This being Zappadan, you are strongly advised to watch out where the huskies go.
Imagine my astonishment when I arose this morning to find a December morning that looked like … well, like a December morning.
The temperature has yet to reach the forecast high of 20 degrees, and there is an evil wind out of the north, which took all the joy right out of snow dispersal. As usual, no shoveling was required; a broom was equal to the task. Or would have been, had the underlying layer of snow not been frozen tight to the sidewalk.
All in all, a fine day for remaining inside, where the whiskey is.
The NWS forecast for the remainder of November (and yes, the headline is a George Carlin/Al Sleet reference).
I don’t like being cold and damp, shoveling snow, or having to wear pants indoors. But neither do I care for the idea of watching the Front Range turn into the Sonoran Desert, only without the great Mexican food.
The local fish-wrapper reported the other day that Bibleburg has enjoyed just a tenth of an inch of moisture this month and for the year to date is eight inches under normal precipitation. This is not a positive development, even for those of us who reach for a cold beer over a glass of water on a summery afternoon. For example, you can’t make beer without water. Unless you’re Coors, which seems to do just fine with Rocky Mountain trout piss.
South of us, in the Land of Enchantment, Elephant Butte Lake is experiencing drought conditions unseen since the year of my birth, which as regular readers know occurred the better part of quite some time ago.
And there’s no relief in sight. Not here, anyway. According to the weather wizards, there isn’t so much as a hint of a whiff of a rumor of a whisper of any precip’ in the Bibleburg forecast over the next 10 days.
What there is, is a parade of 60-and-sunny that will delight me in the short term (I have two bikes to review and more on the way) but gives me The Fear as regards the long term.
This autumn, for the first time since we’ve lived here, a neighbor declined my offer of the usual dozen or so bags of fallen leaves from our silver maple for use in her composting. She has also downsized her once-elaborate front yard to something better suited to a high-desert climate.
“What’s the point in gardening if it’s never going to rain again?” she asked.
“Is it dinnertime yet?” inquires the persistent Mister Boo. “How about now? Now? NOW? NOW!!!”
My suffering knows no bounds. Herself is tormenting me from Hawaii with still photos of snorkeling, videos of playing bikini-clad footsie with the Pacific, and tantalizing tales of fresh fish, guacamole made from homegrown avocados and free drinks.
Meanwhile, packed like a sequence of overstuffed Irish bangers into pants, socks and long-sleeved shirt I wrangle Elly Mae’s critters, burn my brand onto some wandering word count and push a whole passel of pixels in the service of what passes for bicycle journalism in these parts. There has been little free time for tomfoolery in the ocean Bibleburg does not border or the eating of the avocados it does not grow.
As novelist Thomas McGuane had a leathery 60-year-old rancher put it in “Nothing But Blue Skies,” “Why does the Lord want me to serve him in this way?”
Who knows? The Lord works in mysterious ways, or so I’m told. So do I, although the mystery lies mostly in why anyone would offer me work. Or marriage, for that matter. As Richard Pryor once said of himself in “Live On the Sunset Strip,” I am no day at the beach, especially when the beach is there and I am here.
We do have sand, however. And before I reapply nose to grindstone this morning I believe I will go out and run on it, or ride in it.
And you needn’t fear that I’ll be doing it in a Big Tex-style banana hammock, either. I ain’t no tri-toad, and anyway, it’s 30 degrees, f’chrissakes. Oh, to be a son of a beach instead of the other thing.
The first cold, clammy day of autumn always reminds me of why my forebears fled the Emerald Isle for Americay. It wasn’t so much the Limeys and the Prods as the weather.
Doesn’t help that Herself is enjoying a weeklong vacation on the Big Island with a gal pal. Beaches for her, bitches for me. ‘Tis not at all the same thing.
Of course, last time I went to Hawaii the locals endured a volcanic eruption and a tsunami. Maybe it’s better that I stay put. For them, anyway.
The weather wizards were calling for rain yesterday but we got only a wee dribble, just enough to leave visible craters in the dust coating everything.
Whatever, I thought, and scheduled an oil change at the nearby Brakes Plus for bright and early in the morning. Drop off the rice rocket, stroll home, enjoy a leisurely breakfast.
Or not. I awoke to a pissing-down rain, gutters running like creeks, sidewalks like rivers. A full summer’s worth of rain in one day, is what.
Mind you, I’m not complaining. There’s free wifi at the Brakes Plus, and as breakfasts go coffee and yogurt isn’t so bad.
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