Coffee heat rising

Urban life

A Minor Miracle(???)

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Wow!  This morning the spavined hip hardly hurts at all. 

Well. Yeah: it does hurt. But NOTHING like it has!

So…jeez. Maybe there’s hope. Maybe this gawdawful thing will clear up.

Soon as I finish swilling a mug full of water (too lazy to fix coffee just this minute), the plan is to take Ruby out for a Doggy-Walk. If we can make it to the park (that’ll be a miracle…), she’ll be beside herself with doggy joy. She does LOVE the feel of grass under her little feet. So adorable!

Last time or two ago that we visited the park, some sh!thead pestered the bejayzus out of me. That’s why you need a German shepherd, not a corgi.

Unfortunately, I’m no longer strong enough or patient enough to handle a GerShep, so nowadays I have to take my chances with the f**king general public over there. That day I dodged around to the front of a neighbor’s home and leaned on their doorbell. Asked them to call the cops. That shed the sh!thead, anyway.

Godlmighty, but I’m sick of living in Phoenix. Don’t know where on earth we’d go, though, if we tried to move out of here. I’m afraid these little phenomena are characteristic of the society in general: America has become the Land of the Sh!thead. About the only way you can deal with that is either never to go out without a male in tow (a male human, not a male Chihuahua), or never to go out at all.

For the luvva gawd, I’m an old, ugly woman! It’s not like I was a nubile young thing. What about an old hag attracts sh!theads?

Ohhhh well. On the positive side, it sure is nice to be able to walk up the hallway without hurting like the dickens. For a change.

April 22, Continued!

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Gerardo the Lawn Dude’s crew just shot out the front gate, headed for their next customer. Good lord! Do those guys ever WORK. 

This house’s yard isn’t even that huge — much of it is occupied by the swimming pool, and another third of it by the paved front patio. It still takes them upwards of an hour (i lose track!) to rake and blower and rake some more and shovel and haul and clean and trim and shovel & haul some more and…on and freakin’ ON! That is not a job I could do even if I were male and healthy enough for it.

Forked over a hundred bucks to them….which is more than their usual fee. But IMHO what they did today was more than their usual ungawdly slug of labor. I sure couldn’t do it. Wouldn‘t do it. They are amazing gents. 

What now, for the rest of the day?

If I had any sense, I’d walk over to the Sprouts (remember: my son having purloined my car, if I can’t get somewhere on foot then I have to hire an Uber driver).

But…well…sense is not my strong suite this morning. Nope

Don’t feel like traipsing around in the heat, and so I ain’t a-gunna. Tomorrow morning I may stroll down to the Albertson’s (same distance, but don’t have to cross 7 lanes of homicidal traffic to get in the front door) and restock the supplies.

And “in the heat” is the operative term: It’s overcast and HOT and muggy out there. Just walking across the yard works up a sweat. The Albertson’s is open at the crack of proverbial dawn, so if I start the hike as soon as the dawg is fed (that IS at the crack of proverbial dawn!), I may be able to get down there and back without an attack of heat prostration.

Hmmmmmm….  When you spend this much time loafing, a lot of weird thoughts cross your mind. One of them, just now, is the idea that not owning that car is saving me so much money that I probably could afford to hire taxicabs to take me everyplace I go and still come out ahead financially.

No kidding.

Hiring someone to drive you hither, thither, and back may not cost as much as owning a car, paying taxes, insurance, and maintenance on it, keeping it filled with gas….paying to park it…hmmm, indeed….

No kidding, indeed: I’ve just about decided not to replace that vehicle at all. Why bother if I can get everyplace I need to go behind hired drivers? Without doubt for less than I’ve been spending on the Dog Chariot!

Within easy walking distance of the Funny Farm — just a few blocks, under a forest of shade trees — is a car rental place. Get in good with those guys, and…well…seriously, there WOULD be no reason to own another car. If they know me, they get paid on time, and they figure I’ll bring their heap back to them, very probably I could snare a vehicle whenever I feel in the mood.

Now, to add to that….  I do have to say that if I were my son and I had an 80-year-old mother, I do not think I’d want her driving around.

That sounds awful, eh?  But frankly, it would worry me.

As you age, your reflexes do slow. You lapse into — let’s admit it — a kind of fuzzy stupor. And you really should not be doing something where your life and the lives of people around you depend on the speed with which you react to the craziness around you.

And on Arizona’s roads? Yes, we are talking about craziness. Drivers around here are quite mad. As in dinga-donga!

Life is dinga-donga, that much is true…but there’s a limit to how much you have to engage it…

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.

Another Day, Another…????

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GORGEOUS morning. Sky is clear, if a little fuzzy. Ever-so-slightly fuzzed-up dawn sunlight glows down into the back patio. Temperature is cool and soft…. Just wanna take the dawg and go for a walk.

Actually, what I want to do is finish this mugful of coffee and go back to bed. Preternaturally sleepy this morning…for reasons unknown. Slept well last night: no excuse for feeling like I’ve been up for the past 12 or 14 hours.

‘Tother thing I’d like to do is stroll across the street and ask our excellent new Uber driver if he’d like to Uber me to my favorite grocery store — some miles on into town. But that does seem like more trouble than it’s worth.

The theft of my car (by an honored family member…/eyeroll/ ) means I have to walk everyplace I need to go: to the grocery stores, to the veterinarian, to the Walgreen’s, to the…on and on and endlessly, painfully on.

In theory, I could walk to the nearby Albertson’s, Sprouts, or El Rancho. It’s a gorgeous morning, a perfect day for walking a couple miles.

But…I spavined a foot, and truth to tell, it hurts just to walk around the house. Sure don’t want to take a chance on getting a mile or so from home and finding, all of a sudden, that I can’t put any weight on that paw.

My son stole my bike, too: so that obviates bicycling to the store. In that department: thinking about buying another one from the second-hand store up the road, and then asking said neighbor to store it in his garage or backyard. Problem there, of course, is that any time I need to use it, I’ll have to roust him out of the house and retrieve the thing from him. If he’s not home, I ain’t goin’ anywhere.

*****

{chortle!}

JUST got sat down in the front patio and it’s

BRRRRRRRBLAAASSSTTTTBRRRRRRR!

Neighbor’s yard guy out there with his weed-whacker.

One should know better, right? What on earth would make me imagine I should be allowed to enjoy a gorgeous, cool, sunny morning? How stupid of me, eh?

So…Dog and Human are back in the house, barricaded in behind heavy steel doors, closed tight.

Y’know, this is when (& where) I need SDXB in his (former) abode a block up the street. He would keep my bike at his house, no question of it. He’d probably keep it some place where I get at it even if he weren’t at home. So at least I’d have been able to get to the grocery store this morning.

How stupid IS this stuff, anyway?

It’s looking more and more like SDXB was dead right about moving to Sun City — where the Younger Generation cannot follow you. That makes it about 110% more difficult for them to try to run your life.

Really, I do appreciate the many, many things M’Hijito does for me. But that appreciation fades at the line where I get told what to do and when to do it, told what not to do, dragged to doctors I don’t like…on and on.

Nothing that I need to do this morning is gonna get done, because while confined to the house I have no way to get those things done. Well…no practical way. Yes, I could walk a mile each way to a grocery store, there and back, dragging a roller cart to haul my purchases. But…well…not right this minute, eh?

If I hadn’t already spent several years in Sun City when my parents were out there, I’d be out there with SDXB right now. But…

My goodness, how I detested living in that place!!

The attitude might be different now that I’m an old bat, not a college kid. But even still…it would be hard to shake off those negative feelings, and even harder to force myself, like my mother, to pretend I like the roar of fighter jets blasting overhead from dawn to noon. Horrid!!!!!

It’s so much better here on the north end of North Central Avenue. Gotta find a way to stay here, have what I want, and not be pushed around….

AUGH!!!

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Comin’ right on to 7:00 p.m.  No sign of my excellent son. He’d said he would make a grocery-store run and bring a bunch of stuff by here. {chortle!} Apparently, the “run” turned into an expedition! 😀

Seriously: I do hope he’s OK. If he’s gone to the slum market to the north of the ‘Hood, that place ain’t very safe. It sure isn’t a venue one would want to visit in the dark. Or near-dark.

Well…we’ll find out, soon enough.

Hotter than the hubs out there: dusk or no dusk.Walked about six houses down the block to drop a misdelivered piece of mail into a neighbor’s mailbox. Ugh! Not only hot, but humid!

No clouds, but the air feels like a sauna.

Oh, well. The envelope (with its contents) is now in the correct mailbox. The human is back in its house. The dawg is snoozing in her favorite hideaway: under the toilet. And…I wonder where my son is! 

Gosh, I hope he’s OK. If his car is crapped out, I’ll have to hire the Uber guy across the street to schlep me over to wherever the kid is. That, as we know, is because my son has purloined my car, in the belief that his superannuated muther needs to quit driving.

Well…I’ll give him another half-hour or 45 minutes and then pester him on the phone. (Won’t he be pleased?)

What a yucky afternoon/evening!!  Hot, hot, HOT. Humid. And now dark.

Y’know…I’m coming to really dislike living in Phoenix. 

* Driving around this place is a freaking nightmare.
* Walking ain’t any better.
* Where once I rarely felt unsafe, now I get the willies every time I walk to the grocery store.
* The Albertson’s grocery store staff has conceived its own willies! They’ve decided everyone who walks in the door is a shop-lifter, an assumption that does not make for a fun shopping experience.
* The Fry’s ain’t much better…  And it’s a longer walk away, through a shadier neighborhood.

Considering the possibility of moving out to the far, far east side, where my cousin lives in an upper-middle-class tract. Problem is, it’s a LONG way from my son’s present home: damn near an hour’s drive through Phoenix’s bat-sh!t traffic. He sure ain’t gonna move out there because I do: his dad and New Wife live here in the ‘Hood.

So…I reckon as long as he’s here, I’m stuck here. Could be worse, o’course: lots worse. This is a nice neighborhood, very centrally located, with three major grocery stores in easy walking distance and a train and a raft of busses and…on and on. Dunno where I’d go that’s any better.

***

Ah hah! Got him on the phone. He was (audibly) in a restaurant, apparently with his Dad and New Wife. That’s good!  Sorry to pester him…but happy to hear he’s with loved ones and glad he’s not out there driving around the dark. 😀

Never a proverbial dull moment….

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.