Coffee heat rising

House & Yard

Arrrgh!!!! I hate computers!!!!!

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Round and round and round and ROUND Robin Hood’s Barn trying to get back online and back into Funny about Money.

WHAT an AGGRAVATING time suck!!!!!!!

Dammit! Now I’m so frustrated and so upset, I’ve forgotten what I was gonna write about!!

LOL! I hate computers. 😀

Ohhh well….  On the subject of nothing much: Ruby and I hiked all over the ‘Hood this evening. Beautiful night. Beautiful houses. We’re incredibly lucky to have landed in this tract.

We walked by one especially lovely house that until recently was occupied by a gentleman who used to sit out in the front yard and putter. He was a sweetie! Apparently he and his wife moved, though…or, more ominously, one of them passed away. No sign of either resident lingers.

They are much missed.

As for their handsome house: it’s for sale.

Too close to Main Drag North for my taste — the noise would be interminable and obnoxious. So, even if I could afford it, I haven’t inquired. And believe me: that house, I could not afford! 😀

Most of the ‘Hood is well outside my price range. Ruby and I live in the low-rent precinct, which is on the top end of what I could afford. Actually, values have shot up since I bought here: what were once normal, middle-class tract houses are now priced on the high side of ridiculous.

Oh well: we’re brought back to the long-range goal: to pass this house along to M’hijito. If I can hang onto it…if I don’t get consigned to some prison for the elderly…he will inherit this paid-off shack, lock stock and proverbial barrel. That will present him with some appealing choices:

* To stay where he is (he has a nice, centrally located house) and sell or rent this house, thereby collecting several hundred grand

* To sell  his own place, get completely out of debt and move into this paid-off castle

* To sell his place, invest the proceeds in the stock market (or some such), move in here, and watch his investments grow

* To sell it all and RUN!

Interesting….

The Gentrification of the ‘Hood

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Well… Truth to tell, the ‘Hood started out gentrified.

This has always been an upper-middle-class urban neighborhood. But of late?  HOLEE maquerel!

Young people are buying up our 1950s and ’60’s ranch houses and turning them into freaking palaces. Give this trend another ten years, and real estate here is gonna be not just through the roof but hovering in the stratosphere. 

And THAT is a primary reason why I want to stay out of an old-folkerie and in my home: all the way up to the moment I die. BECAUSE I want my son to inherit what will no doubt be a very hot, very pricey piece of centrally located real estate.

Yeah: my guess is that in ten years this place will be worth twice its current value…and houses here are already absurdly overpriced.

So, whenever M’hijito gets this place, he’ll be able to move into Fancy Danville here, or sell the shack and move wherever he wants: debt-free. Yeah: the Funny Farm was paid off some years ago, over my financial advisor’s vociferous objections.

Looks like Financial Dude was wrong and I was right. If the present trend continues, these houses — now on the edge of one of the most upscale districts in the Valley — will be worth TONS of money. My son will be able to occupy a stylishly antique pile in a neighborhood of overpriced 1950s tract houses (overpriced when new! outrageous now…), or he can sell this place and retire on the proceeds.

In any event, it now appears we’ll have something to leave to M’hijito that will be worth a sh!tload of money. One way or the ‘tother: no matter what he chooses to do with it.

Eeeek-a-Dawg!!!

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Ohhhh my goodness!  This evening I truly thought the Pool Dude had left the side gate open, that Ruby had found it, and that she’d taken off for Yuma!

Couldn’t find her when I went to call her in for the night. 

The back door to the house, in lovely weather like we’re having now, hangs open most of the time, so she comes and goes as she pleases. Consequently, the side gate to the yard is normally closed and latched.

But…Pool Dude was here. What does he know of dogs and of gates???

This evening she disappeared from view. Didn’t come to call. Ohhhhhhh sheee-ut!

And yes, the side gate was unlatched.

Ho-leeee shee-ut!!

Called and called.

No dawg.

Went inside to put on the clodhoppers, so as to go out through that gate and trot off down the road, calling and calling and calling…no doubt fruitlessly.

Just when I got back to the side yard, though: she surfaced.

No, she had NOT run away down the road.

THANK YOU, GOD!!!!

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Whew! After this, forgodsake, REMEMBER TO CHECK THAT GATE in the wake of any workman who stumbles into the yard!!!!!

Pool Dude In! Pool Dude Out!

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Ohhhhhh my gawd!!! Two hundred bucks (plus, plus, plus) to clean that damn swimming pool and service the equipment.

No wonder my neighbor Terri just lets hers sit there dry and rotting away!

Actually, repairing the mess after you let the thing go to pot for several years would cost one helluva lot more than keeping it up every few months. But…jeez. It still gives you a gawdawful shock, every time you have to get someone in here to work on it.

And WORK is the operative word!!!  Holeeee mackerel. First off, the guy has to know HOW to work on it…which is one helluva lot more than I’d be capable of. Then he has to bang and thrash and scour and haul and carry on and carry on to get the damn thing clean, service the filter and motor, and…on and on and freakin’ ON!

That’s in the afternoon heat. As we scribble, the back porch thermometer reads a chilly 105 degrees. No joke: normally at this time of year it would be around 110 out there. And that makes our guy’s job one of those jobs you’re glad you don’t have! 

Yea verily: my neighbor does leave hers sitting empty. 

But…but… What that does is ruin the plaster and let the equipment go to pot. So…if and when she goes to move out, to get that dead pool working will cost her not one but SEVERAL arms and legs. Really: it’s incredibly stupid to just let your pool go to pot. What a mess you’ll have to repair when you sell the house!

And I have to say: I do love the pool. I swim in there several times a week. Not every day, admittedly…but often enough and with enough enjoyment to make it worth keeping the thing up.

Man O man!  What a JOB that guy did. Nothing about Pool Dude’s work is either simple or easy. Even regularly keeping up with the day-to-day maintenance, there’s no way in Hell that I could do the work that fella did this afternoon.

Anyway, whenever the sun goes far enough over the yardarm that I can jump in the drink without giving myself a roaring case of skin cancer, I’ll take a nice swim. And that will be…rewarding, I reckon.

Around the Swamp…uhm, Park

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Hot, soggy morning. Ruby and I: just back from circumambulating the big, green park that forms the centerpiece of the ‘Hood,

Handsome young parents roll their adorable toddlers around in strollers. Other old buzzards like me dodder around behind our dogs. Athletic middle-aged types stride or jog past us. Workmen shoveling out the house vacated by the couple who lost everything when their son was arrested on some absurd charge putter around the corner house. Early commuters zip past on the mini-arterial that runs up the center of the ‘Hood. Very pretty, very classy spot.

Briefly, I considered buying that house. But…well, no.

It just requires TOO much work. That crew of workmen have been there for a couple of weeks, and it sure doesn’t look like they’re gonna be finished soon. Plus the pool was allowed to stand in the sun and dry out, ruining the plaster and probably everything that runs the thing. And the traffic on the road that runs past it is fairly fierce. Nope. don’t think so!

Plus it’s too damn public The house backs onto the park. Even with a bank of oleanders running along the back fence, it’s too easy for passers-by and burglars to see into the yard and, if they look closely, through the French doors and into the house.

I do believe the place I’m in will be a much better investment to pass along to my son — assuming I can manage to stay here until I croak over. It’s in excellent shape: decently maintained inside and out; pool running well and also well maintained; a decent distance from busy (read “noisy”) roads… No: this is the place.

This is the place I need to hand along to my son!

Hot Day in the ‘Hood

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Augh!  It’s just NOT that hot out there!  A piddling 92 degrees, at a feeble 7 percent humidity. But I stumbled in the house SOAKING wet, sweltering like I’d  come in from the 6th level of Hell.

Holy mackerel, is it sticky and hot out there!

Just returned from perambulating the neighborhood. True: I might have refrained from going out at 3:00 in the afternoon. Ohhh well: no IQ left.

Fortunately, I left the little dog home. She’d have been fried by now. Really: If you’d asked me, I’d have estimated about 95+ degrees: more like pushing 100.

Gerardo the Miraculous Yard Dude presented me with a new $20 gouge on this month’s bill…which now, as I gasp for air here in the A.C., I cannot find. Wouldn’tcha know?

Well, it’ll surface. What the Hell!

Interestingly (so I think, anyhow), the ‘Hood has maintained its quality, despite its advancing age and central urban location. My goodness. I’ve been here a good 15 years or more…and if anything, our streets and homes look BETTER than they did when I moved in.

This leaves me hope for my plan to leave the house to my honored son. I really would like him to have this pleasant, well built place…but that will be useful only if the neighborhood holds its value. Just now, it appears that’s exactly what’s happening!  In fact…if anything the place may be improving in maintenance and cosmetics.