The Wolf Moon, peeking through the clouds over the Sandias.
I was a little late to moonrise last night, but managed to catch a glimpse of the Wolf Moon despite the heavy cloud cover.
The Duck! City has been gray and damp the past few days, with 0.13 inch of precip’ in the past 48 hours. On Wednesday I just beat a short downpour home as I wrapped up a run, and yesterday I caught a little sleet in the chops while cycling through the foothills.
Climbing into the Elena Gallegos Open Space I saw a couple of Albuquerque Police Department vehicles in the parking lot. The officers waved at me, and I waved back. If they thought I must have been drunk to be cycling in January — rain jacket, tuque, tights, winter shoes — they didn’t oblige me to perform the Stupid Human Tricks or empty the wallet I wasn’t carrying. (I had a $20 in the Ziploc bag that keeps my phone dry, but shh, that’s top secret.)
Seasonable weather may have returned for the moment, but The Duck! City remains a sandy, salty, gooey mess, and thus the Soma Double Cross now sports mudguards because hey: Sometimes a fella doesn’t feel like taking his exercise on a 32-pound touring bike just because it has fenders.
The DC is another of those absurdly versatile sport-utility bikes, suitable for cyclocross, light touring, or simply trying to keep the muscle memory alive in January, when its lesser poundage — just under 26 elbees with a saddlebag and handlebar bell — makes a real difference on the hills.
I used it for a three-day credit-card tour of central Colorado in 2012, and it’s logged plenty of hours on roads and trails in New Mexico, too.
The DC is just a little small for me, which is fine, especially if you suddenly happen to straddle it on some sketchy stretch of singletrack. When I first got back into cycling in the mid-Eighties I started with a 60cm bike, then downsized to 58, and again to 56, before finally inching back up to 58 for pretty much everything save the cyclocross bikes.
The Steelman Eurocrosses, Bianchi Zurigo Disc, and Soma DC are all 55cm, while the Voodoo Wazoo is a 56cm. I should turn the Wazoo back into a drop-bar bike one of these days, but I kind of like it as a flat-bar, single-ring deal. It’s also less welcoming to fenders and a rear rack, should I want them.
Ordinarily when the weather goes sideways I turn to trail running. But we’ve had enough moisture lately to turn crucial segments of the foothills trails into skating rinks, peat bogs, and tar pits, which makes running nearly as much of an exercise in staying upright as cycling.
“Well, at least the motorists can’t nail you on the trail,” you quip. Ho ho, etc. Wrong-o, sport. Lately they’ve been hitting everything from traffic-light stanchions to tattoo parlors, restaurants, and private homes. Stationary objects, easy to avoid, unless you’re ripped to the tits on your reality-management substance of choice.
The wiseguys used to say that you’re taking your life in your hands just by getting out of bed in the morning. Now you can wake up to find yourself sharing the old king-size with a Ford Expedition.
Not even fenders will keep the road grime off your ass then.
Never tease the Snow Gods. They will take a frosty dump on you from a considerable height.
True, it wasn’t much of a dump; just a few heavy, wet inches. Still, during round one on Thursday the roads got so slick that Herself refused to take me back down to Reincarnation to collect the Fearsome Furster after its semiannual pulse check. And even I could see the wisdom in not tackling the trip on two wheels, especially after I nearly faceplanted on an icy spot while shoveling our ski jump of a driveway.
Round two overnight was strictly a broomer, but the icy bits remained, and I checked my footing as I swept this morning.
“I break a hip and she’ll put me down for sure,” I mumbled to myself. “She’s a sensible woman, albeit a bit ruthless, won’t let the Medical-Industrial Complex suck the nest egg dry rehabbing an ill-tempered ould villain who’s months away from the brain fleas even if he gets back to limping around the property, acting out all the parts in whatever noxious play he’s producing in that scabby, hairless head. Hire some 19-year-old stud-muffin to handle the shoveling and other personal services. …”
Speaking of jobs of work, I see Joe reared up on his hind legs and talked some smack, so I guess he wants to keep the job after all. Christ only knows why. He has to have enough tucked away to sweep Jill off to a white sandy beach somewhere, let the SS boyos fetch the umbrella drinks and fajitas, take the weepy calls from Hunter in gaol. No, no newspapers, thanks all the same. And keep that TV turned off.
Meanwhile, Wayne LaPerrier, that fizzy little firearms fancier, is stepping down from the NRA to spend more time with his lawyers, guns, and money, because the rest of that wonderful Warren Zevon lyric.
And I guess Doug Lamborn finally got tired of being the King of El Paso County. Surely some worthy Democrat can finally snatch that House seat from the cold, cruel clutches of the GOPee hee hee hee haw haw haw haw as fuckin’ if.
The Duck! City may have frozen over but Hell hasn’t. I just checked The Weather Channel.
January’s getting all, well, January on us. New year, same old song.
It’s been chilly, but not so much so that a fella can’t ride his bike for 90 minutes with three or four layers of 30-year-old cycling kit, adding and removing same as conditions indicate while awaiting the fabled Snowpocalypse, which by noon Thursday was as you see.
The Sandias, post-Snowpocalypse.
Betimes we are reminded that rich people, politicians, and rich politicians can be insufferable, twisted, lying, featherbedding assholes. This is not an annual or even seasonal event.
Meanwhile, just to keep things interesting, evildoers found a back door to our credit card while Herself was in an personal-electronics-free secure area and I was out on the bike, oblivious to my my own digital alerts as I removed and added layers of this and that while rolling around to no particular purpose beyond taking pix of the Sandias.
So, once I had been made aware of the breach in our fiscal defenses, I had to race home, doublecheck my receipts, mumble several filthy words, block the attempted piracy and croak that card over the phone, go get two new cards from a local branch, and then go back to get two even newer ones because the Top Secret Your Eyes Only Three-Digit Security Code was buggered on the first batch.
Now I get to work my way down the long list of bills set to autopay in order that we do not suddenly find ourselves freezing to death in the dark with no Innertubes and The Blog up on blocks.
It should go without saying that today was the day I had to drop Sue Baroo the Fearsome Furster at Reincarnation for its semiannual pulse check. I did not ride a bike home from the shop and will not be riding one back there to pick up the wee beastie.
Thirty-three, feels like 25°? No thank you, please. I’ve seen the way Burqueños drive under warm and sunny skies. There aren’t enough layers in my winter drawer and none of them are Kevlar.
The DBR Axis TT and I went for a spin in the Elena Gallegos Open Space on Tuesday as the temps inched back into the low 40s.
Naw. That ain’t trash, waiting to be packed out. It’s just old, like its operator.
So don’t pack us out, for pity’s sake. Ain’t neither of us ready for the scrap heap yet.
Speaking of old trash and scrap heaps, I finally heard from the WordPress people about the comments issue, which seemed to have resolved itself to some degree after my last complaint on Nov. 22. Quoth WP:
The comment reply box has changed to the new box that adds the options of styling or layout changes using blocks. It cannot be disabled, it is the new default.
Fear not, your visitors don’t have to use the blocks, they can simply click into the box, and start typing.
This is the new “Reply” box as I have been seeing it lately.
A limited inspection of the process indicates that leaving a comment is once again fairly straightforward:
1. Place your cursor (or, depending upon your mood at the moment, “curser”) in the “Leave a Reply” box and start typing.
2. You will then be presented with the option of logging in using a WordPress account, Facebutt, or email (the latter method wants your email addy and a name; providing a website is optional). Select a login method.
3. You also are prompted to have posts/comments emailed to you. The buttons are off by default. Make another selection.
4. Hit the “Reply” button at lower right.
I switched laptops and launched Chrome to try commenting using an old email address. But I was not logged into the Gmail account I wanted to use and got a prompt saying so (O, buggah, etc.).
Rather than dive down that rabbit hole (usernames, passwords, and shit, O my!) I switched to Firefox to post my comment and saw it had me already logged in using my WP info.
I don’t have a Facebutt account so I couldn’t evaluate that option.
Anyway, that seems to be where we are at the moment. We don’t have to face that quadruple-decker “Reply” box with all the arcane symbols belonging to WP’s Block Editor (curse its name, yes). Just start typing and let ’er buck, cowpersons.
Anyone still having issues? Leave a note in commaaaaaaaaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Mad Blog Media 
