Tag: allergies

Particularly bad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
The tumbleweeds are not exactly tumbling. More like launching
into low-Earth orbit.

My, but the airborne particulates is fierce around here.

The terra is not too firma lately. It gets up and flits around The Duck! City at 50 or 60 miles per hour, and the pollen goes along for the ride. Together they do drive-bys on everyone’s eyeballs and snotlockers. Snurk, hyyyunk, auuughhhh, honk, gaaack, ptui, etc. I may be compelled to take drugs.

No, not that drug, though I may be alone in that regard. I hear New Mexico’s mota dealers moved a few millions in product the first few days recreational weed was legal here. Makes my youthful adventures in retailing look like a lemonade stand on a dead-end street.

But I’ll stick to my fake beer and Claritin-D, thanks all the same. Get back to me when you legalize microdosing of psilocybin, mescaline, and the ol’ L-S-Dizzy. I don’t know that I want to throw open the doors of perception, as in days of yore, but I wouldn’t mind a little peek through the windows now and then.

Run!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
The wind smears clouds like a finger over pastel pencil.

Running was the order of the day yesterday. Not from the Russians, or even from the cops. Just ’cause.

Mostly just ’cause it was all we had time for.

Another round of visitors was en route and I had been instructed to deploy my mad posole skillz. The cooking is not difficult but does burn a bit of daylight, even with Herself handling the salad, cornbread, and ice cream. So instead of a refreshing bike ride we did a half hour of the old hep hoop hreep horp along the foothills trails.

I was not at the top of my game, with seasonal allergies using my snotlocker for a speed bag and the Worm Moon wiggling into my REM sleep the night before. I don’t like taking drugs that don’t make you see things that aren’t there, or vertical blinds that make you see things that are there.

Next time we need window treatments I’ll stay in the kitchen where I’m useful, maybe whip up a batch of posole for the installers. Either that or go for a run or ride, come home just in time to sign the check.

Tramway to the moon

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
I got mooned on Thursday’s ride.

The Sandia Peak Tramway actually goes the other way, to (wait for it) the peak of the Sandias.

I usually go that way myself, from Tramway Boulevard to Tramway Road and up toward the tram’s lower terminal, before veering off on Juniper Hill Road for a bit of up and down along the foothills.

By Thursday I was sick of the same-ol’, same-ol’, so I continued down Tramway and under Interstate 25 onto Roy, 4th, Guadalupe Trail, and eventually Alameda, then spun onto the Paseo del Bosque Trail.

But I got sick of that, too, and fast.

A massive allergy attack reminded me of the bad old days on Randolph AFB outside San Antone, where there were plenty of allergens to clog the pipes. Here, too, it seems, thanks to a hot, moist summer. I was firing snot rockets right and left, from both nostrils, and trying to breathe through my ears.

So instead of enjoying a nice flat spin along the bosque, dogged by whatever it was that had me by the snotlocker with a downhill pull, I hung a left on the Paseo del Norte Trail and struggled home via the North Diversion Channel Trail, Osuna-Bear Canyon, and like that there. Felt like hammered shit all the way, too.

You can always feel worse, though. Depend on it. Some days there isn’t enough Kleenex in the world.

Sprung

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
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!”