‘Run awaaaaayyyyyy. …’

January 25, 2026January 25, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

Well, so much for the Great January Blizzard.

I make it maybe two, three inches, tops. Didn’t have to drive in it, so, winning. Did have to shovel it, so Herself could drive in it.

You win some, you lose some.

By the time I got around to shoveling, a lot of what we got proved broomable. Which is excellent, as our steepish, north-facing driveway is an ER visit just waiting to happen.

I work the thing starting from the top, because the top stays in the shade this time of year. Then, as I reach the steepest pitch, I pivot to the stone steps, walk down to the cul-de-sac, and start working my way back up. Any missteps while leaning uphill should involve less velocity and impact. Or so it is to be hoped, anyway.

The cycling is right out. I have been a cyclocrosser, but not since 2004 or thereabouts. There’s a car wash down the way, but I don’t have any quarters, and the last time Herself caught me cleaning a bike in the shower it was damn near all she wrote for the marriage.

So I’ll probably go for a short run in my mud shoes. I ran yesterday between rainstorms, and it looks like I’ll be running again tomorrow. That’s three straight days of running, for you folks keeping score at home, or two more than I can honestly claim to enjoy.

But it beats riding the stationary trainer. I believe getting pepper-sprayed by the ICEholes would beat riding the stationary trainer.

Don’t tell the ICEholes.

Fourth and long

December 28, 2025December 28, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

“Holy hell, hon’, better start filling the sandbags.”

Winter finally came a-calling yesterday.

More of a “ring the doorbell and run” deal, actually. Left 0.06 inch of rain on our doorstep instead of a flaming sack of dog shit.

We’ll take it. Don’t gotta stomp it out or nothin’.

Today dawned clear and cold, and the furnace and humidifier were harmonizing on what sounded like some sort of mariachi tune as I awakened just before 4 to “shake hands with the governor.”

“Are you getting up or going back to bed?” Herself asked as she set about her day.

“Back to bed,” I mumbled, and made it so. The next two hours of sleep were top shelf, curled up like an old dog under blanket and comforter. The news cycle can’t get me in there, with the phone locked and in silent mode. No wonder Miss Mia Sopaipilla loves the bed-cave I make for her every morning after coffee. And she doesn’t even read The New York Times.

The press is deep into “The Year in Review” mode now, which reminds me of the last time I went to a Broncos game at the old Mile High stadium, back in the days when the Donkeys would have had their hands full going up against a Pop Warner squad from Saguache.

Anyway, the Donks were getting their asses handed to them, by whom I can’t recall, and though there was plenty of time remaining on the clock, the stands were emptying faster than bladders overloaded by the industrial lager the fans were slamming to drown their sorrows.

In mid-exodus the PA gives out with a cheery, “And don’t forget to watch ‘Bronco Replay'” on whatever local TV channel was playing the piano in that whorehouse. After which some tosspot a few tiers downhill from us lurches to his unsteady feet, bellows, “Wasn’t it bad enough the first time?” and then tumbles down the stairs.

All these years later three hundred and sixty-five steps seems like quite a tumble, especially since I’m not wearing any protective gear — like, say, sinuses lined with cocaine, a beer-swollen liver, and a couple dozen extra elbees of adipose tissue.

So please excuse me if I skip the replay. It was bad enough the first time.

O’G and the Night Visitor

December 24, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

The eastern sky on Christmas Eve morning.

I can’t say with a straight face that I’ve been a good boy this year.

So it must be that I was riding Herself’s coattails when Santa dropped off a holiday gift last night.

We both — yes, both of us — dreamed of our late cat Turkish.

Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) left us far too early, on March 5, 2020. He and I reconnect now and again in dreams, but never have Herself and I met up with the old soldier at the same time.

In my dream, I was in bed, head propped on the pillows, but the bed was on the front porch of some vaguely familiar house from my past. I was just chillin’ there, watching the world pass by, when the Turk came aboard without so much as a bosun’s whistle and stretched out alongside me, as he did regularly when still he walked the earth.

Surprised to see my old comrade, I turned my head and said to Herself, who was nearby but out of sight, “Hey, check it out!” And then Someone hit the channel changer, the dream shifted gears, and I was lucky to have the warm memory of it when I awakened this morning.

Herself was scurrying around getting ready for work when I shambled into the kitchen and told her I’d dreamed of the big fella.

“I did too!” she said.

In her dream I wasn’t there, but her dad was, or might have been, though I don’t recall Bob Pigeon and the Turk being all that tight. He probably tried to explain how the Turk was going about the whole cat thing all wrong, and that would be as far as their relationship would ever go, because the field marshal was very much not interested in advice from junior officers.

Now, a cynic might write the whole visitation off as the upshot of eating spicy Mexican dishes for about a week straight, plus a few too many sugary seasonal treats.

But I know a gift when I see one. What a joy it was to have an old friend home for the holidays.

Winter shows its teeth

December 5, 2025December 5, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

The bad thing about snow is it keeps me indoors, where the news is.

The good thing about snow is it gives me something else to shovel.

We got a couple-three inches of the white stuff here yesterday, about double the official tally at the airport (which is stupid, because I don’t know anybody who lives at the airport).

It started falling overnight. This I know because the Cold Moon reflecting off the accumulation in the back yard blasted me out of a sound sleep around 2 a.m. I howled at it, briefly, then drifted back into a fitful drowse that ended at stupid-thirty, when I had to drag ass out of the sack and shovel the Driveway of Doom for Herself, who had an early appointment with the dentist and a 2WD Honda to get her there.

I got her half of the drive cleared without breaking a hip or throwing out my back, and she navigated the descent without incident, so, winning, etc. Then I went back indoors, microwaved my half-finished second cup of coffee, slammed it, and went back out to shovel my half, as I too had an appointment with the very same dentist, but at a reasonable hour.

Or what would’ve been a reasonable hour, had I not already burned some critical daylight freeing the driveway of Itztlacoliuhqui’s icy booger-snots. There was no time left for my traditional X-rays-and-cleaning breakfast of sardines in mustard sauce sprinkled with chopped anchovies, red onions, and feta, which keeps these visits short and to the point.

So instead, as the hygienist chiseled, scraped, sanded, power-washed, and polished, I was compelled to listen as she prattled on and on — backed by a soundtrack of treacly holiday ditties clearly penned by Satan Himself — about how lovely Herself is and how she was sure someone had made a mistake when listing her birthdate on the paperwork, with nary a word about the striking male beauty of Your Humble Narrator, his wrinkly old Irish-American apple cheeks aglow from an hour’s snow-shoveling in the frosty high-desert air.

Oh, well. At least it wasn’t news. Not to me, anyway.