Category: Home and hearth

Luck of the Irish

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Our maple tree
Blue skies, smiling at me. ...

It’s Friday the 13th, which is supposed to be an unlucky day. But I always feel pretty fortunate to see our front-yard maple greening up. That big boy keeps the house a few degrees cooler come summertime, if summertime ever arrives.

The weather lately has been a bit unsettled (read: typically Coloradan), but today looks like a fine day for some extended time in the saddle.

And as usual, it’s a case of get it while you can. The Amgen Tour of California joins the Giro d’Italia on the Big List of Things To Do for those of us working this weekend, and the weather is supposed to deteriorate once again, further restricting casual cycling opportunities.

Happily, when the temps drop faster than a GOP presidential candidate’s “moderate” posturing, a free-lance cycling rumormonger can stay inside where it’s warm.

Not so the poor saps who actually ride the bikes for fun and profit. The predicted weather for stage one of the AToC reminds me of one of the many reasons I no longer do the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. I like to be able to feel my brake levers when I squeeze ’em, especially when descending from 11,000 feet.

It was 21 years ago today. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
Happy anniversary
What goes best with a sparkling wine? New technology, of course.

Twenty-one years ago today, Herself and I were joined in holy macaroni in Santa Fe, and to the astonishment of just about everyone we know, (a) I’m still alive, and (2) we’re still together.

We celebrated with a bottle of Sofia, Francis Ford Coppola’s fizzy salute to his directorial daughter, and I laid an iPad 2 on her with a bit of the old sleight of hand, directing her downstairs to the nondescript brown bag containing it, saying it was a sack of cat turds from the litter box that needed tossing.

I hedged my comedic bets a tad, though, using a black Sharpie to scrawl “NOT REALLY TURDS” on the bag, just in case. Herself has been known to toss a bag of turds out the back door and onto the sidewalk to await transmission to the trash can at some later date.

What did I get, you ask? I got my gift 21 years ago.

Treed

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Oh, Canada
Our new Canadian red cherry tree.

It’s not the Tree of Liberty; frankly, I’m not certain that species even exists any longer. And while it’s a cherry tree, little Georgie Washington probably never took a whack at one of its ancestors, because it’s a Canadian red cherry.

And it’s in our backyard as of this morning. I’d be happy to water it with the blood of a tyrant if one happens by, but we’re not rich enough to merit the gummint’s personal attention. For plebes like us, the dung is flung wholesale, from a safe distance.

It’s fertilizer, to be sure — you can tell by the smell — but the compost being spread by the plutocracy’s lawn boys in DeeCee is not the kind that encourages green, vigorous growth in anything other than their masters’ portfolios.

So, lacking tyrants’ blood, we’ll just water the little dickens and keep our fingers crossed. This yard has not been kind to trees. You’d think this place had been built on a Republican graveyard or something.

Anything of value that lot takes with them when they go.

Delayed instant gratification

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
The Turk naps, 11-22-2010
Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein rests up for his next campaign against The Enemy, just as soon as it warms up and he's had a little nosh.

Phew. Another day of supervising home improvements instead of riding the bike. Why does the Lord wish me to serve him in this fashion? Beats me. You’ll have to ask Him. I only work here.

In the past few days we’ve had the solar collector off, the roof reshingled, the solar collector reinstalled and the attic bespooged with insulation, all in the name of tapping into various socialist schemes for denying the Heat Lobby its obscene profits. Herself did all the heavy lifting as regards setup and follow-through, of course, but I had to watch, and frankly it was exhausting.

After the last tradesman hit the door running, I felt I deserved a new toy for my troubles, and so I bought one — a Voodoo Nakisi. A track bike and a 29er are about the only machines missing from the Mad Dog fleet, and soon I will be lacking only the former, a condition that will persist until I am safely dead. Life is too short to spend it making left turns only.

What the hell, I had all these old parts cluttering up the garage and the thought of building up a MonsterCross® machine with them captured my imagination the way the Turk’ does anything smaller and slower than him, which covers a lot of Darwinian waterfront, believe you me.

This Voodoo is going to wind up looking something like Brent Steelman’s late, lamented CC cyclo-crosser, which he once described as a 700c mountain bike. I think Dr. Mikey von Schenkenstein still has that hand-me-down, and if so, I’ll grab a photo of it for posterity. It remains one of my favorite bikes, and (dare I say it?) must be an unacknowledged ancestor of the 29er all these crazy kids keep going on and on about.

Drummers on the roof

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Mia and the roofers
"What's all this then?" asks Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Herself has been on a tear of late. Do not be deceived by her diminutive stature — like the tiny Chihuahua, she is full of energy, determination and occasionally bad noise and/or the occasional nip.

With an eye toward continuing her ruthless stranglehold on debt, she got our home loan refinanced from a 30-year fixed to a 15-year fixed, with a local lender, at an interest rate that is so staggeringly low that I am embarrassed to mention it here. We plan to use the money we save on interest to buy Santa Fe.

Then she tapped into several preposterously socialistic federal and state wealth-redistribution schemes and ordered up a new roof plus a massive injection of fresh insulation to keep the cats warm and dry during the brutal Colorado winter (high of 64 expected today). The solar collector came down yesterday, and today a platoon of Spanish-speakers occupies the high ground; shingles are flying everywhere like T-shaped Frisbees.

These dudes have little in common with free-lance rumormongers as regards work ethic. They were on the roof before I’d had my first cup of coffee, the crew boss advising, “It’s gonna get noisy.” Claro que si. Happily, I’m between deadlines. It sounds like Ringo’s drum solo from “The End” ad infinitum up there.

The cats are not amused. Even Miss Mia Sopaipilla, who like Herself is compact yet fearless, views this alarum with alarm.