We’re daffy for daffodils.
Happy first day of Spring.
Unless, of course, you are an (ah-choo!) allergy sufferer. Snurk.
The first flower I took note of this morning was a wad of Kleenex in my hand. Then I saw the other.
I’ll spare you the first.
Honnnnnnnnk. Snorf. Fwah.
The pear tree in the back yard is a bee magnet.
Spring keeps on a-springin’ in these parts, and maybe where you are, too.
If it’s not, well … I probably shouldn’t tell you that today’s high in the Duke City is expected to hit 72 degrees, with abundant sunshine. And it might be a week before we see any precipitation.
The downside of all this explosive warmth and growth is, of course, pollen.
Mullberry, cottonwood, ash, juniper, maple … seems damn’ near everything is making whoopee. Except for those of us with (snork) allergies.
This is no time to have allergies and voices in your head, believe you me. Every tickle in the throat, every sneeze, every bout of fatigue sets ’em to yelling like talking heads on cable TV.
“Can you make a biohazard suit out of an old shower curtain, duct tape, and a goldfish bowl?”
“Where are my oven mitts and barbecue tongs? I want to fetch the mail, see if my Plague Check is here yet.”
“I don’t care if we are out of toilet paper, quit wiping your butt with my Kleenex!”
The air hereabouts is of a very low quality indeed today.
Jaysis. As if the banjaxed ankle weren’t annoying enough, now the trees are conducting biological warfare against my tender sinuses.
I’ve actually been compelled to take drugs, and not the interesting kind, either. Blaugh, etc.
Last night I slept mostly not at all, and between that and the drugs I’m having trouble staying focused on all the Super Tuesday doings, beyond noting that the Anybody But Bernie Caucus is forming up right smart.
Crucifixion? Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each. Next?
Just say no, kids.
I have been behind the 8-ball, and I have been in front of the 8-ball — more than once, too. And after a few too many taps on the glass I usually wound up looking about like this fellow here.
Our preposterous and apparently endless allergy season has me feeling as though someone stepped a little too hard on my Peruvian marching powder — say, with Drano, kitty litter or aluminum oxide — and so instead of riding the bikey bike I have been riding the couch, which is not nearly as fun because it never goes anywhere.
Dr. Mark Schuyler, chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, said back in April that we could expect this season to run through mid- to late May, and he did not lie.
Or at least I hope he didn’t. If I watch much more TV, put on a few kilos, and shed a few I.Q. points, I’m liable to wind up president.
Yesterday’s air-quality report from the City of Albuquerque.
I lay low for April Fool’s Day. It’s gotten to be kind of like the St. Patrick’s Day or New Year’s Eve of comedy — not for serious funnymen. Funnypersons? Persons of funny?
My favorite April Fool’s gag may be the time the Gazette caught the Greeley Tribune napping. It was in the late Seventies, and some wisenheimers on staff faked up a photo of an El Paso County pickle farmer inspecting a bumper crop (reporter Don Branning in a planter’s hat, examining a plump dill tied to a tree across the street from the newspaper).
We ran it on the Metro front, then put it on The Associated Press wire just for giggles. To our astonishment, the Tribune picked it up and ran the shot on its Farm page despite the photo credit, which read something like, “GT photo by Aprylle Foole.”
The desk jockey who made that call clearly was not a local boy with shitcaked bootheels. The Tribune is in Weld County, one of the richest agricultural counties east of the Rockies, the state’s top producer of grain, sugar beets and cattle.
Not pickles, though. El Paso County had all the pickle farms in Colorado.
Here in New Mexico the ash and juniper are providing all the comedy, if your idea of a good laugh involves watching some poor sod’s nose run like an irrigation ditch with a busted headgate.
I pretended to be a runner yesterday afternoon and came home with an enraged snotlocker, a condition that persists this morning. Snot funny, man.
The Co-Motion Divide Rohloff, off the hook and back on the trail.
I peeled my snout from the grindstone in order to take a short ride yesterday, and I’m glad I did, because the wind cranked up to 11 last night and it’s still there today.
Also, and too, rain. Which is nice. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna go ride in it.
Unzip over to Voler to join the team! Use the Secret Code (OLDGUYS15) to get 15% off your purchase. And no, goddamnit, for the last time, it does not come with fries!
Especially since I finally succumbed to the siren song of Non-Drowsy Claritin-D 12 Hour. God damn. I think I lost five pounds blowing my nose this morning. Must be all that grindstone dust.
Anyway, I’d hauled the Co-Motion Divide down to Two Wheel Drive a while back over a leaky Rohloff hub and thought I’d give ’er a whirl now that alles ist besser. It’s far too nice a bike for me but I rode it anyway. You can’t stop me!
It needs some more love — better tires, and a little hammer time for the rear Avid BB7 caliper, which insists on dragging its fixed pad.
A smart fella would go to TRP Spyres. But as you know, I will never be smart.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla performs her cover of “All Along the Watchtower.”
My supervisors noted in a recent performance review that I hadn’t posted any cat pix since January 31.
The Turk has blue eyes, but you hardly ever get to see ’em.
This obviously could not stand, man. So I got busy with the Sony RX100 III.
I think that pay raise I’d been counting on is right out, though.
However, the temps are coming up right smart, and if that continues, I’m out of here for a ride of some sort.
I know that this is a finger in the eye for those of you sentenced to the upper deck of the Benighted States, but at least all that cold and snow is probably tamping down the pollen.
Not so much here, especially with the wind stirring things up. Sunscreen on the outside, Claritin-D on the inside.
Phaw. Schtonk. Hyeeeenk. Snurk. Ptui.
The acequia just south of Interstate 40 and the Paseo del Bosque.
Chihuahua. I thought I was past the worst of the seasonal allergies until yesterday afternoon, when the ol’ snotlocker went haywire on me again, streaming like autoplay video.
I blame the mulberries, and perhaps the cottonwoods. Though it must be said that doing a three-hour ride down to the bosque and back was probably not exactly what the doctor ordered.
I enjoyed it, though. And it sure beat being reminded yet again that our government is a whorehouse without piano players in which a select few get laid while the rest of us get screwed.
“Excuse me, you wouldn’t happen to have a Kleenex, would you?”
The local allergists must be making money hand over nose.
Between the wind and the drought my snout spent most of this week looking like an undercooked calzone. Or maybe it’s auditioning for the latest addition to the “Alien” canon in which the beast blasts out of its victims’ faces instead of their chests.
I have not sought medical attention for fear that the whitecoats would wish to keep me, to study. “Hm, maybe evolution is bullshit after all.” Instead I’ve been self-medicating with various pills and potions, irrigating the ol’ calzone with saline solution, and periodically steaming it like a pierogi.
Shit. Now I’m hungry for some reason. Maybe not.
Naturally, I’ve been trying to exercise through this, which is like drinking Sterno to quell that nasty ache in your liver. It’s not too bad while you’re barreling along, strafing buzzworms with snot rockets, getting the blood pumping, but back at the ranch it’s all Kleenex and Carmex, sniffling like a Trump capo getting done to a turn on Bob Mueller’s grill.
Night before last God decided He wanted to be John Bonham for a while and played the drum solo from “Moby Dick” on the neighborhood, all night long, using nothing but wind and whatever wasn’t solidly nailed down.
Cooler weather followed and thus I spent yesterday indoors, returning El Rancho Pendejo to a habitable state in anticipation of Herself’s triumphant return from a five-day confab in Virginia, because I know what’s good for me and an ass-whuppin’ isn’t it. God and John Bonham aren’t the only folks who know how to swing a stick.
The backyard maple is greening up, along with pretty much everything else.
Here at El Rancho Pendejo we are spared the cruise missiles but not the snot rockets. Faugh, sneeeerk, hyeeeeenk, auuuughhhhh, hoccccccccck, ptui, etc.
The apple tree next to the garage.
The incoming includes mulberry, ash, juniper, cottonwood and sycamore, fueled by red-flag winds. I haven’t been on the bike since Wednesday. So, yeah. Not bombed, but bummed.
And taking drugs, which I used to enjoy. But these ones are boring. You don’t get to talk to God but at least you can breathe through your nose.
Maybe we should drop a shitload of mulberry bombs around old Bashar’s secure location. If he’s honking his beezer 24/7 he might not feel chipper enough to get medieval on folks.
The wisteria bracketing the front door.
Patrick O'Grady, a free-range rumormonger since 1991, sells words and pictures to Adventure Cyclist and Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. This blog is his pro-bonehead work. For more on Your Humble Narrator, click the comic.
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