It’s probably a good thing I snapped a pic of our apricot tree this afternoon, when it was still a balmy 60-something and sunny.
Shortly thereafter sprang up from the north a blossom-shredding, sandblasting wind that would have done credit to “Lawrence of Arabia.” I ventured into it, briefly, to take out the trash, and spent the next half hour scouring Wyoming’s topsoil from my nostrils using a melon baller.
Next up is the rain, with snow on deck. Tomorrow should be about 40 degrees less enchanting than today, which is probably just as well, as I have journalism to do and being confined to quarters serves marvelously to sharpen one’s focus on the task at hand.
I didn’t get to ride my age this year. Not in miles, kilometers or even minutes.
In fact, the whole first quarter of 2013 has been a little sketchy, ride-wise, thanks to bugs, chores, the natural Irish predilection toward sloth blended with storytelling — say, did I ever tell you the one about the Mighty Dugan?
No, let’s not get started down that particular path. There be dragons.
But today, after wrapping up a bit of video for the folks at Adventure Cyclist, I straddled the Voodoo Nakisi and hit the trails in Palmer Park. It was a casual ride that lasted nearly two hours, which for me these days is something of an expedition.
The afternoon was 60-something and sunny, if a bit breezy, and I must have been just tired enough to not give a shit if I fell over, because I was easily cleaning obstacles that ordinarily confound me.
I stopped at one intersection to pull off the knee-warmers and up rolled a couple of young gents on double-boingers who likewise were having a fine day on two wheels. They professed to be astounded that a gentleman of my years would be riding a cyclo-cross bike on Palmer Park single-track, and I confessed that while it appeared to be your standard unsuspended steel drop-bar bike, it was in fact a stealth 29er with a triple ring and 700×43 tires and thus not so much of a much.
Did the wheels stand the strain? they asked. To be sure, I replied. Built by Brian Gravestock himself they were, using Mavic Open Pros from this millennium and Hügi mountain bike hubs from another. Brian says steel bikes are making a comeback, they confided. I agreed, and with that we went our separate ways.
Back at Chez Dog a neighbor’s landscaper said he’d seen me on the bike and that I looked “like a young man.” He was trying to sell me some yardwork — successfully, as luck would have it — and I forgave him the Good Friday falsehood.
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.
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