My man Hal Walter and his boy Harrison suited up for a 10K on my old cyclocross course in Bibleburg on Saturday, but it wasn’t exactly a triumph, or even one of those father-son interactions that makes you go “Awwwwwwww. …”
Still, as Hal notes over at Hardscrabble Times: “Sometimes you ‘win.’ Sometimes you learn.”
When I write my doctoral dissertation on snow removal it will be titled “Flat Roofs Are Stupid.”
Ken Nordine, a voice you may recall from “Word Jazz,” a staple on NPR for years, has left the studio. He was 98.
A baritone storyteller who began with voiceovers on radio and TV, Nordine would go on to collaborate with Tom Waits, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and others.
He once said that the goal of his poetry was to “make people think about their thinking and feel about their feeling, but even more important to think about their feeling and feel about their thinking.”
I think he succeeded. Whenever I’d hear that impossibly deep voice softshoe out of my radio and into my head, I’d stop whatever I was doing and pay attention. They’re nodding and yessing and popping their fingers at Next World Coffee this morning.
Man, it seems I’m not the only person with a bad case of the Februaries.
Bicycle Retailer’s Steve Frothingham is at Frostbike in Minnesota, but it’s not a social call, and seems unlikely to break a streak of two weeks without exercise.
“S’what’s on the menu this evening?” I asked yesterday. “Partying with industry leaders?”
“Typing,” he replied.
Adventure Cyclist‘s Nick Legan, meanwhile, was riding that fabled Road to Nowhere in Colorado and looking forward to the Roll Massif, which will be conducted outdoors, with any luck at all in warmer weather.
“I was on the trainer myself,” he said. “Tried distracting myself from the misery with intervals and a movie. Worked in some respects, didn’t in others.”
Up Weirdcliffe way, Hal Walter was dealing with single-digit temps, wind, and writer’s block in what he called “the worst winter in recent memory.”
He was also keeping a weather eye out for unwelcome company. When I asked what made those tracks, he replied, “Something that could eat you.”
Me, I was making my own tracks. I put on my sailin’ shoes — along with fleece-lined tights, two Patagucci long-sleeved shirts, an old ShaverSport wind jacket, tuque, and gloves — and lumbered off into a strong southerly wind that bore nary a whiff of sun-splashed desert.
I hit some sort of weirdo thermocline just past the turnaround and set about unzipping this and unbuttoning that. But by the time I’d left the trail and hit the short paved stretch leading home I was freezing my huevos off again.
It wasn’t what I’d call fun, but it was exercise, and some days that’s enough. Still, if you must run, don’t forget to take your Little Feat with you.
Doctor, doctor, well, I feel so bad
This is the worst day I ever had
He said, Have you this misery a very long time?
Well, if you ill, I’ll lay it on the line
You’ve got to put on your sailin’ shoes
Put on your sailing shoes
Everyone will start to cheer
When you put on your sailin’ shoes
Yahweh is supposed to have another go at us over the next couple of days, and then the weather is expected to return to something more in keeping with late February in the upper reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, which is to say sunny and warmish.
Meanwhile, DeeCee is getting all hot and bothered over rumors that it will be Mueller Time almost any second now, no shit, really, this time we’re not kidding, it’s for reals, duck and cover, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.
Can you imagine how many Old Wise Heads will explode if he hits us with the prosecutorial equivalent of “Heckuva job, Trumpie?” Or if the Justice League buries the report down at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant with a 24/7 guard of Terminators? Maybe has China express-mail the sucker to the far side of the moon?
“The public is welcome to inspect the report there,” says Justice Department media liaison Phuq Yu. “We are nothing if not transparent.”
Mad Blog Media 