I didn’t have a mask to keep bugs out of my teefers on the descent of Tramway Road.
Firsts:
Hey, Spike, you missed a few flowers.
• Riding the bike without a mask. That was fun. I’ve been half-stepping it, draping a Buff around my neck, but yesterday I left it at home. I’m still all buffed up; I’m just not Buffed up. Ho, ho.
• Having people over for drinks. Yup. Couple friends from the ’hood who are likewise all shot up came by for strawberry margaritas and a bit of guacamole. We hung out on the patio, shooting the breeze and enjoying what little foliage Spike the Terrorist Deer found unpalatable.
Two little things, to be sure. But satisfying nonetheless after a very long year indeed. Next up: Dancing on Sundays!
This reminds me of the visual migraines I used to get as a teenager.
So. There I was, doing a bit of yard maintenance with the old string trimmer, when I heard a pop.
The first thing that comes to mind in these parts is, “Did someone just try to bust a cap in my ass?” So I scan the yard for assailants and see bupkis, unless one of the house finches at the feeder has a 9mm Beretta concealed somewhere beneath his feathers.
Then I have a look behind me.
Oopsie.
My guess is the string trimmer found a small chunk of brick paver or a stone or whatever and pitched a Shohei Ohtani fastball at the sliding glass door. Right on the money it was, too. And I do mean money.
In other yard news, the wildife cam reports that Spike the Terrorist Deer and a pal popped round last night to eat most of the roses and sample the immature fruit on the ornamental pear tree while a raccoon inspected the grass for interesting tidbits. Just two more indicators that yards are a plot by the home and garden/psychiatry/whiskey cartels to create a perpetual-motion money machine.
I’m losing most of my bets with the watch on my nightstand.
Lately I’ve been posing myself a little challenge when I return to earth from dreamland: Pop open an eye, peer around the bedroom, and try to guess what time it is based on ambient light leaking through the vertical blinds.
I was doing pretty well there for a while. Nailed it once or twice. But lately I’m minutes off the mark.
I’m not sure who’s to blame for the decline in my batting average. Possibly the “Harvard elite with perfect hair” who’s apparently behind all the psychos shooting the mortal shit out of each other around town. He’s certainly broken into at least one head down at Peterson Properties, which has more eyes than Avalokiteshvara and knows more about what you’ve been up to than Santa Claus.
We remain unventilated by pistoleros here at El Rancho Pendejo, though we have endured a busy week. Last Friday we moved Herself the Elder from the Dark Tower to the Bermuda Triangle, an assisted-living house a little closer to us. It’s where Herself had wanted to park the old gal when she first came to town, but there weren’t any vacancies. Suddenly there were. So it goes.
Wednesday was our 31st anniversary, and as we were both thoroughly shot up vaccine-wise, we went out to eat at an actual restaurant, El Patio on Rio Grande. It was my first sitdown restaurant meal in more than a year, and it was spectacular. Great food, excellent service, and we didn’t get plugged or burgled or tagged or nothin’, Harvard elites with perfect hair notwithstanding.
Today we’re baking bread and pulling weeds. Probably still working off some of those tasty El Patio calories. Gotta keep in fighting trim for the next 31 years.
It’s hard to believe. When I was couch-surfing around Santa Rosa back in 1981, trying and failing to find newspaper work, the place felt downright soggy to me after a short tour of duty in Tucson.
Not any more, Skeeter. You already know about the fires. Now comes the drought, which is triggering both voluntary cutbacks in water use and a few mandatory restrictions.
Says Cotati Councilwoman Susan Harvey, chair of the region’s Water Advisory Committee:
“We just kind of have to hope that people will do the right thing. And if they don’t do the right thing, we will have to be more stringent. It’s always better to use the carrot than the stick.”
Here in the Duke City, meanwhile, John Fleck reports that the Rio Grande forecast has dropped yet again after what NRCS forecaster Angus Goodbody calls “an exceptionally dry April.”
Adds Fleck: “April was really our last chance for a late spring bailout.”
Hijo, madre. By the time Denis Villeneuve’s take on the Frank Herbert classic “Dune” hits the screen it’s liable to feel like a documentary.
• In other news: It’s not just that we don’t know where our water is coming from. We don’t even know where it’s going.
Mad Blog Media 