You can have my shorts when you pry them from my cold, dead legs.
I’m a late adopter. Hardware, software, pants in autumn.
Herself cracked this morning and pulled on the long johns — plus long sleeves, socks, and a vest — but not me. No, sir.
The uniform of the day until further notice remains Columbia shorts from the previous millennium, a mildly pilled Paddygucci T-shirt, and some battered old Tevas. Shucks, I even went outdoors in that kit to water the shrubs.
Not for long, mind you. But still. It keeps the blood flowing briskly and the neighbors at a comfortable distance.
“Don’t get too close, now. You might catch whatever it is he has.”
“Do you mind? You’re letting the cold air in.”
Miss Mia Sopaipilla, meanwhile, welcomes the advent of cooler weather. That means the Return of the Bedcave, a passive-solar getaway that’s like a day at the beach without the sand in your undercarriage. It’s the cat’s meow, if you will.
Come autumn, the first part of the day is always the hardest — getting out of bed.
Hey, it’s dark out there, man. What am I, a farmer?
Stagger to the bathroom, dispose of the next item on the agenda, pull on some clothes — the past couple mornings, with temps in the low 40s, this means a T-shirt and lightly trail-shredded Patagucci joggers, not my ancient, decaying Columbia shorts — and shuffle into the kitchen to mumble “Hell’s goin’ on in here?” to Herself and Miss Mia Sopaipilla, who do not object to early rising and consider Your Humble Narrator a hopeless slacker.
Next there must be strong black coffee, and the morning news, which is mostly what you might expect from an afterlife peek at the front page of The Lake of Fire Cauldron-Inferno (“The Hell You Say!”).
A slice apiece of homemade whole-wheat toast with Irish butter and French jam helps soak up the acid (avoid those stomach ulcers, kids!). And then breakfast gets serious.
This time of year it’s likely to be hot oatmeal with a dash of brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, dried fruit and nuts, plus a tall mug of tea. Yogurt, müesli, and smoothies are generally summertime fare, while eggs with taters and chicken sausage have been more of a lunch than a breakfast in recent years.
Just now as I was finishing my tea I heard a thunk! in the living room that couldn’t be attributed to an old house slowly warming as the sun peeks over the Sandias.
It was a dove taking a header into the picture window — they will do that, especially if the neighborhood Cooper’s hawk is clocked in and on the job — but this one apparently augured in without assistance.
Dazed, the bird squatted on the landscaping rocks, blinking like an old computer slowly booting up. Slowly, the frantic breathing became more regular; next, the head swung first this way, then that; and poof! Liftoff, straight up into the backyard maple.
No harm, no foul. Fowl? No, the sun may finally be up, but it’s still too early for cheap jokes.
We’re slowly easing into the fall routine around here.
Arise, make coffee, scan the news, shriek, “Jesus Christ!” and run away. Maybe play with the cat for a while. She doesn’t know what to make of it all either.
“Cold, cruel world, isn’t it?” she murmurs.
“Well, not that cold,” I reply. “The weather widget says 52°, which is not bad for 7:50 a.m. on Oct. 11 in The Duck! City. Still, I take your point.”
We should spend more time talking to the other animals. I’m guessing you could walk into any primate house in the world, and if you understood the language you might hear something like: “You hear what the hairless ones did this time? And yet we’re the ones in the cages. Go figure.”
Speaking of falls, we have a Noo Joisey senator being indicted (again) on federal corruption charges; MAGA cultists in the House of Reprehensibles making a meal (more of an amuse-bouche, really) of Squeaker Charlie McCarthy’s withered testicles; and at least one Supreme Court justice with all the ethical bona fides of a hyena on a gutpile.
I’d like to assign blame for all these shenanigans, but it’s a beautiful day and there are bicycles around here that need riding. So I’ll just observe that if we keep locking our mutts in the national pantry, we are liable to keep finding ourselves light on pork come suppertime.
The Chinese pistache would like some rain, please. And thank you.
More clouds. Fewer birds. Lower temperatures. In the morning, anyway.
And come to think of it, in the evening, too. I’m not needing a wee rinse before bedtime to resolve the late-in-the-day stickiness that goes along with life in the desert and a firm hand on the thermostat.
Damp it is not. The drought not only persists, it thrives. The Rio Grande is on the edge of running dry in The Duck! City for a second consecutive year. When I stripped the bed of its sheets in the dark this morning I got a free static-electricity light show for my troubles.
But at least my rides and runs have not been the usual rolling boil for the past week. Maybe I can resume my habit of slipping out nine-ish instead of kitting up in the dark, when I need a headlight to see, not just to be seen.
It’s not summer’s end; not yet. But it’s around the bend, just flyin’.
Open for business, but no customers.
There’s a smaller crowd queueing up at our bird feeders, and they’re getting a later start, too.
On yesterday’s looping ride through Sandia Heights I didn’t spot a single solitary quail, not a one. Didn’t even hear any. Just last Sunday Herself and I saw them by the dozens as we spun leisurely through the Heights.
This morning I made our oatmeal on the stove, instead of mixing up a müesli version to “cook” in the fridge the night before. We added diced peaches, chopped pecans, and local honey, and washed it down with a side of hot tea.
At the stove, with the windows open, I caught a whiff of bacon frying nearby. The pig is Herself’s spirit animal and she won’t tolerate it on a plate, but apparently marrying one is OK, as long as it makes a pork-free breakfast.
Then, suddenly, at 9 on the dot with the breakfast dishes washed, the birds turn up. The hummers re-enact the Battle of Britain around their feeders, and the finches perch greedily at theirs while the doves stalk the ground hunting misplaced morsels.
Is this the summertime equivalent of Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow? Do we have six more weeks of summer on tap?
I’d best kit up and get out there. Don’t forget the sunscreen. Might be another scorcher.
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