Welp, piss on the dogs and call in the fire — it’s definitely fall.
The weather has been so gentle lately that we shut off all the HVAC machinery; I can’t remember the last time the air conditioners clicked on.
And thus the furnace mos def did not click on last night, which — along with the news flash from Acu-Rite pictured above — explains why I felt a tad chilly upon awakening this morning despite being wrapped in sheet and blanket like a geezer burrito.
The uniform of the day immediately shifted from shorts and T-shirt to pants and flannel shirt over long-sleeved henley. Also, wool socks, which should go without saying. I stopped short of a watch cap and gloves.
Miss Mia knows what time it is, and what the temperature is, too.
Having mowed the lawn yesterday with plans to water today, I had to trot outside at stupid-thirty to change the sprinkler system’s start time from 5 a.m. to 10. The sun doesn’t clear the Sandias until well past 8:30 and there’s no point in creating a rink in the back yard when neither of us owns skates.
And ride time just got pushed back until noon, because it’s gonna take me some time to remember where I stashed all the cool-weather Lycra.
Tell you what, though. That first cup of coffee sure smells good when the first freeze is nipping at your nose.
Here on this mountain top, oh-oh-oh I got some wild, wild life —“Wild Wild Life,” Talking Heads
“Wild wild life.” You ain’t alone, David old scout.
Herself recently took off for a few days of thrifting with a gal pal, leaving me and Miss Mia Sopaipilla to hold down the fort.
She didn’t get back in time to see the bear in our back yard.
Miss Mia and I were sound asleep when the bear dropped by to see if we had anything to eat. Which, of course, we did — two bird feeders and three hummingbird feeders.
The racket at the buffet woke me — but not Miss Mia, who’s as deaf as a stump — and as I tumbled out of bed I figured we were dealing with a raccoon, maybe a skunk.
Nope. Bear. Small to medium, and in the early stages of deciding that getting any breakfast out of those polycarbonate tubes would burn more calories than s/he could hope to consume.
“Did you get any pictures?” Herself asked when I texted her the news. Yeah, right, I’m stumbling outside at oh-dark-thirty to snap a selfie with a famished bear. I’ve seen how fast they can run, and how fast I can run. No, thank you, please.
Anyway, social media is full of snaps of hungry, thirsty bears staggering down from the Sandias to plop into water features, snack on unsecured garbage, and in at least one incident, get shot by a knucklehead. The bear survived, though one of her two cubs did not, and the shootist seems short of friends (see a neighbor’s protest sign up top).
Our little bear problem was on me. I’d seen bear scat on a section of trail we run once or twice a week, and we’ve been avoiding that stretch because, hey, that scat doesn’t get there without the bear, amirite?
But I didn’t think to start bringing the feeders in at night. Now I am.
Didn’t keep the skunk out, though.
I heard something cough at stupid-thirty yesterday morning. Wasn’t me. Wasn’t Herself. Miss Mia was sacked out in the half-bath sink on the other side of the house, and she wouldn’t have heard a cough if it was her doing the coughing.
So up I get, grab a light, and crack the vertical blinds. Holy hell. Big ol’ skunk, butt aimed at our bedroom window.
Nope, sorry, not going out for a pic of that, either.
“Bear? Where?” asks our furry little pig in a blanket.
Snakes abound. Definitely a snake year. A dog walker recently told us she’d seen three buzzworms just that morning. One of them was in her yard.
The deer are back too, rolling up and down the arroyos like streetcars working the hills in San Francisco. Bucks with harems, does with speckled fawns.
Quail. Herself and I quit counting after seeing 50 on one recent ride.
And the hummingbirds? Off the charts. It looks like the Battle of Britain out there. We’re burning through sugar faster than three kindergartens and a Dunkin’ next to a cop shop.
Hey … it just occurred to me. Do you think they’re visiting us the way we visit zoos?
“Just look at the poor hairless apes, kids. Nearly extinct. I’d like to say we’ll miss them when they’re gone, but I’d be lying. They’ve certainly had a wild, wild life.”
“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 woke up way too early — 3 a.m. — then rolled over and went back to sleep until 6. Miss Mia was not amused, and said so, loudly, otherwise I might still be asleep even now.
Except Herself would’ve thundered in eventually to kick me up the hole, because she is a working woman and has a full day ahead involving the making of money, the care and feeding of the 401(k), retention of health insurance, and like that there. Some slacker is in charge of breakfast, which clearly was not making itself.
So up, up, I got, and set about my morning chores, which do not dollar up on the hoof nearly as nicely.
The Morning Star Grocery, circa 2025
As I was emptying the litter box, making coffee, toasting bread, cooking oatmeal, brewing tea, medicating Miss Mia, and so on, I was thinking in terms of where to ride today. Forecast was for a slight chance of rain after noon, so I was considering a medium-long outing to the Morning Star Grocery and back. Haven’t been out there all year.
And then it started raining.
Well. Shit. Lucky me. If I hadn’t slept in, I’d have been out in that rain, dodging swings of Thor’s hammer instead of kicks from Herself’s tiny sandals.
• • •
Speaking of hard rains a-fallin’, I don’t expect there’s much that could go wrong — cough, cough, “Armageddon,” cough, cough — with helping Saudi Arabia plunge its bloody paws into Pandora’s nuclear box.
To the outside observer, there’s no reason to trust either end of this deal. The American side is being run by grifters and incompetents. The Saudi side is being run by people who have settled accounts with bone saws and beheadings and who also are sharper about money than the Americans ever will be. The idea that the current Saudi regime will be able to resist the temptations of enriching uranium without using it to build weapons feels laughable. I wouldn’t trust any government on earth that far, let alone an authoritarian theocracy with murder in its heart.
Alas, Babylon, etc. The Gospel according to Frederic Brown would seem germane here, if young Harry Graham were the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and not a bit slow. I take little solace from any headline that includes the null phrase, “Trump says. …”
