We’re halfway through round three of The Visitation, this time hosting Herself’s elder sister Beth.
The sisters have been working mom over pretty good, inflicting a pedicure, salon cut, shopping, and restaurant meals.
Me, I’ve been keeping my head down, trying to stay out of trouble. This is not easy, with three women barking orders and nowhere to hide. Four, if you count Miss Mia Sopaipllla, who is not shy about expressing herself either.
The photo is courtesy of Beth’s giant iPhone 12 and its gee-whiz camera array, which makes my original SE look like a Mesopotamian wax tablet and stylus.
“Huh,” sez I, casting an appraising glance at the clouds glowering down at me from atop the Sandias. “Think I’ll mow the lawn.”
Boom. About 30 seconds after I finished and put the mower back in the garage, Thor gave the neighborhood a solid power-washing.
The deluge only lasted a few minutes, but that shit was coming in sideways. It was surf’s up across the cul-de-sac, and the mom next door probably wished she had an airboat to fetch the kiddos home from wherever because Nissan Altimas don’t float like the original VW bugs.
But hey, nobody bitches about rain in the desert. Unless it catches them from behind with the earbuds in, walking the Chihuahua down an arroyo.
A hop, skip, and a jump from the moneyed boutique community of Aspen, an abandoned coal mine with a grim history, an environmental disaster one expert called “the worst coal mine site I’ve seen in the West,” has become “a mountain biking park for the masses,” thanks to the grandsons of Walmart founder Sam Walton.
Writes Jason Blevins in The Colorado Sun:
The word “model” comes up in almost all discussions of Coal Basin, used by the landowners, trail designers, mountain bikers, land managers and locals alike. The single track trails are a model for restoring environmental danger zones. A model for Forest Service managers seeking partnerships with private entities to help build and maintain trails. A model for open space protectors offering landowners a way to marry recreational access with an easement that prevents any other type of development.
Down here in Duke City, meanwhile, just six full-time and seasonal workers strive to maintain about 160 miles of trail, including the fabled Paseo del Bosque, known to many of us here around the old burrito cart.
According to park-and-rec PR person Jessica Campbell, via D’Val Westphal at the Albuquerque Journal, our limited trail money “must also accommodate public demand for new trail segments” in addition to maintaining what we already have.
I guess the Waltons can’t be everywhere, though of course they are, especially when it comes to selling you something. Maybe we Burqueños need a new model.
If you build it, they will come, as folks are fond of saying. But don’t neglect the upkeep of your particular field of dreams.
Nope, not a church. It’s the chimney for the bedroom kiva fireplace.
The Lowell George song is pretty much all I know about Tucumcari. That, and that round two of The Visitation occurs today, as another smallish herd of Texicans gallops in from there to see Herself the Elder.
Their trip looks like a stroll through the daisies compared to what Herself’s sis will endure when she jets in from Maryland midweek. Holy hell. That itinerary is why I drive any distance under 3,000 miles that does not involve an ocean crossing. A UPS driver at Christmastime makes fewer stops. Plus there are fewer psychos to duct-tape to their seats en route.
Meanwhile, the news of the world remains an ongoing refutation of both Darwinism and theology. One envisions the Son having a Word with the Father while the Holy Ghost spitballs a new PR campaign:
“I got nailed up for these people? What were You thinking? I’m going to put You in a home while HG and I try to figure out how to turn this thing around.”
Good luck with that. Me, I’d think about starting over with a fresh crop of monkeys. But judging by the state of the place, maybe that’s already occurred to You.
We enjoyed quite the early morning rainstorm today, with thunder and lightning. Makes for one hell of an alarm clock.
Busy, busy, busy. Even a slacker has to take hold now and then.
We have a dispersed conga line of kinfolk snaking through El Rancho Pendejo, all of them from Herself’s side of the family, come to visit Herself the Elder between plagues.
The first of four visitations occurred yesterday; some very nice folks out of Texas, who took time away from a visit to Pagosa Springs to pop down and say howdy. A bit of tidying up was mandated, because somebody around here is remarkably untroubled by clutter (not Herself).
Round two commences Sunday with more visitors from the Lone Star State (Herself the Elder was born in Nacogdoches back in 1933). Then Herself’s eldest sis pops in from Maryland for a week starting Wednesday. Finally, yet another Texican niece drops by sometime in August.
Meanwhile, The Work goes on, as it must. I banged out a cartoon for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News yesterday, learning in the process that the Outside+ Global AdventureStuff Conglomerate had snatched up a couple more properties, Pinkbike and CyclingTips.
This, as Monty Python has taught us, “brings us once again to the urgent realization of just how much there is still left to own.”
Me, I’m still a rental. And something of a fixer-upper, too. Still, I’m open to offers. …
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