Right in the eggs

January 25, 2025January 25, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Whew. Looks like I picked a good week to go on a news fast. These pendejos are pitching fastballs. At this pace there won’t be a wall without shit running down it before Valentine’s Day. A lot of it won’t stick, but it’s gonna pile up. The forecast calls for deep doo.

My news fast coincided with a cold snap that kept me off the bike. I don’t object to cycling in the 30s if the sun’s out, but when Tōnatiuh abdicates in favor of Ehecatl, it’s time to go for a run.

Thing is, I’m not a runner. Not really. A runner certainly wouldn’t call me one. Especially if s/he’d caught me at it.

I can pretend for 45 minutes but that’s about it. And that doesn’t burn a lot of daylight for a fella trying to avoid the doomscrolling.

Still, I managed. For about four days. Who can avert his or her eyes while passing a domestic disturbance in daylight or an unshaded window at night? This is like driving past a five-car crash without checking the gutters for rolling heads.

So I eased back in, slowly. A little Kevin Drum. Then a bit of Charlie Pierce. This is akin to reading the police report, if Joseph Wambaugh wrote it. The Atlantic, for a soupçon of button-down viewing with alarm.

Finally, I hit the hard stuff. The New York Times. Holy shit, etc.

I hope the rubes who elected this bozo are enjoying the shitshow. Looks like it’ll be a good long while before he gets those egg prices down.

Running on empty

November 7, 2024November 7, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

I’d love to stick around, but I’m running behind. …

The power went out at 12:53 a.m., and the heat went with it. The wind is howling, and the snow is flying.

So this is a quick-and-dirty post via iPhone hotspot of a companion piece to yesterday’s post that I had hoped to nail up here last night, only to be derailed by the fabled technical difficulties.

Yes, yes, yes, it’s another abbreviated edition of Radio Free Dogpatch.

• Technical notes: Still using the Ethos mic from Earthworks Audio; Audio-Technica ATH-M50X headphones; Zoom H5 Handy Recorder; Apple’s GarageBand, and Auphonic for a sonic massage. The gunfire comes from Freesound. All the other bad noise is courtesy of Your Humble Narrator.

Go run. Or not.

February 1, 2024February 1, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

The weather was supposed to be taking a turn for the worse after a short stretch of sunny skies, and so I had planned to go for a short trail run this first day of February.

Instead, the sun leapt out from behind the clouds, the temp shot upward into the mid-50’s, and I called an audible: “Ride today, run tomorrow.”

I’ve had the old Steelman Eurocross out twice this week, and it was leaning against the Subaru just waiting to have another go, so I grabbed it and did a quick 90 minutes on the foothills trails, which have finally firmed up a bit since last week’s rain and snow.

It was just the ticket, especially since I was feeling unkindly toward running after reading about the Outside Hyperactive Currency Furnace’s latest scheme — to transform the ridiculously simple act of putting one foot in front of another into a mighty revenue stream through the miracle of MarketSpeak®.

Running is one of the most basic acts imaginable, and humans have been doing it since we first came down from the trees, which is starting to seem like a really bad idea. As soon as we hit the deck we were running toward things we wanted to kill, eat, and/or fuck, and away from things that wanted to do likewise to us.

Like I said, basic.

No longer. According to a press release whose author(s) should have “The Elements of Style” tattooed on their foreheads with a jackhammer, we runners have been blessed with a new “Running Media Platform” intended to meet us on our running journey and elevate, empower, build community, and disrupt through a one-stop shop of iconic brands delivering gender-equitable and inclusive best-in-class, world-class content.

Or something very much like that. I don’t know for sure. I blacked out somewhere in the middle of it and when I came to I was butt-ass nekkid with blue paint on my face and a big knife in one hand, shrieking and dancing around a fire built of old running shoes.

I showed the press release to my buddy Hal Walter, who has been running for something like 45 years, everything from 5Ks to marathons to the World Championship Pack-Burro Race in Fairplay — he guesses maybe some 65,000 miles all told — and he was immediately unimpressed.

“Jesus,” he said. “Go run for fuck’s sake.”

Runday

January 7, 2024January 7, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, they say.

But when life gives you snow — what then? Make snowcones? Snowballs? Snowpersons?

Nah. Just go for a run.

I thought I was underdressed yesterday when I headed out for 5K on the trails. Lately I’ve been wearing Darn Tough wool socks, some toasty old Head tights and this long-sleeved Gore cycling jersey over an ancient Patagonia Capilene base layer because it has pockets for the phone and any bits I might feel compelled to remove or add, like the Smartwool gloves or Sugoi tuque, as conditions dictate.

But I wasn’t taking anything off yesterday. I only felt overdressed at the outset because I had the wind to my back. Once I turned around into it at the Menaul trailhead I tugged the tuque down over my ears and the Gore’s zipper up over my Adam’s apple. The wind caused my right eye to tear up behind the Rudy Project shades, making me seem to be half crying, like I wasn’t really all that worked up about whatever was bothering me.

All in all, a good day for a run, though. Not many people out and those that were seemed to feel that we were all members of some open-air private club for the genially insane.

The trails were pretty crunchy; a bit of mud where the sun had shone, icy in the shade. But I managed to not fall down and/or roll an ankle, so, winning, etc. ’Ray for me.

This morning I’m getting a loaf of bread started while I try to talk myself into a bike ride. But I think it’s gonna be another run. We’re talking 33°, feels like 25°, wind from the south at 10-15 mph, and if there’s any blue in the sky I’m having trouble making it out.

Then again, tomorrow looks worse. Maybe a short ride on a fendered bike? Thank Itztlacoliuhqui we have one more meal’s worth of green chile stew waiting patiently in the fridge. Also, there is a sack of pintos that needs cooking, and it will be a frosty day in The Bad Place when I don’t have the ingredients for some variety of south-of-the-border rice, either rojo or verde.

Now that I think of it, if I just had some shredded chicken and some corn tortillas, I could make enchiladas.

Shit, I better get outside pronto. I can feel myself dollaring up like something a fella might use in a stew.

Summer on simmer

September 10, 2023September 10, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

The Chinese pistache would like some rain, please. And thank you.

More clouds. Fewer birds. Lower temperatures. In the morning, anyway.

And come to think of it, in the evening, too. I’m not needing a wee rinse before bedtime to resolve the late-in-the-day stickiness that goes along with life in the desert and a firm hand on the thermostat.

Damp it is not. The drought not only persists, it thrives. The Rio Grande is on the edge of running dry in The Duck! City for a second consecutive year. When I stripped the bed of its sheets in the dark this morning I got a free static-electricity light show for my troubles.

But at least my rides and runs have not been the usual rolling boil for the past week. Maybe I can resume my habit of slipping out nine-ish instead of kitting up in the dark, when I need a headlight to see, not just to be seen.

It’s not summer’s end; not yet. But it’s around the bend, just flyin’.

There’s a smaller crowd queueing up at our bird feeders, and they’re getting a later start, too.

On yesterday’s looping ride through Sandia Heights I didn’t spot a single solitary quail, not a one. Didn’t even hear any. Just last Sunday Herself and I saw them by the dozens as we spun leisurely through the Heights.

This morning I made our oatmeal on the stove, instead of mixing up a müesli version to “cook” in the fridge the night before. We added diced peaches, chopped pecans, and local honey, and washed it down with a side of hot tea.

At the stove, with the windows open, I caught a whiff of bacon frying nearby. The pig is Herself’s spirit animal and she won’t tolerate it on a plate, but apparently marrying one is OK, as long as it makes a pork-free breakfast.

Then, suddenly, at 9 on the dot with the breakfast dishes washed, the birds turn up. The hummers re-enact the Battle of Britain around their feeders, and the finches perch greedily at theirs while the doves stalk the ground hunting misplaced morsels.

Is this the summertime equivalent of Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow? Do we have six more weeks of summer on tap?

I’d best kit up and get out there. Don’t forget the sunscreen. Might be another scorcher.