A delicious pot of pintos with chipotle and other good stuff, including (of course) bacon.
Cold weather sends me straight to the kitchen, every time.
This afternoon, as the temps dipped into the teens, I whipped up some bacon-potato cakes from “The Feed Zone Cookbook.” This evening it was a big pot of pintos with chipotle from “The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook.” Herself contributed a large, cast-iron skillet full of cornbread and a green salad.
Meanwhile, a couple Ziplocs of frozen Anaheim and New Mexico chiles are thawing in the fridge, and we may just have to have some bean-and-potato burritos smothered in green chile tomorrow.
That should help keep the hawk out there in the wind where he belongs.
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. A guy can’t expect to go rolling around Colorado in shorts and short sleeves all the doo-dah day. Not in November, anyway.
Looks like it’s either poop or a chance of poop for the foreseeable future, with plenty of wind to keep things interesting. The ol’ crystal ball shows a trainer ride in my future, along with the spirited use of various synonyms for “poop.”
The streets are safer, even with a light coating of leaves.
If you ever wonder why so many Americans have so much trouble making their government function, just watch them making a shambles of another shared space — the infinitely simpler bike path.
I nearly got crashed twice yesterday — first by a pair of knucklehead roadies in team kit who cut across my bow in Goose Gossage Park, exiting the bike path for the street without bothering to check for oncoming traffic, and a few minutes later by some helmetless dipshit on a beater road bike careening down the wrong side of a sketchy slope coated with sand and pea gravel.
Mind you, these incidents constituted the cherries atop a turd-cake that included the usual ingredients — oblivious strollers three abreast, untrained dogs sans leash, and fleawits wandering across the path without checking to see whether they might be about to violate the laws of physics by trying to occupy the same space at the same time as a 180-pound Irish-American on a 30-pound touring bike traveling at 15 mph.
The offenders invariably wear the blank, bovine gaze of a feedlot cow doomed to wear a soggy bun, a slice of pickle and some processed cheese “food” in the afterlife. And yet some of us we marvel at the popularity of Rupert Murdoch’s various entertainment outlets, which shove a similarly toxic product at the feeble-minded through the flat-panel windows in their living rooms.
How hard can it be to walk, run and ride to the right, pass left, and keep your fucking eyes open?
Those first few cold days sure get a fella’s attention, and not just due to shrinkage, either.
A spate of subfreezing temps pretty much wrote finis to our fall foliage display, carpeting the sidewalk with defunct leaves, reminding me of a Tom Waits song, and inspiring Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) to take up winter quarters in a subordinate’s lap. Miss Mia Sopaipilla likewise reopened her seasonal penthouse atop the fridge.
Unlike the cats, Mister Boo adores chilly weather. It makes a peppy puppy of the little one-eyed stinkbug, who in the heat of summertime is about as frisky as a union ditch-digger being paid by the hour.
Me, I stand firmly with the cats. I got my fill of cold-weather cycling during 10 years of racing cyclo-cross, and once I abandoned that foolishness I usually did without the pedaling on damp, cold days but kept the running bits. Turns out they’re easier without a bike. Who knew?
Alas, since my knees began grousing, the running is out, so it’s either ride the trainer (barf), go back to swimming (puke) or ride the damn’ bike regardless of the temperature. It’s what you call your basic “First World problem,” for sure.
The leaves dropped like flies, and walking the Boo made a fine rustling sound.
And y’know what? It’s not so bad, riding on a cold day, a lesson I relearn every fall.
Yesterday I chose medium-heavy kit — wool socks, leg warmers, long-sleeved jersey and henley, long-fingered gloves and tuque — and spent a pleasant 90 minutes riding the Voodoo Nakisi in Palmer Park, inspecting a few trails I haven’t visited since monsoon season began. Some are in pretty poor repair, though the city and volunteers have been doing what they can to put them back in order.
Last night’s light rain probably helped make them a bit more rideable — it left a crust of ice on our deck but likely tamped down the loose sand that blankets the trails after every heavy storm.
I might just have to get back in there today. The best thing about a brisk fall Monday is that most of the other sluggardly fat bastards are either at work or sleeping off a 24-hour case of Bronco fever.
