We’ve been enjoying a pleasant off-and-on rain, and by “we” I mean “not the Balloon Fiesta people.”
Welp, the Balloon Fiesta people have another year and a day to get their traffic problems sorted, because their final launch of 2018 got rained out this morning.
What does a balloon aficionado do when there is no ballooning to be had due to inclement weather? Beats me.
I know what a cycling scribe does. He stays inside and blogs.
Well, this one does, anyway.
The monsoons persist.
Herself takes an exercise class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and sometimes she’ll slide by Il Vicino afterward to collect a couple sammiches so Your Humble Narrator doesn’t have to cook.
Last night was one of those sometimes. Until the deluge.
First came the thunder, which sounded like incoming artillery rounds fused for airburst. Skylights, which we have aplenty, gave me and the cats a pretty good look at the flash part of the flash-bang, too.
And then, the rain. Holy hell, the rain. A neighbor said we got an inch in an hour, and I have no reason to doubt her. The cul-de-sac basically turned into a giant storm drain.
In any case, the upshot is, I had to cook. It would have been an upstream swim to Il Vicino for Herself and we’d have wound up with soup sammiches after she swam back.
Looks like rain, y’say? Shoe does.
Some days, you kit up for a ride, but the Universe says, “Piss on you,” and then does. But nobody who lives in a desert complains about the rain.
The Bianchi Orso sports a Tubus Cargo Classic (with adapters to clear the Breezer-style dropouts and thru-axle levers), an Arkel TailRider rack truck with attached Dry-Lite panniers and a Revelate Egress Pocket. Oh, yeah, and five water bottles.
August? Say what? Wasn’t it July just a minute ago?
Here at Ye Olde Dogge Parque the party just keeps rolling along. The Bianchi Orso is nearly ready for its closeup. I need a few details from Bianchi HQ, but they seem a taciturn lot for persons of the Italian persuasion.
Perhaps they’re distracted by the antics of that other ugly American, the one whose coloration is rare among the primates, save for the orangutans, who do not claim him. Happily, Bianchi USA is lending a hand, trying to fill in the gaps. Che figata!
The sharp-eyed among you may note a rain jacket strapped behind the Egress handlebar bag. It has indeed been raining in the ’hood, and not just your occasional refreshing sprinkle, either. Daily full-on frog-stranglers is more like it.
Seems it’s either drought or deluge around here. Some middle way would be greatly appreciated. Why, I actually had to dodge a puddle on my morning run. Che cazzo!
It never rains, but it pours. Enough to fill up that bucket, anyway.
The rain gods finally heard our prayers this afternoon. Or maybe they heard the Tom Waits. I was playing “Small Change,” but it might be time to cue up “Rain Dogs.” For I am a Rain Dog too.
Finally. What a great day to be a rain dog.
That pleasant little soaking we got yesterday soothed a scorched patch of grass in the back yard.
Herb swung by El Rancho Pendejo for a nosh and a nip after his museum-inspection tour of Fanta Se and asked if it had rained here.
Yup. Like a mad bastard, too, probably for a good 20 minutes.
But you’d never know it, because the sun came right back out, and there was nary a puddle to be seen.
This Chihuahuan Desert country drinks like a clerk-typist telling fake war stories at a VFW bar. And we’re a thousand feet above the Rio, so the parched earth just swallows and pisses and swallows and pisses and hollers “More! More! More!”
Thus yesterday’s downpour was already coursing through the Rio before we could say, “Hmm, smells like rain.”
“One never knows during a fine dinner when a bike ride will break out. Always Be Ready.”
Photo and caption by Herb C., who, like Herself, takes notice when a bicycle is parked where it shouldn’t oughta be.
Still, we’ll take whatever moisture comes our way. It must have been particularly welcome up north, where crews are still battling the 36,000-acre Ute Park fire.
Today we’re right back to hot and sunny, which is a good thing. For me, anyway. Those bicycles aren’t gonna review themselves.
The clouds over the Sandias look to be answering the bell for round two.
It rained and hailed like a mad bastard for a spell yesterday, the first moisture to make landfall here in the better part of quite some time. Fifty-four days, to be precise.
The trees lost a few leaves, and the Duke City lost at least one resident, who got swept to the next world via the North Diversion Channel. Firefighters rescued five other folks from various places they shouldn’t have oughta been. Water don’t play, yo.
We might get some more today, and we might not. Regardless, don’t expect to see me loading up the woody with my board inside, heading out and singing my song. I have other, drier diversions in mind.
I had just about decided to step out for a run when the rain talked me out of it. Instead I’m making green chile stew. Manaña, baby.
Hoo-boy. It may be raining here, but I bet the actual water is landing at Hal’s place up Weirdcliffe way, because the wind is flat-out howling out of the south.
If you haven’t had a real beer for five years, a fake one tastes remarkably like beer.
Herself went back to work today and it’s just me and the cats here.
There’s a dog-shaped hole in the kitchen, which feels like an abandoned house.
But it’ll warm up a tad when I start making some green chile stew. It always gladdened The Boo’s hungry little heart to see me moving around and about in his living room, laying hands on knife, pot and cutting board.
And y’know what? I may even have a beer with it. Non-alcoholic, of course. Surely I must be training for something.
• Late update: From Esquire (where else?) comes this list of “tasty near beers that don’t suck.”
The sky is crying.
It was gloomy around here the past couple days, and not just for the obvious reason. The weather finally turned and we got something like a half-inch of rain; a long, steady soaking.
Something seems dreadfully wrong
with this picture.
Even the normally stoic Turk grew unsettled, first spending an unusual amount of time under the bed, and then following me around like bad news.
This morning he was finally back to his routine: yowling outside the bedroom door when he’s decided that I’ve logged enough shuteye; jumping into bed for a brief cuddle; and finally nodding off as the sun crept over the Sandias.
Herself is easing back into business as usual, hitting her workout classes and fencing with the taxman, whose clammy hand is even less welcome in our pockets than usual.
Mia performs her one-cat show “Sit Like a Cat,” based on a poem from the Ted Kooser-Jim Harrison collection “Braided Creek”:
We should
sit like a cat
and wait for the door
to open.
And the unflappable Miss Mia Sopaipilla, who came to us from the same shelter that gave us Mister Boo, continues to provide some much-needed comic relief. The other day it was zazen on my drawing stool; this morning it was mortal combat with a long-forgotten toy mouse.
Me? You’d think I should be chronicling some velo-business for fun and profit, what with CABDA just concluded and Frostbike, NAHBS and 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo ongoing.
But I’m not, so maybe I’ll go for a ride instead.
• Editor’s note: Gassho and deep bows to one and all for your condolences following the passing of Mister Boo. Sifting through the piles of photos and videos depicting the sprightly young Boo of days gone by, and seeing the pleasure his presence provided beyond our own household, helped us remember the good times, bright moments that often fade under the harsher light of day-to-day caregiving.
Patrick O'Grady sells words and pictures to Adventure Cyclist, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, and pretty much anyone else who can spell his name correctly next to the phrase which sounds so musical to his aged ears: "Pay to the order of. ..." For more on Your Humble Narrator, click the comic.
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