Boggy O’Trotter, fresh from an epic 8-mile ride. The flowers were in case I croaked en route.
Herself and I kitted up (in green, natch) and rode our mountain bikes over to Herself the Elder’s assisted-living home this afternoon.
It was a resupply op (HtE was out of wine) and the choppers were all grounded, so whaddaya gonna do?
I chose the old DBR Axis TT because it has 26-inch wheels (easy to throw a leg over); fat tires (squish squish squish); and boingy bits (boy-boy-yoinnnnng), all of which help minimize the impact to the bum ankle, which is wearing one of these doodads. Swapped the Time ATACs for flat pedals too.
No land-speed records were set. But it was nice to be riding a bicycle that was actually going somewhere.
So you know that you’re over the hill
When your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill
Try and get a rise from an atrophied muscle,
And the nerves in your thigh just quivers and fizzles
A jury in Fanta Se has convicted Jacob D. Brown of Moriarty in a March 2018 road-rage incident that left three cyclists with broken bones after he first exchanged words with, then backed his vehicle into, a group of riders.
Sheriff’s deputies took Brown into custody following the verdict. He could be looking at more than four and a half years in the hoosegow when he faces sentencing next month.
Props to everyone who fought for this victory over senseless violence, nearly two years in the making. Let’s hope it sends a message to anyone else who thinks they own the road along with the automobile.
A spokesman for Seniors on Bikes told The New Mexican via email: ““We are thankful that Santa Fe citizens are supportive of the rule of the rule of law and that cyclists are not considered targets on our roads. We hope everyone stays safe: motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.”
His Excellency recovers from the tortures of the damned, a.k.a. a visit to the vet.
While the shit-mist continues to blot out Old Sol in DeeCee, we’ve had a little sunshine in our back door today.
Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) had been under the weather about a month back, and so I chauffeured him to his personal physician, who diagnosed a bit of arthritis in the hips and (of all things) a pair of stones in his bladder, an affliction with which we are all too familiar.
The vet recommended that we replace his dry kibble with a canned prescription diet and a side of nutriceutical antiinflammatory, then come back in 30 days to see whether the change in cuisine would solve the issue without more heroic measures.
If It didn’t — well, as I noted, we’ve been down this stony road before with the late, lamented Mister Boo. And we were not looking forward to approving yet another round of surgery on yet another of our comrades.
Today was the day for His Excellency’s followup visit, and not only did the Turk pass with flying colors (and without knifework), he’s actually shed a few ounces on the new diet.
Since his rock has apparently rolled, I played him a little Jimi to celebrate.
Good God, what a motley crew. No wonder I drank. I bet this photo wound up on bulletin boards in newspaper HR offices nationwide, bearing a red stamp reading “DO NOT HIRE.”
Herself and I celebrated 28 years of unholy matrimony this morning with the traditional “Happy Anniversary” dance in the kitchen.
And what a long, strange tripping of the light fantastic it’s been, too. When we got shackled up at Jekyll & Hyde State Park outside Fanta Se in 1990 Herself was managing the DeVargas Center location of B. Dalton Bookseller (anyone remember bookstores?) and I was an editor at The New Mexican (anyone remember newspapers?).
“Is there a bus ticket and some fake I.D. in here somewhere? Goddamnit!”
Just shy of three decades further on down the road, she is a skilled, respected information-services professional burrowed like a tick into the leathery hide of the Military-Industrial Complex, while I … I … ai yi yi. The less said about that, the better. For every up, there must be a down. That’s Scripture. Ballistics. The Scripture of Ballistics? One a them there.
Anyway, that we have nearly made it to the Big Three-Oh is not my fault. She had Lasik. She can work an Excel spreadsheet. She knows where the guns and the airport are.
But Herself is in the habit of collecting stray animals and is reluctant to concede defeat, even in the face of tattered furniture, soiled carpets, and a dwindling income stream that one might blame on an aged prostate if a work ethic had one.
Fortunately one of us remains viable. We started small, in that teensy rental roach motel on Romero Street, and now we have this fauxdobe hacienda with a great big yard. Sometimes she lets me off the leash to chase rabbits.
That’s what she’ll tell the cops and neighbors when they wonder why they haven’t seen me wobbling around on the bike lately, anyway.
“I took my eyes off him for one second and he was over the wall and gone! Beg pardon? What’s with the shovel and the mound? Oh, just turning over an old flower bed. Why do you ask? ’Scuse me, I have a flight to catch.”
