Prelude to a Monsoon?

It began almost imperceptibly. I heard once how mountains make their own weather. Down below, it's been hot and dry. I've lost track of the number of small wildfires that've been reported. It'd been another hot day, but, by late afternoon, the sky had turned the color of slate, and the air felt heavy. Well, heavy for the thin arid air of the Colorado's High Country. Three and a half unfortunate teenage years in the rural south taught me the true meaning of humid.

Out on the porch with the hounds and a whiskey, I feel something cold and wet hit my leg. I growl, thinking; fucking hummingbirds!, but soon realize my delusion with a certain rat-a-tat-tat! that stirs up the dirt of the drive. My nostrils fill with a scent, which, like that of old books, can never be properly described with the clumsiness of language, but only experienced.

And what I experienced lasted barely a sip from my tumbler. Clouds broke to shards of turquoise and cotton candy cobwebs across the early evening sky. It was just enough to fill the air with that scent and stir up the road dust and mosquitoes. I wanted to stay out longer and drink it all in, but words formed in my skull and I had to purge them out to stave off madness. So it goes.

It is spitting distance from July. Colorado's monsoon. Up here, it will be the days of just-like-clockwork two o'clock thunderstorms. I have a hardshell and look forward to the rain.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a whiskey to finish amongst the mosquitoes and a scent that language would insult in trying to describe... 

A Visit From the In-Laws

Sabina's folks are in town. It's been the long-standing joke; her family doesn't drink much, one's even born-again-apparently the first time didn't work-they're the in-laws. Then, there's my family; drink, some drugs, my little brother has a record, bootleggers, klansmen, politicians, and a midget wrestler-lawyers, guns, and money!-making them the outlaws.

Of course they are...

It's a chance to play ketchup and for me to show off a recipe or two I'm proud of. I enjoy visiting with them. However, their visits are when I get see Sabina's control-freakishness in all its...something. The daddy-do projects. This year it's retiling the floor in the loo and a proper screen door up front. Not trivialities, but, not being mechanically inclined-growing up on a farm, I know enough to bluff through the simplicities before disappearing for a walkabout across the pastures-I know to stay out of the way.

"If you need a place to hide out, I have booze," a neighbor told me.

"I spent two hours down-valley getting used books for a reason," I said with a wink.

As Sabina hammers and curses away, I get ready to start making dinner; Cuban chicken a la chorrera. Hopefully, it'll come out well. Hopefully, they'll not be too exhausted to enjoy it.

Summer

The bakery, having changed hands, has reopened, a slowly blossoming flower, into the form of a bistro of sorts. I find this fantastic. The vibe was that of a coffeehouse with a wine bar back in the historical district, where I lived in the greater metroplex, that my daughter and I would go to play chess and Sabina and I had our first few dates-'member when? They had milk stout beer and bourbon made over in Breckenridge. And it was funky, because you gotta have the funk.

I checked out the place in the name of research and curiosity, of course. One of the proprietors toasted me with gin upon making my acquaintance. When I mentioned the Irish whiskeys I'm found of, she promised to acquire them. Oh, fuck yes. My new best friend.

"You keep stocked up in dark beer and fine Irish, and you will see me again," I told her. "Regularly."

Hey, it's been two looooooooooooooong years since there's been a cantina in town... 

To mark the calendar demarcation of summer, we took in a bonfire party. Stories and shots of vodka straight from the bottle, because that's just what you do. You'd think, in a funky mountain township of two-hundred bipeds-on a good day-I'd see all my neighbors on regular basis, and yet, being misanthropic, I pull it off that it's been a bit since I've seen some cats-as in at least a year, maybe I suck. It was nice to play ketchup. The stories. The silliness. The oh-that's-why-I-avoid-you-like-leprosy-and Anthrax-even-if-they-had-a-few-good-songs. Matters of balance, and I might be about chaos, but, paradoxically, I strive for balance.

It doesn't get get dark until nine at night and it's been hot! up here. With obligations, to be cliché, I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. And, for some reason, I thought it'd be a good idea to take an online archeology course. So it goes. These are what a good friend of mine calls the days of milk and honey. 

Two days in, by a calendar's timekeeping, and summer's been awesome. I cannot convey my excitement for the rest of it. The whisper in my ghost speaks of wonderful time...it just might be a good season.

Tally-ho, muthafucka!

Not a Dress Rehearsal

It started out simply enough; a pilgrimage down below to Lee's shoppe. My daughter and Sabina were going to get their noses pierced and I have a design for a tattoo, the first in nine years; since my Eyes of the Buddha, whereupon I learned, no matter how good of friends you are with a tattoo artist, do not mention that you fucked his mother the night before.

But that's another story...

We don't make plans. After all, if you want to make the mythological concept of deity laugh, then have a plan. The Tao of Chaos. This is why it wasn't so offensive that my daughter had to cut out before we even left for the shoppe and the possibility of clients with appointments kept me from getting inked. Mei fei tsu. Sabina still got pierced, and my daughter and I have a date in the near future with an ink-slinger of my acquaintance. Body modification and reconnecting with an old, old friend; what could be better?

After a few errands in a place that was hot and noisy and crowded and smelly we ran for the hills. Our route took us through one of the canyons. On a lark, Sabina sent a message to one of our adventuring buddies that we were in the area. After a quick repast of trail mix, venison jerky, and bison summer sausage, we were off for a quick walkabout to a memorizing waterfall before a proper supper.

So what Sabina and I had only our sandals on and no proper trekking gear with us? It was something to do. Life gets a little boring if you don't occasionally go what the fuck?

A mantra of Sabina's is taken from the gospel of Calvin and Hobbs; The Days are just Packed! Our day certainly was. As I sit back in the afterglow of those spontaneous adventures, I think to a toast our neighbor has given over whiskey or rum and sometimes vodka, occasionally all in the same night of storytelling;

"This is life, not practice..."   

Amen and women to that...

Hot Weather

It's been getting into the early eighties. Y'know, punk rock, new wave, Madonna. Okay, not really, but it is showing those numbers on the fahrenheit scale.

Around these parts, that's hot! In the past, I've told my daughter of us having hot weather and mentioned the ambient air temperature, and you can see her restraining from starting her next sentence with fuck you, Dad. Only a sadistic man would find amusement in this, and I am not a sadistic man.

The river is peaking with its rushing runoff. In the next week I should be able to cross the waters of Brown's and Grizzly Gulch. The up top snow slowly shrinks from view. Summer in our Sahel.

Father's Day is coming and I think I'm going to make myself a particular spicy shrimp recipe that is recommend to consume on a hot summer's day, preferably with a bottle of white. I've never been a fan of Mother's or Father's Day, but, with the hot weather, I think I'm just going to suck it up, and take that spicy bullet, for the team.

You're welcome...

Leviathan's Teeth

It's the time of year when the river races by in the countenance of doctored coffee, milk chocolate, and cream. In some places, the rapids roar which such ferocity a rafter would want to make peace with whatever deity they worshiped or ignored before facing a fate in a meat grinder of white water.

The House of Owls and Bats sits across the street from the river. There is a drain pipe in our drive, which slants down. This time of year, it is underwater. By virtue of that, we get a symphony not regularly heard. There is the grinding of river rocks, shaped by the force of runoff from jagged to smooth. Thousands of millions of years of geology played out for our listening pleasure as the leviathan grinds its teeth.