Category: Dogs

Give me a break

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments

Being a newsman of sorts (OK, you can stop laughing now) I like it when actual news occurs.

As Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey and I rambled through today’s coverage of stage 2 it seemed we were in for the classic Tour de France non-event: The Doomed Break Reeled In At the Very Last Minute.

Except it wasn’t. Not all of it. Jan Bakelants (RadioShack-Leopard) made a break from the break and hung on to win by a whisker, the last man standing from a late six-man escape. First Tour, first pro win. And it came with a nifty yellow jersey, too.

People who were supposed to win didn’t; people who were supposed to get the maillot jaune didn’t; and the only impediments to forward motion were gravity, eejits at roadside and a loose mutt who will probably never chase a guy on a bicycle again but came away with a fine tale to tell around the fire hydrant: “Jesus, Lassie, there were a couple hundred of the sonsabitches coming after me at 50 km/h! I ’bout shit my flea collar!”

Eventually all the Right People will take charge, of course. They almost always do. But in the meantime we seem to have an actual sporting-news story on our hands.

Extry, extry, read all about it. …

Breaking news: It snows in winter

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Boo and Herself
Banzai Buddy Boo and the Islamic terrorist holding him hostage.

Check this strange beverage that falls out from the sky, as Tom Waits once growled. Snow, and in winter, too. Who knew?

Mister Boo loves the stuff. Herself took him out for a quick trip around the block and “quick” is the operative word here. The Boo took four corners a sight faster than Davis Phinney ever did, and maybe Danica Patrick, too. His Nipponese ancestors must have hailed from the top of Mount Fuji. He looked like a bug-eyed little snowplow bounding up the sidewalk.

Not so Miss Mia Sopaipilla. The little minx slipped through the open door as I was taking a picture and instantly thought better of it, hanging a 180 and jetting back inside to criticize my weather-management skills.

Being a Russian blue, Mia’s family tree may be rooted in Stalingrad, or perhaps Siberia. But just ’cause you’re from there doesn’t mean you have to like it. You don’t see me hanging around Annapolis, after all.

You can’t spell ‘news’ without ‘ew’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Mister Boo post-cleansing.
Mister Boo post-cleansing.

Trying to keep abreast of the news lately is like following the Budweiser Clydesdales around with a demitasse spoon and a lace napkin. Some days there’s just too much shit for one guy to shovel.

For example, this is not the first time I’m glad I don’t live in Boston.

Also, Los Angeles.

Some buttmunch (or more likely, buttmunches) stole a quarter-million euros worth of bikes and gear from a Garmin-Sharp truck parked outside the team’s hotel, putting them out of the Tour Méditerranéen.

Say it ain’t so, Cipo’.

Is that a drone in your pocket, or are you just unhappy to see me?

And so on, and so forth, etc.

Meanwhile, I have a bum knee that apparently requires physical therapy — always good news for a fella who makes his marginal living in the bike biz — and Mister Boo had to endure a bath, a nail-clipping and the expression of his anal glands this morning. So we’re all a little irritable around the DogHaus today.

How’s tricks with you? Speak up in comments.

Barking dogs, fat flies and spider webs

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Turkish delight
Turkish enjoys a sunny spot on the drawing board after a hard day of doing … well … not much of anything, really.

Whew. We appear to have survived another Thanksgiving-Black Friday combo. But it was a near thing. I don’t know how professional cooks survive all those hours on their feet — ’bout dark-thirty yesterday my dogs commenced to bark and they haven’t stopped yet.

A couple of friends popped round last night to split a bottle of sparking rosé and eat some leftovers, which I swear to God took nearly as long to reheat as the original meal did to cook. They also brought some killer green-chile-and-jack wontons with a guacamole garnish that put our heat-it-and-eat-it to shame.

Anyway, we stayed up too late and drank too much and today we all felt a tad listless for some reason, even the four-legged crowd, which does not imbibe (see Turkish, at right).

After a few hours of puttering around the ranch Herself toddled off for a short run and I took a break from work to ride the Jamis Supernova around Monument Valley Park, which proved a bad idea. I felt like a fat fly negotiating a spider web constructed of retractable dog leashes and feckin’ eejits.

Now I’m wrapping up the day’s paying chores, sipping a 5 Barrel Pale Ale and contemplating the evening meal. Whaddaya think? Turkey, turkey or … turkey?