Category: Friends

Hot plate, señores!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Pikes Peak
It was 50-something down here on Nov. 30, but slightly chillier up there.

December? December? Whose idea was this? Wasn’t it July just a couple of days ago? Why do I suddenly have to wear socks all the time? And pants? Who’s in charge around here, anyway?

Thanksgiving went nicely around Chez Dog, thanks for asking. We had the sis and bro-in-law in for the afternoon, neighbors in for the day after, and an old friend in for a quick visit on Saturday. And by the time we’d finally eaten the last of the leftovers on Sunday I was ready for a bit of peace and quiet, some casual cycling, and something to eat other than norteño New Mexican food.

For some reason I had been off New Mexican cookery for a while. And then the cooler weather hit, and before you could say “¡Hijo, madre!” it was chile and beans and posole and what have you.

For Thanksgiving I prepared some pico de gallo salsa and guacamole; posole; roasted potatoes in red chile; pintos in chipotle; and chicken enchiladas smothered in green chile. Herself kicked in a pitcher of sangria and a piñon pie, two recipes we’d never tackled before (they were excellent).

I should’ve taken some pix, but dammit, everything was just too good to let cool while I fiddled with the Canon. Sorry ’bout that. Here’s hoping your holiday was as enjoyable as ours.

Burning daylight

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

Today started and ended well, lightly toasted slices of metaphorical bread comprising an actual shit sandwich.

On arising I recalled that we had a huge slab of meaty Ranch Foods Direct bacon in the fridge, so breakfast included coffee, eggs over easy, American fried potatoes, buttery English muffins and great thick rashers of pigmeat. Your basic heart-attack special, but I like it.

My plans for the workday hinged on breaking a piece of new technology to harness, but despite a hearty breakfast I couldn’t even get my rope on it, much less my brand.

Being something of a persistent cuss — you may call it “obsessive-compulsive,” I call it “persistent” — I kept working at it, trying first this and then that and finally the other, all the while taking copious notes on each fresh dysfunction with an eye toward eventually tattooing same on someone using an icepick and ball-peen hammer, with a sack of wormy dogshit for ink.

Thus the hours passed and the daylight faded, and the technology breezily countered my every move. By late afternoon, which saw the mailperson deliver an overdue check for services rendered that was redeemable for slightly less than half the expected quantity of Dead President Trading Cards, I was at a rolling boil, hissing like a teakettle full of vipers, blistering steam boiling out of both ears.

Herself and I had earlier scheduled a joint birthday dinner with friends, so I stuck my head in the freezer, counted to a thousand in Irish, and off we went to The Blue Star, where the four of us ate all manner of good things while discussing music, metaphysics and literature. Also, we solved every last one of the world’s problems save mine (you’re welcome).

Now I’m hardly pissed off at all. But tomorrow is another day.

Public service announcement

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

I don’t often make pitches like this, but a friend and colleague finds himself in something of a financial hole and I’d like to help some other friends throw him a long green rope.

Patrick Brady, the guiding light behind the website Red Kite Prayer, provided space and funds to Charles Pelkey and John Wilcockson last year when they found themselves abruptly double-flatted with no spares in three-legged-pit-bull country. Now Padraig himself is in something of a pickle, having kissed the planet at speed and, as a consequence, incurred some medical bills to which the insurance company is giving the old ho ho ho.

Long story short, another friend is soliciting small donations on Padraig’s behalf — basically, the equivalent of a tasty microbrew that one might buy for a riding buddy — and if you feel moved to kick in a fin or two I will see to it that he personally kisses you on the lips once his lips are more or less back where they belong. That is all.

This blows

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

We’ve had a break in the heat but little respite from the winds, and the Waldo Canyon firefighters would really appreciate a bit of the latter.

Said incident commander Rich Harvey: “I’d like to start by saying, I hate wind. I wish it would go away.”

Also, rain, please, and plenty of it. Thanks in advance.

Meanwhile, no fear here at Chez Dog. Today Herself volunteered for an extra shift at the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, which is boarding critters in the crisis. And I banged out a little word count on some area bicycle folks who’ve lost individual pursuits to the blaze. The worst of it around our little pied-à-terrier is smoke and ash.

A couple friends have lost their houses, and others are couch-surfing while they await word. One local official taken on a tour of the area hit hardest said entire blocks are gone.

So, yeah, what’s a little smoke and ash? I’ve seen worse at Interbike.

More as it happens.

When the rain comes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

Rain today, finally. Maybe the dust on the trails will finally turn back into sand. Asking for actual mud would be too much.

The Broadmoor
Stately old pile, ain’t it?

Last night Herself and I enjoyed cocktails and snacks at The Broadmoor, courtesy of an old college pal whose line of work dollars up on the hoof a little faster than does free-lance rumormongering. Our shared and violently colorful past was disinterred for inspection, tales of relatives, pets and exploding toilets were exchanged, and the whereabouts, whys and wherefores of absent friends came up for extended and critical examination. Hilarity ensued and the four of us agreed that we see each other far too seldom. Good times.

The Broadmoor is a Forbes Five-Star resort, so naturally it draws Republicans in the way that a gutpile does buzzards, and I felt as comfortable as John Edwards at a NOW rally as various Suits ambled past, occasionally glancing at me as though I were encamped on the pine-board stoop of a 9-by-40 single-wide with my bib-alls around my ankles, a copy of Maxim in one hand and a 40 of Olde English in the other, irrigating my tooth while a half-dozen three-legged pit bulls chased chickens, social workers and red-headed stepchildren through an overflowing leach field.

Happily, a couple drams of Bristol Brewing Company’s Compass IPA removed all apprehension and I even managed to shake hands with one of the sonsabitches when my bro’ engaged him in polite conversation (though I cleansed the hand vigorously in an unflushed toilet afterward).

It was something of a late night for us, and today we barely managed to get breakfast, chores and a two-hour ride done and dusted before the rains came. Rain? I don’t mind. Shine? The world looks fine.