Scattered sprinkles, widespread haze, sunny and hot, sez the forecast for the first day of summer.
It was already 75° when we got up at 5:30 to greet the first day of summer. Helluva note when you open the doors and windows to let the cool morning air stream in and the air conditioning clicks on.
The wind was likewise in business, too, so Herself and I decided to go for a short trail run instead of a ride. We’d spent a couple hours yesterday cycling through the foothills and saw all the quail, from solos to pairs to coveys with adults herding thumb-sized offspring.
Today was my first run in a couple weeks so I wasn’t exactly crushing it. Still, it felt good to be lumbering along without all that specialized kit and machinery. Just shorts, shirt, and shoes. Put one foot in front of the other and try not to fall down.
CenturyLink fell down yesterday. Or Lumen did. AT&T? Whatever the hell that outfit is calling itself these days. You should’ve heard what we and the rest of its customers nationwide were calling it yesterday when it went tits up for the better part of quite some time and even the minimalist corporate website vanished like civil rights in an ICE storm.
We’ve been trained by bitter experience not to bother fencing with CenturyLumen’s chatbots and “live agents.” Instead we used our Verizon iPhones as hotspots and never missed a beat, even streaming a couple episodes from season three of “The Bear” as preparation for season four, which kicks off June 25.
Speaking of cussing, anybody who thinks I swear overmuch in the kitchen should check out “The Bear.” That crowd makes me sound like Nate Bargatze doing crowd work at a Southern Baptist picnic, even when I accidentally oversalt the arugula pesto, like I did last night.
It wasn’t quite like eating seaweed straight from the ocean, but it wasn’t exactly Michelin-star-level dining either, chef.
I just searched my 2025 training log for “rain” and came up empty. Just like our rain gauge.
Until this morning.
As we began puttering around the Compound, getting our Sunday started, Herself said she thought she heard sprinkles tippy-tapping the skylights. But I said naw, warn’t nothin’ in the forecast.
But suddenly there it was, on the walkway. Not much, but it’s all good, amirite?
As news goes it certainly beats a hummer I saw in The New York Times this morning about some bloated sack of shit whose claim to fame — beyond boinking Madge Toilet Grout, that is — was asking President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine why he wasn’t wearing a suit to his ambush by — pardon, “meeting with” — that other, better-known, bloated sack of shit, who also gets too much press.
I got asked a similar question once, by a supervisor, during a performance review. It was majorly annoying, as I had been busting my hump for that two-bit cage-liner, which couldn’t keep its city and copy desks staffed, and they should’ve been delighted that I showed up for work at all, much less wearing a button-down shirt and tie.
Shit, they were lucky I didn’t show up butt-nekkid, knee-walking, commode-hugging drunk. But I was, after all, a professional. I was always fully clothed.
I fled that rag as soon as I could find another job. Any old asshole can wear a tie, and plenty of them do. Especially on TV.
Heeeeeeeeee’s baaaaaaaaaack. … Matt Wilson/Comedy Central’s The Daily Show
We didn’t watch Jon Stewart’s return to “The Daily Show” last night, because we don’t subscribe to Comedy Central.
We do have Paramount, which apparently will air his Monday musings on Tuesdays, if they didn’t just lay off whoever was responsible for throwing that particular switch.
As former members of the congregation I suppose we should check out the Resurrection. Herself and I were both fans of Stewart’s first go-round at TDS, though she was less enamored of his stint on Apple TV+. She still likes Stephen Colbert, too, though I prefer his alter ego from “The Colbert Report.”
In a chat with “CBS Mornings” yesterday Stewart said he wanted a platform from which he could sound off on the 2024 elections, a wish that apparently had Apple TV+ a wee bit nervous and probably helped croak his struggling “The Problem with Jon Stewart” show.
Said Stewart: “I just thought, who better to comment on this election than someone who truly understands two aging men past their prime?”
That’s good shit there, as was his opening salvo last night: “Welcome to ‘The Daily Show!’ My name is Jon Stewart! Now … where was I?”
With only one day in the hot seat per week he shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with material — shoveling sand against the tide would seem a doddle by comparison — and lord knows we could all use a few laughs.
Dig in, old fella. And remember, lift with your legs.
Image lifted from the City of Albuquerque website.
O, Lord, it must be fun around the ol’ cop shop these days.
Take two steps forward toward getting out from under a Justice Department consent decree, take one back over some nonspecific fishiness involving DUIs, at least one local attorney, and an FBI investigation.
Online reports are light on details — more than 150 pending DUI cases dismissed, a number of Albuquerque Police Department officers placed on paid leave or reassigned, a lawyer’s office raided, etc. — and long on speculation. The Albuquerque Journal‘s print edition is a tad more specific, but it seems nobody feels very chatty in the early days of whatever this turns out to be.
APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told the Journal that APD had been working with the FBI “for the past several months on an investigation involving members of the department” and that “several” officers have been placed on paid administrative leave while the inquiry continues.
Of the 152 pending DWI cases dismissed, 136, or nearly 90%, were filed by three Albuquerque police officers, according to court records. One officer was responsible for 67 of the cases; another had 41; and the third was listed as the arresting officer on 28.
The Albuquerque Journal
Attorney Kari Morrissey, who has one client whose case was dismissed, told City Desk ABQ, “I will say that as a lawyer who has been practicing criminal defense in Albuquerque for almost 25 years, I am not surprised as to these developments.”
John D’Amato, an attorney with the Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association, told City Desk ABQ he was aware of a pending criminal investigation, adding: “No comment is the word of the day. It’s developing and the facts are unclear.”
One thing is clear. We have statues of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman here in The Duck! City. But not of Frank Serpico. Or Saul Goodman, now that I think of it. That dude couldn’t even get an Emmy.
The New York Times spent most of yesterday pitching live episodes of “Let’s Make a Deal” from the nation’s capital. And today they’re telling me that nobody could give a shit; they’d all rather be watching “The Golden Bachelor.”
Well. Sounds like poor editorial judgment to me. Should’ve led with another Taylor Swift story.
Well, I gave a shit — no, not about “The Golden Bachelor” or Taylor Swift, who gets more eyeballs than a TikTok video of kitties in a titty bar — but rather the brinksmanship peacockery so deplorably on display in DeeCee.
It’s a weakness. But I could afford to indulge it.
Dinner was leftovers from Friday night — Melissa Clark’s paprika chicken with taters and turnips — so cooking was a rerun, or, more precisely, a reheat, at 350° for 20 minutes.
This left me at liberty to observe, and screech, and curse, and place bets with myself about what would finally emerge from all the shit-talking, gesticulating, and shoving that usually precedes a whole bunch of nothing happening on the middle-school playground of your choice.
This is pointless idiocy, of course. Right up there with cashing out the 401(k) and putting it all into bitcoin and NFTs; playing poker with a man named “Doc;” or gambling in any of the various casinos masquerading as “sports” in this world.
By closing time, the can had gotten kicked another 45 days down the road and I had lost every bet.
Still, could be worse.
Ukraine must be wondering how they wound up out on the sidewalk with an IOU in one pocket of the fatigues puddled around their ankles. And the woodlice gnawing on Charlie McCarthy’s balsa-sack apparently found out this wasn’t an all-you-can-eat deal.
This morning I decided this class in Political Science Fiction 101 reminded me of a scene from “Cannery Row,” in which John Steinbeck describes the upshot of an uprising by “a group of high-minded ladies” in Monterey demanding the closure of “dens of vice” like Dora Flood’s Bear Flag Restaurant, which was not a sandwich shop but rather a “sporting house.”
Writes Steinbeck:
This happened about once a year in the dead period between the Fourth of July and the County Fair. Dora usually closed the Bear Flag for a week when it happened. It wasn’t so bad. Everyone got a vacation and little repairs to the plumbing and the walls could be made. But this year the ladies went on a real crusade. They wanted somebody’s scalp. It had been a dull summer and they were restless. It got so bad that they had to be told who actually owned the property where vice was practiced, what the rents were and what little hardships might be the result of their closing. That was how close they were to being a serious menace.
You think maybe the high-minded ladies in DeeCee got told who really owns this whore-House? And if so, did they get the message? Who knows? Not me, cousin. But we have 45 days to find out.
Anyway, once the cartoon was over we got straight to the featured attraction, which included the aforementioned leftovers; rewatching “Reservation Dogs,” which concluded its three-season run this past Wednesday; and debating whether we should take down our hummingbird feeders, which hadn’t been getting many (if any) customers the past few days.
I argued for staying open, and boom! Just like that a hummer appeared at one of the backyard feeders, which are visible from the living-room couch. Maybe he was an elder who didn’t care to make the trek to Mexico this fall. Maybe she likes the new landscaping. Maybe they like “Reservation Dogs.” Pronouns are a bitch.
Anyway, we reloaded those two feeders and called it a night. This morning, The Last Hummingbird Standing brought a cousin over for breakfast. It wasn’t Matt Gaetz. I’ll call that a win.
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