Miss Mia Sopaipilla proves something of an impediment to the rumormongery from time to time.
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Tag: Miss Mia Sopaipilla
Days decrease, and autumn grows
the sort one expects in October.
It’s that time of year again.
This morning, instead of going straight to The New York Times to see what deviltry Cheeto Benito has been up to while we slept, I cued up Weather Underground to find out what Thor has in store for us here in our little corner of the Duke City.
Also, I was wearing socks. And pants. O, the humanity.
I already miss my summer routine. Reveille at oh-dark-thirty as Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) leaps into my rack. After a brief exchange of the usual courtesies it’s up and into the Columbia shorts, guinea tee and Tevas for the trip to the kitchen, where I burn an English muffin for Herself, pour a cup of joe for myself, and top off Miss Mia Sopaipilla’s kibble.
Next, open the sliding glass doors and a kitchen window. Fresh air reminds me we have two cats who haven’t mastered the flush toilet. But the litter box will have to wait. First, the news. One foul chore at a time, please.
With the international, national, regional and local butt-nuggets exhumed, examined and expunged, and a second cup of coffee to wash down a snack of some sort, it’s time to generate a bit of bloggery and/or paying copy before embarking upon some healthy outdoor activity.
Here we have another indicator of the relentless passage of time, as reliable as falling leaves. Come autumn, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News and Adventure Cyclist reduce their frequency of publication, and my income stream — hardly a raging torrent, even in the heart of the cycling season — becomes more of a dribble, the last warm sip from summer’s water bottle.
I delivered the video teaser of my Jones Plus SWB review to Adventure Cyclist on Sunday, and yesterday the November “Shop Talk” cartoon went off to BRAIN. Now I’m fresh out of other people’s bikes to ponder, and there’s just one more ’toon to draw for 2018.
And that healthy outdoor activity? Come autumn, it’s as likely to be a run as a ride. This year I started jogging again in July; this lets me sort of sneak up on my knees, give them time to grow accustomed to the idea that we enjoy this sort of thing, before winter winnows our options.
It’s a useful fiction, one that keeps me in shorts a while longer.
The foggy dew
And boom! That’s it. Summer’s a goner.
I could feel it yesterday. The day was sunny but cool, and nobody would have sneered if I’d started my ride with arm warmers, even knee warmers. The hairy legs might have drawn a few hoots back in the day, but that was … well, back in the day.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla was inspecting the Winter Bunker on behalf of His Excellency, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment).
Spike the Terrorist Deer has slipped inside the wire a time or two in recent days and The Leader often feels it wise to devise strategy far from the distractions of frontline combat.
Today seemed a day to boil the breakfast early — McCann’s Irish Oatmeal, Twining’s Irish Breakfast tea, and like that there.
Why, yes, funny you should ask, Herself is still a-roving around County Sligo with her younger sister, inspecting waterfalls and poets’ graves, quaffing pints of the black, and shooting iPhone video of a harpist playing “The Foggy Dew,” one of the tunes collected from the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 by Edward Bunting, a 19-year-old organist from Armagh.
When I was 19 the only Harp I knew came in bottles. You don’t want to know what I was doing with me organ.
Oh, deer
Eight o’clock, 70 degrees. Summer may not officially start until June 21, but it feels pretty damn’ summery right now.
The drought is driving famished mule deer down from the foothills and into people’s yards, including ours. The rose bushes provide tasty morsels, as do the lilacs. Looks like they’ve been after the pears as well. And the cinderblock wall is taking something of a beating from the JV hurdlers.
This one was scrawny but a good leaper. Cleared the wall in a single bound.
Oh, SNAP
It’s Valentine’s Day. The Turk’ sounded Reveille, Herself gave me a kiss, Mia offered a series of head bumps, and The Boo laid a turd in the kitchen as I was fixing him a delicious snack.
Got a bit of it on your chin, there, didn’t you, old fella? The party, it never stops.
Speaking of defecation, I see the Swamp Thing wants to take a crap on SNAP. Given the fiscal discipline displayed by this lot I expect those “Harvest Boxes” are likely to contain nothing more nourishing than IOUs.
Maybe they can be printed on rice paper. We can pretend it’s cake.
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