Old, not dead

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
My 1995 DBR Axis TT still sports a little bit of Bibleburg here and there.
My 1995 DBR Axis TT still sports a little bit of Bibleburg here and there.

Daylight-saving time is still messing with my mojo.

I’m not a morning person by nature, but I do like getting my daily exercise in early-ish. But since the early-ish temps have been a little brisk lately, I’ve been waiting until afternoon to crack a sweat — my least favorite time for that sort of thing.

Still, there’s no denying that it’s warmer at 3 p.m. than it is at 10 a.m. And apparently I’m not the only person who likes it that way, because by the time I hit the trail on the old DBR mountain bike yesterday everybody and his grandma was out there, too.

The only decal on the Axis TT.
The only decal on the Axis TT.

I hadn’t ridden this bike in, like, forever — it still sports some reddish mud that may come from the Monument Valley Park trail back in Bibleburg — and it took some getting used to. If you consume a steady diet of rigid, drop-bar, disc-brake 29ers, well, a front-suspension, flat-bar, V-brake 26er is gonna feel a little weird.

And I was never much of a mountain biker anyway. Ask anyone who ever saw me ride one.

So, anyway, after dodging a metric shit-ton of oblivious pedestrians, off-the-leash dogs and other mobile speed bumps, and nearly stuffing it in a tight, downhill, left-hand corner, I said to hell with it and headed for home.

Rolling toward Piedra Lisa I pulled to the side of the trail to accommodate yet another parade of folks, this time a string of mountain bikers, and one said, “Hey, nice Diamondback!”

Dude either knows his vintage machinery or has the telescopic vision of a young Superman, because the only identifying decal on my 1995 DBR Axis TT is at the base of the seat tube, and its only remaining stock bits are the AC crankset and XT derailleurs.

Speaking of bike bits, Nick Legan, the tech editor for Adventure Cyclist, has a new blog going when he has a moment to catch his breath. You should check it out.

 

Spring has sprung

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
Vern would be pleased.
Vern would be pleased.

Welcome to the earliest vernal equinox since 1896, according to EarthSky.

The vernal equinox is named for Vern, the ancient Roman god of aeration. The illegitimate offspring of the lesser deities Benadryl, god of drying up, and Kleenex, god of mopping up, Vern (like Your Humble Narrator) had a small but entirely deranged following; his was dedicated to perforating nouns, which is to say people, places and things. Especially people.

The conspirators who did for Julius Caesar were all dedicated Vernalites, though they claimed afterward that their knifework was intended to permit vital fluids to gain entrance rather than draining them.

Indeed, among the Vernalites a certain belligerent thickheadedness was considered a blessing rather than a curse, and today we can find their descendants manning customer-service “help” desks, hosting the morning drive-time “zoo” at local radio stations, and running for president on the GOP ticket.

 

Reveille, but in Italian

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
"Right, off you go."
“Right, off you go.”

Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment), rousted me out of a warm bed at dark-thirty this morning, thinking I needed to be earning my keep by following Milan-San Remo.

I explained that I no longer work for a racing magazine, but he simply yawned and replied: “It was time you got up anyway. Wake me when lunch is ready.”

Stumped

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
The daffodils are popping up.
The daffodils are popping up.

It was a quiet St. Patrick’s Day around El Rancho Pendejo, as you might expect from my previous post.

We had the previous owner of the place over for a glass of wine with Herself — Kathy is the green-thumbed person who planted the lovely flowers that are just beginning to pop up for a look-see — and we caught up on this and that, discussed the parlous state of the Republic, and in general had a delightful early evening.

I’d had a pot of Irish stew simmering on the fire, and invited Kathy to join us, but she had other plans. So it was just the two of us nibbling away in front of the tube — season one of “Orange Is the New Black,” which is OK but so far no “Breaking Bad,” thanks all the same. (Yeah, we’re late to the popular-culture party again.)

Today I need to log a little saddle time, if I can ever stop blowing my nose (honk). Still, could be worse. Here the temps may inch up toward the 70-degree mark. Back in Bibleburg, it’s snowing.

Irish, stewed

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments
The wearin' of the green.
The wearin’ of the green.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to the lot of ye. May yis be in heaven a half hour before the divil knows yeer dead.

This seems as good a time as any to disclose to anyone who hasn’t figured it out that I will not be tipping a pint today because I no longer imbibe.

’Tis so. Quit the drink more than three years ago, and while I occasionally miss the idea of having a drop taken, I can’t say I miss the actuality.

There were no DUIs, no 12-step programs, no health issues. I didn’t wake up underneath my truck in a driveway not my own with a blinding hangover and a cast on one leg (though I have done that).

But while battling a nasty upper-respiratory bug in 2013 I thought it would be a good idea to leave the drink be while the pipes were rattling. Then I recalled that I hadn’t done my once-traditional sober January in a few years, so I thought I’d revive that practice.

We have some (ahem) issues with the uisce beatha in my family. None of us aspired to become drunks, as far as I know, yet more than a few of us have, so since I have some small experience with addiction (to nicotine) I liked to occasionally take stock of myself, see if I simply liked to drink or had to drink. There’s a line there somewhere, but damn few signposts. Mostly we see it in the rear-view mirror, after we’re already upside down in the ditch, wheels spinning in empty air.

So, yeah. January came and went, and I thought, “Hm. Let’s go for February.” And then it was March. And then it was 2014. And 2015. You get the idea. It just sorta grew on me, the way hair doesn’t anymore. Not on the head, anyway.

I didn’t experience any withdrawal symptoms, not the way I did when quitting cigarettes. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, was that ever a trial by fire. So maybe I wasn’t addicted to alcohol the way I was to nicotine, though I was a drinker far longer than I was a smoker.

Whatever. Now I’m just being stubborn about it. I have this streak going, and I’m riding it out.

Sobriety hasn’t made me any smarter, though. All those brain cells I started with are gone for good. Why, I arose this morning without pulling on anything green. ’Tis lucky I am that Herself didn’t pinch me.

• And now, a musical interlude: The Chieftains performing “John O’Connor and the Ode to Whiskey.”

• Editor’s note: The header photo of O’Grady’s Marina Inn in Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland, was taken by my sister, Peggy O’Grady, though we are said to have our roots in County Clare. As for the Irish above it, it’s a rough Google translation of “Bigger. Hairier. Closer to the ground.”