The fun and frolic continues apace here in the Land of Enchantment, a subsidiary of Netflix, Inc. Look for the miniseries “The Ten Plagues of Aztlan,” coming soon! “Episode 1: The Gabachos.”
Word is Ruidoso is getting some rain, which, yay. It’s the proverbial good news/bad news scenario — helps with the fire, but not with the flooding. You gotta play the hand you’re dealt, I guess. Meanwhile, it seems full-time residents may be allowed to return Monday morning.
We woke to a light rain here at El Rancho Pendejo. By 8:30 we’d recorded 0.10 inch of rain since midnight, and we will take it, thank you. Sorta throws a spanner into the ol’ training schedule, but what the hell am I training for, anyway?
If it keeps up I don’t think I’ll have to worry about whether a fellow cyclist returns my friendly wave today. My old VeloNews colleague John Rezell broached the topic yesterday at The Cycling Independent, but I beat him to it by nearly three decades (h/t Khal S.).
In my dotage I see this churlish behavior from all manner of knuckleheads. Wave casually at a brother roadie, get The Great Stone Face. Say, “Good morning” to another hiker on a narrow stretch of trail, nuttin’ but nuttin’. Everyone has the AirPods in their ears and an iStick up their arses, I guess.
It doesn’t bother me much anymore. I keep waving and yielding trail as though it matters. Which it kinda does.
Living two blocks from singletrack has its advantages, as long as you watch your step.
Man, am I ever glad I’m not an influencer.
If I were, I’d feel obligated to opine on Hamas v. Israel; the Rt. Rev. Dr. Mike Johnson (R-Pecksniff), our latest Shaker of the Hose; psycho killers who use gunfire to drown out the voices in their heads; and various Trumps getting hauled, with eyes a-rolling at the sheer injustice of it all, into various courts of law.
But I ain’t. So I won’t.
Besides, my back hurts, because I somehow managed to banjax the bugger on Monday while shoveling out Miss Mia’s litter box and ever since have been lurching around the vicinity like an angry Ent with one root in a cast.
I haven’t even considered riding or running. But I have shuffled out for a few short hikes with my trusty staff and to date have not rendered dysfunctional any other aspects of the organism.
Also, I have not been compelled to endure bombardment, conversion, gunfire, or jurisprudence. Thus, winning, etc.
In other news, we’ve been watching a graphic-novel adaptation on Netflix, the limited series “Bodies,” and I can’t recommend it as a muscle relaxant. More of an irritant, really. But we’re six episodes into the sonofabitch and I want to find out how it ends so I can hate it properly.
Ordinarily I love almost any tale involving time travel. But at the moment all I can think of is going back to 1976 and telling the 22-year-old me not to work the top end of a hand truck while delivering a large refrigerator into an upstairs apartment.
“Dude,” I’d say, “just look at me. I’m all that remains of you. There are ways to get beer money that are easier on the lower back. For starters, weed is gonna be legal here in 2012. You heard it here first. Get busy.”
It was still February yesterday, but I “marched” (har de har har) up from Trail 365 to the foot of the final climb to the Candelaria Bench Trail.
I considered finishing the ascent to the bench, but the wind was coming up, I hadn’t brought any water, and I didn’t feel like finding out what the descent was like these days; it’s been a while since I rock-hopped down the other side to the Hidden Valley Road trailhead.
Going down.
Today I had to get on two wheels, wind be damned. This morning I checked my mileage for this year and holy hell.
No, I won’t tell you the actual numbers. I will say that I had logged twice as many miles by this time last year. I haven’t screwed the pooch this badly since I broke my right ankle in 2020. People on spin bikes are covering more ground than I am.
So far I’ve managed to avoid the ER this year (knock on wood). Little victories, hey? Very little.
Can I call January-February the “off-season?” ’Cause I’m, like, way off.
“When out of sorts, walk a hundred miles,” wrote Jim Harrison.
I only managed a hair over six miles, but then I’m not a lionized poet, author, and screenwriter describing the perambulations of Doug Peacock in “The Fast,” written for Smart magazine and collected in “Just Before Dark.” I’m just a retired free-range rumormonger who felt a tad frazzled after a week of backwash from the abrupt departure of Herself the Elder.
She was not my mother, and I am spastic in financial matters weightier than a crisp Jackson in the wallet, so with sister-in-law Beth in town to backstop Herself I felt my place was in the kitchen, feeding the women to keep their strength up as they rassled various fiscal and familial alligators. I think Jimbo would’ve approved.
I baked, sliced, toasted, and buttered bread; scrambled eggs and cooked oatmeal; sliced apples and assembled sandwiches; and made turkey chili with red kidney beans, a more substantial chicken posole verde, pasta with a mildly spicy sauce of tomatoes, garlic, onion, chile, and black olives, and spread the leftover sauce onto prefab shells for pizza.
Not exactly the labors of Heracles. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. I’d have done most of this cookery anyway, just over a longer period of time. But with Herself fetching a head cold home from her visit to Maryland, and Beth occupying the spare room we use to confine Miss Mia Sopaipilla at night, what sleep I’ve been able to scrape together between cookery, cleanup, coughs, and meows has been less than restful.
When yesterday proved to be a beautiful day, I decided to get outdoors for a while. But with the brain firing erratically trail running seemed iffy and cycling positively suicidal.
Looking west from the corner of trails 365 and 365A.
So instead I grabbed my hickory stick and took a two-and-a-half-hour skull-flushing stroll along the hem of the Sandias to the edge of the Cibola wilderness and back again.
The universe mostly accommodated my desire for relaxation, solitude, peace, and quiet, perhaps with an assist from the Albuquerque Police Department.
The APD is disbanding its Open Space Unit, dispersing its four officers and one sergeant to the mean streets of The Duck! City, and giving police service aides the responsibility for locking and unlocking trailhead gates.
This changing of the guard isn’t supposed to happen until February 2023. But maybe someone missed the memo, because the three parking lots I passed on my hike were locked up tight and as a consequence the foothills trails were mostly empty. I took a small water bottle and my own sweet time and thought not at all about food.
This afternoon the sisters are taking a break from estate management and eBaying to whip up a raspberry cobbler. Once that’s squared away Beth will prepare lobster tails, I’ll tackle the salmon, spuds, and asparagus, and Herself may or may not do a small green salad. It’s been a long week, and she’s still not 100 percent. We’re all tired. So it goes.
If you observe the holiday, or even if you don’t, give your loved ones a little more gravy on their taters, maybe a bigger slice of pie. A little sugar, don’t you know. Don’t forget to raise a glass to any empty seats around the table.
No, it’s not some dark twist on the old “a horse walks into a bar” joke.
It’s solstice! Short day, low sun, long shadows. Huzzah, etc.
Don’t forget your cap, squire.
I start carrying a cycling cap on rides this time of year. Generally I get a late start, because it’s not exactly toasty out there in the mornings, even in the Upper Chihuahuan Desert. And if I’m headed home into that low sun come midafternoon, I want some sort of eyeshade so I can see who’s trying to kill me.
Likewise on hikes I favor a broad-brimmed hat, either a Carhartt crushable boonie or a Broner fedora if I’m feeling stylish.
For runs I go back to the cycling cap — not the Rivendell, but a beat-up Campagnolo model that is so old I can’t recall where or how I acquired it, since I’ve never been a Campy man. I usually fetch a light Sugoi watch cap along too, and wear one while tucking the other into my waistband. Got to keep the brain-box warm since I don’t drink the antifreeze no mo’.
Here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo. …
Just remember to keep moving, like the Earth around the sun, and the Milky Way around the amazing and expanding universe. Don’t crouch indoors like a gargoyle, puzzling out that goddamn WordPress block editor or how long it’s been since your last shot and whether you dare have your great-aunt Fannie over for tea and biscuits. Get out there and chase yourself around.
I know, it’s dark out there. It’s dark when you get up, dark when you go to bed, and in between it’s just dark.
But keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart. While you’re at it, you might pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space, ’cause there’s bugger-all down here on Earth. And keep one hand on your liver.
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