Trying to cough up some laughs

December 16, 2023December 17, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments

Whenever I skip the second cup of strong, black coffee for a tall, steaming mug of tea with honey, you may be certain that I am unwell.

Herself picked up a bug (not The Bug) about 10 days ago, one of those raspy coughers that keeps everyone in the house awake, and come Thursday I was quietly congratulating myself for having dodged it when I began to sense a disturbance in the Force during a short trail run.

By Friday it was me hacking away like a lunger with a three-pack-a-day habit, chain-smoking Luckies through the port in my windpipe. Kane didn’t make that much racket when the baby Alien did his “Heeeeeere’s Johnny!” number at dinner on the Nostromo.

I hit the couch early on and stayed there, and when that proved exhausting I went to bed, around 7:30. And I stayed there until 7:30 this morning.

The fun part about having a bad cough is trying to find a position in which you can grab a bit of shuteye between eruptions. I usually sleep on my left side, but that was right out. So was the right side.

The only position that worked for me was flat on my back, just like Kane on the galley table.

The good news is, there was no blood on the sheets this morning and no midget Aliens chasing Miss Mia Sopaipilla around the house.

The bad news is I don’t feel up to throwing out a few half-baked zingers like “Rudy the Mook should be tossed in the sneezer until he can remember his bank balance,” or “The U.S. House of Reprehensibles resembles a legitimate legislative body in the same way that a tank-town dog pound resembles the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show,” or maybe “How is it that we still care more about Matthew Perry than anybody in Gaza?”

Denuded

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Must be December.

God left Her leaf blower on high all day yesterday and the trees got stripped faster than an Escalade with Texas tags parked overnight at a Duck! City Motel 6. Now they look like backgrounds from “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which was just selected for the National Film Registry.

It’s beginning to look a lot like … Dec. 14.

Overnight the rain swept in, nearly a quarter inch of it, followed by the fabled “wintry mix” and then actual snow this very dark morning. Sort of a heavenly apology to the trees for pulling their bloomers down, I suppose.

In her office Herself is sipping some vile tea that recalls the scented-candle section at a Nordstrom, staffed by a retired exotic dancer who applies her eau de parfum using a power washer.

But she can drink whisky neat for breakfast if that blows her dress up, because she makes all the money around here. Herself, not the stripper. Though a stripper would too. Don’t ask how I know.

The private sector — Herself’s little corner of it, anyway — pays a damn sight better than anything I’ve got going on, especially if we’re talking about stripping. If we had to depend on the spare change Uncle Sammy drops in my tin cup or the singles drunk bachelorettes stuffed in my G-string we’d be fighting the cat for her kibble, and not just for fun, either.

Meanwhile, it’s 9:30 in the morning, but outside it looks like 9:30 at night, and if I had the sense God gave a stripper I’d start taking off clothes and … go back to bed.

Off the pot

November 14, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Tuesday is a good day for chores.

It’s quiet around El Rancho Pendejo. Herself races off to the Lab at 5:30 in the a.m. and it’s just Your Humble Narrator and Miss Mia Sopaipilla manning the battlements. Cat’lments. Whatevs.

Sometimes I’m up before The Boss hits the door running, sometimes not. This morning I managed to see her off and then got down to brass tacks, as the kids don’t say anymore.

Miss Mia must be greeted, loved up on, given a second round of food and drink, and her litter box unburdened of its dark freight.

Then the Winter Palace is to be prepared for Her Majesty, after which I may offer myself a little sumpin’-sumpin’: coffee; toast with butter and jam; either oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts or yogurt with granola; an apple or mandarine; a scoop of crunchy almond butter; maybe a mug of tea.

The news is to be scanned but not dwelt upon lest it hamper the digestion.

OK, so I missed a few needles. I blame management.

This morning saw the last slice of bread slide down the rathole so a new loaf was in order, and I set that machinery in motion.

Next I congratulated myself for taking a moment yesterday to rake up the pine needles scattered across the lawn by last Thursday’s window-rattler, with the goal of restarting the irrigation system for a quick spritz this morning, when I noticed our bird feeders were getting low. So I filled those up. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

This short detour threw a slight hitch into my gitalong. The next items on the schedule were exercise and grocery shopping. If I hadn’t stopped to pat myself on the back I could’ve squeezed in a quick trail run before the sprinklers came on (I wanted to be around to make sure nothing had frozen up during our short cold snap).

Running afterward would put me at the grocery noonish, which is not optimal; the amateurs scuttle out of their holes and get in everyone’s way at noon and 5 p.m. I like to do my shopping between 9 and 10, or sometime after 1, when only pro hunter-gatherers are working the aisles and the registers don’t look like The Big I at rush hour.

Thing is, the meal I have planned for tonight is a slow-cooker deal that wants four hours in the pot.

So, yeah. Here I sit, muttering to myself (and to you) while I update my grocery list, avoid the news, and wait to see whether the irrigation system erupts like Vesuvius.

No!vember

November 2, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

Here it is November, from the Old Norse for “I’m freezing my nuts off, pass the akvavit.”

Sacred to Capilene, god of baselayers, November is the month in which one expends more time and energy unearthing long-buried sport-specific garments than actually engaging in the sport to which they are specific.

It’s a triathlon of sorts, and sportswear is not required for the first leg: finding the toilet in the dark.

“Whoops, nope, that’s not it. …”

Next leg: Not scaring the cat. This means putting on some clothes before heading to the kitchen to make coffee, because nobody, not even a cat, wants to see some wrinkly sack of snot, spasms, and bad ideas hobbling around in the dark with his leaky bidness hanging out, especially if he just peed in the bathroom trash can.

“Hm. Wool socks don’t slide smoove like butta through the old polyester jogging pants, do they? More like trying to shove overcooked spaghetti through shifter-cable housing. Shit, forgot underwear. (Do the Dance of the Sugar Plum Geezers, trying to pull the pants off over the wool socks, after which it’s time to pee again, this time in the toilet.) Goddamnit, did the little woman eBay all my long-sleeved pullovers? Nope, here they are, underneath the cat.”

And finally, after coffee, toast, and oatmeal: “The hell are my leg warmers? It’s too cold for knee warmers, but not cold enough for tights, and I can’t find those either. The wool socks stay on, if only because once I’m kitted up with winter bibs, leg warmers, and three long-sleeved jerseys I can’t bend over.”

This, of course, is when the toilet sings its siren song once again, with a tad more urgency. Flailing transpires. Superman never got out of a Clark Kent suit so fast. If this were an Olympic event I’d be on a Wheaties box for sure.

Oh, well. “Drit skjer (Shit happens)”, as the Vikings say. Pass the akvavit.

Tea time

October 15, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

My morning routine changes with the seasons.

Come autumn, the first part of the day is always the hardest — getting out of bed.

Hey, it’s dark out there, man. What am I, a farmer?

Stagger to the bathroom, dispose of the next item on the agenda, pull on some clothes — the past couple mornings, with temps in the low 40s, this means a T-shirt and lightly trail-shredded Patagucci joggers, not my ancient, decaying Columbia shorts — and shuffle into the kitchen to mumble “Hell’s goin’ on in here?” to Herself and Miss Mia Sopaipilla, who do not object to early rising and consider Your Humble Narrator a hopeless slacker.

Next there must be strong black coffee, and the morning news, which is mostly what you might expect from an afterlife peek at the front page of The Lake of Fire Cauldron-Inferno (“The Hell You Say!”).

A slice apiece of homemade whole-wheat toast with Irish butter and French jam helps soak up the acid (avoid those stomach ulcers, kids!). And then breakfast gets serious.

This time of year it’s likely to be hot oatmeal with a dash of brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, dried fruit and nuts, plus a tall mug of tea. Yogurt, müesli, and smoothies are generally summertime fare, while eggs with taters and chicken sausage have been more of a lunch than a breakfast in recent years.

Just now as I was finishing my tea I heard a thunk! in the living room that couldn’t be attributed to an old house slowly warming as the sun peeks over the Sandias.

It was a dove taking a header into the picture window — they will do that, especially if the neighborhood Cooper’s hawk is clocked in and on the job — but this one apparently augured in without assistance.

Dazed, the bird squatted on the landscaping rocks, blinking like an old computer slowly booting up. Slowly, the frantic breathing became more regular; next, the head swung first this way, then that; and poof! Liftoff, straight up into the backyard maple.

No harm, no foul. Fowl? No, the sun may finally be up, but it’s still too early for cheap jokes.