“Hard about, Mister Miller! New orders from Cape Treason.”
* More apologies to Randy Newman, and also to the crew of the Nimitz, who must be getting dizzy.
Diane Jenks, a.k.a. The Outspoken Cyclist, has posted her chat with Charles Pelkey and me about the late Msgr. Richard “Mons” Soseman and his generous, thoughtful contributions to our daily coverage of the grand tours over at Live Update Guy.
Our segment kicks off about 33 minutes into the show. Steve Frothingham, editor in chief of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, gets things rolling with a discussion of the year just past in the bike biz and what we might expect in 2021.
Thanks to Diane for giving the Padre, Charles, and me a little corner of her chat room. You can give us a listen by clicking here.
The trouble with having a certifiable loon as your ostensible “commander in chief” is that the other loons are liable to mistake his noise for signal.
“Say, Ebrahim, where’s the Great Satan’s aircraft carrier going? Who the hell is calling the shots over there, anyway?”
“The only shot this one cares about is the seven-iron he just shanked into the water hazard, your Supreme Leadership.”
* Apologies to Randy Newman.
The starter’s pistol cracks, the flag drops … and they’re off! Another lap around the calendar has begun.
Herself and I called it quits long before midnight after a New Year’s Eve feast of Alaskan salmon (h/t Matt Wiebe), roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, and salad. French rosé for her; fake St. Pauli Girl for me, my Clausthaler Dry Hopped being unavailable anywhere at any price.
The celebratory pyrotechnics likewise beat the clock. I was hearing fireworks and gunfire 8-ish as I unplugged the holiday lights. Burqueños do love their pistolas, and will discharge them at the sky if no other, better target presents itself.
This continued into the night until a final, furious fusillade awakened me and 2021 more or less simultaneously.
This morning I checked the property for bodies, but found nothing, no shell casings, no blood trails. Herself inspected the Vault and found a deposit of $1,200 from Uncle Sammy, that senile, profligate, racist old fool. We are not wealthy, but neither are we desperate, and so we will be redirecting these funds to someone who is. What a colossal waste of time and energy. Somebody could have been spending this cash months ago on food, rent, cartuchos, whatever.
Meanwhile, the Sedition Party is gearing up for more mischief at King’s Landing. This is the thing that never changes with the calendar. In power, they can’t govern, won’t even try. Out of power, they see to it that nobody else can govern, either. This is why small businesses close and public works crumble and people like us get free money.
And yet every New Year’s Eve the People spill out into the streets, shooting into the heavens. One wonders when they might choose some other targets of opportunity down here on earth.
While we wait, anybody making New Year’s resolutions that don’t involve overthrowing the government? Sound off in comments.
Hoo-boy. Pee-yew. That’n looks like a double-flusher to me. Might have to break out the plunger. Or a stick of DuPont Extra.
But it’s gotta go, come hell or high water, and I won’t miss it once it’s gone.
Twenty-fuckin’-20.
We put an old woman in a home. My foot in a splint. My cat in an urn. And our lives on hold.
We’re alive to bitch about it, which has to count for something. [Insert thunderous sound of knocking on wood here.] Plenty of other people aren’t.
Also, I finally made it to Social Security, so, yay for me. Plus Herself remains on the clock in a real big way, so, bonus. We want for nothing. Call it a lamp so that we need not curse the darkness from beneath our designer masks.
It feels greedy of me to miss my cat. Running. Road trips. Hot springs. Random acts of shopping. Long bicycle rides. Stand-up comedy. My favorite non-alcoholic beer. Bookstores. Mexican restaurants. Living in a country that helped defeat fascism, not resurrect it.
You know. The little things.
Still, I miss them. I do. And I don’t expect to get a lot of them back just like that, with a simple change of calendars, or administrations.
Especially my cat. Not unless Stephen King gets involved, and that’s a bridge too far for me. Turkish v1.0 could be scary enough.
We already have plenty to be scared of, thanks all the same.
Nevertheless, here we are, on the threshold of a new year. That I am not optimistic is not helpful. Time to show the affirming flame. We must love one another or die.
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