Coffee heat rising

House & Yard

Report from the Hubs of Hades…

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EGAD, but it’s hot outside. 

Actually, it only seems so: Wunderground tells us the current temp is a balmy 95 degrees.

Brrrr!  Break out the jacket!

Actually, 95 isn’t all that hot for Arizona. I think it’s a little sticky out there, though: but…but…no!!!!  Only 4% chance of rain; Wunderground claims we have 6% humidity.

Right, guys. R-i-i-g-h-t…

Left Ruby home while I took a short hike around the ‘Hood, not wanting to fricasee the little pooch. Being only around 6 or 8 inches tall, her furry body would be one helluva lot closer to the frying pavement than my tall, thin, and unfurry one.

Came across a neighbor beating himself to exhaustion: Here in the middle of the afternoon, the guy had DUG UP HIS LAWN to pull out part of the irrigation system, which he was trying to repair. Lordie!!!  Beat me some more!!! 

All of which goes to show that some people are even crazier than I am.

Looked around the neighborhood just south of ours, wondering….would I like to move over there?

  • The houses are bigger, fancier, nicer.
  • It’s a slightly more upscale slab of the neighborhood.
  • Closer to the park: much to Ruby’s advantage.
  • Further from the ever-threatening Sunnyslope slum…

But…but…seriously?  What AM I smoking???

  • Yep: the houses are bigger, fancier…and commensurately more expensive to air-condition.
  • The lots are irrigated, meaning someone has to be paid to come around and mow the grass every week or two. (Mine is gravel: virtually maintenance-free.)
  • Close to the park means close to the traffic, close to crowds, close to noise.
  • Further from the slums means…nothing. Two or three blocks a difference in the crime rate does not make.
  • Rich people make me kuh-RAZY. No, I do not want to move into a more affluent slab of the ‘Hood.

Ahem! Okay, so much for THAT idea. 😀

Movin’ on…

Whew! Hotter than the Hubs!

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Well…no. Maybe not. It’s probably NOT hotter than the hubs of Hades out on the lovely streets of north Phoenix. No…it’s just hot and humid. Light overcast, 93 degrees, 0% chance of rain, 14% humidity….whatEVER! It surely feels hotter than the hubs, to say nothing of sticky-damp.

Not your standard Arizona springtime afternoon, that’s for sure.

Ruby and I strolled into Upper Richistan: the tony, fancy part of the ‘Hood. Ohhh, how we miss “The Ole Guy,” as SDXB used to call him. What a nice man he was!

The Ole Guy and his wife were deep into retirement, living in a handsome upscale home. Every day when SDXB and I would pass his house during our morning stroll, he would be out in front fiddling with something: whittling a piece of wood or repairing a gadget or whatever. We would say hello — sometimes chat a bit — and consider that encounter one of the high points of our daily stroll.

He’s gone now, presumably “late” or else hauled off to an old-folkery. And much missed.

The two of them lived in the more upscale section of the ‘Hood: custom or semi-custom houses, as opposed to our tract shacks. If that house were to come on the market, I’d surely want to look at it…maybe even consider buying it. But…what the hey! I surely couldn’t afford it. So on my part, that would be nothing more than an exercise in curiosity.

Meanwhile, the corner of the ‘Hood just to the south of my neighborhood is undergoing some mad gentrification. Good grief! New roofs, new plastering, new paint jobs, on and on. Dunno why a bunch of residents decided all at once to fancify the place…but if they put any of those houses on the market, you can be sure that antic will jack up our property values (and our taxes) some more.

{chortle!} I do feel exceptionally lucky to have stumbled across this corner of North Central Phoenix, guided here by a savvy Realtor. If I can hang onto this house until I croak over, my son will inherit a very nice asset, one worth more than most houses in this part of the Valley. If my son feels like moving — and likes taking on the care of a swimming pool(!) — he’ll be able to come right on in to this place. If not, though, he can either sell it for more than enough to pay off his own mortgage, or rent it for enough to let him retire!

Either way, it’ll be a nice gift to leave to him. 

LOL! Why do people do this???

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Point in question: Why do cleaning ladies decide how your house is gonna be organized and where the things you use daily are going to be “put away”?

Does it not occur to them that you wouldn’t have left something somewhere unless you wanted it there?

😀

Wonder-Cleaning Lady is among those given to assigning places to my possessions and stashing them where — you got it! — where I can’t find them. Or where accessing them is as inconvenient as humanly possible.

Batting all over the place this morning trying to find where W-CL put the bath towels, the knife sharpener, the scissors, the calculator…what she did with the clean pillowcases, the toothpaste, and…why she left a bath towel neatly folded up on the seat of a family-room chair.

I am so, SO sick! Upshot: I just don’t have the energy or the patience to search from pillar to post for everyday gear that I’ve left out where I want it, where I can find it quickly when I need it, and yes, where it doesn’t belong. She picks up all that kind of stuff and puts it “away”: i.e., in places that I would never imagine looking for it.

Feels like it would be passing rude to tell her to just leave the goddamn stuff where I put it…because often I do carelessly leave things laying out where they don’t belong. She, being the tidy type, quite reasonably resists leaving the junk scattered around the house.

Ohhhh well. What seems “normal” for me quite naturally seems “weird” for you, and so it’s to be expected that a person whose job is to organize and to clean will decide where things to and put them there. Just wish we thought along closer lines….

Hubs of Hades Central….

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Well…no. It’s not exactly hotter than the Hubs of Hades out there this morning. More like the outer fringes of that garden spot.

Dog and Human flew around the park, shortly after dawn: best time of day to be there.

Ruby dearly loves the feel of grass under her little doggy feet. The human loves the openness of the place and the young parents rolling their beautiful little babies around in strollers. What fun!  {heh!} Especially when you don’t have to get up at dawn to feed the cute líl things!)

So that’s always a pleasant excursion.

Contractors are working like proverbial horses, rebuilding a corner house that went to wrack and ruin in the hands of the previous residents. Rebuilding the pool. Installing a block wall around the back. Endlessly wrestling around inside.

It is, without a doubt, going to be converted from a “nice” house to a “wow!” house. It has even occurred to me to covet the place…briefly.

Very briefly. When common sense creeps back in…of course I would not want to live in a house that backs onto a public park and stands on the corner of the neighborhood’s main feeder street and a busy cut-through. Darn!!

That main mini-drag pumps commercial traffic through, plus all the local residential traffic, workmen’s cars & trucks…on and on. During the rush hour, drivers in the know use it as a short-cut between two seven-lane commuter roads, dumping a ton of traffic in there and serenading the locals with noise.

So. No. Pretty as the house is and kewl as the neighborhood is: not even faintly interested in buying it.

Lately, as I may have noted here (don’t recall exactly where & ain’t lookin’ it up right this minute), I’ve contemplated following SDXB out to Sun City, a senior citizens’ ghetto on the west side of the Valley.

But no. Don’t think so.

First off, because I happen to like the sounds of kids playing and teenagers carrying on. We get plenty of those, right here in the ‘Hood.

And second off, because I do hate the roar of F16s charging in and out of Luke Air Force Base: a serenade that starts every morning at 6:00 sharp. Luke is just a few miles down the road from Sun City.

LOL! My mother used to revel in  that racket. She’d sit on her back porch as the planes thundered back and forth, swilling coffee. “It’s the sound of fweedom!” she’d coo.

How could I have inherited a 160-point IQ from a mother who had damn near zero common sense????

Anyway, where it comes to that blasting racket, here in the ‘Hood we’re pretty well out of range. That’s one of the reasons I stay here.

Whew!!!!

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BACK ONLINE!

We’re in one of those idiot moments. You know…when you can’t remember your name, to say nothing of your website’s password?  😀   Yeah: like that.

Fortunately, this isn’t my first Senior Moment. By way of heading off these events, I kept a record of the site’s password…and stored it on MY OTHER computer!  So…,mirabilis! Here we are back in Funny about Money.

How long this will last remains to be seen…

Hotter than the Hubs outside. Just came in from hiking through sweaty, nasty heat. For reasons unknown: wired to the teeth. 

Think it’s because my car has been kiped, thanks to the idiots at the Mayo Clinic.. That plus absolutely positively NOTHING that I need to get done works! 

The MayoQuacks put the eefus on my driver’s license, at my son’s behest. Note that I have not been in an accident in years — and that one wasn’t my fault. Nor have I had any tickets. Or any complaints about my driving. Or…whatnot. What I do have here is a royal screwing…the upshot of which: my son came down here, snatched my car out of the garage, and drove it off. I now have no car and no sane way to get around town.

And in a Los Angeles-style city like Phoenix, that IS a problem. Yeah: a BIG problem.

Apparently it’s a Hexed Day for everyone. 

Josie, the lovely lady who glommed SDXB’s house from the Welfare folks when he moved to Sun City, is having one of those, too.

Ohhhmigawd, Josie!  In a highlight of her day, apparently the kitchen plumbing jammed and…basically exploded, from what I can tell. Pipes leaking all over the place. Nothing working. And yeah: just TRY to get a plumber over here on short notice.

Last I saw, she’d managed to shut off the water into the house and was trying to mop up the tidal wave. What a horror show!

Yeah: every time things are bad for you, remember: they’re worse for someone else!

LOL! and MORE Skeetifying!

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No kidding! WEIRD noise emanates in through the back window. WHAT THE DICKENS!??

Roll out of the sack, stagger out to the kitchen, throw open the door, listen….

Forgawdsake!

It’s the neighbor’s rooftop wind  bonnet, whirring around and around in this evening’s rather brisk breeze. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Jeez. Ever think of lubricating the damn thing, folks? 😀

Welp. Next time I have a roof or AC workman over here, I’ll ask if they’ll let me send him up on top of their house to fix that thing.

Meanwhile, we have tonight….which promises to be a bit on the sleepless side.