Boo hoo

Oh, lawd, the old tee-hees are proving elusive these days around El Rancho Pendejo.

Mister Boo’s post-surgical recuperation from bladder surgery last Wednesday has been both messier and noisier than I anticipated, and it has not helped that Herself has pissed off to New Orleans for a week on a work junket that just happens to occur in the middle of Jazz Fest.

The Big Easy, this place she is not, cher. Les bon temps, they do not rouler.

There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel. This morning The Boo took the last of his antibiotics and pain meds, and tomorrow the Cone of Shame comes off. The peeing and pooping is occurring mostly outdoors, which is nice. But I laid in another 50-pack of Boots & Barkley extra-large training pads anyway, just in case the flood returns to Katrinaesque proportions.

Well, I wish I was in New Orleans … I can see it in my dreams. …

The mayor of Cell Block O

I am not an animal! Oh, wait, I am! Never mind. ...
I am not an animal! Oh, wait, I am! Never mind. …

Welcome to Little Gitmo.

Mister Boo has had surgery to remove a bladder stone, his second trip down this surgical path, and the stone was apparently so rara an avis that the medicos have shipped it off to a university for further study.

Perhaps through their labors Boos of the future will not suffer from this malady, and the subsequent isolation it requires.

I’ve tried consoling him by noting that he, unlike Prince, is at least on the proper side of the lawn. But The Boo was never much of a “Purple Rain” kind of guy. Right now he’s happy to be making yellow rain.

 

Road work redux

The High Desert neighborhood makes a fine proving ground for touring machinery, with rolling terrain, light traffic and bike lanes.
The High Desert neighborhood makes a fine proving ground for touring machinery, with rolling terrain, light traffic and bike lanes.

Yesterday was one of those insanely busy days that should never afflict the underemployed. We’re not equipped for it.

The Marrakesh Express (c'mon, you knew it was coming sooner or later, right?).
The Marrakesh Express (c’mon, you knew it was coming sooner or later, right?).

With deadlines flitting around my scalp like Hunter S. Thompson’s Barstow bats I committed a few crimes against cycling, emailing back and forth with product managers, marketing wizards and editors; swapping bits of this and that from one bike to another; and bending fender stays around disc calipers, cutting all corners that looked even remotely cuttable, and beating on anything that wouldn’t cut with my favorite tool, the Bravo Foxtrot Hotel (look it up).

Then, before blasting off to the Whole Paycheck for supplies and liberating the Turk from the Nazi war dentist, I managed a brisk, 45-minute ride on the Salsa Marrakesh with full panniers.

It wasn’t actually snowing, which was nice —the temps were in the lower 40s, and I will even go so far as to say that this did not suck, not for January. You may quote me if you like.

This morning it was precipitating again, and Your Humble Narrator was all about writing bikes rather than riding them. Also, furthermore, moreover and too, there was the doctoring of the Turk, the roasting of the poblanos outdoors in a light snowfall, and the cooking of a medium-sized pot of lamb and white bean chili.

Speaking of cooking, now I seem to be slightly baked for some reason.

Bearing up

Gonna be the biggest, baddest bear ever. And then you'll be sorry.
Gonna be the biggest, baddest bear ever. And then you’ll be sorry.

Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment).

We have been to the dentist. We are not amused. We wish we were a bear like the one on the Apple TV screensaver. Then when someone thought we needed to go to the dentist we could slap all the ass off of them and eat a salmon with our funky teefers.

St. Nicked

Mister Boo enjoys his Christmas chew.
Mister Boo enjoys his Christmas chew.

Christmas has come and gone without incident, mostly.

On Christmas Eve, at the urging of Herself, we streamed “The Interview,” because freedom, and now I consider that freedom owes me about $7 and 112 minutes of my life. Herself only gets about 90 minutes back because she fell asleep before the big denouement.

Come the big day we cooked up a mess o’ U-nited States of America American® vittles, just the way Jeebus likes ’em (roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy,  stir-fried succotash with edamame, and raspberry cobbler). Later we rang up or emailed various friends and relatives, and parceled out tasty tidbits to all the critters.

The Turk rests up after an exhausting day of sleeping.
The Turk rests up after an exhausting day of sleeping.

We engaged in no elaborate gift-giving. The move to Duke City and the ongoing reconstruction project that is The Six Million Dollar Boo did to our Visa card what Seth Rogen did to Kim Jong-un’s head, but our executive decisions and the consequences thereof have failed to draw the compensatory attention of the White House and the media.

Then it was early to bed — but not to sleep, not right away. Just as we drifted off, The Boo somehow tumbled out of the rack and onto the deck. I leapt from the sack to see whether his sole remaining eye was skittering around the carpet somewhere like a ping-pong ball that had escaped the table.

Nope. No harm, no foul. As Herself clicked on her bedside lamp, there sprawled The Boo, with a slight list to port, peering at me through the Cone of Shame like a dimwitted Soviet cosmonaut who’d forgotten to close the visor on his helmet before launch.

I’ll call that a Christmas gift.

Mia decides to vogue a bit as Herself and I have a bite of lunch.
Mia decides to vogue a bit as Herself and I have a bite of lunch.