Coffee heat rising

Life in the Desert

Seven Kinds o’ Hell

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Yech!!!!!!!  It’s lightly over-cast this afternoon and a chilly 85 degrees on the back porch. Mildly humid. And that translates, in Arizona lingo, to hotter than Hell. 

Seriously: it’s a freakin’ sauna out there. Just got back from a hike to and around my favorite local stores. And when we say “hike,” we ain’t kiddin’. I’d say the total came to a good three miles. At least. Down to the ‘Hood’s south border, past the church, downward ever downward to Main Drag South. Through the shopping center parking lot, around and around and around the HUGE supermarket. Finally out the door. Northerly northerly northerly back up to our part of the ‘Hood. Through the church parking lot. Past the apartments where my mother once wanted me to rent, northerly northerly northerly…finally reaching our street. Hiking, hiking, hiking…oh my GAWD!  

Hot? Lemme tellya hot.

About to faint by the time we reach our street, hiking easterly easterly until AT LAST we reach our north-south access road. Northerly northerly northerly, past houses with beautiful young kids playing in the yards <3, past the fine young neighbors’ places, up to the WonderAccountants’ place: straight across the street from the Funny Farm.

Damn near pass out as we reach the front door. Wrestle with two deadbolts. FINALLY get into the (mercifully!!!) air-conditioned house.

Ruby is waiting. She seems OK…uhm…I think. But the Human isn’t: the Human is about to fukkin’ die of heat exhaustion.

Stagger into the kitchen. Fill up a wine glass with ice and…and…oh what the Hell! pour a slug of white wine over it. Serve up half a can of dawg food. Turn on every fan in the room and collapse in front of one of them thar fans.

Thinking how much I miss San Francisco. How much I miss my relatives’ place in Berkeley. Why, dear God, WHY do I live in this Hell?

Oh. Because my son is here!

And oh: because I can’t afford to live in Berkeley. Or Sausalito. Or Richmond. Or most certainly not San Francisco. All the places I came from. All places I imagine I belong.

My gawd, I hate Arizona. Especially at this time of (the overheated!!) year. And this time of year — April — will extend through the end of September. Six richly hate-worthy months. 

What. A. Horrible. Place.

Bing Bong!!$$!

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Yeah: come the middle of the lunch hour (you thought you were gonna be allowed to have something to eat??), BING BONG goes the doorbell.

Forgodsake. City water meter guy.

He descends on the equipment. Bop bop bang bang fix fiddle fiddle... They’re gonna bill me for his services, sez he.

Whaddaya bet that’ll be a couple hundred bucks. Or more….

No idea what he was supposedly repairing. No leak. No…nothing that I can tell is on the fritz.

Except, presumably, my bank account….

Where Are Ya Gonna Go?

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So the question of the day is…AM I gonna stay here, in my middle-upscale house in moderately affluent North Phoenix? Or am I gonna sell the house and move into some dreary old-folkerie?

Once again, this morning some sh!thead vandalized a hummingbird feeder in front.

REALLY??? You seriously have nothing to do but sneak onto a neighbor’s front porch and dork with her bird feeders?

Sheee-ut!  What IS the matter with people?

I love my home and I love my neighborhood — by and large love my neighbors, too — and I do NOT want to move into a holding pen for old folks waiting to die.

Yeah, I know: I’m an old folk myself, and yes, I’m just sittin’ here waiting to die, myself. But at least I’m doing those things on MY terms, not according to some institution’s rules.

Speaking of the’Hood, my GAWD, what a gorgeous day! And how do I not want to sit on a 5’x12′ balcony overlooking a parking lot while I sip my morning coffee? Nooooo thankee!

And ohhhh, that little dog! Sitting there with her funny corgi ears upright, soaking in the splendid morning…why would one live where one could not enjoy corgi company?

LOL! What an outrageously gorgeous day!  I should get off my duff, walk over to the Sprouts, and load up on some more edible loot.

But y’know, I’m just too plug-lazy! Seriously: right this moment I can’t work up any enthusiasm for springing to my feet and hiking over to the store. Or for calling the Uber-driving neighbor and putting him up to schlepping me over there.

No. The important order of the day is to loaf. Loafing, loafing, serious loafing!

And y’know: we now have a mechanism that makes that important chore possible. It’s called AMAZON. 😀  Truth to tell, I don’t have to trudge or to taxi to a grocery store or a drugstore. All I have to do is call up Amazon on the laptop, pick out whatever loot I desire, and have it delivered to my front door.

Amazon — seriously — has saved my tail when it comes to living in my home through my dotage. Time after time, now, they’ve sent stuff to me that I would have had to hire a cab to buy, or that I probably couldn’t have found in any store anywhere near my house, here in (un)lovely North Phoenix. Hardly a week goes by anymore that I don’t order something from Amazon.

So the question is: “Where are you gonna go”?  

And the answer is: Right here. 

I’m gonna stay right here in my shack until I keel over face-first, dead as the proverbial doornail. Until that day, if I need someone to help me day-to-day, I’ll hire someone to come in to the house.

Matter of fact, it develops that Wonder Cleaning-Lady has done that in the past. So…I may even be able to hire her! No one new to get used to…no poor soul having to figure out my eccentricities…what could be better?

Morning Gad-About

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Wow! It’s wet and hot over at the park, whence the hound and I just returned. Didn’t realize it was so hot and sticky out, or we probably wouldn’t have started out. Yea verily: once a Dawg has got you into the park, you’re not gettin’ outta there easily! 😀

But whatever the weather, it’s always fun to walk around that upscale neighborhood. One of the houses, harbinger of a long and strange history, is now vacant and under major renovation. They’ve gutted the swimming pool, and it looks like they’ve pulled out just about everything in the home’s interior.

It’s on an upscale and desirable street, but the problem is that, as a corner house, it faces on an east/west mini-main drag that connects with the larger main drag running north/south through  the ‘Hood. This makes for a ton of traffic and repeating serenades from ambulances, fire trucks, and cop cars. Handsome as the house is, it’s not one I would choose to buy. Or live in.

The previous occupants had a kid who got in trouble with the law, and that exploit bankrupted the family. They  lost their home, which has stood vacant for months. Apparently someone finally managed to glom it, and now it’s on its way to renovation and sale.

That young fella is not the first I’ve known to go to jail over a fling in bed with some chickadee. If you have a teen-aged son, teach him to use discretion about jumping into the sack with any female under the age of 21. The risk is just not worth the fun!

But…onward, onward: around the park. Many of those homes are on lots upwards of half an acre, so they’re spread-out and green and handsome and…expensive. It’s a tony part of the neighborhood, indeed.

Guess I’m glad I can’t afford to live over there, though. The park, not surprisingly, attracts any number of undesirables (great place for bums to sleep!), plus there’s always some noisy, nuisancy event going on. Not the best of all possible venues for a private home.

Go-o-o-d Morning, America!

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Just back from a mile-plus peregrination of the ‘Hood, dragged along by my furry boss. How can I count the ways I just wanna sit down and swill a cup of coffee?

Stumble over to the easy chair. Flop down in it. And…

RINGY-DINGY-DINGY!

Goddamned phone. A Goddamned phone solicitor on the other end.

I tell him where to make his next phone call and slam down the receiver.

Honest to Gawd. Phone soliciting should be illegal. Seriously: I realize it’s “freedom of speech” and all. But shouldn’t the rest of us have something like “freedom of privacy” or “freedom of peace and quiet”?

***

The neighborhood park is so lovely! I adore this area. Beautiful, quiet, upscale, affluent, right in the middle of everything

O’course it ain’t perfect. Right across the street from the park stands a house whose occupants fled after a pair of home invaders barged in, grabbed them, tied them up, threw them in the bathtub, and proceeded to loot the house.

So. If you live here…yeah: you keep your doors locked all the time. And you do NOT answer the door unless you know who’s on the other side and what they want.

But then…come ON! No place is safe. Just the other day some sh!thead barged into a madly upscale home in Fountain Hills, a mighty swell dive. And I’ll tellya: before that happened, I would have said Fountain Hills is as staid and secure as you can get, this side of Sun City.

My mother, who was scared of her own shadow, cowered in terror all the time she lived in Sun City. She dwelt behind heavily locked doors and windows. And yet…really…she was less terrorized out there than anywhere else we lived.

Something must have happened to her. If it did, she never told me. But really: you wouldn’t act like that unless you had some reason to be scared.

Me, I find the company of a dog amply reassuring. Ruby is no German shepherd (not by a long shot!). But she does alert whenever anyone comes around.

And really, that’s about all a dog can do for you. You’re the one who has to take care of yourself: get to a safe place, grab your pistol, call the cops, whatEVER.

Ruby: the four-legged burglar alarm.
😀

Jayzuz! STOP THE WORLD!!!

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Problem is, stopping the world and jumping off prob’ly won’t do me much good today….  If I touch it, it goes SPRRROOOOOINNNGGG!!!

What a mess. literally: everything I touch is what a mess. 

Well…the computer is letting me type…sorta. We’ll see if it saves to disk, and we’ll see if it lets this post go online.

How do I doubt it?
….and….
How do I doubt it?

Oh, well.  On the brighter side, my son has kindly volunteered to make a grocery-store run for me.

On the dimmer side…by myself, I couldn’t get to the store for love nor money. To say nothing of to the store and back home. This business of kiping my car puts me in one helluva bind!  Whatever I need to get done, I can’t do. Wherever I need to go, I can’t get there.

Whinge!!!

Y’know…an annoying aspect of this fiasco is that my great-aunt and her mother, my great-grandmother, lived in Berkeley for decades and never had — or needed — a car. Sooo…why do I feel I can’t survive without a vehicle?

The aunt worked in San Francisco, a top-level functionary at Crocker-Anglo National Bank. She walked a block up the hill from her home, hopped on a light-rail train, and rode into the city. Hopped off practically in front of the bank.

The great-grandmother used to walk up that hill every day or two to shop at the neighborhood grocery store and drugstore. Then she’d haul the groceries two blocks back down the hill.

They both lived well into their 90s, with no ailments that they ever complained about. Now…they were Christian Scientists and so they didn’t complain about their ailments. Prayed them away, right?  But truth to tell: they appeared to be in the pink of health right up to their end: in their 90s.

Hmmmm…. Lookee here! This is Saturn’s Day! 

Hot dayum! Somehow, despite my good son’s offer to schlep to the grocery store, I had the idea we were in a weekday!

Man! Talk about unstuck in time!

Well. This is good. It means he’ll be able to kill a couple of hours on my errands, and I won’t have to risk life & limb walking (hobbling?) to the slum grocery store to the north of us.

Heh. Actually, that store is a supermarket. And a pretty nice one. But the neighborhood surrounding it is a bit…alarming. I do NOT like to go up there on foot, and most of the time, once in a car I’ll go somewhere else.

And therein lies the difference between my aunt’s transportation challenge and mine. It was not unsafe for her to walk from her house to the train stop, nor was it unsafe for her to ride across the Bay, get off in downtown San Francisco, and walk into the bank

Lemme tellya: you could not pay me to ride a bus or that damn lightrail into downtown Phoenix. Nor would I get out and walk around down there. That is NOT what any woman in her right mind does.

Phoenix is L.A. East…and that is not sayin’ a good thing.