Category: Home and hearth

Interbike 2014: Homeward bound (part one)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
A room with a view.
A room with a view.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (MDM) — Another Tour de Interbike is nearly in the books. The penultimate stage is today (Flagstaff to Albuquerque) with the finale tomorrow (Albuquerque to Colorado Springs).

The Mad Dog Media nerve center at the Luxor.
The Mad Dog Media nerve center at the Luxor.

It was the usual nutty cluster of fuck on the show floor, and thus my best-laid plans for bloggery gang aft agley. My cell at the Luxor was as far away from the action at Mandalay Bay as one could be and still be in Las Vegas, so my dogs were barking so loudly by the time I got “home” that I just tumbled into bed. Mornings were spent over at LiveUpdateGuy.com helping Sir Charles wrangle the Vuelta.

I did another round of that this morning from my sunny suite at the Hampton Inn in Flag’ — a mighty improvement from the Luxor it was, too — and now I’m fixin’ to head east at high speed for Duke City. Mister Boo is not the only critter in the house with a bed now, thanks to Herself. ‘Oorah, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking that left turn at Albuquerque that Bugs was always missing. I wonder what the cats have in store for me? Best not to think about it, the way Bugs never worried much about Elmer.

 

Interbike 2014: The Peristalsis Project

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Speaking of moons, I snapped a quick shot of this one through the driver's-side window as Mister Boo and I barreled along north of Pecos.
Speaking of moons, I snapped a quick shot of this one through the driver’s-side window as Mister Boo and I barreled along north of Pecos.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (MDM) — It was about 9:30, and I wanted to hit the Whole Paycheck for a late dinner before it closed for the night, but after the long drive from Bibleburg Mister Boo was having some difficulty locating his inner turd in the largely greenery-free zone surrounding our hotel.

We’re here to close on Chez Dog South, a process that has been … interesting. Especially if you’re trying to do it from a distance, with Herself on a junket to Maryland, while holding down four part-time jobs. The deal is to be done this afternoon, but I will believe when I’m standing in the title company’s office with a key in one hand and my pants around my ankles.

Speaking of incoming and outgoing, I finally located a small patch of grass and steered The Boo toward it.

“Go ahead, man,” I told him. “It’s a mortgage company’s lawn. Knock yourself out.”

 

Unreal estate

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 37 Comments
Apologies to Chuck Jones. No bull.
Apologies to Chuck Jones. No bull.

Oh, the Universe is a funny old place.

Once upon a time I hardly thought of Albuquerque at all, other than as a place to drive through en route to somewhere else. Then, sometime in the past few years, Duke City became an occasional cycling getaway; closer than Fountain Hills, cheaper than Santa Fe.

And now the sonofabitch is in my thoughts more or less constantly, like one of those work-related cocktail parties your spouse drags you to without having the common human decency to slip you a mickey first.

“You’ll have a wonderful time.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because you’re going and you might as well try to enjoy yourself.”

Herself has been in residence in Albuquerque since Friday, the thin edge of our family wedge, house-hunting with a vengeance and filing detailed, illustrated reports with Your Humble Narrator. As a consequence I have peeked in more strangers’ windows this weekend than a CIA drone, but the only thing I’ve learned is that some people should not be allowed in a Lowe’s with an idea and a credit card.

No, that’s not true. I also know that the rozzes are apparently shooting everyone except the bratchnies tolchocking homeless vecks to death, and that if it keeps raining Albuquerque is in line to be home port for the New Mexican Navy (no jokes about adobe submarines, por favor).

So I’ve instructed Herself to focus on properties above the high water line, and I’m shopping for razor wire, machine guns and a Nadsat-English phrasebook.

Hump Month

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 48 Comments
nob-hill-sm
If I were to find work in this neighborhood, would I be justified in calling it a Nob job? No, don’t answer that.

I know, I know, the term is “Hump Day.” But it’s gonna be Hump Month around here, and maybe even Hump Quarter, because Herself has gone and landed a new job — in Albuquerque.

Ay, Chihuahua.

It will be a homecoming of sorts. We met and married in Santa Fe, but left New Mexico for Bibleburg in 1991 to take care of my mom, who was developing Alzheimer’s and had begun acting nearly as outlandishly as me. We’ve lived in Colorado ever since, either here (twice) or in Weirdcliffe (once).

We’ve been in residence at the ultra-chic Chez Dog in the upscale Patty Jewett Yacht & Gun Club Neighborhood for going on 12 years now — 12 years! — and I figured we were all done moving, that my years of rocketing pointlessly around North America like a turpentined ferret had finally come to an end.

I’ve lived in two countries, 11 states and 18 towns that I can remember, and in several of those towns more than once. Hell, I’ve lived in five different houses right here in Bibleburg. And the appalling state of three of them is none of my doing, no matter what you may hear from the few neighbors who survived.

Well, looks like we can toss No. 19 up there on the Big Board. Some people around here insist on having actual jobs, my shining example to the contrary notwithstanding, and next month Herself starts work as a technical librarian in electronic resources and document services at Sandia National Laboratories.

And me? Well, God willin’ and the creek don’t rise — which it appears to be doing as we speak — I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing since 1989, to wit, annoying the readers, staff, advertisers and ownership of various bicycle publications. My primary residence will always be a Mad Dog state of mind.