Category: Home and hearth

Cold blow and the rainy night

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

In comments Pat O’B reminds us that Sprinter, Wing, or Wang, whatever you call it, is not done with us quite yet.

The forecast for the Greater Duck! City Metropolitan Area calls for a rough aul’ day in the barrel, starting right about now and lasting until 2 a.m. tomorrow. From the National Weather Service:

Southwest winds 30 to 50 mph with gusts of 60 to 75 mph expected. … Damaging winds will blow down trees and power lines. Damage may occur to mobile homes, roofs, sheds, barns, outbuildings, and fences. Widespread power outages are expected.

Oof. Batten down the hatches, mateys.

We’re semiprepared for Apocalypse Junior.

The lanterns are charged, and the headlamps and flashlights all have fresh batteries, with a candle lantern in reserve.

Jugs of filtered water abound, and a few days of nonperishable edibles are close at hand, so we won’t have to eat the neighbors. Yet.

The ovens will be out of commission, but we have a gas cooktop, and a two-burner Coleman for backup.

Staying warm might be an issue — we have a Mr. Heater Portable Buddy and two fireplaces, but have never used either of them. We could end up warmer than we like (on fire) or colder (dead). Thus, the three-season sleeping bags in reserve.

We have battery banks for our iPhones, for all the good that will do us, because our cul-de-sac is a sinkhole that cellular signals float past unmolested unless the phones can mooch off the wifi.

Finally, my main MacBook Pro is plugged into an APC battery backup. This is likewise useless since without power the Innertubes will deflate, and trying to use the iPhone as a hotspot (see “cellular signals,” above) is the hee, and also the haw.

At least I can take copious notes on the End Times. I hope the alien archaeologists who stumble upon my chronicle are fluent in Snark.

• Musical note: The headline is taken from the Planxty tune of the same name. They know something about the shite weather in the auld sod, so they do.

A matter of degrees

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
Bare trees, gray light. Oh, yeah, it was a cold night.

We’re still in the freezer section here in The Duck! City.

The thermometer has been pegged at 13° since I got up way too early this morning because I was feeling chilly even in the bed, which Miss Mia Sopaipilla appropriated after I had adjusted the thermostat (and provided her a couple helpings of kibble, a tuna-water ice cube, and a soupçon of butter from my morning toast).

“I’d like my meals delivered, please.
As in ‘now.'”

Of course, 13° ain’t shit to you stolid Midwesterners, Canucks, and other polar explorers. And my man Hal reports minus-11° this morning at his compound in our old stomping grounds of Crusty County, which makes me miss the place not at all, not one itty-bitty bit.

I remember stuffing chunks of cedar, oak, and aspen into our Weirdcliffe woodstove like a Vegas bluehair shoving nickels into a one-armed bandit. But Hal can’t even do that, because his stove is on the DL.

Thus he burns propane and electricity like a city feller while he awaits parts for his wood-burner, a Drolet Outback Chef, some Quebecer deal with an Eyetalian overlay.

I don’t suppose Hal will pass the time by reading the continuing adventures of The Count of Mar-a-Lago, now available on Twatter and Buttface. But he does have a perverse streak. How many people do you know who cook their meals on a woodstove in the the Year of our Lard 2023?

Step, child

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
You gotta beat the sun down out of those hills.

Hoo, the sun hits the deck fast in the afternoons come January.

I burned the best part of today’s daylight doing chores. Sue Baroo the Fearsome Furster needed her registration renewed, which means she needed an emissions check, and we oldsters don’t like going to the doctor if nothing is visibly broken and/or leaking crucial fluid. One suspects a fishing expedition.

The clouds were headed one way and the sun the other.

Nevertheless, we went, and she got a clean bill of health and two years’ worth of driving privileges in The Great State of New Mexico and wherever its plates are honored.

Then I rang up our HVAC people to discuss some repairs to the combo unit on the roof at El Rancho Pendejo, and it turned out that they could handle the job right then and there rather than next week. So, yeah, by all means, take my money, please, we like being warm in winter.

The work completed, and the ugly topic of money and its distribution having arisen, Herself and I discussed some pressing financial matters. Then it was lunchtime, after which Miss Mia Sopaipilla required some light entertainment, and before you could say, “Sun’s getting a little low in the sky there, Skeeter,” it was a quarter after three in the peeyem and I had taken no exercise. None. Zee-ro.

I almost blew it off. Almost. But Herself had just told me a horrific tale about someone’s 70-something mom who was in a state of collapse and bound for The Home if she couldn’t walk 10 steps, and those financial matters we had been discussing concerned who gets what when I croak.

Not today, goddamnit. I got my 10 steps in before sundown. The Home ain’t getting me today, and neither is the Devil.

Tidings of comfort and joy

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
Santa pisses off to the North Pole.

Whoosh! Solstice in the rear view, New Year’s dead ahead.

So far it’s been a quiet holiday season around the rancheroo. Kinfolk were chatted up and a medium-light feast prepared (green chile stew with flour tortillas and an avocado-and-tomato appetizer, plus pecan pie for dessert).

No white Christmas here. The bomb cyclone gave us a miss and we were able to get out for a daily run without Jack Frost nipping at our noses or any other critical bits.

Today we’re looking at a high of  … no, I won’t say it. It would be cruel to any of yis who have to crawl out of a second-story window to take a leak in the snow because the terlets are all frozen solid.

In other tidings of comfort and joy, we failed to move the economic needle very much in a gift-giving sense.

Herself acquired a new vacuum cleaner to replace a battered unit that would be old enough to run for president if it were human (and is still smarter than many of the humans currently surveying the campaign trail).

Me, I ordered up a pair of Merrell Hut Mocs because wearing socks with Tevas, even in winter, is apparently a fashion no-no. I also scored some Darn Tough micro crew cushion socks because my DT light hikers are starting to feel a tad beat down after a couple years of stumbling around on the local trails like some homeless old soak who hit the exercise-wear jackpot at a Sally Ann clothing giveaway.

I doubt we’ll be crushing the after-Christmas sales, either. Herself and a co-worker have some pagan ceremony planned (a dark rite involving fire and French 75s). And while Capitalism is carpet-bombing my in-box with any number of fabulous deals, I get a jolt from my shock collar every time I — Yowtch! — reach for the credit card.

I don’t really need anything anyway. Except maybe some insulated bolt-cutters for this goddamned — Ow! — shock collar.

Cookie monster

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Star with royal beauty bright.

Yesterday we made a batch of shortbread cookies for distribution throughout the cul-de-sac.

We were a tad late to the holiday party. Four neighbors had already laid goodies on us by the time we got our asses in gear. And had I been in the driver’s seat, we would still be idling by the curb.

As usual, it was Herself who got us rolling. She dug out the recipe, added a few items to my grocery list, and started cranking out cookies like Mrs. Fields once I came back with the fixin’s.

I provided tech support for our elderly oven, which is the baker’s equivalent of driving a stick. I also took on the gruntwork of sliding trays of dough in and cookies out so that the baker could focus on her Art.

In the end we had just enough cookies to accommodate everyone who hadn’t fled The Duck! City to spend the holidays shivering in a snow-covered ditch or kipping on an airport floor.

While Herself distributed the sugar bombs I pulled on the rubber gloves and started policing up the kitchen. I was in dire need of a haircut and shave and didn’t want to frighten any children looking forward to a visit from St. Nick rather than Old Nick.

“Mommmmmmm! We already did Halloween! It’s supposed to be Christmastime!”