A gloomy Nov. 1 follows a delightful Halloween. What the hell, we got an extra hour in the sack to start the month. Or did we?
Quite the Halloween we had here.
The weather was perfect — neither too cold nor too warm, and the anticipated rain never appeared. As a consequence we served what I think was a record number of trick-or-treaters before lights out, around 9 p.m.
Boo.
All manner of Burqueños rang our doorbell — young and old and in between, costumes ranging from casual to wildly elaborate, the mood celebratory throughout. Not at all the sort of mob one has to run from.
I choose to see it as an omen. A bunch of strangers sharing a moment, however briefly. See, it can be done. May the spirit endure.
We may yet get a puck in the gob from the gods, who seem intent on flogging us with a windy, watery cat-o’-nine-tails. It would be swell if they took a couple days off — like, through Election Day — but the trees are already dancing a jig so I’m not counting on it. Today may be another running opportunity, and perhaps tomorrow as well.
In any event, I need to get outside for a while. Sundays are when Herself does the serious housecleaning, and like Nature, I abhor a vacuum.
The monsoon was late to the party, but man, is it ever dancing up a storm now.
“Check this strange beverage that falls out from the sky.” — Tom Waits, “Til the Money Runs Out.”
Fenders and a rain jacket will not do the trick today. Maybe a wetsuit and flippers.
As of 6 a.m. Duck! City time our weather widget had recorded 0.43 inch of rain since midnight, 0.66 inch in the past 48 hours, and an astounding 3.78 inches for the month.
And it ain’t over yet. We have a flood watch that extends through late tonight for all of northern and central New Mexico.
Fine sleeping weather. I’d hop right back in the sack if I didn’t have two cups of strong black coffee in me. I’d just lie there with my eyes out on stalks, buzzing like an electric blanket with a short in it. Better maybe to chase the java with a steaming bowl of oatmeal and a tall mug of Irish tea with honey.
Herself has fishtailed off to work and I hope she hasn’t had to use her Honda’s air bags as flotation devices. I did insist that she take a second pair of shoes in case she had to hopscotch through a few puddles on her way into the Sanctum Sanctorum.
If I can squeeze in a short run in my mud shoes I’ll do it. But at the moment the only Miles I’m logging is of the Davis variety. As in “Kind of Blue.”
Clearly the gods have finally heard our sniveling here in the northernmost reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert. UnRealtors throughout the Greater Duck! City Metropolitan Area rejoice and sing “Hosanna!” Which is not a Gilda Radner character from Back in the Day® when “SNL” was still funny.
Anyone hoping to float the Rio anytime soon will still need 32-inch wheels, knobby tires, and hydraulic disc brakes for their rafts and kayaks. Nevertheless, arise, ye prisoners of dehydration, etc.
Raindrops keep falling on my head. Maybe with a little fertilizer I can get a fresh crop of hair started up there.
I went running in the rain yesterday, and it seems that I will be doing it again today, if I want to enjoy any class of healthful outdoor exercise, which I do. There’s not enough water for swimming — not yet, anyway, unless you’re suddenly awakened while sleeping rough in an arroyo — and since Herself works from home on Thursdays, if I should happen to make an indoor thing of myself she will find some chore for me to perform.
Anyway, running in the rain gets me away from the Mac, where the news is.
Jesus wept. The Squeaker of the House just shut the joint down and sent all his clock-watching monkey-spankers home after doing less actual work in the past few months than Mitch McConnell, who at least had the excuse of being kept alive in cryogenic sleep while RFK sewed him up a new body out of fresh roadkill and a couple prehistoric Trump Steaks from Natalie’s freezer.
Too bad. I was looking forward to watching that caravan of fools try to impeach Field Marshal Scheisskopf von Kegsbreath while he heaves and grunts through a few of his weak-ass pullups, stinking of cheap O-club gin and kicking his legs like a cranky toddler resisting bedtime.
That’s probably why Beelzebozo ordered RFK to rebuild The Turtle. He wanted to make sure the Senate had the numbers to keep Kegsbreath on his sinking PBR, if the House actually grew a pair, and if that meant reinstalling the old Kentucky roadblock as a collection of rotting coonskins that Dan’l Boone wouldn’t wear to a goat fuck, well, tough shit, Mitch. Die on your own time.
Our aeronaut was logging his flight time before Friday the 13th could have a go at clipping his wings.
A thousand thank-yous to everyone who wished Herself a happy (mumble-mumblth) birthday yesterday.
The eldest neighbor kid popped by after dinner to give her a hug and sing “Happy Birthday.” Lord, is she ever growing like a weed. A wee babe in arms she was when first we laid eyes on her, and what would become El Rancho Pendejo, during an open house back in the summer of 2014. And now she’s a middle-schooler as tall as Herself.
Earlier in the day, after cake for breakfast, Herself and I went for a 5K jog in the foothills, which is where we saw the paraglider above, setting up for a landing near the Menaul trailhead.
Fun to watch, but as pasatiempos go it’s not for me. Two broken ankles later when faced with a tall curb I long for an escalator.
Especially on Friday the 13th. I ain’t superstitious, but after 70-odd years of acting the fool from coast to coast, something — or Someone — is bound to be out to get me.
Didn’t we just have a full moon? Is God overstocked with these things and blowing them out? Or has He finally run out of patience and put His foot to the floorboard on the road to the End of Days?
This latest celestial spotlight is the Snow Moon, which, ha ha, etc. Yesterday’s high was 61, 10 (!) degrees above normal. Today’s may be warmer still. What little remains from last week’s snow lurks in dark corners, like ICEholes waiting for women and children to push around.
But we were talking about time, not temperature, yes?
Lately it seems that the instant I’ve finished washing the breakfast dishes it’s time to make lunch. Then, with luck, a bit of exercise, and boom! Dinner and bedtime.
Not a lot of unclaimed space therein to, as Whitman put it, “loafe and invite my soul.” My soul won’t even take my calls. Straight to voicemail they go.
Now, some may say that I burn an awful lot of dawn’s early light slobbering around the Internet like an ADHD kid working out on a Tootsie Pop — the National Weather Service, The Paris Review, various and sundry purveyors of products that I don’t need and can’t afford — before finally biting into its center, the homepage of The New York Times, which almost always shares a deep brown hue with, but is very much not, chocolate.
That this drives me to lunch is only because (a) I no longer drink, and (2) I desperately need something to take the taste of the NYT homepage out of my mouth.
Having eaten my way through the fridge and pantry, I feel a pressing need for either sleep or exercise. And exercise it is, because Miss Mia Sopaipilla is in the bed, and if I try to share a corner of that king-size bed with that 8-pound cat she will get right out of it and stalk around the house, meowing at the top of her lungs. She’s deaf as a post and her voice carries.
So out the door I go. And sure, if it’s 55 or 60 out there I’m liable to stay out a while, because see “the homepage of The New York Times” and “meowing at the top of her lungs” above. Last week I got 100 miles in, plus one trail run.
When I get home I’m hungry again for some reason as Herself inspects a gas range atop which dinner is very much not cooking itself with that look on her face that says, “Some people have to go to work in the morning.” I strive mightily to swallow a cheery, “Not me!” And get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans.
And soon dinner is served, as is something less toothsome on TV, and since some people have to go to work in the morning (not me) everyone is in bed by 8 and asleep shortly thereafter.
Tomorrow, as the fella says, is another day. That Tootsie Pop ain’t gonna lick itself.
