Huzzah to Herself, who started another lap around the sun today, and an hour early too.
Pal Kelli came out from the Great White Midwest to celebrate the milestone with her (and do a little eBay bidness on the side).
I (not pictured) have been serving as cat wrangler and chief cook-slash- bottle washer. Also, eye candy. You’ll have to trust me on this last one. No paparazzi!
Hoo, the sun hits the deck fast in the afternoons come January.
I burned the best part of today’s daylight doing chores. Sue Baroo the Fearsome Furster needed her registration renewed, which means she needed an emissions check, and we oldsters don’t like going to the doctor if nothing is visibly broken and/or leaking crucial fluid. One suspects a fishing expedition.
Nevertheless, we went, and she got a clean bill of health and two years’ worth of driving privileges in The Great State of New Mexico and wherever its plates are honored.
Then I rang up our HVAC people to discuss some repairs to the combo unit on the roof at El Rancho Pendejo, and it turned out that they could handle the job right then and there rather than next week. So, yeah, by all means, take my money, please, we like being warm in winter.
The work completed, and the ugly topic of money and its distribution having arisen, Herself and I discussed some pressing financial matters. Then it was lunchtime, after which Miss Mia Sopaipilla required some light entertainment, and before you could say, “Sun’s getting a little low in the sky there, Skeeter,” it was a quarter after three in the peeyem and I had taken no exercise. None. Zee-ro.
I almost blew it off. Almost. But Herself had just told me a horrific tale about someone’s 70-something mom who was in a state of collapse and bound for The Home if she couldn’t walk 10 steps, and those financial matters we had been discussing concerned who gets what when I croak.
Not today, goddamnit. I got my 10 steps in before sundown. The Home ain’t getting me today, and neither is the Devil.
Thanks to everyone who has dropped a dime in Charles Pelkey’s GoFundMe tip jar.
As of 8:30 a.m. Dog time the fund was approaching $18,000, which as organizer David Stanley notes represents “a phenomenal level of love, affection, and admiration” for our old Live Update Guy pal.
I’ve added a widget to the sidebar for anyone who missed the memo. And it was delightful to see so many former VeloNews types in the list of donors.
Meanwhile, here in The Duck! City this morning we got a wet little kiss on the cheek from the gods; just enough rain to rinse some dust off the cacti. Thank you, sir or madam, may I have another?
I expect Herself and her pal Leslie are glad they canceled their trip to Southern California, where the rain is washing away the dust, the cacti, the hillsides the cacti are rooted to, and damn nearly everything else. Especially since the FAA developed a hitch in its gitalong, an IT failure of some sort that buggered about 4,600 flights.
That’s a surfin’ safari you can keep, is what. Nobody likes this drought, but who wants to hang ten on their front door while rocketing down a diversion channel to the Rio Grande?
Yesterday we made a batch of shortbread cookies for distribution throughout the cul-de-sac.
We were a tad late to the holiday party. Four neighbors had already laid goodies on us by the time we got our asses in gear. And had I been in the driver’s seat, we would still be idling by the curb.
As usual, it was Herself who got us rolling. She dug out the recipe, added a few items to my grocery list, and started cranking out cookies like Mrs. Fields once I came back with the fixin’s.
I provided tech support for our elderly oven, which is the baker’s equivalent of driving a stick. I also took on the gruntwork of sliding trays of dough in and cookies out so that the baker could focus on her Art.
In the end we had just enough cookies to accommodate everyone who hadn’t fled The Duck! City to spend the holidays shivering in a snow-covered ditch or kipping on an airport floor.
While Herself distributed the sugar bombs I pulled on the rubber gloves and started policing up the kitchen. I was in dire need of a haircut and shave and didn’t want to frighten any children looking forward to a visit from St. Nick rather than Old Nick.
“Mommmmmmm! We already did Halloween! It’s supposed to be Christmastime!”
Isn’t this lovely? Herself found it waiting for her when she returned to the Lab after her mother’s passing.
And you thought the military-industrial complex didn’t have a heart.
Well, actually, it probably doesn’t. But many of its core components do, and I doff my Rivendell cycling cap to them.
Mad Blog Media 