The Duck! City croaked another mark yesterday with a high of 88°. And our earliest day of 90° or better — May 3, 1947 — looks like an endangered species as well.
This is a small platter of fried spuds to anyone living in Tucson (101°), Phoenix (105°), or Palm Springs (107°). All records, set yesterday. Helluva note when St. Me Day comes with a chaser of heat stroke. If MarkWayne BillyBob JimmyJoe Knucklegobbler and his ICEholes come looking for you in any of those ZIP codes all you need is a parabolic reflector and hey presto! Instant Death Ray.
Speaking of cookery, the hot soups and stews and anything involving the oven have long since been 86ed from the menu here at Chez Dog. Last night we dined on Martha Rose Shulman’s shrimp and mango tacos with a side of rice and green salad. As “spring” scampers into summer, this ol’ dog needs his wok.
“Rash? Fake news!” says press secretary Karoline Leavitt as her head takes a hot lap around her shoulders. “There are no rashes in this White House. Hail Satan!”
No, not diaper rash. Though he probably has that too. This rash would be a little higher, something like the fabled “ring around the collar,” if by “ring” you mean something that looks like a wicked case of contact dermatitis, late-stage syphilis, shingles, or as one Internet comedian (not me) surmised, “The Evil trying to get out before he dies.”
If it is a Hickey from Hell, do you suppose this means that he and the Devil are going steady? I would’ve thought Old Scratch could do better than this burned-out old hoor, but there’s no accounting for taste. Maybe he’s getting bad advice from Jeffrey Epstein, who must still be irked about getting whacked in jail.
I think of stuff like this in the dead of night instead of sleeping so you can get a good night’s rest. You’re welcome.
March has already been awash in dire portents and we’re not even three full days in yet.
Kerrygold’s Blarney …
I bought a block of my favorite Kerrygold cheese, their Blarney variety (because Irish, blarney, etc.) and its expiration date was 03/27 — my birthday!
We’ve had two consecutive days of high-temperature records — 79° on Sunday and 80° yesterday, with special guest appearances by particulates and pollen (juniper, elm, oak, cottonwood, and ash) — followed by a full lunar eclipse of the Worm Moon, which makes it a Blood Moon.
… and its expiration date.
And of course we have the war on Iran. I don’t know why The Pestilence felt it necessary to go all the way to Iran to kill Americans when he’s been so successful at that right here at home. Whatever happened to America First?
The body count’s not high enough yet to distract his base from the sudden jump — soo-prise, soo-prise, soo-prise — in gas prices. But they’re bound to take notice after the next few fill-ups.
Nothing to see here, move along, move along. I’m sure His Excremency will be sending Kuwait a bill for the $300 million in F-15E Strike Eagles they shot down the other day, and equally certain that he’ll be sharing that windfall with the rest of us.
That’s the news — and now, here’s Asmodeus with the weather!
“Folks, we may be in the End Times, but don’t expect any end to this heat! The Dark Lord has the Lake of Fire at a rolling boil, and we expect Hell to remain unfrozen for the better part of … well, forever! Back to you, Patrick!”
Lots of schmutz in the air today. Our air purifier started sounding like a 747 trying (and failing) to take off from Newark, so I figured Elon was back to blowing up Starships in Texas between Special K binges and using his face as a catcher’s mitt for some pitcher’s high hard one.
But nope. Just windblown wildfire smoke and dust from Mexico, according to the local press. A health alert* has been issued. And warmish, too, so much so with the doors and windows closed that I finally caved and turned on the air conditioning. We must think of Miss Mia Sopaipilla, after all.
With any luck at all the unseemly heat has broken. For the moment, anyway.
Come morning we don’t have to worry that the air conditioning will click on if we throw the doors and windows open to admit a listless 80° breeze that frankly falls miles short of refreshing. But 68°? That’s more like it.
Now and then we’ve gotten a soupçon of rain overnight. Better and better.
As a consequence the cycling has been excellent. It’ll be a while before we have to start thinking about arm and knee warmers, but the other day I packed a jacket and rode a bike with fenders just to ensure that there would be no rain while I was out and about.
Your Humble Narrator, failing to distinguish himself in a time trial at Alamosa sometime in the Nineties. Photo: Casey B. Gibson
Despite the heat I’ve been logging 100-120 miles a week since mid-June, plus occasional short trail runs and even some light weightlifting. Exactly why remains a mystery. The only possible justification is the faint hope that all this sweaty nonsense will help me continue smiling down at the daisies instead of scowling up at the roots.
The other day I found myself afflicted with the impulse to resurrect my old Steelman time-trial bike. Must’ve been some distant, pain-wracked memory of the Record Challenge Time Trial at Moriarty trying to crawl out of its coffin.
The best ride I ever had there was in 1991, when I turned a 56:43 for 40km despite being mired in the move from Fanta Se to Bibleburg. I was logging most of my mileage in the ’83 Toyota longbed but still managed a PR that was only about 10 minutes slower than Kent Bostick’s best time on the course (he didn’t even race that year and still beat me).
Imagine my surprise when a casual check of the Innertubes found that the Paula Higgins Memorial Record Challenge Time Trial is on for the upcoming Labor Day weekend.
Hmm. Now that I’m a geezer I’d be racing the 20km. The way I’ve been training, who knows? I might even be able to break the hour.
When the temps hit triple digits — 101°, another record — the first thing I think about preparing for dinner is a piping-hot pot of soup. A fragrant chicken soup with chickpeas and vegetables from Melissa Clark, to be specific.
OK, between you and me, I was thinking more along the lines of a jambalaya, or maybe some slow-cooker chipotle-honey chicken tacos.
But when I made the mistake of consulting Herself about the week’s menu, she ordered up salmon with potatoes and asparagus, and the aforementioned soup.
Well, whaddaya gonna do?
We get two dinners out of a pound and a half of salmon, a half-dozen taters, and 12 ounces of asparagus.
And that burly soup serves six to eight, which means we’ll probably be eating it through the weekend. Especially since I made a fresh loaf of whole-wheat bread to keep it company.
Maybe next week I’ll pitch a gazpacho at her. Yeah, that’d be cool. …
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