Category: Rain

After the deluge

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Speckled spectacles.

You probably can’t see the scattering of raindrops on my sunglasses, proof that I chose wisely when I decided to go for a run at 7:30 this morning instead of waiting to see whether the skies cleared.

The forecasts from the National Weather Service and Weather Underground were for … well, frankly, they were for shit. No common ground. One declared that it was already raining (it was not) and might be doing so again later. The other? “A chance of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after noon.”

Well, there’s always a chance of something happening somewhere. It’s what makes life worth living. There’s a chance that Jeebus might come back, give Orange Julius Caesar a sandal right in the ballroom, and deliver a new gospel over his squealing carcass: “This is not what I had in mind at all, y’all.”

But I’m not betting the rancho on it.

I did catch a few sprinkles on my run, mostly on the return trip. But they added up to bupkis on the rain gauge.

So naturally I’m sitting here wondering whether I should’ve gone for a ride instead.

But, chance being the fickle bitch that she is, Jeebus is probably waiting out there to give me the other sandal in the chamois and proclaim, “Nope, not him either. Sheesh, you people and your false prophets. Do I have to hire a babysitter every time I step out for a couple thousand years?”

May Day parade

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
O ride, ye prisoners from your slumbers. …

There was a May Day gathering at Civic Plaza yesterday but we gave it a miss. Instead I formed a rolling rally of one, equipped and clad to suit the occasion (in red) and the weather (brisk).

A quarter inch of rain is a whole lot better than none at all.

A quarter inch of rain fell overnight, and at high speed, too. The wind and water blew us out of a sound sleep shortly after 2 a.m., and while the rain stopped the wind was still with us at 11:30 when I took the red Steelman off its hook and rolled out to spend 90 minutes trying to find shelter from it.

We did honor the general strike. We bought nothing and did no paid work; I’ve gotten pretty good at that since retiring in 2022. To feed the starving masses I made three meals out of fridge and pantry: toast, tea, oatmeal, and fruit for breakfast; grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch; and pasta with a sauce of tomatoes, onions, jalapeño, garlic, black olives, red pepper flakes (there’s that red again) and chicken sausage for dinner.

This morning as I arose at 5 a.m. the furnace ticked on, which really lets you know it’s May. Forty-two, said the weather widget. We get summer in March and winter in May and if we’re lucky a little rain sneaks in there somewhere.

Today I will have to re-engage with capitalism in a fairly significant fashion. The pantry is bare, and the People’s Army, like any other, marches on its stomach.

April pool

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
No foolin’.

¡Agua free-, ahhh!”

They said it might rain. But then they say a lot of things, don’t they?

I don’t see any mention of precip’ in my 2026 training log since a bit of snow on Jan. 25. This morning, our weather widget reports 0.08 inch of rain overnight, and we will take it, with gratitude.

Maybe some of this will fall on War Piggy’s parade this evening, when he is expected to either declare victory in his oil-burning Excursion and then run away with his armor all soiled like Sir Robin, or go full Curtis LeMay on Iran, bombing it “back to the Stone Ages,” which I suppose is where he thinks Fred and Wilma live.

Either way, the goal is getting back to the important stuff: turning the White House into a whorehouse with casino attached; flushing our health care down his golden loo to pay for all his impeachable offenses; and slapping his punk-ass name on everything, including the money he’s stealing from us.

The only good part about having this pendejo as president is that it frees up a lot of time you might otherwise waste listening to, reading about, or watching anything he has to say. If you see his name followed by a verb like “says,” well, you can just go about your business. Because whatever he says will be (a) incomprehensible without Mr. Spock’s Universal Translator, and (2) what George Carlin described in “40 Years of Comedy” as “bullshit” — top to bottom, stem to stern, inside and out.

Of course, George was speaking back in 1997, when American presidents cared enough to put some thought into the tales they told, a soupçon of savoir-faire, delivering what he called “high-quality bullshit, world-class designer bullshit, to be sure. Hospital-tested, clinically proven bullshit.”

War Piggy just brings the stink, and it’s hard to tell which end of him smells worse.

‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
There’s a cat in here some’eres. But where?

Are we going about this whole “new year” thing wrong?

Maybe the new year should kick off with the spring equinox. New life in the offing, and better weather to keep it comfy-cozy.

We were already into the 50s here last March 20. Zach at Two Wheel Drive had found me a Deore derailleur for the as-yet-unbuilt Soma Pescadero, and I went out for a short trail run to celebrate. The next day I was burning up the Elena Gallegos trails on my old red Steelman Eurocross while TWD assembled my new whip. Talk about your bowl of cherries.

Black-eyed peas under construction.

January is usually a bowl of something else altogether. The month is named for the Roman deity Janus, god of change, passages, and beginnings: “Better beef up your kit before you head out that door to start your run, Mr. Not-So-Smarticus. Add a base layer, maybe a jacket and cap, looks like rain.”

When I revisit January in old training diaries I see a lot of short runs in frosty temps. Which is fine, as far as it goes, which is not very. And I’ll probably be doing one of those directly, as we seem to be getting sloppy seconds from the ongoing deluge in California. Just because I have fenders doesn’t mean I want to use them. I like my January showers warm, with the bathroom door closed and a space heater on.

But it’s gonna be extra hard to drag my ass out that door this Jan. 1. El Rancho Pendejo smells like simmering black-eyed peas and ham hock, with baking cornbread soon to lend an aromatic hand, and it’s a good thing I have more than a few keyboards around here because I keep drooling into this one.

Happy New Year to one and all.

• Addendum: The cooking process is greatly enhanced by playing “The Allman Brothers Band: A Decade of Hits 1969-1979” throughout.

Fourth and long

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
“Holy hell, hon’, better start filling the sandbags.”

Winter finally came a-calling yesterday.

More of a “ring the doorbell and run” deal, actually. Left 0.06 inch of rain on our doorstep instead of a flaming sack of dog shit.

We’ll take it. Don’t gotta stomp it out or nothin’.

Today dawned clear and cold, and the furnace and humidifier were harmonizing on what sounded like some sort of mariachi tune as I awakened just before 4 to “shake hands with the governor.”

“Are you getting up or going back to bed?” Herself asked as she set about her day.

“Back to bed,” I mumbled, and made it so. The next two hours of sleep were top shelf, curled up like an old dog under blanket and comforter. The news cycle can’t get me in there, with the phone locked and in silent mode. No wonder Miss Mia Sopaipilla loves the bed-cave I make for her every morning after coffee. And she doesn’t even read The New York Times.

The press is deep into “The Year in Review” mode now, which reminds me of the last time I went to a Broncos game at the old Mile High stadium, back in the days when the Donkeys would have had their hands full going up against a Pop Warner squad from Saguache.

Anyway, the Donks were getting their asses handed to them, by whom I can’t recall, and though there was plenty of time remaining on the clock, the stands were emptying faster than bladders overloaded by the industrial lager the fans were slamming to drown their sorrows.

In mid-exodus the PA gives out with a cheery, “And don’t forget to watch ‘Bronco Replay'” on whatever local TV channel was playing the piano in that whorehouse. After which some tosspot a few tiers downhill from us lurches to his unsteady feet, bellows, “Wasn’t it bad enough the first time?” and then tumbles down the stairs.

All these years later three hundred and sixty-five steps seems like quite a tumble, especially since I’m not wearing any protective gear — like, say, sinuses lined with cocaine, a beer-swollen liver, and a couple dozen extra elbees of adipose tissue.

So please excuse me if I skip the replay. It was bad enough the first time.