Category: Celebrations

‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
There’s a cat in here some’eres. But where?

Are we going about this whole “new year” thing wrong?

Maybe the new year should kick off with the spring equinox. New life in the offing, and better weather to keep it comfy-cozy.

We were already into the 50s here last March 20. Zach at Two Wheel Drive had found me a Deore derailleur for the as-yet-unbuilt Soma Pescadero, and I went out for a short trail run to celebrate. The next day I was burning up the Elena Gallegos trails on my old red Steelman Eurocross while TWD assembled my new whip. Talk about your bowl of cherries.

Black-eyed peas under construction.

January is usually a bowl of something else altogether. The month is named for the Roman deity Janus, god of change, passages, and beginnings: “Better beef up your kit before you head out that door to start your run, Mr. Not-So-Smarticus. Add a base layer, maybe a jacket and cap, looks like rain.”

When I revisit January in old training diaries I see a lot of short runs in frosty temps. Which is fine, as far as it goes, which is not very. And I’ll probably be doing one of those directly, as we seem to be getting sloppy seconds from the ongoing deluge in California. Just because I have fenders doesn’t mean I want to use them. I like my January showers warm, with the bathroom door closed and a space heater on.

But it’s gonna be extra hard to drag my ass out that door this Jan. 1. El Rancho Pendejo smells like simmering black-eyed peas and ham hock, with baking cornbread soon to lend an aromatic hand, and it’s a good thing I have more than a few keyboards around here because I keep drooling into this one.

Happy New Year to one and all.

• Addendum: The cooking process is greatly enhanced by playing “The Allman Brothers Band: A Decade of Hits 1969-1979” throughout.

Tick, tock. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Mooned again.

Here we are once more, not watching the clock tick down to midnight, knowing it will get there without us.

Mia sitting zazen.

It’s been a good long while since Herself and I stayed awake to greet the new year, and I see no good reason to break that streak this time around.

Impatient celebrants began setting off fireworks 7-ish, which set off the neighborhood dogs; sort of a bonus year-end racket. Miss Mia Sopaipilla remains unruffled, having developed a degree of hearing loss, and never being much frightened of anything anyway, not even the Turk, who could be very scary indeed depending on which one of the voices in his head had the conn at the moment.

Thus we take a page from “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry,” by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison:

We should
sit like a cat
and wait for the door
to open.

The door to 2026 will swing wide directly. Until then, sláinte to all you cats who spent 2025 helping me fill up the old literature box, clawing the furniture and keeping your tails well clear of the rocking chair. See you next year.

Great minds

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
The luck of the (southern) Irish.

Rooting around the Innertubes for some New Year’s recipes I was congratulating myself on picking a couple of winners, both from The New York Times Cooking section, which by itself is worth the price of a subscription.

One was a simple Hoppin’ John recipe from Bill Neal of Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, N.C., as adapted by Craig Claiborne in 1985. The other was a jalapeño cheddar cornbread from Melissa Clark, the franchise player on my pro cooking squad.

But when I crowed about this to Herself I found she’d beaten me to the punch. She’d already found her own recipe and acquired the ingredients for it, too.

Good thing I shot off my big bazoo before heading for the grocery. We’d have been eating Hoppin’ John and cornbread from New Year’s right through St. Patrick’s Day.

Meanwhile, I had to quickly re-establish my primacy as tenzo of this zendo. Facing an economy of scarcity — a lack of fresh red grapes, which I dice up for the morning oatmeal — I displayed my resourcefulness in the kitchen, or “skillful means,” as defined by the late poet-gourmand and Zen student Jim Harrison, by locating a wrinkled honeycrisp apple in the crisper and chopping that up instead. In your face! as the sage Dogen has taught us.

Jimbo hated oatmeal. But he’s dead and didn’t have to eat any of it.