Now that’s what I call getting some big air.The view from the Candelaria Bench Trail is pretty spectacular. I can only imagine what it’s like a few hundred feet above it.
Herself and I were slouched on the back patio at El Rancho Pendejo, airing the cat, birdwatching, and enjoying our respective tasty beverages when I spotted a rara avis over the Sandias.
We haven’t seen many aeronauts this year, not since The Bug® came to town. This one was definitely not making a maiden voyage — he or she stayed aloft for the better part of quite some time, cutting didos above the Candelaria Bench Trail.
Apologies for the poor image quality. I sold my Canon DSLR a while back and the point-and-shoot I grabbed just can’t bring ’em back alive from a distance.
The temptation is to load it down, saddle up, and sail away. But to where?
Lacking a passport, I’m restricted to the lower 48 states, Alaska and Hawaii being something of a long bunny-hop by bike. I don’t think Hans Rey could make either in one go, even if he started with a bean feast, a lit fart, and a tailwind.
Unfortunately, several of my preferred bolt holes are either hot as blazes or actually on fire. And if I leave New Mexico, I face a 14-day quarantine when I return.
Plus, Herself would have to rassle up her own grub in my absence, in addition to working for our living, catering to Miss Mia Sopaipilla, and assisting the assisted-living place with Herself the Elder, who recently took another digger, this time breaking her right wrist.
HtE is issued a fresh 14-day quarantine every time she leaves assisted living to see a sawbones, which is not nearly as much fun as seeing the road unfold before you from the saddle of a brand-new bicycle.
This is a review bike, of course. Merry Sales provided frame, fork, and a big box of bits, but the Great Parts Shortage of 2020 being more or less ongoing, I had to contribute a few items from my personal collection, among them a wheelset, inner tubes, saddle, and brakes.
Between us it made for a pretty tasty build, and I can’t say much more than that until the paying customers get theirs. In the meantime, I’m getting mine.
Still sticking pretty close to home, though. I’m not getting too far away from the mailbox until our ballots show up. That’s a review I can’t wait to write.
That may be Cthulhu’s eye up there in the clouds. Or it could be the moon.
This is what the eastern sky looked like around 7:30 last night.
“No more monsoons! The end is nigh! Prepare ye for mostly sunny and warmish!”
Which it was. Eighties as I pedaled off nine-ish this morning, and it only got hotter.
Later in the afternoon Herself popped round to the Dark Tower for a window chat with her mom, but couldn’t stick it out more than a few minutes.
Don’t expect her to have a window chat of any duration with Louie Gohmert, though. Not even if the dumb sonofabitch wears a diving helmet and a diaper over his Bug-hole.
The question very much not on everyone’s mind is: “Whatever happened to Radio Free Dogpatch?”
My little podcast was ticking along nicely there for a while, with episodes popping up semi-regularly since the first of the year.
Then the broken ankle took me down in February, and The Bug® put the boots to me in March.
And that, as they say, was that.
A podcast, even a low-rent, one-man, half-assed model like mine, takes time. Thought. Quiet.
It’s quiet out there. Too quiet.
All those things were suddenly in short supply when Herself joined me in working from home.
If any of you have been doing likewise in lockdown, you know the drill. Zoom meetings. Phone calls. Speakerphone calls, with voices that often fail to harmonize with the ones in my head. Skypeing. Messaging. Texting.
And it all starts at stupid-thirty, ’cause Herself is an early riser. By the time I crawl out of my coffin around 6-ish she’s already brewed the coffee and fed the cat, and is two-three phone calls into her day.
Which is rigorously planned. She has a List. Items will be checked off same or she will know the reason why. Any gaps that appear unexpectedly between chores will be filled with … more chores. Herself is a Tasmanian devil of relentless functionality and accomplishment.
Me? I just, y’know, kinda, like, fuck around, an’ shit. See what happens. If anything.
Ho, ho. Too bad for me. Her gig is the one that makes it rain around here. My contributions to the general fund have become a little less laughable since I started collecting Social Security in April, but next to her mighty fiscal Niagara my revenue stream remains the dribbling of a very old dog with prostate issues and a bladder stone the size of the Hope Diamond.
Shucks, the podcast never brought in a dime anyway. In fact, it sent dimes out, in the form of dollars. Many, many of them. An essential worker it is not. Like Adolf Twitler’s “presidency,” it is primarily a cash-burning vanity project.
So if anybody is going to STFU around here for a minute, or even for months, well … it’s gonna be Radio Free Dogpatch.
I take solace from learning that I’m not the only voice to develop a little situational laryngitis in The New Weird Order.
For instance, parents who podcast are finding it tough to get their Ira Glass on with herds of unschooled munchkins free-ranging around the home studio, according to Caroline Crampton of the “Hot Pod” newsletter (scroll down).
Writes Crampton: “[F]or those who work in audio and need to edit for long periods, or record links and tracking to the highest possible standard that the moment will allow, there’s the extra challenge of finding the space and quietness to do that.”
The short version, from one anonymous podcaster: “Take after take just gets nuked.”
(Insert sound effect of Trinity atomic blast here. Oh, wait, we’re doing text now, not audio. Never mind.)
Happily, my primary distraction is not a horrifically bored, runny-nosed, ankle-biting, boundary-testing expense that a dozen or so years down the road will call me a fleshist at my own dinner table for not pledging some of my hard-earned Imperial credits to the Robot Liberation Army. She’s an income-generating asset, and right now, too.
So if Herself screams “GRILLED CHEESE! GRILLED CHEESE!”, she’s gonna get some grilled fuckin’ cheese from yours truly. We call it a quesadilla around here, but still, whatever you wanna call it, she’s gonna get it.
Radio Free Dogpatch is not the new toilet paper. It may be in short supply, but that doesn’t mean the punters are throwing hands over it at Libsyn. If I have something to say, I can always slink off to where the old toilet paper is, close the door, and squeeze out a quick blog post.
And yes, I’ll turn on the ceiling fan and wash my hands afterward.
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