Coffee heat rising

Idle essays

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Here we are in Coyote Hell again. 

Actually…I get a kick out of the coyotes and do not consider their presence to be Hell-making. But ooooh my, how they terrorize the local gringos. Get on the neighborhood Facebook Page and it’s oooohhhh eeeeeek aaaaawkkkk eeeeek ohhhhhh!!@!!! Squalls of terror from all directions.

Humans sure are stupid, aren’t they? Especially the ones that live in cities…  😀 Nary a one of our FB correspondents seems to register that a coyote is more scared of you than you are of it.

Just now — the loveliest cool of the day, when Mr. Coyote is likely to be out taking the morning air, I would not leave Ruby to roam the backyard alone. She is, after all, a tempting little morsel.

But let the heat come up, and Mr. Coyote will repair to the shade of the shrubbery and the trees. And he will not bestir himself to chase after a ludicrous thing like a corgi.

Wonder-Cleaning Lady is here. She likes to have the back door open while she’s working. So Ruby is out on the patio, loafing in the shade. For the nonce, none of her wild cousins are visiting, and so I reckon she’s safe enough. Hope so, because just now I’m altogether too lazy to get up and establish myself out there.

Mmmmm…. I figure the best thing about pain is that it reminds you that you’re alive. And just now, by damn, I am SOOOO ALIVE! 

The spavined right hip joint is particularly lively… HOleee shit, does that hurt!

***

Just now, if I were a responsible human bean, I’d get off my duff and stroll over to one of the three(!!!) grocery stores within reasonable walking distance. But really, I do suspect that I’d find myself crippled by the time I got halfway to the nearest one.

{heh} Good excuse, ain’t it? 😀

I may ask WC-L to drive me over to the Sprouts or the Albertson’s.

Or maybe not.

***

What a weird thing it is, to realize that now — today, here in Two Thousand and Aught-Twenty-Six — I cannot remember off-hand what I wanted to buy at the grocer’s. Am I that superannuated, that worn-out that I can’t remember a grocery list of two or three items????  AUGH!

😀

When I first moved into the “Hood,” lo! these decades ago, I was a young pup surrounded by aging, long-time North Central Avenue residents. Now I’m the Old Bat — the historical relic — and all the neighbors look like they were born about ten days ago.

And oh! How can you not love them! Our beautiful young people: the handsome young marrieds, their adorable children…gosh, what a joy!

I wonder if the old ladies who lived here when I moved in — the dignified and historically experienced Mrs. Wilson, the lively and eccentric Fran, the great old gals on the street behind us — enjoyed us as much, when we moved in here as a wave of Yuppies.

Oh, well. I’m old now. Tomorrow they will be. So it goes.

Ear Whistle? Or Limp?

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{Chortle!} So a few days ago I held forth about gulping down ibuprofen…which I had to do to beat back the pretty startling pain in a spavined hip.

Ibuprofen, it develops, makes your ears whistle. So, as we scribble, my head is singing SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE……  

Yeah: one gets one’s choice: a giant pain in the a$$, or invisible screamers in your ears!

Argh! How could I do without this ess-aitch-ai? Let me count the ways…

Jet planes are roaring around to the north of us. “To the north” would suggest they’re not the Air Force numbers that charge back and forth over Sun City as dawn cracks — it’s to the west of us. But…why anyone would have jets blasting back and forth over a residential subdivision escapes me.

Sure could do without it, though WHAT a racket!

Meanwhile, ibuprofen or no ibuprofen — ear-whistle or no ear-whistle — the damn hip hurts like the dickens. That will obviate today’s doggy-walk.

Now we’ve got some moron out there on the street, just on the other side of my backyard wall, SHRIEKING AT HIS DOG at the top of his voice: YOW YOW YOW YOW YOW…

I holler back, without getting up from my easy chair, KNOCK IT OFF, STUPID!

😀 He must have heard me: he shut up.

God, but I’m tired of stupid. 

Seriously: it seems — all the time! — like we have Stupid to the left of us and Stupid to the right of us, Stupid to the front of us and Stupid to the back of us. WE’RE SURROUNDED BY MORONS!

Oh man! What a racket from those damn jets. And y’know: they’re a good 20 miles away!

The air is dead still — not a leaf on the trees jiggling. That must be why the uproar carries so far this morning. You rarely hear the Luke AFB racket all the way into town.

Should get up and walk Ruby around the ‘Hood.

But…kinda doubt that I can, actually. This hip hurts so much I can barely wriggle. Just walking over to the kitchen to add some hot water to a cup of tea hurts like the dickens. Probably I should just limp back to bed!

Oh well. Old Dawg-Yeller seems to have waddled on down the street. The fighter jets have gone on their way. The ears are still doing their air-raid siren thing. Nothing’s gonna get any better. And likely nothing’s gonna get any worse. Think I’ll go back to bed!

Glorioski!

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Truly: what a GLORIOUS afternoon!  

Weather:

cool but not too cool
sunny but not hot

Neighbors:

Sittin’ around their front yards with the kids out
Kids: cuter than cute, having a great time running around

Ruby the Corgi:

Snoozing in the back bathroom
NOT lost, after all!

😀  As you may have deduced: a small surge of panic. Dog disappeared. Dog declined to come to call. Human could not find Dog anywhere in the house. Human about fainted in terror.

But eventually said Dog did materialize: yea verily, from the back bathroom where she likes to loaf, and where I didn’t see her while I was banging around looking for her.

If I had a little more ambition (and if my right hip weren’t quite so spavined), Ruby and I would walk over to the park, explore a bit, and then wander home.

This is the sort of time when I most miss the ineffable SDXB. He, as you may recall, moved to staid and stodgy Sun City, where he took up with the lively and charming New Girlfriend. 😀 I’ve lived in Sun City, thank you — that was where my parents settled after my father retired, dragging me there with them.

It’s really not my style, and truth to tell I hated being stuck out there during the four years of my university sojourn. So…soon as I finished school and got a job in Phoenix, I moved into town. Never EVER to move back to Sun City.

SDXB, himself the staid and stodgy type, bought a place and decamped out there a few years ago. He tried to get me to go with him, but…been there, done that, ain’t a-doin’ it again! He loves it, though, and shortly took up with a very nice New Girlfriend…for whom, quite frankly, I wish the best.

WhatEVER. Moi, I dearly love the kids playing outside in front. Just came in from a stroll and a visit with parental set: the young people and the toddlers and the dog or two…what more could one want?

😀 Really, it is a lovely neighborhood.

Why on earth would you want to live someplace where no kids are frolicking around?????

Beerless in Gaza…

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Well, that was one of the weirder junkets I’ve made in the past few years. 😀

It went like this:

* Out the door
* Wander up Main Drag West past the Prod church
* Stroll on through the Albertson’s, planning to buy…
*…to buy?
*…to buy WHAT?
*How’s about picking up a six-pack of beer?
* Bah! Too much bother to carry home
* Exit Albertson’s, empty-handed
* Stroll around shopping center
* See exactly nothing of interest
* Walk back to Main Drag West toward the house
* Pass Prod church again
* Enjoy kids playing outside in their yards
* Hike up toward the Funny Farm
* Arrive back at the Funny Farm
* Shouldn’t I have bought a six-pack of beer?
* Bah! What on earth for? I’m gonna hike six blocks, then  turn around and hike six blocks back home, to buy…to buy…what? A bottle of beer?

I’m crazy. but I’m not THAT crazy. 😀

Seriously: It was a pleasant short hike on a beautiful afternoon, to buy…NOTHING. 

Yet there was something strangely pleasing about having gotten out of the house, strolled a half-mile down to the store, strolled another half-mile home, and spent NOTHING on anything! 

Meanwhile, there in the yards we have kids playing, grown-ups puttering, pooches frolicking, soft wind blowing…what a perfect afternoon!

This, I need to do more often!

Ruminations on Ruination

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Egad! Get up and close that damn back door…NOW!

Seriously: the Dawg and the Human just sat down to take in the morning slack — coffee mug in hand, computer atop lap — and it dawns on the Human: Do not sit there with the back door hanging open, dammit!!!  Nay verily, not even if the screen door is closed and locked.

‘Cause, as we know, any clown and his/her little brother can kick or yank that screen open.

Sounds paranoid, eh? But I do hafta say: it feels more and more unsafe to me, living here in lovely Arizona. Especially in its (un)lovely cities.

Day or two ago, a Tucson woman was murdered at her home, apparently by a nut case. So…sitting around your house or patio taking in the morning air is decidedly NOT advised. Surely not around here.

So many of our fellow citizens are off the rails here in this crazy-making 21st Century — and it’s so easy for them (and us) to stock up on firearms — that really: You’d be nuts to loaf in your family room with the back door hanging open.

I never used to feel especially unsafe in my home, certainly not in the daylight hours. But lately that has changed…and I don’t think the change is a function of age.

No. It’s a function of the steadily growing insanity and violence around us. Not that humans haven’t always been crazy…but really, it does seem a lot more pronounced than it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago.

Sometimes I think I should move out of uptown Phoenix — surely the suburbs would be safer. When I mentioned that to a cop during the great home invasion adventure, he remarked that there aren’t any places in the Phoenix metropolitan area that can be regarded as safe.

Really…when you re-read the post I put up at Funny after that little adventure, you hafta ask yourself: Why am I still living here???

What the HELL is the matter with me that I haven’t moved somewhere else? Somewhere far, far from here! Really: this house should have been on the market the next day after that episode…

But…but…WHERE would I go that’s any better?

Sun City, that fine mausoleum on the west side? 

Well, no: this kind of stuff happens out there. My mother lived in white-lipped terror all the time she and my father owned their Sun City manse. And I’m not interested in living in a ghetto for the aged and the cranky. No, thanks.

A box in the sky? One of the high-rise apartments along Central Avenue or in Scottsdale?

Well…I’ve lived in such a place. And…no thanks. Don’t wanna do that again. I’m just not in to communal living.

No communal living, eh? Well, then: how about back out to the ranch, just outside the wide spot in the road called Yarnell? Right up on the Rim…cool weather, lots of cows and sheep, plenty of room for the burglars to spread out comfortably?

Hm. Yeah, I did love the ranch. BUT: we didn’t live there 24/7. It was more of a weekend retreat for us. And y’know: I don’t think I would want to live out in the middle of nowhere 24/7. Besides, if a burglar/rapist/murderer can visit you in your city subdivision, what’s to keep him from visiting you on your remote ranch?

Basically…where there be humans, you be not safe.

Yeah: I’m afraid that’s a fact.

Or, alternatively:  I’m afraid. That’s a fact.

😀

 

 

Back Online! And Chariot-Free

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Hallelujah! Funny appears to be back online. Why, when, where? No idea. At any rate, we’ll soon see if this post goes up.

Meanwhile, our li’l world is toddling off to Hell on a handcart. (Can you toddle on a rolling thing?) Everybody that I know, just about, is sick as a dawg.

(Why are dogs thought to be sick, anyway?)

The purloined car is permanently gone. The Mayo/driver’s license issue is, I think (but am not sure) is still up in the proverbial air. I do have another doctor who says the Mayo doc is ridiculous and there’s no reason I can’t be driving…but truth to tell, I don’t feel much like barging into battle over the issue.

As more time passes, I find (more & more) that, given where I live and given the commerce all around here, I really don’t NEED a car to get by just fine. More than just fine, really.

Everything I need or crave, day-to-day, is available within easy walking distance. And for the stuff that’s not right around the corner, an Uber driver lives straight across the street!

Matter of fact, I’ve learned that at least half-a-dozen Uber drivers live right here in the ‘Hood. So as a practical matter, it really is true that you don’t need a car to live in this part of town, comfortably and conveniently.

That is a HUGE money suck that goes away forthwith! Riding on the lightrail, the busses, and the local Uber autos costs a tiny fraction of what owning a car costs. I’m now thinking I’m not going to bother to try to extract my license from those idiots at the Mayo or to retrieve my car from my son’s garage.

If he gives the car back or reimburses me for it, I’ll sell it and bank about 10 grand. That will buy a whole lotta Uber rides, eh?

Gosh. It’s almost like living in San Francisco. When my mother and I lived there, waaayyy back in the day, my father’s swell Oldsmobile remained parked in the apartment’s underground garage whenever he was off at work (he went to sea and was gone for weeks at a time). The only time my mother and I got that car out was to drive to Berkeley: there to visit the relatives. Most of the time, we rode the trains and busses. Or walked.

This, interestingly, changes the tenor of life in Phoenix.

Until recently, living here was more like living in Southern California than anything: hot, traffic-ridden, bourgeois, boring. But as commerce builds up and it becomes more feasible to get around on foot, it feels more like living in San Francisco, where you don’t bother with a car unless you have a long drive to make.

And y’know….since there’s a car rental place about three blocks from here, I may just get rid of the Dog Chariot altogether. Why own a hole in the pavement into which to pour money when someone else can own and maintain the thing, and you can rent one whenever you feel so inclined?