The winter of my distemper

First snowfall of 2012
These trees are nearly as bent as the UCI.

Whaddaya know? Seems it’s not gonna be 70-something and sunny forever.

It was bite-ass cold this morning, and thank God only Herself had to be up and at ’em early. Me, I burrowed ever deeper into the blankets and stayed there until the crack of 7:30, when it was still too friggin’ cold for my taste. Why, I actually contemplated pulling on the old sweat pants once I tunneled out in search of hot coffee.

Happily, one need only read the morning news to get the blood boiling.

The UCI is starting to look like a Dumpster full of rats into which a lit string of inch-and-a-half Black Cats has been introduced. I’d prefer to nuke the entire site from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure), but if I can’t get a big bang I’ll take a series of little ones.

More shoes are said to be dropping directly (think an earthquake whose epicenter is directly under Imelda Marcos’ closet), so if it sounds like the combined New York, Boston and Chicago marathons are pounding by outside your window, well, you heard it here first.

Elsewhere, John McCain is about three brain cells away from telling squirrels to get off his fucking lawn. The whole point of marrying into the booze business is to avoid drinking the cheap popskull that dissolves you into an asshole and a mouth with nothing in between. I married into the book business, f’fucksake, but you don’t see me reading any of Sean Hannity’s bullshit.

Speaking of which, and finally, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was at the last debate. So there is some good news after all.

I’ll go some more a-Rove-ing

Kona Rove
The Kona Rove is a cyclo-cross-slash-whatever bike, with eyelets for racks and fenders and plenty of clearance for tires forbidden by the UCI.

Some folks hate Mondays. But since I work a weird schedule that mostly shits in my weekends and Wednesdays, I mostly don’t mind ’em.

And yesterday was one of the better Mondays, as the forecast called for 70s and sunny and I had only grocery shopping on the to-do list.

So I dragged ass out of the sack at 7 a.m., enjoyed some java and a piece of toast while surfing disinterestedly for fresh revelations regarding The Cyclist Who Shall Not Be Named, then went for a short run. Yeah, I’m starting that nonsense back up again, and yesterday I managed 20 minutes on grass without collapsing into a weepy heap of exploded joints, synovial fluid and torn tendons.

After elevenses I attached a cyclocomputer and bottle cages to the latest review bike, a Kona Rove (unfortunate moniker, that), and we spent an easy 90 minutes getting acquainted.

The thing I like best about reviewing bikes for Adventure Cyclist — besides cashing the checks, of course — is that I almost always get to play with something entirely new to me. This time it’s the bike itself (never rode a Kona anything) and Hayes disc brakes (Avid, si, Hayes, no).

As usual, I can’t say much about the bike before writing the review, other than to note that it’s steel and green and so what’s not to like?

I’ll ride it again today, and then hunker down for the second presidential debate, God help us all. We have a bottle of Leopold Bros. American Small Batch Whiskey on hand for medicinal purposes, should we start bleeding from the eyes.

Ain’t nothin’ to it but a Job

Mister Boo, the office, Oct. 7, 2012
“Is it dinnertime yet?” inquires the persistent Mister Boo. “How about now? Now? NOW? NOW!!!”

My suffering knows no bounds. Herself is tormenting me from Hawaii with still photos of snorkeling, videos of playing bikini-clad footsie with the Pacific, and tantalizing tales of fresh fish, guacamole made from homegrown avocados and free drinks.

Meanwhile, packed like a sequence of overstuffed Irish bangers into pants, socks and long-sleeved shirt I wrangle Elly Mae’s critters, burn my brand onto some wandering word count and push a whole passel of pixels in the service of what passes for bicycle journalism in these parts. There has been little free time for tomfoolery in the ocean Bibleburg does not border or the eating of the avocados it does not grow.

As novelist Thomas McGuane had a leathery 60-year-old rancher put it in “Nothing But Blue Skies,” “Why does the Lord want me to serve him in this way?”

Who knows? The Lord works in mysterious ways, or so I’m told. So do I, although the mystery lies mostly in why anyone would offer me work. Or marriage, for that matter. As Richard Pryor once said of himself in “Live On the Sunset Strip,” I am no day at the beach, especially when the beach is there and I am here.

We do have sand, however. And before I reapply nose to grindstone this morning I believe I will go out and run on it, or ride in it.

And you needn’t fear that I’ll be doing it in a Big Tex-style banana hammock, either. I ain’t no tri-toad, and anyway, it’s 30 degrees, f’chrissakes. Oh, to be a son of a beach instead of the other thing.

A fine soft day (yeah, right)

The green is wearing a bit o’ dew.

The first cold, clammy day of autumn always reminds me of why my forebears fled the Emerald Isle for Americay. It wasn’t so much the Limeys and the Prods as the weather.

Doesn’t help that Herself is enjoying a weeklong vacation on the Big Island with a gal pal. Beaches for her, bitches for me. ‘Tis not at all the same thing.

Of course, last time I went to Hawaii the locals endured a volcanic eruption and a tsunami. Maybe it’s better that I stay put. For them, anyway.