Her Royal Felinity, Miss Mia Sopaipilla, has retreated to the Winter Palace.
Forty-seven degrees is not what I would call cold, though it’s a few degrees cooler now than it was when she meowed me out of a sound sleep at 5:30 this morning.
Ordinarily it would be Herself who answers the call of duty at stupid-thirty, but she has gone a-questing to East Texas to join sisters Beth and Heather, other kinfolk, and friends in bidding adios to Herself the Elder, who is to be laid to rest tomorrow in the family plot.
Frankly, Miss Mia finds all this a feeble excuse for being short-staffed, nay, abandoned to the questionable care of a junior staffer who thinks that he belongs where she is now.
That’s treason, that is. Heads will roll, and they will not be cute gray furry ones with luxurious whiskers and fetching green eyes.
These two make quite a pair. It’s a pear tree! That’s a joke, son!
Spring isn’t a date on the calendar. It’s more of a feeling. A warm one, if you’re lucky.
For me, the vernal equinox is rarely the starter’s pistol. I don’t hear that big bang until Herself asks whether her Soma Double Cross is ready to ride after a long winter’s nap on its hook in the garage.
Turn your radio on.
By that reckoning, spring arrived in The Duck! City on April 9, Easter Sunday.
It was a few degrees short of ideal — I like to think of spring as that time when I can unsheath the arms and knees, charge those solar batteries, collect a little free vitamin D.
But if we had to roll out in arm and knee warmers, so what? As you know, you go to ride with the spring you have, not the spring you might want or wish to have at a later time.
And exactly one week later the experience gives rise to a spring-feverish episode of — yes, yes, yes — Radio Free Dogpatch. The doctor will see you now.
P L A Y R A D I O F R E E D O G P A T C H
• Technical notes: Once again the sonic environment was less than ideal at the indifferently equipped Infernal Hound Sound studios, so I thought I’d try an audio experiment. This episode was recorded using an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB microphone (now discontinued) hooked via XLR to a Zoom PodTrak P4, which in turn was connected to my 13-inch 2014 MacBook Pro. Recording and editing was handled via Hindenburg Journalist software (since rechristened Hindenburg Lite), with a sonic bump from Auphonic. Music and sound effects are courtesy of Zapsplat (shoutout to David-Gwyn Jones for “Looking Back Over the Hill”); the Free Music Archive (a snappy salute to the U.S. Army Blues for “Walk That Dog”, from “Live at Blues Alley”); Freesound, and Your Humble Narrator.
Good Friday? I wouldn’t know. It’s too early for a proper review.
Yesterday was a pretty good Thursday, though.
The weather shifted gears a bit, and I was able to give the trees a sip of water and get myself out for 90 minutes of sun worship on the foothills trails.
The Co-Motion Divide Rohloff is a great bike for this sort of thing if you’re not in a rush, which I never am. It goes about 32 pounds with all its bells and whistles, which include drop bars, a rigid steel frameset, and a pair of hefty 50mm Donnelly X’Plor MSO tires.
The cool spring having left me low on mileage and high on a whiter shade of pale, I wasn’t exactly skipping the light fandango in the Elena Gallegos Open Space. At times, especially on the hills, it felt like I was towing a Burley trailer containing 16 vestal virgins, a waiter, and his tray.
A mountain biker yielding trail on a climb shouted, “Hey, gravel bikes!” as I lumbered up. No, it’s a touring bike, I mumbled to myself, and there’s only one of us, shortly before a dude on an actual gravel bike passed me so fast the waiter couldn’t take his drink order.
Speaking of drinks, while railing the corners down Trail 342 bound for 203A, I abruptly found myself facing a water crossing. We’ve been in The Duck! City for nearly nine years now and I don’t think I’ve ever seen water running in this little arroyo.
So, yeah. A good Thursday, for sure. But a good Friday? Don’t ask Herself. Someone buggered something down to the Death Star and she had to go down there, on a day off, to boot a server in the slats.
Leaving on a jet plane. Not Herself, but it will do for purposes of illustration.
Herself is out of town, and Miss Mia and I are out of sorts.
Ours is a fragile ecosystem, especially Miss Mia’s little corner of it. You give her output, she’ll give you input, and plenty of it, especially if she catches you napping on the job.
“Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeowwwwwwww!”
“Hold my calls, stand by, and await further instructions.”
As Nick Nolte told Frank McRae in “48 Hrs,” “Yeah, I hear you, your voice carries.”
When we’re fully staffed, Herself takes the early shift. She gets up at stupid-thirty, feeds and waters and amuses Her Majesty, and then goes about her business while Miss Mia takes a nap.
I get the second shift, which starts a couple hours later. I feed and water and amuse Her Majesty, and then go about my business while Miss Mia takes a nap.
Then we tag team the rest of the day, which is mostly a breeze because hey, she’s a cat. Miss Mia requires about 20 hours of beauty sleep per diem.
But if one of us goes somewhere for a few days, it’s Katie bar the door. Double shifts, weird hours, and negative performance reviews. My first writeup came around 3 this morning.
“Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeowwwwwwww!”
It’s gonna be a long shift in the barrel. “Yeah, I hear you, your voice carries.”
The transition from winter to spring seems a bit blurry this year.
On yesterday’s ride I was wearing a Sugoi watch cap under my old Giro helmet; Castelli wind vest and long-sleeve Gore jersey over a long-sleeve Paddygucci base layer; winter gloves; heavy Pearl Izumi tights over Castelli bib shorts; and Darn Tough wool socks in Gore-Tex Shimano shoes.
And I still got cold. Should’ve added a Buff to keep the windpipe insulated.
Looking into the Elena Gallegos Open Space from Spain and High Desert.
Happily, I was riding a Soma Saga touring bike, which with fenders, rear rack, tool bag, Zéfal pump, lights, bell, and bottle goes about 32 pounds. So we’re talking minimal self-inflicted wind chill on the flats and ascents.
And today? The first day of “spring?” Sheeyit.
It was snowing, lightly, when I struggled out of bed consumed by desire for hot coffee. Herself was already at her computer, earning. Miss Mia Sopaipilla was making her usual morning noises, which sound like a cross between her name (“Meeeeeeee-yah!”) and a demand for attention (“Meeeee-now!”).
Somehow she manages to find the precise point in El Rancho Pendejo from which her voice will project to every corner of the house. She should be the audio engineer for Radio Free Dogpatch, is what.
Given the conditions breakfast was medium-heavy. Two cups of strong black coffee, thick slabs of whole wheat toast slathered with butter and jam, one tall mug of strong black tea, and oatmeal with fruit and nuts.
Now it’s 40° at 10 a.m. The trash and recycling bins have been emptied and retrieved and we seem to be between drizzles, so some class of healthy outdoor exercise is indicated, if only to get away from the cascade of “news” items about Paris Hilton, boneheaded banking practices, and whether Adolf Twitler will get a long-overdue perp walk.
Mad Blog Media 