I’ve been awake since 3:30. Four hours later Tōnatiuh still hasn’t shown his face above the Sandias.
Yet I am in a remarkably good mood. Why?
Because … more light soon come, Bubba; more light soon come.
The December solstice arrives at 2:48 p.m. Duck! City time, the Sun God’s advance scout galloping over the hill, herald of longer days and shorter nights.
Just think: If the Earth weren’t as crooked as some of the people who walk its surface, we would be denied this annual morsel of good news. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.
HAL 9000? Eye of Sauron? Nope. The last of the morning coffee.
Some people say I suffer from ocular rectitis — a condition that causes the nerves of eyeballs and asshole to switch roles, leading to a shitty outlook on life — but I knew that the PNM project PNM says it has not been doing in the arroyo for the past couple of weeks would eventually provide some entertainment around El Rancho Pendejo beyond the monotonous “beep beep beep” of heavy equipment in reverse.
So color me unsurprised when Herself texted me at the grocery to say our Internet had gone down as she was trying to do a bit of eBay bidness before heading out on her own errands.
Not a PNM project. We were never here. Now you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes?
Now, our elderly ActionTec modem takes a conniption from time to time. But I knew this time would be different. Just ’cause I got the ocular rectitis doesn’t mean I’m blind, y’know.
And sure enough, when I got home, the DSL indicator on the modem was bright red. And it stayed that way through three reboots.
So I step outside, stick my head over the back wall, and ask one of the hard hats, “You guys didn’t happen to clip a cable by any chance? Our DSL is down.”
And yea, all was revealed to me. The backhoe giveth, and the backhoe taketh away.
Neither PNM nor CenturyLink* could give a rat’s ass about our little predicament, so it seems we will be MacGyvering our online presence here for at least a week. An iPhone 13 makes a swell hotspot, but Lord, does that shit ever burn through a battery.
* Props to Raoul at CenturyLink for getting us back up in running in less than 24 hours, not the week-plus we had expected. He was down in a hole on a rainy day, which is a good deal more like work than cycling a DSL modem/router on and off while swearing a lot.
We might get another water delivery from this lot.
Yesterday’s clouds moved beyond the decorative for a change.
The official tally was a quarter-inch of precip’, but out here in The Duck! City Foothills our widget recorded 0.36 inch. We’ll take it.
One of the little girls from next door came bounding over as we stood in the driveway, soaking up a welcome bit of drizzle, and announced that she had “prayed to God” to lay a little rain on us. We thanked her for her service and wondered why we hadn’t thought of that. Probably better to send the kid on that errand, I thought. Cuter, with a shorter rap sheet.
Up north, Fanta Se moved quickly to reopen some trails shuttered by fear of fire, according to The New Mexican. Down to here, the press pivoted to other concerns: the potential for flooding at burn scars and/or homeless people surfing the arroyos down to the Rio, that sort of thing. Every silver lining must have a dark cloud.
We threw open doors and windows and let the cool morning breeze wash over us. Took a few deep, cleansing breaths. We’ll be sweating things again soon enough.
Right. Time for some good news from the school front.
Today, Harrison Jake Walter will graduate from the Custer County Schools. He’s bound for Colorado Mountain College, with a couple of scholarships in hand.
Some scoff at the proverb that “it takes a village” to raise a child, but I think it was provably true in this instance. Custer County had Harrison’s back for 18 years, and his parents, Hal and Mary, will be the first to tell you that this was not always easy.
So, gassho to Harrison, Hal, and Mary. And also to the school, its students, and their community.
College is the next journey. There will be bumps in the road. But this is the nature of roads. The Great Way for Harrison and the rest of us is one step after another.
Behold the first loaf from our “new” $40 Toastmaster Bread Box, acquired on eBay. The Wirecutter boyos can keep their $300 Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus with my compliments. Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!
In other news, retirement is proceeding swimmingly. This morning I arose late, ground beans, brewed coffee, made tea, toast, and oatmeal, did the dishes, emptied the litter box, took out the trash, refilled the bird feeders, shooed Herself out the door to chauffeur Herself the Elder to a couple appointments, scratched Miss Mia’s back, and glanced over the news, about which the less said the better.
Soon, the healthful outdoor exercise. Herself and I went for an hourlong run yesterday and nothing hurt any more than it should, so I think my back may have finally realigned itself (knock on wood).
