Category: Rain

After the deluge

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Drip, drip, drip.

I’m glad to have logged a couple leisurely hours on the bike yesterday, because today is looking decidedly less velo-friendly.

Something blew me out of a sound sleep around 3 a.m., and surprise, surprise, it was a powerful wind bearing water in quantity. Stripped a metric shit-ton of needles off the pines, slapped one wind chime off its hook, pitched a plastic bucket across the yard, and dumped about 0.30 inch of agua fria in under three hours.

That would be 0.12 inch short of normal … for the month.

We’ll take it. Since we shut down the irrigation system I’ve been watering by hand, and that burns a lot of daylight that I could use for other pasatiempos. Like, say, cycling.

The bike I was riding yesterday, a Soma Saga, sported fenders that I did not need. Long sleeves, knee warmers, yes; mudguards, no. The only evidence of Thursday’s 0.44 inch of precip’ was a little more sand scattered across the foothills streets.

Today might be a very different story, if I were sucker enough to give it a go. Oh, sure, at the moment the sun is shining brightly, and the cul-de-sac is slowly drying out.

But there’s still a 50 percent chance of rain resuming around 10:30. And while I welcome it on the trees’ behalf, I can do without it on my person, thanks all the same. I like my showers hot.

A bouquet for November

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Never surrender.

Gloomy. Chilly. And yet the roses persist.

Is this some class of literary device? Might there be some deeper significance here?

Who knows? Not me, chief. I just work here.

It’s true that we finally caved and turned on the furnaces, and even so the uniform of the day now includes pants, long sleeves, and occasionally a fleece vest.

Here comes the sun, etc.

Too, Thursday brought a chilly rain, and plenty of it, so much so that I never considered going out for a ride or even a run (I ran on Tuesday, and again on Friday, and twice a week is my limit on that nonsense).

Happily, gloom and chill tend to be shortlived in the desert. Hell, these days the sun doesn’t even peek round the Sandias until shortly after 8 a.m. And boom! There the sonofabitch is, right on time. I’m no gardener, but I’m trying to cultivate patience.

Is that some class of literary device, with some deeper significance?

Beats me. I’ll leave that to others. I just like sunshine and flowers.

Sun, screened

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Hold the SPF 50 and gimme a slicker, please.

A spot of seasonal weather has rumbled into town, and thus the cycling is contraindicated for the moment. The gods are bowling up there and though I have three bikes with fenders, I’m not exactly eager to deploy them.

My last few outings have been on the coolish side, but dry. Arm and knee warmers have become part of the uniform of the day. Haven’t gone to tights, tuque, and full-finger gloves yet, but I can see that gloomy country from here.

It’s fair, as Thomas McGuane has taught us. (He has a new book out, in case you’re interested.) The fall to date has been spectacular, and as we know, anybody who chooses to live in a desert shouldn’t bitch about getting free water from the sky.

Unless you’re homeless and using an arroyo to hide your proud-ofs from the Chamber of Commerce street-sweepers. That’s a free ticket for a fast trip to the Rio, and it’s hard to hang ten on a shopping cart. Not exactly a day at the beach, as the fella says.

Speaking of street people, letting that orange mold run wild in the East Wing of the White House is like hiring a Central Avenue hooker to give a makeover tutorial to your teenage daughter. Or maybe it’s more like letting a roach design its own motel.

This we have money for. Head Start and food assistance, not so much. Any of you kids out there who want a bite to eat and someone to watch over you should probably sign on with the War Department, start sinking boats in a bigger bathtub.

Jesus H. Christ. Did the Heritage Foundation rewrite all the civics books when I wasn’t paying attention? Have the three branches of government become the Surprise Party Department, the Practical Joke Department, and the Fairy Godmother Department?*

If so, I wish the last would put down her knitting and do something nice for a change.

* A tip of the old war bonnet goes out to Major John Hay Beith, a.k.a. Ian Hay, via Robert A. Heinlein’s “Glory Road.”

No golden escalators here

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Going up. …

Herself and I slipped out for a short trail run before lunch yesterday, hoping to dodge the predicted rain.

She was taking a break from work, which continues although the feddle-gummint mostly doesn’t. I was taking a break from being indoors, the Monday Geezer Ride having been canceled due to the weather forecast. We are not Portlanders, ready and eager to ride nekkid in fair weather and foul, aiming wisecracks and buttcracks at Beelzebozo’s buttheads.

Our short-run loop is only a couple miles, and mostly flat — just 268 feet of vertical gain, with one lump going out and another coming back — and we were back at the ranch before the clouds opened for business.

And business was booming. Nothing like the Durango area, where Tropical Storm Priscilla really brung it and then some. The official tally here was 0.21 inch. But it felt like a lot compared with the usual nothing at all.

Just ask the lone bedraggled hummingbird who spent about 15 minutes camped at one of our feeders, which hang out of the weather beneath the back patio cover. Every so often s/he would glance skyward as though thinking: “Jaysis! Where is everybody? I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque.”

Freecipitation

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Splish, splash, etc.

What a gloomy day. The ceiling is all the way down to the deck and the drizzle is intermittent. Reminds me of Oregon, only without all the ICEholes and Natural Gourds wandering around, growing fungus in their footwear and moss on their north sides.

Ordinarily I’d slip out for a jog between sprinkles, but I’ve already logged two 5K runs this week and fear a third would leave me a smelly puddle of tears, shredded connective tissue, and bone splinters.

Still, slouching around indoors muttering over the news ain’t no day at the beach neither.

That Tennessee explosives factory? Holy hell.

Public “servants” trying to suppress free speech? Par for the course. Public excoriation for thee, but not for me. Shove the First Amendment right up their fat asses by attending your local No Kings! rally on Oct. 18.

Government employees being shown the door because … well, because Rumpleshitskin likes it? Remember his two-word catchphrase from the unreality show he keeps reliving over and over and over again in the throes of his growing dementia. He’s a man of few words, because he can only remember a few, and can pronounce even fewer.

And to top it off I’ve got one lonely, disheveled hummingbird parked at the backyard feeder, like the old soak lost in thought who just can’t seem to hear the phrase, “Last call. …”