Big light in sky slated to appear in East

October 12, 2009 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

The Big Yellow Ball is back, and just in time, too — I nearly hit the deck thrice on ice in the past couple of days, and I was only walking, not cycling or running.

My closest call came this morning as I was stumbling out to chisel two days’ worth of ice from Herself’s Subaru so she could motor off to work in Denver and make me some whisky money. A bit of black ice on the backyard sidewalk sent me into windmilling-spastic mode, and the only thing that kept me up was the deck railing, which was there to catch my right shoulder as I was going down. Good times.

The cats are equally amused. Turkish insists on going out the back door only to come right back in the front, and on one of his go-rounds Miss Mia Sopaipilla escaped into the frosty grass, where she slammed to a halt with a “WTF?” expression on her furry little face. She’s used to a soft, warm lawn, and it probably didn’t help that a startled Turk’ gave her a swat as she rocketed past and into the yard for an icy bit of satori.

Happily, with the sun out the frost is in full retreat and the trees are dribbling a combination of leaves and water. The weatherman is calling for a high near 50. Fat city.

Cat nap

August 29, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments

No, he won't go down the drain. We've tried.

Turkish is a creature of ritual. Every morning when I drag ass out of the sack he leaps from the couch and joins me in the bathroom, where he launches into a clockwise series of bows and stretches, getting back rubs twice a lap.

After a few go-rounds, he curls up in the sink or on the carpet; if he picks the latter, one is permitted to scratch his chin and belly without the need for disinfectants and stitches afterward.

After a few minutes of what for the Turk’ is fairly lovey-dovey behavior he suddenly remembers who he really is — Mighty Whitey, the Blue-Eyed Bully of Bibleburg, Turkenstein, The Turkinator, et al. — and he commences stalking about the house from door to door, demanding his freedom in a keening sound like helium leaking from a balloon, or maybe Glenn Beck with his teensy nuts in a vise.

Let him out and my schedule is in his large, massively clawed paws. The sonofabitch is harder to catch than bin Laden, and should I manage to lay hands on him, there will be blood. Not his. The good news is, once he’s fined me a pint or two, he has no objection to taking a bracing nap in a window, or perhaps our bed, under the ceiling fan.

Every now and then Turk’ wants the lap, generally while I’m working, and if I don’t give it up he sets about turning the office carpet into confetti. Once aboard, he becomes a critic — not of my writing, but of my typing, which interrupts his carnivorous dreams. He also enjoys supervising my situps from a perch atop my navel.

Come bedtime, Turk’ briefly becomes cuddly again, until Herself plucks him off the bed to take him downstairs for the night. A guy going to the gas chamber complains less, and he’s not gonna be coming back tomorrow.

Maybe that’s why he’s so cheery in the mornings. “Hey, cool, you didn’t take me to the pound again! Dude, scratch my belly!”

Window of opportunity

June 24, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady

The mighty Turk' — a.k.a. Big Pussy, Mighty Whitey, Turkenstein, The Turkinator, et al. — can nap with the best of 'em.

It’s hot. It’s humid. What’s a cat to do? Take a nap in a kitchen window, of course. You miss one, you’re always one behind, y’know. And there’s nothing like a long night of sleep to wear a cat out.

Alas, this picture of serenity is merely the prelude to the incessant prowling and yowling, “I want to go out, I wish to go out, I will go out!“, which commences shortly after the post-breakfast shuteye.

You ignore this remonstration at your peril — should the Turk’s departure be delayed for more than a few moments, you will find him attached by all four clawed feet to either a closed screen door or one of your all-too-open ankles.

And on the seventh day, he worked

April 26, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Chairman Meow's tomb is a colorful sight come springtime.

Chasing typos around the Intertubes instead of wheels along the trail. Feh. Sunday is no-fun day if you happen to be an editor for a cycling website, even a part-time one.

They’re racing everywhere this weekend, on roads and trails, from Belgium to California — Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Little 500, the Athens Twilight Criterium, the Historic Roswell Criterium, the Santa Ynez Valley Classic and the Dana Point Grand Prix.

Each writer presents a different editorial challenge (some understand deadlines and English, others not so much); each promoter supplies results in a different fashion (HTML, Excel, PDF or not at all); each photographer has his own little quirks (giant jpgs with incomprehensible filenames, teensy jpgs with no captions). I, of course, bring my own peculiar habits (surly bibulousness) to the project.

Back in the day, when I was still a newspaperman instead of whatever it is that I am now, all these disparate personalities congregated under one roof, where we could all shout at each other over not much and then go get convivially shitfaced once the presses started rumbling.

Now we’re in Spain, Belgium, Wyoming, Boulder, Georgia, California and Bibleburg, and shouting over IM or via e-mail just isn’t the same. Plus a guy in León can hardly buy a round for another guy in Bibleburg, and vice versa.

We had more hands back in the day, too. We’re always undermanned at VeloNews.com, but this weekend the herd is especially thin for a number of perfectly defensible reasons. So instead of doing a little leisurely swashbuckling through a couple of short stories, I found myself pretty much glued to the office chair from 6:30 a.m. to late afternoon, hacking at this and that, frantically twisting my Strunk & White Secret Decoder Ring and muttering dire imprecations that would land you a chat with Human Resources in one of today’s newsrooms. And it ain’t over yet. California and Georgia have yet to check in. And they wonder why I drink.

I did get out to snap a couple pix of Chairman Meow’s tomb, though. She has a colorful honor guard again this spring, and if it ever rains, they should get plenty of reinforcements.

First they came for my winter, and I said nothing . . .

April 3, 2009November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

Turkenstein the Magnificent reclines in the sun-splashed grass, blissfully unaware that yet another spring snowstorm is en route to keep his giant white ass indoors.

Damn’ Democrats. Soon’s they get into office, winter becomes spring and spring becomes winter. Whoops, same thing with the last guy. Never mind.

The Front Strange is hunkering down for its third spring snowstorm in less than three weeks, so after squeaking in a quick run I took the cats outdoors for a bit of vitamin D before the deal goes down.

Turkish gets out all the time, without close supervision, though he likes some days better than others (sun and dirt is good, wind and snow, not so much).

Mia Sopaipilla only gets out on a harness-leash combo, which greatly cramps her style but reassures her two-legged staffers (the neighborhood is lousy with foxes, feral cats and loose mutts).

Where the hell is that ding-a-ling noise coming from?

As a consequence, Turk’ is jaded. Ho hum, another day outdoors, big whup. Been there, done that, got the furball.

For Mia, on the other hand, every outing is a fresh adventure. Bugs! Trees! Wind chimes! Wow! Why don’t we have all this cool stuff indoors where we can enjoy it at a moment’s notice, unfettered by leather, nylon and primate paranoia?

Indeed. The indoors would be much more interesting if it were more like the outdoors. More sunshine, less radiation from computer monitors. More grass, less carpet. Fewer walls, more possibilities.

Unless we’re talking about the next couple days, anyway. According to the National Weather Service, the indoors is going to be a good deal warmer and drier, and therefore, albeit briefly, the smarter choice.