Mr. Coffee passed away this morning. He left two survivors, one of whom got a cup of marginally drinkable java.
Did Monday come early?
The coffeemaker croaked before I could get my morning fix, compelling me to brew java The Cowboy Way (via pour-over into a Thermos). And our Sunday bike ride looks to be rained out.
Ah, well. They still sell slave-made coffeemakers here in the Land of the Free. And rain is good for the vegetation.
Speaking of vegetables, with any luck at all the rain will continue through tomorrow’s Two Minutes Hate, so Ginger Hitler’s Red Caps can get their bodies washed along with their brains, if any. No amount of rain could wash the dumb off they ass, though.
Holiday, schmoliday: The trash crews are on the job.
It’s Labor Day, but trash collection continues as scheduled.
This delights the neighbor kids, who jump up and down and shriek at the trash truck working our cul-de-sac until the driver toots his horn a couple of times.
I don’t know how much fun the trash guys are having. But I applaud them for their generosity to a couple of little girls.
We’re told that it’s easy to find a job these days. But what kind of a job? How much does it pay? What are the benefits? Is there a future in it? Will you need more than one of these jobs to make ends meet?
Our cul-de-sac does pretty well for itself. We work for Sandia National Labs, the University of New Mexico, the U.S. Postal Service, and local government. One loser scribbles nonsense for a couple bike mags, but every good neighborhood needs a bad example.
But I expect we all know a few people who aren’t eating quite so high off the hog.
Without even breaking a light sweat I can think of one colleague who hasn’t been paid for a few months while his corporate masters hunt for new suckers … er, investors. They didn’t ask if he’d work for free during the search. They just quit paying him. The work, of course, arrives as per usual.
Another quit a job he hated, only to go back to it for some reason. I expect it had something to do with paying the bills.
I’m a geezer and long since gone from the job market. My little bit of business doesn’t show up on anyone’s statistical radar. But I still identify with the working class, though I don’t work and have no class, and so I agitate, however feebly, on their behalf.
Thus, here are a few Labor Day notes from around the Innertubes. Chime in with your own notions in comments.
And remember, when you’re smashing the State, keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart.
Look what snuck over the Sandias when the weatherperson wasn’t paying attention.
The weatherman must have missed a memo while compiling today’s forecast.
That “20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon” turned out to be 100 percent, and by 7 a.m., too.
It reminded me of the Yiddish proverb, “Man plans, God laughs.”
Last week I logged nearly 150 miles on the bike, and come Sunday evening the legs were lobbying for a bit of R&R. So although Monday was a beautiful day for the old bikey ridey, I checked the forecast for the rest of the week and said, “OK, I’ll take today off. Haul the glass to the recycler, put a new chain and cassette on the Voodoo Nakisi, whip up a bowl of hummus. And tomorrow I’ll do a nice, long ride.”
Get bulletproof backpacks on the cats? Dream on. I can’t even get them to stop napping in front of a window. Worse than sitting with your back to a door.
Ho, ho, etc.
Tuesday dawned warmish, bleak and breezy, and soon I had to close all the doors and windows I had just opened because the vertical blinds were clattering like skeletons dancing the Charleston.
It was the flip side of Sunday, when, after Saturday’s deluge, I added fenders to Herself’s bike and a rack trunk full of rain gear to my own.
Naturally, the only water we saw on our ride was confined neatly to roadside puddles and ditches.
Man plans, etc.
Dark mornings breed dark thoughts, especially for a lifelong news addict. For example, did you know that the hot back-to-school item is a bulletproof backpack?
Look for them at big-box retailers everywhere. I recommend shopping online until you get one, and maybe even afterward. See if you can find a new congressperson while you’re at it, one of those action figures, not the kind that just sits there between massacres, cashing checks while the NRA pulls its string.
“Thoughts and prayers … thoughts and prayers. …”
Speaking of which, I could use a few of those myself. The sun has finally made an appearance, and even though I don’t have my bulletproof backpack yet, I’m going out for a ride.
Nor have I watched “American Idol,” “The Bachelor,” “American Ninja Warrior,” or “The Circus.”
I did, however, read Hank Stuever’s appraisal of the “debate.” And he said pretty much everything about it that I wanted to say, save for “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Somewhere in the Beyond, Hunter S. Thompson is fitting another cigarette into its holder, ordering another round of mescaline and margaritas, and chuckling to himself over having gotten it so right so long ago.
“Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”
Mad Blog Media 