Happy holidays to one and all, and a tip of the ten-gallon to Robert Earl Keen, Porky Pig and Dar Williams.
Category: Holidays
Black Friday reds
OK, so we finally surrendered to the Dark Side, taking a huge gulp of the Konsumerist Kool-Aid intoxicating millions of our fellow citizens as chronicled by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Californian Derrick Love was clearly under the influence of something. He and lifelong pal David Martinez spent nearly two days camped outside an Oakland Best Buy so he could get a $600 Toshiba laptop for $349.
“We’re on a huge adventure,” Mr. Love told The Times. “One day I’m going to tell my grandkids about this, how we were the first.”
Ai, Chihuahua. If only John Steinbeck were still alive to chronicle this epic tale. Call it, “Toshiba Flat.”
Alas, we proved no more resistant to the siren song of shopping. At the crack of noon Herself and I ventured out to a local nursery, where we ordered up a Canadian red cherry tree to replace the defunct apple trees in our now-treeless back yard. In an orgy of extravagance we added a holiday wreath to the tab. Then Herself posed for a photo with a horse that someone had apparently washed and then popped into an overly hot dryer for an alarming period of time.
We overextended ourselves further by purchasing a couple sandwiches from a downtown eatery and taking them home for a gourmet lunch, after which Herself toddled off to the Humane Society to help a few fuzzy little faces find new homes for the holidays.
As for me, I Vespa’d down to the grog shop for a couple jugs of brain eraser and then spent the afternoon plinking away at the keyboard, composing a hymn to capitalism, American style. Dirty work, but someone has to do it.
Black Friday blues
I camped out all night in my bed and when I arose this morning there was free coffee in the kitchen. Talk about your Black Friday bargains!
There was toast, too, but I had to make that myself. Ditto the eggs. And come to think of it, I had to pay for the eggs, bread and the coffee. Full retail, too, as I recall.
Damn. I think I’ve been screwed by The Man yet again. And without so much as a good-morning kiss.
Herself and I drove to Fort Fun and back for Turkey Day, served up by my sis’ and bro’-in-law, and a delicious meal it was, too. Turkey with all the usual suspects, including Brussels sprouts with bacon and a glass of one of my favorite rosés, Mas de la Dames Rosé du Mas 2009.
En route we missed “Alice’s Restaurant” on KRCC, but caught up with Arlo on KUNC out of Greeley, then followed that up with some “Sam Kinison: Live From Hell” (yeah, we have some odd holiday traditions).
As is traditional, the trip also served up a few contenders for the annual Darwin Awards, including an eight-car smashup near Larkspur, in broad daylight and on dry roads; a pickup driver with his lights off after sunset; and my personal fave, some dipshit fool in dark clothing astride a motorcycle sans taillight speeding in the left lane through Bibleburg as we approached Chez Dog at dark-thirty.
Ride on, brother. Hell ain’t half full, and I hear Sammy throws a swell party.
Felines and framesets
With the holidays bearing down upon us like a doped-up masters racer, a cat’s life is simply overflowing with anticipation.
“When will Jesus bring the pork chops?” wonders Turkish, a.k.a. Turkenstein, The Turkinator, Mighty Whitey the Blue-Eyed Bully of Bibleburg, Big Pussy, et al. He suspects that something wondrous is taking place on the other side of that door and has asked Santa to bring him a pair of opposable thumbs so he can work the knob.
He’s actually pretty damn’ close to getting the door open without thumbs — he certainly doesn’t have any trouble grasping the knob, which sits 36 inches off the ground. Wrap it with something he could sink his claws into and he’d come and go as he pleased.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to see an unwary Turk’ ambling past her grocery-sack spider hole en route to the feed zone so she can whip an ambush on his big white ass. A half hour ago she was merrily flogging him around the house — through the living room and into the bedroom, then through the kitchen and down to the basement. Repeat until naptime, which has just arrived.
Herself is making banking noises out there in the living room, moving money around from one account to another to balance my extravagance as I await delivery of my new Voodoo Nakisi frameset. I’ve found most of what I need to build it up gathering dust in the garage, so naturally the purchase is justified by the crisp sense of order its assembly will bring to a presently cluttered space.
It will use Salsa bars (either flared Bell Laps, Pro Road or Moto Ace); some unlabeled off-brand stem; nine-speed Shimano drivetrain (bar-end shifters, Ultegra derailleurs, XT triple crankset, 11-28 cassette); a pair of moderately scarred Shimano 600 aero brake levers, plus cantis and top-mounted brake levers from Cane Creek; a Thomson seatpost and maybe the old Avenir saddle that came stock on my Nineties road bike.
I don’t have an actual 29er wheelset, however, so I’m gonna make do by pulling a pair of wheels off one of the ’cross bikes and slapping some 700×45 Panaracer Fire Cross tires on ’em. That should be burly enough for my mild purposes until I can get Jerry down at Old Town to build me up a set of righteous hoops using a leftover pair of Hügi hubs and maybe some Alex Adventurer rims, which come recommended by tech editor Matt Wiebe of Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. Matt is the generous gent who is ferrying the frameset from BTI in Santa Fe to Your Humble Narrator in Bibleburg en route to Turkey Day festivities in Denver.
So, yeah. Christmas beats Thanksgiving to the DogHaus this year. But then we were never traditionalists. And if you’re hanging around here, you probably aren’t either. So I’ll leave you with the words of Robert Downey Jr., from “Home for the Holidays”: “That was absurd, let’s eat dead bird.”
Paris, ho!
Well, that was … interesting. Fabian Cancellara kicked much ass without a DieHard up his seat tube (and the UCI checked, just to make sure) and Big Tex just missed the podium in a performance that has his fanboys tugging frantically upon themselves and squeaking about No. 8.
The Champs-Élysées is a long ways off yet, fellas. Put the mouse back in its house, zip up and chill out until the guy has more than five seconds under his belt and you have more than five inches under yours. That’s 8.9km down, 3,633.1km to go, is what I’m saying.
As is traditional, the VeloNews.com donkey had a couple of hitches in its gitalong on this first day of the 2010 Tour. But the virtual muleskinners are beating the poor dumb sonofabitch with a really big digital stick and it’s bound to get the idea sooner or later. Paris is thataway. Yaaah!
I took a break in mid-shift for an early Fourth of July celebration with Herself, the Mom-in-Law, Sis and Bro-in-Law, and The Dude and Doris. We ate catered vittles and drank French wine at midday. Next thing you know we’ll be dancing on Sunday.
One thing I won’t be doing on Sunday is working. That’s reserved for a long-ass bike ride. I even have a stars-and-stripes jersey suitable for the occasion, presented to me by USA Cycling for being an Official National Champion Pain In the Velo-Ass or something along those lines.
And if I can find a titanium-and-carbon-fiber shoehorn, I might even squeeze into it.
A happy Fourth to you and yours.
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