Particularly bad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
The tumbleweeds are not exactly tumbling. More like launching
into low-Earth orbit.

My, but the airborne particulates is fierce around here.

The terra is not too firma lately. It gets up and flits around The Duck! City at 50 or 60 miles per hour, and the pollen goes along for the ride. Together they do drive-bys on everyone’s eyeballs and snotlockers. Snurk, hyyyunk, auuughhhh, honk, gaaack, ptui, etc. I may be compelled to take drugs.

No, not that drug, though I may be alone in that regard. I hear New Mexico’s mota dealers moved a few millions in product the first few days recreational weed was legal here. Makes my youthful adventures in retailing look like a lemonade stand on a dead-end street.

But I’ll stick to my fake beer and Claritin-D, thanks all the same. Get back to me when you legalize microdosing of psilocybin, mescaline, and the ol’ L-S-Dizzy. I don’t know that I want to throw open the doors of perception, as in days of yore, but I wouldn’t mind a little peek through the windows now and then.

The pause that refreshes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 27 Comments
No April showers today.

Sure hope y’all didn’t pay no ransom. I wasn’t kidnapped or nothin’ — just decided to check myself out for a little digital detox.

The voices in my head were starting to win most of our arguments, so I swerved the clown car into the breakdown lane and rassled them sumbitches into the trunk, let ’em bounce around in there with the spare tire and all those old whoopie cushions until they remembered who’s driving this rig and shut the fuck up.

I know, poor loser. But my head, my rules.

If it’s been a while since you aimed the leaf blower at the darker corners of your brain-box you might give ’er a whirl. I quit doomscrolling the Innertubes, turned off the TV and NPR, even shelved the magazines and books. All that input had my output by the plums with a downhill pull. When the only channel the palantír gets is Radio Free Mordor it’s time to shut ’er down for maintenance.

Now we’re back on the old Highway to Hell at a safe and sane 666 mph and I don’t feel like I have to flip the bird at every single billboard. Ain’t hearing shit from the trunk, neither.

Hot lap, señores!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
On your mark, get set — go!

Zoom, off we go for another circuit of Old Sol. Here’s hoping it’s not the bell lap. If it is, I don’t think I’m gonna finish in the money.

The birthday bash was low-key. A couple of phone calls and texts, a few choruses of “Happy Birthday,” and a great big ol’ green chile cheeseburger with bacon, white cheddar, and fries at the Range Cafe. This is something I’d never cook for myself, so yay, etc.

That’s a lot of comics rat there, Skeezix.

Herself, knowing my history with comics, scored me the collected “Watchmen,” by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. I was a superhero fiend early on, starting with DC and moving on to Marvel, then diverted to the underground comics for some years before losing track of the medium for an extended period.

When “Watchmen” came along in the mid-Eighties I was into changing newspapers like underwear and racing bicycles, and never heard a peep about it. I found Zack Snyder’s movie incomprehensible — Terry Gilliam had been tapped to direct but deemed the comic “unfilmable” and bailed — but I loved the HBO miniseries, so I’m looking forward to examining the original source material.

Got the 68-minute bike ride in on the trails around Elena Gallegos Open Space, and was lucky to escape unscathed for another lap of the sun. It looked like the Big I at the cocktail hour on Friday, is what.

Of course, back when I was still a man, instead of whatever it is that I am now, I would’ve ridden my age in miles, not minutes. But the rides were shorter then, and didn’t burn quite so much daylight.

Hell, I didn’t get my burger on until 2 in the peeyem as it was. If I’da gone for 68 miles I’da been having it for breakfast this morning.

Flower, child

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
A little bit of sunshine against the back wall.

Wowsah. One minute it’s icicles on the wisteria, the next it’s SPF 70 on the arms and legs.

Yesterday was my first outing sans arm and knee warmers this spring. Didn’t even bother to bring ’em along. As a consequence this morning I am a slightly darker shade of pale. In selected PG locations, anyway.

Chihuahua.

Elsewhere, the weather remains unsettled. Finding Ukraine unwilling to roll over and play dead, Voldemort Poutaine, the old commie spook whose military education apparently began and ended with World War II, may be inclined to declare victory and settle for trying to choke down a smaller bite of the country that he’s been chewing on for a while now.

Then again, his purse dogs keep yapping about Dropping the Big One to See What Happens. So, let’s not start dancing the Hopak just yet.

Meanwhile, the less said about the Ketanji Brown Jackson job interview, the better. Jesus H., etc. How Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley can take three steps in public without getting kicked in the nuts remains a mystery to me.

No wonder everyone wants legal weed these days. The whiskey isn’t doing the job.

Oh, well. Today we’re looking at a high of 76° (!), so I can apply another layer of color to my carcass. But if Pat O’B ventures out today he’s gonna need a space suit. Tucson hit 90° about five days early this year and it’s only gonna get hotter.

River of fools

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Every little bit helps.

What’s black and white and cold all over?

The Duck! City at dawn.

We got a little smooch from the gods as they thundered eastward to kick the shit out of Texas. Rained all day Monday, then started snowing overnight.

The Mad Dog Weather Widget says we got slightly less than half an inch, and we will take it, thank you very much, if only to keep the dust and pollen out of our snouts and eyeballs for a little while. Shoutout to Thor and Mjolnir for not taking the roof off en route.

Elsewhere, the water news is not as cheery. Reporting from the University of Utah’s Stegner Symposium on the Colorado River Compact, John Fleck notes, among other things, that:

  • Colorado River Basin water users are currently consuming 14-15 million acre feet of water from a river that for the 21st century has averaged 12.3 million acre feet.
  • Lake Powell is sinking toward “minimum power pool” – its lowest level since filling in the 1960s.
  • Summer drying is making it harder for snowpack the following winter to make it to headwaters rivers.

Hey Zeus, etc. “The crisis situation on the river made for some pointed conversations,” says Fleck, and I believe him.

“Would you like a whiskey with your wee-wee?”

“Yes, please.”

“Sorry, it takes water to make whiskey. It’s straight wee-wee for you, pal. Shall I catheterize you or would you prefer to sample our Wee-wee of the Week? This week it’s Pima Pee, and yes, we stole it.”