The lone GS-1 running the National Weather Service must’ve lost her Magic 8-Ball and is reduced to winging it, calling for “a slight chance of snow showers” here before 8 a.m.
As that hour has come and gone, we will not be breaking out the cross-country skis anytime soon.
Still, the weather is finally more or less seasonal for a change, so I can probably leave the lawn mower in the garage for a while, too.
I make it maybe two, three inches, tops. Didn’t have to drive in it, so, winning. Did have to shovel it, so Herself could drive in it.
You win some, you lose some.
… and this afternoon.
By the time I got around to shoveling, a lot of what we got proved broomable. Which is excellent, as our steepish, north-facing driveway is an ER visit just waiting to happen.
I work the thing starting from the top, because the top stays in the shade this time of year. Then, as I reach the steepest pitch, I pivot to the stone steps, walk down to the cul-de-sac, and start working my way back up. Any missteps while leaning uphill should involve less velocity and impact. Or so it is to be hoped, anyway.
The cycling is right out. I have been a cyclocrosser, but not since 2004 or thereabouts. There’s a car wash down the way, but I don’t have any quarters, and the last time Herself caught me cleaning a bike in the shower it was damn near all she wrote for the marriage.
So I’ll probably go for a short run in my mud shoes. I ran yesterday between rainstorms, and it looks like I’ll be running again tomorrow. That’s three straight days of running, for you folks keeping score at home, or two more than I can honestly claim to enjoy.
But it beats riding the stationary trainer. I believe getting pepper-sprayed by the ICEholes would beat riding the stationary trainer.
The good thing about snow is it gives me something else to shovel.
We got a couple-three inches of the white stuff here yesterday, about double the official tally at the airport (which is stupid, because I don’t know anybody who lives at the airport).
It started falling overnight. This I know because the Cold Moon reflecting off the accumulation in the back yard blasted me out of a sound sleep around 2 a.m. I howled at it, briefly, then drifted back into a fitful drowse that ended at stupid-thirty, when I had to drag ass out of the sack and shovel the Driveway of Doom for Herself, who had an early appointment with the dentist and a 2WD Honda to get her there.
I got her half of the drive cleared without breaking a hip or throwing out my back, and she navigated the descent without incident, so, winning, etc. Then I went back indoors, microwaved my half-finished second cup of coffee, slammed it, and went back out to shovel my half, as I too had an appointment with the very same dentist, but at a reasonable hour.
Or what would’ve been a reasonable hour, had I not already burned some critical daylight freeing the driveway of Itztlacoliuhqui’s icy booger-snots. There was no time left for my traditional X-rays-and-cleaning breakfast of sardines in mustard sauce sprinkled with chopped anchovies, red onions, and feta, which keeps these visits short and to the point.
So instead, as the hygienist chiseled, scraped, sanded, power-washed, and polished, I was compelled to listen as she prattled on and on — backed by a soundtrack of treacly holiday ditties clearly penned by Satan Himself — about how lovely Herself is and how she was sure someone had made a mistake when listing her birthdate on the paperwork, with nary a word about the striking male beauty of Your Humble Narrator, his wrinkly old Irish-American apple cheeks aglow from an hour’s snow-shoveling in the frosty high-desert air.
Oh, well. At least it wasn’t news. Not to me, anyway.
Not exactly a Jack London hellscape, but still … first snow.
Well, December got right down to business.
So, too, did our Geezer Ride leader, who after checking the weather forecast for today pulled the ripcord on Sunday:
Monday is too wintry for me to ride and Tuesday may not be any better. In fact, we have entered the wintry season, which is too cold to plan bike rides. I don’t plan to send out any more emails until warm weather returns.
So it goes.
Anticipating a rideless Monday I made sure to saddle up yesterday, taking the Soma Double Cross out after lunch for a 90-minute sampler of roads, trails, and sandy washes. Even so, temps in the 40s had me sporting two long-sleeved jerseys, tights over bibs, wool socks, a tuque, and full-fingered gloves.
Only once did I feel slightly overdressed, while gutting it up a long, sandy grade leading to the Indian School trailhead. But then this is why God made zippers.
Right now, at 10 a.m., I’m looking at 36° with a brisk wind out of the northwest. I’ve set out and retrieved our trash and recycling bins, and I think that’s about it for the operation of human-powered wheeled vehicles today.
I’m gonna go out on a snowy limb here and say it was probably a good idea that the Soma Pescadero and I had our maiden voyage yesterday rather than today.
Yesterday it was knickers and arm warmers; today it’s green tea and bloggery.
Cruel it isn’t, though. Not at the northern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, where we haven’t seen any sort of precip’ in the better part of quite some time.
Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain
Whew! That Eliot feller would’ve made one helluva blogger, amirite? “The poet’s mind,” he once said, “is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.”
He also wrote: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
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