Ride or hide?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 34 Comments
The Soma Double Cross in townie configuration.

Larry and Pat O’B have been discussing the merits of forgoing outdoor cycling for the moment.

There is some merit to the idea of giving it a miss, especially in Italy, where the toll has been particularly fierce and the authorities want everyone indoors save for brief food-gathering expeditions and other critical tasks.

That sort of lockdown has yet to come to Albuquerque. And I’ve been hobbled for nearly a month. So naturally I’m itching to ride.

But. …

Yesterday I walked for a half-hour, covering a little more than a mile, and that felt nice too.

So, I’m thinking that despite what you see on social-distance media about cycling being The Next Big Thing® (always with TNBT®, our people), it might be politic to ride the trainer indoors and save the outdoor cycling for business trips. Like, say, rides to the grocery.

It’s good PR. And it comes with a couple of side benefits.

One, unless you’re me, you are unlikely to fall off your own two feet and become an unwelcome burden to an already-overtaxed medical-industrial complex.

And two, unless you own a cargo bike and a pair of thunder-thighs, it will curb the human impulse to hoard. The average Joe/Jane can only carry so much in a basket or a backpack.

Thoughts? Sound off in comments.

Cantina del Perro Loco

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Careful, señores … hot plate!

We’ve eaten our way through the oven-roasted chicken-and-taters. Likewise the chili con carne (based on me sainted ma’s recipe from our days in Texas). The other day we settled for a simple repast of smoked oysters, cheese, crackers, and salad.

What to cook next?

Mexican, of course.

Herself harvests her latest crop of sprouts.

There were no dried pinto beans to be had on our last hunter-gatherer expedition to Sprouts (gracias, hoarders).

But I found a 2-pound sack stashed away in a cupboard from a months-ago trip to Keller’s. So I cooked up a pound a la Santa Fe School of Cooking, with onion, garlic, chipotle chile, oregano, epazote, cumin, coriander, salt, bay leaf, and chicken broth.

This takes the better part of quite some time, but it’s not as though we’re up to our nalgas in other chores around here.

Flour tortillas we already had. So, burritos, yeah? Claro que si, hombre.

But burritos without green chile sauce are like a day without sunshine. So I thawed some frozen Hatch chile and got after that.

Also, beans without rice? What are you, high? Rick Bayless has a no-frills recipe for red rice in his “Mexican Everyday,” and even a gabacho can make that drunk with one foot in a bucket, or, in my case, sober with one foot in a lace-up ankle brace.

Herself whipped up a couple simple side salads and that was that. Now we have leftovers for a couple days. And then, we’ll switch focus from Mexican to Italian.

The cat’s meow

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
The rest interval.

Miss Mia Sopaipilla is enjoying this whole social-distancing thing.

Suddenly she has two people to feed her; two people to empty the litter box; and two people to play “Chase Me Chase Me.”

This last is a pursuit through the house to the master bath, where the pursuer must sit on the toilet while Miss Mia slaloms between his/her calves and around both sides of the toilet, scent-marking the corners of the surrounding walls and periodically standing on her hind legs to bump her head into an outstretched palm like a particularly gregarious prairie dog.

Afterward there will be a short snort from the water dish followed by a snooze on the back of the couch.

Then, and only then, are we released to set about our own little bits of business. Like waiting for the feddle gummint to send us a G of our own money and then dispatch crews of space-suited carpenters to nail our doors and windows shut so we can’t leave home to spend it.

Happy St. Whatsisface Day

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Boggy O’Trotter, fresh from an epic 8-mile ride.
The flowers were in case I croaked en route.

Herself and I kitted up (in green, natch) and rode our mountain bikes over to Herself the Elder’s assisted-living home this afternoon.

It was a resupply op (HtE was out of wine) and the choppers were all grounded, so whaddaya gonna do?

I chose the old DBR Axis TT because it has 26-inch wheels (easy to throw a leg over); fat tires (squish squish squish); and boingy bits (boy-boy-yoinnnnng), all of which help minimize the impact to the bum ankle, which is wearing one of these doodads. Swapped the Time ATACs for flat pedals too.

No land-speed records were set. But it was nice to be riding a bicycle that was actually going somewhere.