If this is the first day of spring, well, you can have it, with my blessings.
The weatherpersons have predicted a high of 53, but I think they’re into the MMJ. It’s 1 p.m. and I can still see my breath out there (and no, this is not because I drank my breakfast).
We’re enjoying the usual good news/bad news combo plate this morning. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has signed into law a package of gun reform legislation, and some person or persons unknown shot and killed the executive director of the state prison system at his home.
I expect a lot of folks are reaching for the old equalizer before answering the doorbell today. If I were a Jehovah’s Witness I think I might take the day off.
Interesting weather around the ol’ rancheroo lately. One minute it’s hotter than the proverbial hubs of Hell and drier than a popcorn fart, and the next the trees are all sideways and the hail is bucketing down like Someone tipped the bed on a celestial gravel truck.
I don’t even want to think what the trails look like this morning. And from the look of things out the office window, there’s more on the way.
Just as well, I suppose. An unholy convergence of deadlines means I’ll be logging some hard miles in the office chair over the next couple of days instead of sluicing through the goo. And me with three befendered bikes in the garage, too. Oh, the shame.
Meanwhile, I’d say something filthy about what took place in Wisconsin on Tuesday if Charles P. Pierce hadn’t already said it, funnier, better and faster, too. What say we all move to Italy and sponge off Larry and Heather until the Republic comes to its senses?
After the deluge earlier this week, I reconfigured the Soma Double Cross as a fendered kinda-sorta touring bike instead of an unfendered kinda-sorta cyclo-cross bike. Naturally, conditions have been dry and windy ever since, so much so that today I became a pedestrian rather than gnaw on the gentle double-digit zephyrs.
The weather wizards say all this will change over the weekend, but I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, the fenders stay on as a Stooge-like double-finger to the eyes for the gods.
Speaking of the Stooges (nyuk nyuk), the Farrelly brothers’ tribute to Nyukledom opens this weekend. I’ve seen two reviews, one from a man, the other from a woman, both basically going “Awwwww. …” Cute? The Three Stooges? Nawwwww. I think I can wait for the free library DVD on this one.
Right now we’re up to our bowl cuts in “Boardwalk Empire,” which gets off to an awfully slow start for the uninitiated, and “The Wire,” which was just so goddamn motherfuckin’ good that we watchin’ them shits again, yo, a’ight? Maybe this time we won’t need the subtitles.
“April is the cruellest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. The quote arises unbidden as I watch the weather change from sunny to snowy to sunny again, and finally to a chilly shvitz of fog — all in less than a week.
Appropriately, April also brings the cruelest race, Paris-Roubaix. And while I no longer help cover such sport for vampire capitalists, I plan to get up way too early on Sunday and lend a paw to my friend and colleague Charles Pelkey over at Live Update Guy.
Charles will be on deck at dark-thirty, as usual, but I won’t plug in until the race is well under way. In the meantime, give us your picks for the V in comments. Tom Boonen is obviously a fave, but with filthy weather in the forecast and no Fabian Cancellara it could be anyone’s race. T.S. Eliot was right.
The first day of spring and whadda we get? Thirty-friggin’-four with wind from the north at 26 mph, gusting to 41.
As usual, this is my fault. Last week, when we were enjoying an unseasonable stretch of 60- and 70-something temps, I connected hoses to faucets, watered the lawn and — worst of all — put a new battery in the Vespa. Imagine my embarrassment.
Best of all, the wind is peppering us with tree pollen, and allergies have me by the snotlocker with a downhill pull. Snork. Gluck. Hawk. Ptui. Repeat as necessary.
This means that instead of riding my bike in shorts and short sleeves, as I did all last week, I will be slouching here at the computer, searching for things that piss me off to elevate the old heart rate.
Like this item about House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Ayn Rand), who claims his “budget” will strengthen the safety net for the poor, disabled and elderly. Uh huh. The “net” to which he refers concerns the fishnet stockings Granny will have to wear while pole-dancing to pay for her blood-pressure meds.
Or this one about employers demanding that prospective employees give them their Facebook user names and passwords so they can go snooping around to see if you enjoy calling their favorite Randite nutsack a zombie-eyed granny-starver. Yo, Mister Human Resources, I got your job right fuckin’ here.
And finally this one, about a self-appointed vigilante who guns down a 17-year-old kid armed with a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea … and isn’t charged with shit, not even littering. Now and then I think about selling the family arsenal. And then I think again, because guys like this are roaming around, packing. Jesus wept.
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