Not-so-little fluffy clouds

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
These are not the clouds The Orb was thinking about in 1990.

Clouds we got, sometimes. Rain, snow? Not so much.

The mornings are chilly in these early days of the Year of Our Lard 2025, but once the sun finally creeps over the Sandias, shortly before 9, things warm up considerably. The weather wizards predict a high of 60° today.

Yes, I said 60°. Six-oh degrees Fahrenheit. In January.

Miss Mia would like to invite the birds to dinner.

Good for the healthful outdoor exercise, for those of us who take it. Unless we’re talking skiing. Also, not so much for the plants and wildlife and drinking water come summer. See John Fleck for more.

In the meantime, we need not bundle up like the Michelin Man for running and riding so far this winter. It’s been so unseasonably warm that my brother geezers, who ordinarily are traveling to ski or working out in the gym, have called a ride for today.

In the early afternoon, of course. No need to wear the hair shirt. We are not children, with their barely tested HVAC systems fresh from the factory.

Meanwhile, Miss Mia Sopaipilla gets to bird-watch at the patio door, where I scatter a little seed for the house finches and dark-eyed juncos who don’t feel like battling the bigger birds at our feeders.

There’s a little bit of Sylvester and Tweety Bird going on there in her little mind. Bad ol’ puddy tat. …

In other news, the cuckoos in the House of Reprehensibles nearly give their Squeaker the bird. Says NYT’s Carl Hulse: “House Republicans certainly relish their internal drama.” Dinner theater for the insane.

Last leaf on the tree, 2024

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
“Last Leaf,” by Tom Waits.

I didn’t mark my first New Year until 1955, so 2025 will be an anniversary of sorts as we teeter on the brink of another spin on the annual merry-go-round.

In 1955, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus — in which the late President Jimmy Carter had a hand — put to sea for the first time, a few days before the Pentagon announced its plans to develop ICBMs equipped with nuclear warheads.

But it would be a Soviet sub that launched the first ballistic missile.

The Warsaw Pact and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization were established.

Emmet Till was lynched. The Vietnam War officially began. Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks were arrested for asserting their civil rights on public transportation. A time bomb blew up United Airlines flight 629 over Longmont, Colo., killing everyone aboard.

The Westboro Baptist Church held its first service in Topeka, Kan.

The Salk polio vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The first McDonald’s franchise opened, in Des Plaines, Ill., as did Disneyland, in Anaheim, California.

The first atomic-powered electricity to be sold commercially powered Arco, Idaho.

Jim Henson introduced Kermit the Frog v1.0 in the premiere of his puppet show, “Sam and Friends,” on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.

Little Richard recorded “Tutti Fruitti.”

General Motors became the first U.S. company to make a profit of more than $1 billion in a single year.

Steve Earle, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Pollan, Steve Jobs, Brendan Gleeson, Angus Young, Barbara Kingsolver, Eric Schmidt, Colm Tóibín, Dana Carvey, Mick Jones, Willem Dafoe, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gwen Ifill, Bill Gates, Dave Alvin, and Steven Wright were born, among others.

Charlie Parker, Wallace Stevens, James Dean, Shemp Howard, and Albert Einstein died, among others.

Since before I can remember the world has been coming to an end. And yet, somehow, we persist.

The last leaves on the tree? Maybe. Tom Waits was still hanging on in 2011 when he released “Bad As Me,” with the song I stole for my headline.

I’ll be here through eternity

If you want to know how long

If they cut down this tree

I’ll show up in a song

But I notice he hasn’t given us any new music since. …

A shadow of my former self

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
The shadow knows.

Glancing back through my training log it strikes me that I have spent November and December intercoursing the penguin, as we used to quip at Live Update Guy.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In the Before-Time, when I was still racing cyclocross, September through December felt like one big pile of miles, perhaps because it was.

In my Golden Years, the glide from summer through autumn into winter seems better suited to a gradual change of pace. Trail runs, hikes, short rides; that sort of thing. Shake the old brain-box like a dice cup, see what comes rattling out, seven, 11, or snake-eyes.

This year the numbers told me I was getting slightly carried away for a geezer who wasn’t training for anything other than staying on the sunny side of the sod. I was grinding out weeks of 100, 120, even 150 miles. Which can be fun. But it burns an awful lot of daylight for a cat wrangler-slash-cook-slash-blogger who Frankensteined his dead podcast back to life around Halloween for no discernible reason. And come November I was starting to feel rode hard and put away wet.

So I backed off. A lot. Maybe too much. Running three or four days a week, doing a leisurely hour here and there on the bike, mostly on trails. At first it was nice to ease off the accelerator, but after a while this old endorphin junkie was jonesin’ for his fix.

This past week I did three short trail runs — but I also managed four rides, including a pair of back-to-back two-hour outings on my Soma Saga touring bikes, which had been dangling dolefully on their hooks for far too long. They’re stout and sturdy, with fenders and rear racks, and I’m not inclined to do anything wild with ’em; just turn the pedals over until I get tired of it.

A ride of two hours or better not only refills the endorphin tank — it puts the Voices in my head to sleep for a spell, same as a car ride does a crying infant. It’s another welcome change of pace to have only the one murmuring to itself in there as the year winds down.

R.I.P., Jimmy Carter

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
President Jimmy Carter. Photo: LBJ Library and Museum

Jimmy Carter went west on Sunday. He was 100.

It seems appropriate for him to pass on the Lord’s day off. I expect the Big Fella wanted to supervise the welcome wagon Himself.

Jimmy had a rough ride in the White House, but he may have been our best ex-president ever. George Washington is right up there for refusing to let a grateful nation king him. But ol’ Jimmy just kept on doing the people’s business, often with his own two hands, well into his 90s. The New York Times has an extensive obituary.

And he hung on long enough to vote against the pestilence-elect. It wasn’t enough, but we must consider it his last full measure of devotion.

I never voted for him. I went for Peter Camejo (Socialist Workers Party) in 1976, though Hunter S. Thompson had pronounced himself impressed by Jimmy in a lengthy screed in Rolling Stone that was republished in his collection “Gonzo Papers Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt.” Four years later, I voted for independent John Anderson in an Arizona newsroom full of young Reagan Republicans, and then fled the joint like a rat out of a garbage fire.

But damme if I don’t wish I had voted for Jimmy, at least once. Peace to him, his family, and friends.