My sister's dogs, Maggie and Riley. Hey, we can't have cats on the site all the time, y'know. The joint's called Mad Dog Media, after all.
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.
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.
Miss Mia knows that sooner or later someone will be passing by ... and she's gonna get ’em.
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.”
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.
OK, so we were gonna go out and act up, eat sushi at Jun, washed down with sake and Kirin, or maybe hit The Blue Star or Nosh, surf the culinary wave of whatever they had going on for $55 a person — and then I said fuck it, I don’t wanna.
Instead, I put a pot of beans on to simmer, sent Herself off in search of additional groceries, dashed downtown to Old Town Bike Shop to drop off a mixed case of Bristol beer in partial repayment for their tolerance and generosity, then roared back home to assemble some green chile chicken enchiladas, a pot of Mexican rice and some pico de gallo to go with the blue corn chips.
Around 6 I cracked bottles of red, white and rosé for me, Herself and a friend, who contributed a delicious butternut-squash soup as an appetizer, which was a good thing as I was running about an hour behind schedule, dinner-wise, which should surprise no one who has ever reserved a table at Chez Dog.
During and after dinner we discussed politics, illness, death, religion, Monty Python, higher education, Firesign Theatre, philosophy, cats, dogs, procreation and the perils thereof, hot springs and the future of the Republic.
Whew.
With dinner over and the friend gone home, I treated myself to a nightcap while Herself padded downstairs to whistle up the voodoo that makes her look 29 while I struggle to maintain a youthful 92. Neither of us made it to midnight. Not with our eyes open, anyway.
And now here it is 2010. The beverage of the day is coffee and I have plans to crank out a mess of Brooklyn-style Hoppin’ John for good luck and prosperity in the new year. Herself and I wish you plenty of both.
OK, so this started out as a family holiday photo, but the cats proved reluctant to accept direction.
“What’s my motivation for this scene?” inquired Turkish, raking my left hand with his claws as I set the camera’s self-timer with my right.
“No paparazzi!” screeched Mia. “I’m in the witness protection program!”
“Why do we have all these cats?” wondered Herself.
“I suppose I can always dick around with this lame-o shot in Photoshop,” I mused. And so I could.
Happy holidays from the O’Gradys: Herself (left); Turkish (a.k.a. Turkenstein, The Turkinator, Mighty Whitey the Blue-eyed Bully of Bibleburg, Big Pussy, et al.); Miss Mia Sopaipilla; and Your Humble Narrator (the fat old bald dude at right).
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