That’s not Old Sol smiling down upon us. That’s a hallway light shining upon the thermostat, which I was compelled to use this morning to crank up the furnace for the first time this fall.
This unseasonably cool, moist weather is supposed to stick around for a bit, so I may have to do a little solo cyclocross today to roust myself from torpor, get the heart rate up, and avoid the kitchen, where the food is.
Chilly days bring with them the temptation to gobble everything that isn’t under lock and key, and it doesn’t help that Kelli made a pan of delicious banana bread that’s just sitting there on the counter, cooing, “Eat me, fat boy.”
Last night we dined on leftover green chile stew straight out of “The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook,” with massive side salads, tortillas and chocolate. Today I may whip up some pasta al cavolfiore from the “Moosewood Cookbook.” It’s a favorite of Herself’s in just about any kind of weather.
But it is a belly-packer, and so I’d better sweat a little before dinner. The only pudgy white guy Herself lets live indoors around here is The Turk.
It was chilly enough down here at the foot of the Sandias. Up at the top, where Herself and friend Kelli were, it was downright wintry. Photo | Herself
The temperature was in the 30s this morning when I decided to go for a run.
Rogue killers trying to shove me off by subtly inflicting a chill that blossoms into pneumonia? Who knows?
I bundled up and got after it anyway. Tights, tuque, the works. A fella can’t burn daylight, however feeble, just chillin’.
We’ve been enjoying a pleasant off-and-on rain, and by “we” I mean “not the Balloon Fiesta people.”
Welp, the Balloon Fiesta people have another year and a day to get their traffic problems sorted, because their final launch of 2018 got rained out this morning.
What does a balloon aficionado do when there is no ballooning to be had due to inclement weather? Beats me.
I know what a cycling scribe does. He stays inside and blogs.
The Kona Sutra at Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta Park, which sits right on the North Diversion Channel trail (from Feb. 2014).
It seems the best way to get to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is … by balloon.
Or is it?
Motorists and park-and-riders have suffered mightily this year, getting stuck in traffic and/or at bus stops, reports The Albuquerque Journal. With a record 21,000 park-and-ride tickets sold, the problem was “sheer volume,” according to Dennis Christiansen, Fiesta coordinator of traffic and P&R.
Added Fiesta executive director Paul Smith: “We have a limited number of access points to and from the park. We are kind of landlocked here. We have a reservation (Sandia) to the north, a neighborhood to the west, and AMAFCA (flood control) channels on two sides.”
Neither the Journal nor the Fiesta mentions this transportation option, though I was riding that trail to that park before I even lived here. I tell ya, we don’t get no respect. …
Yesterday’s clouds were a harbinger of mildly unpleasant weather, the sort one expects in October.
It’s that time of year again.
This morning, instead of going straight to The New York Times to see what deviltry Cheeto Benito has been up to while we slept, I cued up Weather Underground to find out what Thor has in store for us here in our little corner of the Duke City.
Also, I was wearing socks. And pants. O, the humanity.
I already miss my summer routine. Reveille at oh-dark-thirty as Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) leaps into my rack. After a brief exchange of the usual courtesies it’s up and into the Columbia shorts, guinea tee and Tevas for the trip to the kitchen, where I burn an English muffin for Herself, pour a cup of joe for myself, and top off Miss Mia Sopaipilla’s kibble.
Next, open the sliding glass doors and a kitchen window. Fresh air reminds me we have two cats who haven’t mastered the flush toilet. But the litter box will have to wait. First, the news. One foul chore at a time, please.
With the international, national, regional and local butt-nuggets exhumed, examined and expunged, and a second cup of coffee to wash down a snack of some sort, it’s time to generate a bit of bloggery and/or paying copy before embarking upon some healthy outdoor activity.
Here we have another indicator of the relentless passage of time, as reliable as falling leaves. Come autumn, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News and Adventure Cyclist reduce their frequency of publication, and my income stream — hardly a raging torrent, even in the heart of the cycling season — becomes more of a dribble, the last warm sip from summer’s water bottle.
I delivered the video teaser of my Jones Plus SWB review to Adventure Cyclist on Sunday, and yesterday the November “Shop Talk” cartoon went off to BRAIN. Now I’m fresh out of other people’s bikes to ponder, and there’s just one more ’toon to draw for 2018.
And that healthy outdoor activity? Come autumn, it’s as likely to be a run as a ride. This year I started jogging again in July; this lets me sort of sneak up on my knees, give them time to grow accustomed to the idea that we enjoy this sort of thing, before winter winnows our options.
It’s a useful fiction, one that keeps me in shorts a while longer.
