Smoke gets in your eyes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 35 Comments
How many horsemen does the apocalypse have these days, anyway?

Most mornings I get a fine clear look at the Sandias as I shamble around El Rancho Pendejo, opening windows to air out the joint.

Today? Not so much.

New Mexico Fire Information and InciWeb both report a handful of fires in our fair, dry, and windblown state. One of them, Los Charcos, is just down the road a bit, on Isleta Pueblo. There are three more down in the Gila National Forest, plus some more in Arizona, and the Duke City has issued a health alert for this morning. Our gentle 45-mph zephyrs should send the forest exhaust elsewhere by this afternoon.

Los Charcos was human-caused. Happily, it — unlike the humans and their megadrought — is nearly under control.

And the windows? They’re closed.

Skullcapped

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
The view west from Trail 365 and Candelaria.

We’ve finally surrendered to the inevitable and turned on the air conditioning at El Rancho Pendejo.

It’s been hot as balls for a while now. And though this morning we awakened to cloudy skies and light rain, before long the sun came out, the wind followed, and boom! Just like that our plans for a long bike ride got red-flagged.

The gabacho sombrero.

Herself opted for a short trail run instead, while I trudged out for an hourlong hike, my running days being more or less over.

One of the downsides of using hiking as a running replacement is that the practitioner is compelled to spend more time outside, where the sun is. And during a four-miler last week I got a bit toasted on the back of the neck, where my Santa Fe School of Cooking ballcap proved of no use whatsoever.

So afterward I popped round to a nearby surplus store, where I scored myself a cheapo Honduran boonie hat to replace the ballcap. And I’ve started knotting a raggedy-ass bandana around my throat, too.

Now I look like every other bewhiskered old gabacho hoofer in the ’hood. Imagine how Carl Spackler might look 40 years after “Caddyshack,” assuming he married well, and you’ll get the picture.

Implausible deniability

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
“What’s all the hubbub … bub?”

And now, for your listening pleasure, Attorney General Bill “Droopy” Barr  performs “An Ode to Self-Exoneration” on the butt-trumpet:

“I’m not involved in giving tactical commands like that,” Barr told the Associated Press. “I was frustrated and I was also worried that as the crowd grew, it was going to be harder and harder to do. So my attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’ ”

Gee whillikers, a fella just can’t find good help anymore, even with the unemployment rate in double digits. This gasbag makes John Mitchell look like Clarence Darrow.

Water logged

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments
The rain was bucketing down last night, and we have the bucket to prove it.

It rained like a mad bastard here last night, with lightning strikes aplenty and one thunderclap that sounded like the SWAT team triggering a flash-bang before hitting the door.

The cacti got a charge from the evening’s rain.

The weather probably kept the cops and citizens from doing it hand to hand again downtown, as they did on Sunday night. Call me simple, but I don’t see how setting Dumpster fires and trashing the KiMo Theatre advances the Revolution.

Nor do I believe one achieves peace through superior firepower. The Albuquerque Police Department apparently broke out the flash-bangs, tear gas, and rubber bullets in honor of the occasion, saying some miscreant fired on them.

But hey, this is Albuquerque. If you don’t hear gunfire when the sun goes down, that just means everyone’s busy reloading.

The journalism performed in honor of the hullabaloo was so comically inept that it’s hard to get any sense of what actually went down. Much noise, very little signal.

Why, it’s enough to make a fella open up one a’ them whatchamacallits? Social-media accounts! I hear they come with cute kitten videos and everything.