Tag: Herself

Winter shows its teeth

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Where my cross-country skis at?

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.

Cold as ICE

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
“‘Join ICE?’ That’s a joke, son!”

Herself, who spends more time on the social medias than Your Humble Narrator, tipped me to this fella this morning.

Jesse Welles makes good use of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, where followers compare the 32-year-old from Arkansas to Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. He tours like a fiend, from Austin to Boston, Berlin to Brisbane, and recently popped up on Stephen Colbert’s show, which is where Herself caught his act.

NPR calls him “one of the most visible examples of a new generation of digital-savvy artists bringing folk traditions to a modern medium. … So far, his music has addressed the war in Gaza, the Epstein list and the Trump administration’s claims that Tylenol is linked to autism.”

Well, sir. That covers a lot of waterfront, doesn’t it? Rants you can rock to, and roll with. Give him a listen.

Chillin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
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.

Phone home

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
The Grand Wazoo meets Elena Gallegos.

Full moon? Two consecutive days of medium-hot posole for dinner? Whatever … Herself and I both had weird dreams last night that seemed to peak around 2 this morning.

In these dreams both of us had lost our phones. Herself was able to borrow one to have an extended chat with her dead mom.

I had a gun, which trumps the phone in anyone’s game. You got a gun, you can talk to anyone and they have to listen. That’s a call doesn’t go to voicemail, y’follow me, Skeezix?

I was talking to someone in a Batman mask without the ears.

Hoo-boy.

To flush that out of my skull I went for a 5K run right after toast and coffee, lifted weights when I got home, and following a more substantial breakfast hit the Elena Gallegos to ride a few trails I’ve been neglecting.

If that doesn’t hit the reset button I don’t know what will.

The usual nightmares continue in DeeCee, of course. But we can’t blame them on posole. Maybe the moon. …

Gone fishing

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Herself’s classic Barracuda A2T mountain bike.

I don’t know what possessed me.

Actually, I do.

Herself joined me for a ride on Friday, her first of 2025. We covered a moderate distance at a leisurely pace. The idea was for her to ease back into the activity while we looked for Gambel’s quail in the foothills. Not to eat. Just to see.

Both missions were accomplished. The high point was a pair of quail leading a dozen or so thumb-sized chicks through the scrub.

Back at the ranch, I glanced at Herself’s dusty, cobwebbed old Barracuda A2T mountain bike, slouched on two flats in a corner of the garage.

It’s so old I can’t remember just when I acquired it. But I remember where. Durango, during some long-ago Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, possibly the 1995 edition. So, exactly 30 years ago.

That would’ve been the year that Barracuda was sold to Ross Bicycles — you can read more about the company’s history here — and was blowing out Taiwan-built Tange Ultimate frames for $75 a pop during the Iron Horse.

“Why not?” I thought, being a cash-strapped freelancer trying to make his mark in Bibleburg. So I snatched one up and Old Town Bike Shop built it for me with some stuff I had on hand and a few bits I had to buy. (Sound familiar?)

There’s an anonymous RockShox elastomer fork, Deore V-brakes and levers, Crank Bros. Candy pedals, STX triple crank and rear derailleur with XT front, GripShift twist-shifters, Avenir stem and Zoom bar, and a mismatched wheelset — Mavic 230 SBP rim and anonymous hub (front) and Araya TM18 rim with Parallax hub (rear). A Terry saddle perches atop some ugly-ass no-name seat post.

And that was the high point of the 1995 Iron Horse for me. I had a shit road race, pulling a hamstring on Coal Bank Pass while leading a chase group and still facing the ascent of Molas Pass plus a snowy, wet descent into Silverton — “Worst time I’ve ever had at Iron Horse,” as I wrote in my training log — and spent the rest of the holiday weekend limping around Durango, covering the Roostmaster and the cross-country MTB race for VeloNews.

So, for the 30th anniversary of all that, I replaced the tubes in the Barracuda’s tires, checked the shifting, and took ’er for a spin round the cul-de-sac to see if everything worked.

It did. Including the hamstring.