The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

One shot, three seasons: Summer in the lawn, fall in the trees and winter on Pikes Peak.
One shot, three seasons: Summer in the lawn, fall in the trees and winter on Pikes Peak.

Deadlines suck. Like The Turk, I’ve been indoors more than I care to be lately, in my case generating bicycle comedy for fun and profit (well, for profit, anyway, and only just barely). This is particularly irksome because we’ve been enjoying a stellar fall here in Bibleburg. It’s 76 right now — 76! — at 5:45 p.m. on Oct. 15. Imagine my amazement.

This will change, as it must. Tomorrow and Sunday look pretty damn’ nice, and wouldn’t y’know, I have to clock in for a couple of shifts in the old VeloBarrel. Come Monday, the weather should become a bit more seasonal, as in 50-something with a chance of showers. Ick.

After that, it’s the Colorado lottery, which means exactly what it sounds like — a total meteorological crapshoot, which I must say keeps life interesting, like the wining jug in John Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row,” a punch blended by understudy barkeep Eddie using any booze left in glasses by the patrons of La Ida. A Palace Flophouse roommate, Jones, first pans, then praises the concoction:

“You take whiskey,” he said hurriedly. “You more or less know what you’ll do. A fightin’ guy fights and a cryin’ guy cries, but this —” he said magnanimously — “why, you don’t know whether it’ll run you up a pine tree or start you swimming to Santa Cruz.”

That’s the sad part. Pine trees we got. But Santa Cruz … not so much.

Why, dog my cats!

"You brought this on yourself," Mia seems to tell Herself from the towel pile.
"You brought this on yourself," Mia seems to tell Herself from the towel pile.

A cat’s brain is not particularly large, only about twice the size of the average Irishman’s. Nonetheless, the feline mind is fertile ground for evil schemes.

Turkish — a.k.a. Turkenstein, The Turkinator, Big Pussy, Mighty Whitey, et al. — likes to sit on me. Not curl up in my lap, although he will do that about once in a blue moon, but rather sit on me. If I stretch out on the floor for some situps or in the bed for some reading, he’ll stroll over and perch on my chest, facing me with slitted eyes.

This means he wants some attention, and attention means from both hands. Let one lie idle and he’ll dig his giant shovel-shaped head underneath it. Scratch the left side of the head, if you please, then the right, but for God’s sake not both sides at once. Are you mad, sir? The universe has rules, and cats made them. Now, once more, first the left, then the right. …

I hit the deck for him yesterday, practicing a little Buddhist charity, and after a few minutes of ministrations  the giant furry swine repaid me with a chomp on the left wrist. Not quite biting the hand that feeds him, as I am right-handed, but pretty damn’ close.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla is not a biter, but she also provides periodic performance evaluations. If we neglect our primary chore, described in the Employee Manual as Paying Reverent Attention to Her Ultimate Cuteness At All Times, she’ll sneak into the upstairs bathroom, pull Herself’s towels off the rack and arrange them in a cozy Mia-sized pile on the floor.

Still and all, the occasional nip and/or towel pile is preferable to the stunts my first dog, Jojo the Terrible, would pull when he felt put upon. He would pee in some obscure location and watch with barely contained amusement as I tried to locate the source of the stink, or shred whichever book I was reading. And in one memorable instance, he tore a near-perfect circle out of the center of the fitted sheet on my bed.

Insert hot pussy joke here

Two thumbs up, says Miss Mia Sopaipilla.
Two thumbs up, says Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Interbike may be over, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be keeping you right up to the nanosecond on the latest and greatest.

Here, for example, Miss Mia Sopaipilla test-drives the Feline-O-Fluffer, the very latest in cat entertainment and climate control technology.

And would you believe it? It also dries clothes.

* Cat not included.

Thou art mortal

calabacitas
Chicken quesadillas and calabacitas.

Damn, this has been a fun week. First I make drunkard tartare out of my right leg in a trail tumble, and now I’ve managed to throw my back out again.

Hitting the deck on Tuesday started the ball rolling. Favoring the bum leg gave it a nudge. And the kicker was probably spending too much time crouched over the cutting board, assembling last night’s New Mexican feast, chicken quesadillas and calabacitas.

These are easy dishes, to be sure — the quesadillas are merely poached and shredded chicken, seeded and sliced jalapeños and grated Monterey jack layered between two flour tortillas and baked for 12 minutes at 350 — but some assembly is required.

Long story short, this morning I bend down to see if Turkish is lurking under Herself’s car and pop! Out goes the back, which I first injured in college while delivering heavy appliances for beer money. Every couple of years it likes to slash the tires on my chariot and hiss, “Thou art mortal!”

Still, things could be worse. A couple of friends are on Cape Cod, playing hide-and-seek with Hurricane Earl. Or I could be one of the poor chumps blown off the latest offshore oil platform to explode.

So, yeah. I’ve got that going for me. That, and the drugs, and the ice pack. …

Wake me when it’s over

Miss Mia Sopaipilla employs a comforter against the cold.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla employs a comforter against the cold.

We’ve barely dipped a toe into winter and already I’m sniveling about the cold. It’s gonna be a long January for you people if this keeps up.

We have one semi-pleasant day coming up tomorrow, according to the fine folks at NOAA, and then boom! Back in the deep freeze. Meanwhile, McDowell Mountain Regional Park outside Fountain Hills should be looking at temps in the mid-60s for the next few days. I am not there for some reason. I will never be smart.

I should’ve ridden today, but I couldn’t face another day of fenders and neoprene so early in the new year, so I went for a run in Palmer Park instead. Tights, two long-sleeved shirts, tuque, gloves and a sharp eye peeled for icy bits, of which there were many. Tire tracks, too, some imprinted deeply in the damp clay. Bad mountain bikers. Bad, bad, bad.

The rest of my day was devoted to keeping an eye on the VeloNews.com beta site, which remains very much a work in progress. Without warning, the old site vanished overnight like the proverbial Cheshire cat, taking the readers’ forums along with it and leaving no grins behind.

Meanwhile, as the mag’ staff cranks on the March edition, our lone wire service, Agence France Presse, sent us fuck-all between 10:16 a.m. local time on New Year’s Day and 7:46 a.m. this morning, when we got two stories, both on the same topic — the Team Sky launch in London — one in French and the other in English. No pictures. Zut alors.

Happily, our Euro’ whiz Andrew Hood was on the job, providing wisdom in U-nited States American, and ace shooter Casey B. Gibson came through with some pics courtesy of a colleague who was at the Sky shindig while the Frogs were busy letting the saucers stack up at some café or surrendering to someone. Welcome to the New Wheeled Ordure, January Edition.

No wonder Miss Mia Sopaipilla feels like staying in bed all day. Sometimes I do, too.