Category: Winter

It’s not the years, it’s the mileage

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
At 55, a guy spends more time shoveling sidewalks and less time sleeping on them.
At 55, a guy spends more time shoveling sidewalks and less time sleeping on them.

Happy birthday to me. My present upon turning 55 was getting to shovel a half block of snow; a neighbor got the other half. We’re the only semi-able-bodied men on this side of the street, so we tag-team snow removal on behalf of those less mobile.

As blizzards go this was pretty weak stuff, though the lawn will like the heavy, wet snow; just enough to soak the greenery without tearing branches off trees. Plenty of ice underneath, which makes me wish I owned an auto body shop. Instead of chipping away at a sidewalk with a plastic shovel I’d be pricing real estate beachside, browning like a fat pork chop in a skillet and enjoying a frosty beverage shaded by a tiny paper umbrella.

The snow croaked my plan to ride my age (55 = 55 miles). One friend suggested doing it on the stationary trainer (ho ho); another noted that I have been elevated to the ground floor of a new racing age group (which already holds most of the fast dudes who had been flogging me in the 50-54s before I wised up and retired from competition). A third sang me a variation of the “Happy Birthday” song over the phone:

Happy birthday to you

Your basement’s fulla poo

You work for a website

And they’re not paying you.

I could mark this auspicious occasion by drinking 55 ounces of beer, then peeing a big 55 in the snow. But I fear shrinkage in this vile weather. One wishes to impress the neighbors, not amuse them.

Late update: OK, it’s not exactly a present-free birthday. The aforementioned website finally crossed my palm with coin of the realm, a full 12 days past the contractually mandated deadline. A number of you have weighed in with various deranged salutations involving pricey beverages that I can’t quite reach from here. And the mom-in-law rang me up to sing a proper version of “Happy Birthday” (mind you, not just ’cause she fears being consigned to an Army cot in the garage when she comes to visit in May). Finally, Herself authorized the purchase of a used 12-inch 1.5GHz G4 PowerBook from PowerMax as a backup for the recently resurrected MacBook. This expenditure required the trading in of the two beater G3 iBooks that have been stinking up the joint, which makes it another exercise in thinning the MacHerd and therefore semi-responsible in addition to self-indulgent.

The blizzard of 2009

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Turkish, having failed to find The Door Into Summer, tries a window. No joy there, either.
Turkish, having failed to find The Door Into Summer, tries a window. No joy there, either.

Well, not so much. Not in our little corner of Bibleburg, anyway. Heavy, blinding, wind-driven snow for a short spell, and now we’re left with some really icy side streets between us and the grog shops and grocers. Happily, I did my shopping around 8:30 this morning and even squeaked in a half-hour run before the shit hit.

I am skipping an appointment with my chiropractor, though. She’s up on the west end of Uintah, a feeder to I-25 that’s no fun at this time of day in good weather, and with frustrated commuters abandoning the interstate for side streets I think I’m better off right here in the old home office, where I can unravel my various knots with the judicious application of tonsil polish and vegetable beef soup. A guy could get his back cracked for real out there today.

I see a few cars on the roads, but they are clearly believers in some class of an afterlife. I am not, and even if I were, I would be in no hurry to get out there and risk meeting my Maker around some icy blind corner, as I would have a pretty good idea of His plans for me. Someplace considerably warmer, light on hymn-singing, I fear.

And besides, the local fish-wrap warns that we’re only between weather bands at the moment. As we speak, I see a few more flakes drifting down. Soup needs stirring and corks need pulling. I have a birthday coming up tomorrow, and I’d like to be around to bitch about it.

Housecats gone bad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Cyclo-cross, schmyclo-cross, lemme sleep.
Cyclo-cross, schmyclo-cross, lemme sleep.

I used to be hard core. Lately I’m all brittle exterior and soft interior, like a Tootsie Pop, but not as sweet. Why, there was a time not so long ago that if the temperature rose to the freezing point, I was out the door like a congressman fleeing the vice squad. I had my own private cyclo-cross course, and at 8800 feet, too. Used sunning rattlesnakes for obstacles and carried a pistol just in case the course decided to redesign itself in a hostile fashion.

Somewhere along the road from there to here I turned weaker than 7-Eleven coffee. Maybe it was moving from the mountains back to town, or switching my pet preference from dogs to cats. Dogs must go out, we will go out, let me out, for the love of God. Cats find the one sunny spot in the house and cover it like Sherwin-Williams. Fuck a bunch of winter, I shit in a box. What’s t’eat around here, anyway?

But there must be some small, vestigal hint of a whiff of mutt in me somewhere, because today I ventured out for 90 minutes on the Eurocross despite a high pegged right at freezing and a dampish breeze that took the wind chill 8 degrees lower. Rode the sonofabitch over to Palmer Park and zipped around the single-track, skirting the occasional icy bits when possible and generously yielding trail to various porky nitwits sporting headphones and unleashed dogs.

Then I rolled home, whipped up a skillet full of peppers, potatoes, chicken, parsley, onion and garlic, topped it with some hard-boiled eggs, and gobbled it all down, refusing to share so much as a single solitary nibble with the housecats. Stand back and let the big dog eat, you pussies.

Six more weeks?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
The official NOAA jersey, guaranteed to take weather-forecasting rodents' eyes off their own shadows.
The official NOAA jersey, guaranteed to take weather-forecasting rodents' eyes off their own shadows.

That miserable rodent Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow again this morning, heralding six more weeks of winter. If it were up to me that furry forecaster would see the lands and grooves of a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, but not for long.

Now here’s some weather news you can use. Steve Anderson, a correspondent of mine at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has teamed with a colleague to design some official NOAA cycling kit — jersey, shorts, gloves and cap. The club is an official USA Cycling outfit with some 40 members, from the current head of NOAA to the newest student intern.

I plan to order a jersey up because I’m certain that in addition to matching my eyes it will make me faster. Plus it will serve as camouflage should I decide to attack that Punxsutawney punk from the air.

Stupor Sunday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

Another month, another gray, chilly morning. February differs from January just how, exactly? Oh, yeah — it’s shorter.

No Yanks atop the podium at the frozen crit the Dutch called ‘cross worlds, though homegirl Katie Compton got the bronze in the women’s race.  The men’s race looked like a Belgian team time trial. Memo to UCI: If there’s no mud on your skinsuit and shoes at the finish line, it is not cyclo-cross.

Thirty-six and windy here in Bibleburg, yet my man Dr. Schenkenstein is already out and about, logging miles. At some point he’s bound to turn up on my stoop, wearing everything he owns and calling me a pussy because I like to ease gradually into my Sundays, like a fat man getting into a hot bath. God doesn’t even get up until noon, so I try not to incur His wrath by starting a ride any earlier than 10 a.m. With everything that’s going on in the world I figure He needs all the sleep He can get.

I understand there’s some lesser sporting event taking place today in Tampa. Alas, lacking cable or satellite we will be denied the dubious pleasure of play, commercial, play, commercial, play, commercial. Talk about your ad infinitum. We get ABC, CBS, PBS and suddenly a couple other off-brand digital channels after scoring a flat-panel TV for a joint solstice present. No NBC. And anyway, it’s wrong to watch TV in daylight hours, unless cyclo-cross — real cyclo-cross, with mud, weather and lots of running — is on.