The All-Star Break is upon us in baseball, and tonight for electronic wallpaper I have on the Home-Run Derby. While I love baseball I’m not terribly interested in the Home-Run Derby, except inasmuch as it means ESPN is finally going to stop running its terrifying station [...]]]> Bastille Day. There’s a holiday we can still get behind.

The All-Star Break is upon us in baseball, and tonight for electronic wallpaper I have on the Home-Run Derby. While I love baseball I’m not terribly interested in the Home-Run Derby, except inasmuch as it means ESPN is finally going to stop running its terrifying station promo for the event. Supposedly spoken by Yankee Stadium, it sounds way too much like Dr. Girlfriend from The Venture Brothers begging for bukkake: “Squirt your line drives all over my bleachers! Festoon my façade with your home-run balls! Cover me with your powerful white blasts!”

Okay, that’s not what it actually says. But it might as well be. Creepy.

(Hey, do I know Search Engine Optimization, or what? Of course it will backfire. The Spiders from Google will be all, “Whoa! Bukkake! I’m so there!” and then they’ll be all, “Hey! There’s no bukkake anywhere on this blog! What a rip!” and then they’ll sink me tracelessly in the search-result rankings in retribution. But this’ll still doubtless be the single most-viewed post in site history while the moment lasts.)

Anyway. Dragging a bit today yet. Maybe I can get to sleep at a decent hour tonight…

After writing some more on the new Rogue Angel yarn, I gathered up Emma Dog and took her off to the Nature Center for an afternoon walk. It’s a perfect Albuquerque Spring [...]]]> Or actually, just a pair of muskrats. They didn’t get up to anything … untoward during the short time I had them in view.

After writing some more on the new Rogue Angel yarn, I gathered up Emma Dog and took her off to the Nature Center for an afternoon walk. It’s a perfect Albuquerque Spring day: warm, clear, calm; the trees are getting green and the fruit trees and the lilacs fragrantly in bloom. A marked improvement over the gale we walked through a couple of days ago, and the Arctic day that followed it.

From the levee bike path I saw some big, soft-shelled spiny turtles sunning themselves down on the ditchbank. A guy cruised by us on a nifty recumbent tadpole trike, lower-slung and probably more expensive than my TriCruiser. Sometime this week I need to get my tricycle to a bike shop for an overhaul so I can start riding it before it gets brutally hot and I’ll snivel too much.

Not a lot of birdage about, though some of interest. Our usual Piper Cherokee-sized Canada geese kept flying low overhead, honking stertorously. As we walked north up the dirt path along the east side of the clear ditch, which is very pleasantly shaded by trees and brush, a bitty grey wren-like thing flew over with a whir that seemed to be a call, rather than the sound of its wings. It gave a little cheep as it lit in a tree to our left. Naturally it went promptly around the other side of a big branch where I couldn’t see. It seemed to have a very curved beak, almost like a thrasher. But they’re way bigger than this bird, which was so tiny I first thought it was a cicada – although we’re at the wrong end of the season to see them. It may’ve been a Canyon Wren.

There’s a notch in the ditchbank that leads right down from the trail to the water, perhaprs halfway between the footbridge that leads back to the east side and Montaño, where it’s convenient for Emma to go wade in the water and drink. As we approached it I heard a big woodpecker thudding away off in the bosque proper, across the ditch and the bike path.

And then when we got to the notch, right there swimming south and not eight feet from the bank I saw a muskrat. A beat later I saw a second toward the other side of the ditch. They both dove pretty promptly; one surfaced briefly under some brush overhanging the far side. I bet they have a burrow under there.

As alert as Emma always is to possible threats, to my amazement she didn’t even seem to notice the muskrats. Which was good, since I don’t want her getting in any disputes with others creatures. She might’ve been too fixated on the water’s edge where she was heading.

On the way back we ran into kind of a knot of people, bikes, and dogs near the footbridge leading from the levee path to the RGNC proper. Not that surprising, given the day and the nature of it. But it tended to really slow us down.

Emma’s job, which she carries out with fanatical keenness, is to be my bodyguard. Whenever she perceives people and animals approaching us, she usually has to give them a suspicious stare. If they’re in front of us, this entails stopping; if they’re overtaking, she has to keep peering back over her shoulder and slowing way down. It doesn’t matter if they’re fragile granny-ladies or young mothers pushing strollers: they must be scrutinized. (“Dad! They may pack heat!”) I’m always having to chivvy her along.

As we approached the Candelaria exit of the path that connects it to the bike trail, a sturdy Latino gentleman with a moustache, upon seeing Emma, said, “My lord, that’s a beautiful dog!” Which was nice. I thanked him on her behalf.

And then, dear merciful heavens, the … special bike club emerged, mustering to be taken back to the home under the watchful eyes of their minders. Who must have patience far exceeding that of saints – the saints I’ve read of tended to be a crabby, censorious lot. I mean, gods guard over the Down syndrome folks and send them happiness, I was just as glad we got clear of that narrow passageway from the bike path before they came through.

Then, because our timing was on tonight, we got back in time to catch the bottom of the 1^st inning of the Sunday night ESPN between the Yankees and the Red Sox. Now, I certainly have no rooting interest in either team; to me it’s kind of like the Mordor-USSR exhibition game held each Spring in Hell. But I do love me some baseball, and they’re always … interesting to watch.