Weird-looking Christmas tree. Isn’t even decorated.
Well, our white Christmas finally showed up around 4 p.m. yesterday.
Better than never, I suppose. But 0.04 inch is hardly for the dashing through in a one-horse open sleigh.
Our “white Christmas.”
Ours was a modest celebration at El Rancho Pendejo. We broke fast with coffee, toast, oatmeal, and tea, went out for a short trail run, and lunched on leftover pasta with a mildly lively sauce of tomatoes, sausage, rosemary and olives.
Afterward, while I made the tee-hees here at the blog, Herself whipped up a giant cookie using a shortbread pan she scored from Goodwill. Background music was from The Chieftains, The Pogues, Mozart, Robert Earl Keen, Hozier, Tom Waits … you know, the usual holiday suspects.
Dinner was jambalaya with a green salad. Beverages included Guinness 0.0 and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
Gift-giving was restrained. I have this fine new MacBook Pro, and Herself has the green light for a getaway with a friend.
Gotta save our pennies for those tariffs, $50 cartons of eggs, and $20-per-gallon gas. Also, moreover, furthermore, and too, bribes for the guards at the camp. A fella can’t eat rat tartare three meals a day, y’know.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla got a yummy StinkCube® with her kibble. When I make tuna salad for sandwiches I squeeze the water from the tuna and we thin it with drinking water before freezing it in ice-cube trays to give Her Majesty a couple weeks’ worth of tasty treats.
I should’ve taken some pix, but after a four-mile trail run and all that cookery we just sat down and chowed down. The grub was gone before I even considered preserving the moment in pixels. If I remember I’ll take some snaps when we wipe out the leftovers this evening.
Herself texted with her sisters, I did likewise with my bros (not blood kin, the chosen variety), and we rang up my sis and her husband to exchange holiday greetings and gnaw our livers over the Pestilence-Erect. Good times, etc.
Today I hope to buy a big bag of nuttin’. Either that or I may hit Page 1 Books for some fresh brain food because I find myself rereading old books again.
When I haven’t been watching crazed seditionists screeching about immigrants living high on the dog or feeding less startling dishes of my own to visiting in-laws there’s been plenty of time for the ol’ bikey ridey around The Duck! City this past week.
The turnaround point.
On Wednesday my geezer brethren and I pedaled south and east through Tijeras and up to the Morning Star Grocery, just past Oak Flat on NM 337.
This annual outing is one of those “your mileage may vary” deals. A couple of us start from home; for me, the ride from El Rancho Pendejo and back is 42 miles with about 2,300 feet of vertical gain. Others drive to the meetup spot, a corporate grocery at Tramway and Central.
Our youngest (59) and oldest (82) riders were a little concerned about completing the entire ride this year. The first was undertrained due to travel and other distractions, while the second confided he felt a little less snappy on the hills lately.
But both soldiered on and finished with honor. Huzzah to one and all.
Miss Mia does her Bill the Cat impression.
With the Morning Star ride and a few lesser outings in the rear view I’ll top 150 miles for this week, which is a lot for me. Also, a good excuse to eat everything in the house. Veggie quesadillas, bolognese over egg noodles, pizza, you name it.
Not the cat, though. Not even with homemade pico de gallo.
The North Diversion Channel Trail, just below the Osuna-Bear Arroyo connection.
Too bloody much going on lately. Trying to corral my thoughts, if any, has been like chasing jackrabbits through a funhouse with a lacrosse stick, wearing clown shoes and oven mitts. In a word: unproductive.
I won’t bore you with the details. We’re talking First World problems here:
The Soma Double Cross at Elena Gallegos.
Buffing the rough edges out of El Rancho Pendejo in preparation for a houseguest. Stalking the elusive turnip for a promised dish (Whole Foods and Sprouts, nyet; Albertsons, da). Learning that I had failed to acquire the ingredients for another anticipated dish, the promise of which I had not been made aware, and the subsequent acquiring of same. Yet another round of flat-fixing, this time in the garage.
My favorite annoyance was an appointment at the local Apple Store’s Genius Bar, where I expected to be advised in fairly short order to hand over my elderly 15-inch MacBook Pro for a vigorous wash and brushup to resolve its “Apocalypse Now/Ride of the Valkyries” fans issue. There’s either some demonic technical haint in residence or enough hair in the case to build an entirely new cat to keep Miss Mia company. Whichever it is, I ain’t going in there looking for it. That’s what we pay Geniuses for.
But no. What I got was straight out of “Nothing but Blue Skies,” by Thomas McGuane. The scene where Frank Copenhaver and his estranged wife, Gracie, visit a Deadrock restaurant for conversation and something to eat. Conversation they get (Gracie insists). But eats, not so much, as waiters glide past without a glance in their direction, the thundering lunch herd slowly thins, and Frank comes to a rolling boil.
After the place empties out Frank finally takes the bull by the horns, flags down a table-wiping waiter, says they’d like to order.
“I’m sorry, but we’re closed,” replies the waiter.
The Apple Store wasn’t closed. But apparently upon my arrival I had not been properly logged in for my 3:30 appointment, which I did not learn until 4:15, when I was ’bout yay far from knocking over chairs and chasing a Genius through his kitchen.
And now I have another appointment on Tuesday.
So, yeah. That’s the scenic route toward explaining the lack of postage around here lately.
Speaking of scenic routes, the pix are from the rides I’ve been taking lately to keep my blood pressure on simmer as I await service.
When the temps hit triple digits — 101°, another record — the first thing I think about preparing for dinner is a piping-hot pot of soup. A fragrant chicken soup with chickpeas and vegetables from Melissa Clark, to be specific.
OK, between you and me, I was thinking more along the lines of a jambalaya, or maybe some slow-cooker chipotle-honey chicken tacos.
But when I made the mistake of consulting Herself about the week’s menu, she ordered up salmon with potatoes and asparagus, and the aforementioned soup.
Well, whaddaya gonna do?
We get two dinners out of a pound and a half of salmon, a half-dozen taters, and 12 ounces of asparagus.
And that burly soup serves six to eight, which means we’ll probably be eating it through the weekend. Especially since I made a fresh loaf of whole-wheat bread to keep it company.
Maybe next week I’ll pitch a gazpacho at her. Yeah, that’d be cool. …
Mad Blog Media 