Category: Fall

Last leaf on the tree

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Palmer Park
Bibleburg as seen from Palmer Park. I used the Vivid mode on my little Canon 300 HS to pimp up the colors a bit.

People often ask me why I choose to live in Bibleburg. Seventy-degree days in late October have quite a bit to do with it.

I slipped out for a pleasant afternoon ride yesterday. Took the arm warmers, just in case; never needed them.

Lots of people were playing hooky. Dog walkers and joggers, moms pushing strollers, folks just slouching along, soaking in those last few sunny moments before it all goes sideways and snowy.

At one point I was high up on the south side of Palmer Park, looking west across town at the mountains. You can’t see the vacant storefronts, unpatched potholes and tinfoil-beanie wingnuts from up there. It’s all fall, all the time, green, orange and gold on a blue background.

This morning I streamed the new Tom Waits album, Bad As Me, and it included a poignant number, “Last Leaf.” The refrain goes:

I’m the last leaf on the tree

The autumn took the rest

but they won’t take me

I’m the last leaf on the tree.

Good stuff from start to finish. We’ll be adding that bad boy to the Waits library when it’s released on Monday.

Sayonara, September

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
Fall leaves
A bit of color in the Old North End.

Judas Priest. How did September slip away so fast? Was it that week in Vegas? Confusion caused by allergy meds? Could it have been downsized along with everything else?

Whatever. Tomorrow it will be October, and I’m betting we get our first snow before Halloween. The furnace just clicked on at midday and the thermostat is set at 67 degrees. Sheesh. Close the doors, shut the windows, batten down the hatches.

It sure is pretty out there, though. Fall will always be my favorite time of year, even though it means hunting up my comfy samue pants for around the house, and arm/knee warmers for outside of it.

The rise of fall

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Some new color in the trees
The season is changing with a vengeance.

Hello, autumnal equinox. I didn’t expect you quite so soon. Still, there’s something to be said for lows in the 40s and highs in the 70s, especially for those of us who like to spend a lot of time outdoors.

Indoors, the evening libation is shifting gradually away from ice-cold beer to blood-red wine, and we need an extra blankie come bedtime. Occasionally the furnace clicks on. Perfect sleeping weather, if you don’t mind a snuffling mutt periodically rearranging himself around your ankles.

It’s cyclo-cross season, of course, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing much racing in person since I work the weekends for VeloNews.com. Looks like there’s only one local ’cross, too, on Nov. 19. All the action’s up north these days, which is one of the many reasons I no longer race. Who wants to drive for five hours to race for 45 minutes? Not this old dog.

Speaking of racing, it seems VN.com doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay Charles Pelkey for live updates from Sunday’s elite men’s race at road worlds, so I’m going to try to embed the code on this site for your viewing pleasure. If for one reason or another it doesn’t work, you can always visit CP directly at Live Update Guy.

There goes the neighborhood

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Blue skies (not) smiling at me.
Blue skies (not) smiling at me.

That’s the last of the blue skies around here for a bit. The temperature just dropped like a poisoned pigeon, Herself reports that she is driving home from Denver in a snowstorm and the forecast calls for rain and perhaps an inch or two of snow. Can’t be 70 and sunny forever, I guess.

After committing a bit of journalism in the morning I broke out a Steelman for a pleasant hour or so of low-impact cycling, then hopped on the Vespa for a quick spin downtown for lunch, just beating a light sprinkle home. Now it appears to be snowing, so I’m fortifying myself against pneumonia with a delicious glass of 2006 Ramón Bilbao Tempranillo Limited Edition.

Hey, it could be worse. I could’ve had to drive to Fruita for the VeloNews gang’s annual clusterfuck, and right now there just ain’t no good way to get there from here.

Happily, I wasn’t invited to attend this year, in part because I insist on being paid for hours logged and travel endured and in part because I refer to annual retreats as clusterfucks.