Sound and fury, etc.

April 5, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

It’s a helluva note when you can’t hear the rumbling furnace over the thundering wind.

The sleeping last night was not spectacular, but a quick glance around the yard indicates most of the property remains in place, and we even got a soupçon of rain, so, yay, etc.

Still, as Mr. Waits has taught us:

The hawk had his whole family out there in the wind
And he got a message for you to beware
Kicking your ass in, in a cold-blooded fashion
And dishing out more than a good man can bear

A man needs his shuteye in these dark, blustery days. You never know when the ICEholes are gonna kick down your door, demand proof that Great-Great-Grampa Conán was in this country legally, air-freight your ass off to a Salvadoran lockup, and lie to a federal judge about it.

Waking involved extra grumpitude because for some reason yesterday I thought it would be smart to ride the 32-pound Co-Motion Divide Rohloff on some narrow, mildly technical, occasionally steep singletrack, and in the opposite direction from the one I normally choose, too.

So there were missed turns and dabs and bad language and this morning I had a minor hitch in my never-too-suave gitalong as I crabwalked to the coffee.

But we’re not hiding in closets from tornadoes like the sis-in-law in Tennessee, or dodging fireballs in the Carolinas like my man Big Nurse, so it’s all good, yeah?

Right in the eggs

January 25, 2025January 25, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Whew. Looks like I picked a good week to go on a news fast. These pendejos are pitching fastballs. At this pace there won’t be a wall without shit running down it before Valentine’s Day. A lot of it won’t stick, but it’s gonna pile up. The forecast calls for deep doo.

My news fast coincided with a cold snap that kept me off the bike. I don’t object to cycling in the 30s if the sun’s out, but when Tōnatiuh abdicates in favor of Ehecatl, it’s time to go for a run.

Thing is, I’m not a runner. Not really. A runner certainly wouldn’t call me one. Especially if s/he’d caught me at it.

I can pretend for 45 minutes but that’s about it. And that doesn’t burn a lot of daylight for a fella trying to avoid the doomscrolling.

Still, I managed. For about four days. Who can avert his or her eyes while passing a domestic disturbance in daylight or an unshaded window at night? This is like driving past a five-car crash without checking the gutters for rolling heads.

So I eased back in, slowly. A little Kevin Drum. Then a bit of Charlie Pierce. This is akin to reading the police report, if Joseph Wambaugh wrote it. The Atlantic, for a soupçon of button-down viewing with alarm.

Finally, I hit the hard stuff. The New York Times. Holy shit, etc.

I hope the rubes who elected this bozo are enjoying the shitshow. Looks like it’ll be a good long while before he gets those egg prices down.

Some punkins

October 19, 2024October 19, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Why, hello there, October. Nice to see you could finally make it.

Yesterday we enjoyed a chilly eastern breeze, which by evening was expected to pack a bit more of a wallop — say, 30-40 mph with gusts to 55, plus rain — and with any luck at all this seasonal weather will strip our pines of their remaining brown needles.

On Thursday I filled three 39-gallon bags with downed needles from the last blustery day after a friend complained that she needed 4WD to scale our driveway with a load of product for Herself’s eBay sideline. The bags filled our trash bin to overflowing with three days before pickup. I had to pull one back out to shoehorn a sack of kitchen garbage redolent of jambalaya fixins into the sonofabitch. The raccoons will rejoice.

Not so the deer, who have eaten all the class foliage in the back yard. They’ll have to settle for silverleaf nightshade going forward or start mowing the lawn.

But yeah, rain. I can’t remember when last it rained. Mid-September, maybe? That’s the most recent mention I can find in the training log. I described it as “a short, sharp downpour” that I just beat home at the end of a 25-mile ride.

This latest blessing from heaven started coming down around bedtime last night and it hasn’t let up yet. We might see a quarter inch before the second cup of joe, which, yay, etc.

I can almost accept that it’s 45° outside, and that the sun doesn’t show its face until breakfast is a fading memory, and that I may be forced to start wearing pants in the morning.

No, not that. Not yet, goddamnit. It’s not even Halloween, f’chrissakes.

After the deluge

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Good thing we beefed up our tree-retention system yesterday evening.

Too much of a good thing?

The National Weather Service reports an inch and a half (!) of precip’ at the Sunport yesterday. Downtown got flooded overnight, the power went out, the full Noah.

We knew it was bucketing down — the rain was coming in sideways as we hit the sack last night — but we weren’t expecting anything quite so biblical. Before bedtime I added an extra tiedown to our new(ish) ornamental plum, which got blown down the last time we had Shakespearean winds blasting through the back yard.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

Our highly unreliable weather widget reports a mere half inch of free water from Tláloc, but we’ll take it. I got up at stupid-thirty to double-check that I’d shut off the irrigation system. If the power croaked here we slept right through it.

So did the Journal. It’s one hell of a note when an old ink-stained wretch is compelled to rely upon the local TV stations for the 411 on the tempest.

The night shift must’ve been drunk … again.

O, booger

March 31, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments

April’s knocking on the door with a jumbo box of Kleenex in one hand.

“Don’t say I never gave you anything. Gesundheit.”

Swear to Dog, everything’s springing to desperate life at once. Lawn, maple, lilacs, wisteria, ornamental plum, Chinese pistache, a few of the bulbs we assumed the landscapers had done for last summer. Not even a layer of gravel over weed fabric can keep those hardy little bastards buried.

Have you noticed that no one puts flowers on a flower’s grave?

With a red-flag warning posted I thought it prudent to give everything a good soaking yesterday. It was like handing Hunter S. Thompson an entire sheet of blotter acid and a quart of Wild Turkey to wash it down, then watching him fire up the Great Red Shark with the notion of driving the pace car at the fabulous Mint 400. Stand back!, etc.

Should I have been surprised to wake up honking my horn? No. Happily, Herself recently made a Kleenex run so I probably won’t have to resort to sleeves or dish towels for a day or two.