The lawn was just mown. The dandelions were waiting for their moment. Their moment is now.
This weekend, the shrubs are getting their ears lowered. I wonder what’s lurking in there, waiting for their moment.
Let’s check in on the apple tree once again. The blooms won’t be there long, he told himself again. Enjoy them while you can, he reminded himself, thinking of times past when he didn’t.
I’ll do it more tomorrow, he said forgetfully, half distracted by whatever else.
I did look out the kitchen sick window as I did the dishes this evening. It faces the west, and it was the right time for that glance. I finished up the washing quickly — there’s surely something that I’ll have to wash again tomorrow — so I could go out and see this for 15 seconds.
There are duplexes across the street, designed solely to obscure my view — and, I guess, for people to live in — but when you get the really vibrant one, you can enjoy some incredible colors above the silhouetted faux-dormers.
Nice way to start the weekend.
Friday / photo — Comments Off on Three quarters 7 Apr 23
The wind has been whipping through. The storms that have bruised and battered and, I fear, destroyed and killed through the Midwest and the South are coming through here as well. This is weather that we’ve been watching for for a week. In some ways, that makes it worse. But at least it isn’t the stuff that pops up, unannounced, in the middle of the night. We don’t get that hear, but it is something I am accustomed to. Certain times of the year, you pay close attention to the barometer and the low pressure fronts.
Here, I have charged the phones, prepared the cat carriers, set out bike helmets and brought the weather radio downstairs for the evening — so I wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs to hear the many announcements. But there was only one. We stayed in a tornado watch from the early evening and into the night. Late in the night, just a few moments ago, the bigger line of storms pushed through the region. Two cells that were surely scaring people in Illinois came this way.
We were under a tornado warning, then, but it was north of us. The radar overhead looked fine. The local broadcast meteorologists looked befuddled, as they often do, with severe weather. The cell passed north of town, and north of us, by about 16 or 18 miles. We listened to the wind whip and whirl, hearing the screens on the windows flex, and wondered how it is that siding stays on the side of a house. Surely, when the breeze turns into a considerable 40 or 50 mile per hour gust, wind could get underneath a few lines of siding and start moving it around, but it thankfully never does. And everything on the deck and the porch stayed where it was, too. The power never flickered, it didn’t even rain overmuch. We were quite fortunate, indeed. Hopefully, because this storm was in the forecast for most of the week, people have paid attention and are prepared.
Before all of that, I got in 20 miles on the bike. Just enough to get the heart rate up. The 2,200 feet of simulated elevation gain does it every time. Look! Here I am! On top of a mountain!
This was the Epic KOM climb, and I set a new Strava PR, absurdly improving on my previous best by 10-plus minutes.
When I got to the top of that climb there popped up a graphic for “Bonus Climb.” I don’t know how laid this out, but there was no bonus about that, or any extra climb. The HUD shows you how long the climb is, and this one is 5.9 miles. That last half mile, then, was all about dose energy.. And then they gave this slow, extra hill. It was almost demoralizing.
Anyway, since it is the end of the month, let’s check on the mileage chart. The purple line is what I’ve done.
That horizontal part marks the two weeks A.) we were out of town, and B.) I was fighting off a cold. So a light March — despite five consecutive days of pedaling — but I’m still ahead of all of my humble little projections.
This isn’t a lot of mileage, not really, but it’s a lot to me.
I’m beginning to feel more and more like myself. With every phlegmy cough it feels like the end is around the corner. Except for the coughs that feel like, somehow, the respiratory restrictions in my torso will force the collapse of all known gravity in the universe.
It’s all for show. I do feel a great deal better.
Here are a few more photographs from the Val d’Incles in Andorra. I think you’ll come to lichen them, as I do.
It seems that a good slate roof can last a century. I wonder what all of this weighs. Pity the person who had to lug all that up on top of the building as an apprentice.
Also in that valley, some green stuff growing on the stones that line the single-track road.
If I ever have a long driveway — ours is about 1.25 lengths of a car, which is ideal for snow purposes — I would do a lot of research on how to move in stones and promote moss and lichen growth.
It’d be nice to walk past that on the way to the mailbox, is all.
This, I think, would promote a slow, lingering walk, as opposed to the long, fast strides to and from the mailbox I take right now.
Speak of moving quickly, I am well behind on the Re-Listening project. This, you’ll recall, is the game where I am playing CDs in my car in the order in which I acquired them. These aren’t reviews, but a chance to enjoy some music, think fondly on memories and put some of that there.
Only I’m several CDs behind now, so we’ll be playing a bit of catch up over the next several days.
Today, it is the second and final record from The Refreshments. They were an Arizona bar band who signed a deal, got alt radio and MTV airplay and grew bigger, faster, than probably they wanted. Back in the studio, they found themselves butting heads with their label, and a bit with each other. Roger Clyne and the rest of the guys disliked all of this so much they disbanded after “The Bottle & Fresh Horses.” Shame, too, The Refreshments were great and this album is a lot of fun, even still, 26 years later. I got this as a hand-me-down from the campus radio station in the fall of 1997.
It’s funny, the instrumentation is clever and earnest and all of it was forgotten too fast. But we’re Re-Listening. I’m singing along.
In some ways, the whole thing feels like a continuation of Fizzy, Fuzzy. Even the characters narrative arcs were familiar.
And the jangly guitars got dustier and, more … southwestern … somehow.
This character actually is referencing the first record.
I think this is the song where the band decided they didn’t like the label meddling in their work. It just feels off, and the intensity is a little different. This song, or something else, that was an important catalyst in the band calling it quits.
This one is a referential sequel to something from the other album. This was, I think, the first time I’d ever had that happen from one record to the next. It was so novel — still is, I suppose — and gratifying and welcomed.
I remember reading some trade magazine, an article I will never ever find again in our digital age, about this song and how they overlapped. I was sitting in a burger joint, killing time between this and that, and found myself thinking that if I didn’t like them already, I would have had no choice but to appreciate The Refreshments after that.
No one thinks about things like this, but I wonder what would make up the best three-song series to close out a forgotten record. I’m putting these three tacks up for nomination.
They run the gamut in three songs. Just one of the reasons I was sad to hear of the band’s demise soon after. They went from a local opener in 1993 to a headliner in about a year. About a year later they were signed, but they were defunct by 1998. Clyne and Naffah have been playing in a full band as Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers since then, but I still think of The Refreshments first. They’re touring right now. They’re in the Midwest this spring, in fact, but still too far away.
Anyway, after this rush job on the Re-Listening project, I think I am five or six CDs behind. So guess what we’ll spend some time on next week!?
After the cab to the Barcelona airport, we hustled inside, hoping to beat the large crowd of obviously American high school students who were filing in. Happily, they were not on our flight, and not on our airline. By virtue of some frequent flier gimmick we got a VIP security experience. The ticket agent handed us little strips of paper that said “VIP Security.” Everyone went into this funnel for a security check, but when we showed our little passes the person standing there officially, courteously, urgently, waved us farther down the building. There was a different security checkpoint for us. It was expedited.
Which was great, because we’d arrived two-and-a-half hours early and now we could spend our time in the terminal, surrounded by other travelers, including a woman who couldn’t stop coughing. And some old people from Atlanta who, I gather, spent the bulk of their time in Spain complaining about Spain. And there was a long line for a sandwich snack, and a woman doing Spanish chamber of commerce type surveys, and a young woman who looked too young to be traveling alone. She was traveling alone. I am now old enough to see people and think “Isn’t this person too young to be going on an international flight by themselves?”
I’d expect that from other people, but, remember, I am daily surrounded by young people in a professional capacity. I can no longer discern these things, it seems. It isn’t a big deal, or something I would ordinarily do anyway, but I had the time, because I am a member of the VIP Security experience.
We flew from Barcelona to JFK. I watched four movies, including the Oscar winning Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s silly. It’s gross. It’s poignant. Some of it is going to feel dated very quickly, so see it before, you know, the all at once happens.
I also watched Devotion, because Jonathan Majors is in it. It was a decent enough movie to watch on a plane.
Then there was Nomadland, which I’ve been meaning to watch, and, again, this was a good time and place for it. Frances McDormand is so, so great at doing all of the little things in a big way, and the few big things in the right way.
Then there was Paddington 2, a movie franchise which I enjoy much more than I probably should.
I had a scratchy throat in New York, and peppermints wouldn’t touch it. Started going downhill after that. At JFK, I stood in the incredibly inefficient passport control line for almost two hours. Global entry, go right through. If you have scanned your passport into this app (what could go wrong?) go right through. You might stand there long enough to think they’re trying to inconvenience people who aren’t paying the premium fees. That would be a quintessentially American thing to do, wouldn’t it?
Everything else worked well, though. We collected our luggage, deposited it with another desk. Stood in more long security lines. Got on a plane for Indianapolis, and so on.
On the one hand, we covered 4,454 miles — as the crow flies — today. On the other hand, it took 27 hours to get from the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean back to … Bloomington.
Unloaded the car, took a Covid test — I’m sick, but negative. Had a later takeout dinner, and started the unpacking process. I’ll spend the weekend coming down from jet lag and whatever sinus cold I’m getting.
