. Do I have to hire a babysitter every time I step out for a couple thousand years?”
The start of Tramway’s descent toward Interstate 25.
Never fear, I’m not back on the sauce. This drop taken was down to the bosque, for the first time this year.
It was a lovely day, if a bit windy — high of 80°, 65° when I started — and if I’d had my wits about me I could’ve finally ridden my age (in kilometers).
The Rio lacks a certain grandeur.
But I didn’t. After inspecting the state of the Rio Grande below the Gail Ryba bridge (still fluid, in a not-so-solid fashion), instead of pulling a U and heading home via the Paseo/North Diversion/Osuna-Bear Canyon trails, I noodled back to the ranch through Old Town to Odelia-Indian School and the Paseo de las Montañas/Tramway trails. Wound up 8 miles short of a birthday ride. In kilometers. Which is kind of like kissing your sister.
The Bosque Bandido never materialized, but I did notice a John Law parked on the gravel at trailside. We exchanged waves. Didn’t ask to see my papers or nothin’. Which was fortunate, because all I had on me was an elderly iPhone 13 mini, a water bottle, and a stick of Clif Blox. It would’ve been off to County Clare for Your Humble Narrator.
“Ireland? But your honor, my client’s bicycle doesn’t even have fenders!”
“Tough titty, counselor — he should’ve thought about that before his great-granddaddy came here to occupy a barstool that by rights belonged to a nat’chal-borned American. Next case!”
The good news is I missed whatever it was Melania thought she was up to behind the pestilential lectern, where nobody could see the rug burns on her elbows and knees, and that “Property of Satan’s Slaves’ tat’ on her ass.
Isn’t it about time we started relocating some of these Trumps to gilt-free cages in the swamps, deserts, and desert swamps of Wottalottaland, Lower Slobbovia, and Spaminacanistan? I mean, Christ, Boss Hogg is bombing anything he can’t steal, Melanoma’s doing this feeble impression of Richard Pryor’s “Now are you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes?” bit, and now Barron wants to start dealing speed in Florida?
Dude thinks he’s being cute by calling it “yerba mate,” which I think is Guarani for “murder tea.” Wait until he hears what the Cartel calls it. “Gringo failing to swim across the Gulf of America while wearing 300 pounds of chains, a jukebox, and a burlap sack,” is what.
See if you can get mommy and daddy to join you for that dip in the shark tank, kid. Your ould fellah could certainly use the exercise. Driving the golf cart and having people killed ain’t getting it done.
• Addendum: Artemis II made it home safely, and about 20 minutes after they were bobbing around in the Pacific off San Diego, boom! We got our first hummingbird of the new year at our feeders. Winning!
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