Tag: Herself

Friday mornin’ comin’ down

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
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.”

Sprung

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
Looks cold up there; let’s stay down here.

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.

Some garbage never gets collected.

Spring forward

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
Kelli and Shannon take a brief break from eBay Madness.

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!

Step, child

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
You gotta beat the sun down out of those hills.

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.

The clouds were headed one way and the sun the other.

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.

It never rains, but it pours

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
We got a drive-by from that cloud over by the Sandias.

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?