Tag: rain

A bog less trotted

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
Sunscreen would seem to be optional this morning.

We had a storm sweep through last night, bitch-slapping leaves off the backyard maple while spraying a half-inch of water around and about.

No complaints here. San Juan County took a beating, though. People stranded on rooftops were getting choppered to shelters and here I sit in my office, warm, dry and full of breakfast, thinking I should’ve ridden yesterday because today looks like more of a running opportunity.

With another round of thunderstorms, hail, and strong winds in the forecast, riders tackling the Day of the Tread‘s Bosque Boneshaker are liable to be shivering in their skeleton costumes and getting their plastic gravel gobblers all gooey.

Caution: Dog Crossing. Cyclocross in Fort Fun, sometime in the Nineties.

There was a time when I relished that sort of outing in October, driving hundreds of miles and paying dozens of dollars to get my muddy arse handed to me, tidying up afterward pumping quarters into a car wash.

But that was when I was a man, instead of whatever it is that I am now. If I get caught out in this sort of weather I will deal with it, but I’m less inclined to seek it out just ’cause.

Instead I may trot another class of bog altogether. The revelations about PHP, A.I. skulduggery, and what some coneheads are dubbing Black October have me thinking I should relocate my old blog’s archives from their bus-station locker in the Twilight Zone to WordPress, which is — or at least should be — better equipped than Your Humble Narrator to deal with the fallout.

We’re not talking the Book of Kells, the Magna Carta, or the Code of Hammurabi here. But some of this prehistoric blather still packs a few yuks, if only for me, and I’d hate to see it sucked through the Black Mirror into the Phantom Zone because I built it using stone knives and bear skins.

And if it all goes kablooey anyway, taking my digital dogma with it? Well, shit happens, as Hammurabi has taught us. There’s always Old Reliable, the 4×8-inch Ampad Reporter’s Notebook. Scribble a “post” in ballpoint, tear out the page, and staple it to a power pole somewhere in the ’hood.

Just call me the Analog Dog: “Our Motto: ’Zine, not Herd.”

Water on the brain

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
“Good Lord, Holmes, some rotter has made off with the famous Southwestern Climate!”

Looked like a Sherlock Holmes flick in the cul-de-sac this morning: “The Case of the Missing Desert.”

“The game’s afoot, Watson!”

And indeed it is, if the game is “Who’s the dumbest man in the Senate?”

There’s always a thundering herd of whinnying glue-factory candidates in that august stable, but lately it’s a two-up horse’s-ass race between Eric Schmitt (R-Misery) and Tommy “Coach” Tuberville (R-CTE).

Schmitt couldn’t even pull off a “Gotcha!” against Jack Smith without stepping in it up to his flag pin.

But Coach may edge him by a nose — a big red one that honks when you squeeze it — with his charge that the friendly skies are full of furries.

Talk about game. It’s one helluva race when it looks like Ted “I’m Not Just Stupid, I’m Evil Too” Cruz might not even make the podium. It’d have Holmes reaching for the old iron butterfly and his 7-percent solution, craving mental exaltation.

Marco! Polo!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
The monsoon was late to the party, but man, is it ever dancing up a storm now.

“Check this strange beverage that falls out from the sky.” — Tom Waits, “Til the Money Runs Out.”

Fenders and a rain jacket will not do the trick today. Maybe a wetsuit and flippers.

As of 6 a.m. Duck! City time our weather widget had recorded 0.43 inch of rain since midnight, 0.66 inch in the past 48 hours, and an astounding 3.78 inches for the month.

And it ain’t over yet. We have a flood watch that extends through late tonight for all of northern and central New Mexico.

Fine sleeping weather. I’d hop right back in the sack if I didn’t have two cups of strong black coffee in me. I’d just lie there with my eyes out on stalks, buzzing like an electric blanket with a short in it. Better maybe to chase the java with a steaming bowl of oatmeal and a tall mug of Irish tea with honey.

Herself has fishtailed off to work and I hope she hasn’t had to use her Honda’s air bags as flotation devices. I did insist that she take a second pair of shoes in case she had to hopscotch through a few puddles on her way into the Sanctum Sanctorum.

If I can squeeze in a short run in my mud shoes I’ll do it. But at the moment the only Miles I’m logging is of the Davis variety. As in “Kind of Blue.”

Cool!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Blue skies, smiling at me, and so on.

More rain, which, yay. And sunshine this morning, which, likewise.

Leftovers from last night’s rain.

It’s pleasant upon awakening to reach for socks instead of sunscreen. And to have nodded off to a stout rain backed by thunder! Lightning! And the rest of that Eddie Floyd-Steve Cropper lyric, too.

We basically got an entire September’s worth of precip’ in the past 48 hours. Morning temps are in the 50s. HVAC/irrigation systems are on pause.

As is cycling. I was feeling a bit overtrained, though I’m not training for anything. So I’ve spent the past few days being a pedestrian, either running or walking the local trails network.

Anyway, just because I have three bikes with fenders — hold on, make that four, just outfitted the Double Cross yesterday — doesn’t necessarily mean I want to use ’em.

Because next it will be knickers, and then arm warmers, and before you know it — winter!

Let’s get past fall first. Whaddaya say?

Arise, ye prisoners of dehydration

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.

The rain continues.

Clearly the gods have finally heard our sniveling here in the northernmost reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert. UnRealtors throughout the Greater Duck! City Metropolitan Area rejoice and sing “Hosanna!” Which is not a Gilda Radner character from Back in the Day® when “SNL” was still funny.

Anyone hoping to float the Rio anytime soon will still need 32-inch wheels, knobby tires, and hydraulic disc brakes for their rafts and kayaks. Nevertheless, arise, ye prisoners of dehydration, etc.

Raindrops keep falling on my head. Maybe with a little fertilizer I can get a fresh crop of hair started up there.

I went running in the rain yesterday, and it seems that I will be doing it again today, if I want to enjoy any class of healthful outdoor exercise, which I do. There’s not enough water for swimming — not yet, anyway, unless you’re suddenly awakened while sleeping rough in an arroyo — and since Herself works from home on Thursdays, if I should happen to make an indoor thing of myself she will find some chore for me to perform.

Anyway, running in the rain gets me away from the Mac, where the news is.

Jesus wept. The Squeaker of the House just shut the joint down and sent all his clock-watching monkey-spankers home after doing less actual work in the past few months than Mitch McConnell, who at least had the excuse of being kept alive in cryogenic sleep while RFK sewed him up a new body out of fresh roadkill and a couple prehistoric Trump Steaks from Natalie’s freezer.

Too bad. I was looking forward to watching that caravan of fools try to impeach Field Marshal Scheisskopf von Kegsbreath while he heaves and grunts through a few of his weak-ass pullups, stinking of cheap O-club gin and kicking his legs like a cranky toddler resisting bedtime.

That’s probably why Beelzebozo ordered RFK to rebuild The Turtle. He wanted to make sure the Senate had the numbers to keep Kegsbreath on his sinking PBR, if the House actually grew a pair, and if that meant reinstalling the old Kentucky roadblock as a collection of rotting coonskins that Dan’l Boone wouldn’t wear to a goat fuck, well, tough shit, Mitch. Die on your own time.