Tag: Eat up with the dumb-ass

But seriously, folks. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments
Windscreen trumps Mac screen.

Read the news or ride the bike?

I think you know the answer to that one.

In fact, the news has been so reliably vile lately that I’ve been logging 100-mile-plus weeks. That’s not a lot for a serious cyclist, but then being serious about anything other than humor is overrated for anyone who hopes to remain (or become) happy. Or so says Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic.

I’d like to ask him, “Are you serious?” But I’m afraid he might not laugh.

Meanwhile, the fourth and final round of The Visitation, scheduled for next week, has been canceled. One of Herself the Elder’s nieces decided that travel was too risky since Delta started grabbing everyone by the snotlocker with a downhill pull.

And who can blame her? Not me, Skeezix. When I stroll into a retail op to do a little bidness and see two-thirds of the clientele and half the staff wandering around with their faces hanging out, despite headlines like this, I’m inclined to think that The Dumbass, like The Bug, remains very much among us.

The Dumbass just might be worse than The Bug. We have weapons to fight The Bug, if people will simply agree to use them. But our traditional defenses against The Dumbass — like the news, which under new management has other priorities — no longer seem efficacious, if they ever were.

And once you’re all eat up with The Dumbass, you’re vulnerable to any number of opportunistic infections, from Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Greene twerking on “Dancing with the Stars” to “More [guns, coal mines, lifted diesel pick-’em-up trucks, insert your favorite idiocy here]!!!”

Jesus H., etc. By the time Bennu finally lands like an errant tee shot from God’s one-iron there won’t be anybody left to take it seriously, or even humorously. OK, so maybe one guy. He’ll be yelling “FAKE NEWS!” as the giant asteroid comes in hot like the fabled Million-Pound Shithammer.

The House of Pain

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
The Greenland trails are a hot, dusty 30 miles from Dog Central.
The Greenland trails are a hot, dusty 30 miles from Dog Central.

As usual, I didn’t get much riding in during the recently concluded three-week Cirque du Frog. So I thought it would be swell to ride the New Santa Fe Trail to the Greenland trailhead and back yesterday.

I knew it would be hot, so I planned an early start, which I did not get. What I did get was a stiff headwind for all but a few of the 30 northbound miles, and that first 90 minutes was a bitch. The trail was in poor repair after July’s heavy rains, with ruts and sandpiles in abundance, and my legs felt like sacks of very old garbage.

Finding myself running behind what I considered decent time at two checkpoints — way behind — I thought about turning around at the North Gate to the Air Force Academy. Naw, why do something smart at this stage of your life? The Universe would become confused. Onward.

There are plenty of water stops along the way, at Baptist Road, in Monument, and in Palmer Lake, but I was a little light in the electrolytes department, and it caught up with me on the way back, when the temperature hit 96 degrees. I dragged ass back to Dog Central looking like Death eating a cracker. Seems 60 miles of sand on a cyclo-cross bike was about 10 too many in my present alarmingly decrepit condition.

I limped into the house, drank a tall glass of juice with a tablespoon of concentrated electrolytes, chased it with a couple glasses of ice-cold water, and then stretched out with my legs elevated, a cold washcloth across my forehead, meditating for a while upon the pure white light of stupidity. Then I ate a chicken-and-provolone sandwich with some salty blue corn chips and a banana and began feeling vaguely human once again.

The only half-smart thing I did on that ride was skip an extra-credit loop at the Greenland trailhead that would’ve put me even deeper into the pain cave on the way home. Maybe next time. Are we not men?