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Welp, the fireworks are about to start and my dogs are about to enter the loony zone and I don’t have time for this right now. It is Wednesday and Independence Day all in one and that means that most of us have to go to work tomorrow. I cannot sleep when goddamn rockets are thumping all night and the neighbors are having a patio party with screaming children and some kind of bird. They have a Myna bird or a Macaw or something. The thing screeches all day because they leave it outside all the time in its cage covered with a blanket or table cloth. I imagine that must be a great life. I’d be swearing like George Carlin if I was that bird.
Anyway it’s noisy as hell outside and I just don’t like fireworks. Never have. Ohhh well maybe when I was a teenager and I was setting shit on fire all the time and blowing up mailboxes with Worx bombs and generally doing hooligan stuff with gunpowder and potato guns and ether and, yes, fireworks. But that was a long time ago and I am clearly a different person now, the evidence being that I have a wife and she has stayed with me for seven years so far. So I must have went Crazy Ivan somewhere back there in the 2000s and cleaned my act up. And I am so sorry that I have run off topic as usual. I hate fireworks now. I don’t shoot them off anymore and I don’t like listening to them. I don’t mind seeing them…but I cannot find it in me to appreciate the loud banging. I get it…bombs bursting in air and mortars sending shells over those ancient walls standing heavy with hope so long ago but the problem is that my dogs think it is the apocalypse. So they get to shivering and quivering and smashing themselves as close to Beth and I as possible and if we get up to pee or get something to eat they walk in between our legs as we walk along. Anyway it’s not fair to them because dogs are people too and Walter even talks…in his own strange maowaowow way.
All I ask is that you simply stop shooting off fireworks and go inside and read a nice book in a quiet room and if you need to see fire, just light some scented candles. Cool? Great…..
Now that that’s settled we can get down to brass tacks: What is the best way to cook a Myna bird? I heard somewhere that they can sense predators and have as a defense mechanism the ability to sing Kid Rock songs until said predator runs away in agony or at least extreme annoyance. We have coyotes around here and I think I heard that bird doing Only God Knows Why the other day and I found a dead coyote on 141st Street when I started my ride. It had blood streaming from its ears and nose and it had obviously shit itself due to the fact that Kid Rock is capable of reproducing the Brown Note. And all that nonsense doesn’t even matter but it is true and I thought it worthy of a mention. So I think I’ll cook the bird in a cast iron skillet with brown butter and some peppers, carmelized onions, leeks, and dress the thing with a bed of risotto.
On to bikes… I did the annual Parade Ride today with Bri and Company. This ride leaves the Smokey Row school on 136th Street and travels north to Sheridan, at which time we join the Sheridan parade route and toss candy to all the kiddos lining the streets of the downtown area. The ride is pretty chill and tons of people show up. Bri is the queen of the ride and Harry is her begrudging servant. The story is that they were on a ride about five years ago and just happened to be riding through Sheridan when they stumbled into the parade going through the main drag down town. Apparently the town folk really liked the group of patriotic cyclists and thusly the group agreed to make the happy event an annual tradition. And so it goes and so it went today and the group has swelled to around 100 people give or take 30 or 40…I am bad at estimation. Anyway it is truly a fun, leisurely, social ride and I enjoy doing it. Plus I got in 65 miles in Zone 2 which is just what I need right now because I am tired from standing all day at the shop and racing crits on the weekends.
Beth and I spent the rest of the day doing Our Thing, which is going to Cafe Patachou, Lowes to look at paint colors because we are painting the inside of the house soon, and preparing to drug our dogs in advance of the coming armageddon. Racing is going well…Justin and I got decent results at Madeira last weekend and twisted ourselves inside out trying to create breakaways at Hyde Park but no one was having any of it and we were chased down every time until eventually two other guys took advantage of the shells of ourselves we had become and got away for the win. Felipe won the field sprint for second in the 40+. Brooke won the women’s 3/4 and then went on to help Bri get onto the podium in the women’s Pro 1/2/3 race. Jake Richards rode well in the men’s 4/5 race and I expect big things from him in the coming months and years. His brother Josh is nearly mended from the broken scaphoid bone in his hand and will be strong later in the year. So Zone-6 Endurance is coming along nicely and I am very satisfied with this team and their attitude and work ethic. We have whittled it down quite a lot, as I expected, but there are two hungry beasts about to be unleashed on the INKY region and they are called Dave Holtkamp and Dom Fiore. I coach them both and all I can say is that when I think about them, I hear Blackened by Metallica playing very loudly in my head. And sometimes Seek and Destroy.
The goddamn fireworks are at full throttle right now and Walter is running up and down the stairs and down the hall and looking through all the windows and pacing and whining and I’m about to start my ritual of walking around barefoot to the homes that are shooting mortars and telling them that I have a newborn that is frightened and crying. It has worked in the past. I am a very convincing fabricator…a skill I honed long ago creating marvelous stories to tell my parents about where I had been when really I had been blowing things up with fireworks and homemade explosives. And ohhhh hey ho weren’t those the days? …I mean, nights.
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