Coffee heat rising

Eine Kleine Paranoia…

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For reasons unknown, the possibility of a major earthquake in Southern California — powerful enough to affect lovely Arizona — has been lingering in my feeble little mind for the past couple of days.

No: I’m not clairvoyant. 😀  So don’t worry about any magical prediction. Some parties have been gnashing teeth about a possible major quake over here…but that is so unlikely as to be hilarious.

The thing is, though… Structures in California are built to withstand earthquakes. That’s not true in Arizona. Because o’course we don’t have earthquakes. Right?

Upshot: a quake of any noticeable magnitude would do some serious damage here.

MEANWHILE….

It’s 109 degrees in the shade(!!) of the back porch. Vast, towering white cumulus clouds are barreling down on us from the north. Dollars to donuts, it’ll rain like He!! this evening. That’ll cool things down a bit.

But until then: 109 and humid is no joke!

Hideously reminiscent of (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, where my parents dragged me to live for nine years on the shore of the Persian Gulf. You ain’t seen heat and humidity till you’ve enjoyed a summer in those parts.

At any rate, Wunderground is forecasting 100% chance of precip, with thunderstorms to rage into the night. Goody… 😮

 

Hotter & Hotter

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Another balmy day in Arizona: “only” 111 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

Got that right: a hundred and eleven in the shade. 

Ain’t goin’ out into the sunlight…wouldn’t matter, because I don’t have a portable thermometer.

Greater horrors await, though. 

Horrifically, indeed: the beloved WonderAccountants have just announced that they’re retiring! Of all the outrages!!!

This is a disaster for me, because I am innumerate. No: really and truly innumerate. It’s a kind of learning disability: haven’t ever been able to do basic  arithmetic. I understand the principles, but the process is just…blinding.

My father used to try to beat arithmetic into me, when I was a little girl. No kidding: he’d whip the bejayzuz out of me when I got things wrong…which was about every 30 seconds. This did nothing to enamor me of mathematical calculation. Today I can’t add up a column of figures without an electronic calculator

My son does understand about tax accounting, at least on a superficial level. So I may be able to foist the job on him…at the cost of a vast guilt trip on my part.

Truth to tell, though, I’m gonna have to find someone else to take on the noxious tax calculation task.

Well, the WonderAccountants have done this year’s tax job. That gives me a year to find some other victim to lure into the net. Sure not looking forward to it!!

So…mwa ha ha! I guess we could say things are heating up all the way around: on a literal level and on a metaphorical level.

“Another Beautiful Day in Arizona”

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Okay, it’s “only” 96 degrees out there, at 8 o’clock in the morning. So saith Wunderground. Whatever: it’s HOT and it’s MUGGY. Ruby and I just staggered in from an hour’s walk…one of those excursions that leaves you wondering why on earth anyone would ever choose to live in this place.

Well. No snow in the winter. I guess.

But I’ll tellya: we used to live in San Francisco. And I’ll take fog and cold air over air so soggy at 8:00 in the morning that you can barely breathe. If my son weren’t here, I’d have shot out of here the minute my father died: yea, those many years ago.

Weather like this brings to mind the Good Ole Days in Saudi Arabia. You wanna talk about chez pitz? Jeez!!!! You’d wake up in the morning to a clear blue sky and see water dripping off the eaves, like it had just rained. HIDEOUS place!

After we left that garden spot — my father sent me and my mother home after she came down with a roaring case of amoebic dysentery and damn near died from it — we landed in San Francisco, where I went to junior high school.

Would that we could have stayed there! But ohhhhh nooo… After a few years my father landed a job shipping tankers out of Southern California. So it was off to lovely /s/ Long Beach.

I had been born in Long Beach, so my mother was familiar with the place. She was never a complainer: always looked at the positive side of things. But…ugh!!! Compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, it was chez pitz with a vengeance.

Oh, well. That’s there, not here. 😀 Here, it’s hot, it’s wet, it’s bourgeois, it’s icky. If I could move outta here today, I’d be on the road right now.

But alas, that ain’t gonna happen.

My son is established here. His dad and New Wife are living happily ever after here. I’m retired and would like never to see another university campus again. And so…here is where we are. 

 

Hotter Than the Hubs!

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5:20 p.m., Tuesday, January 16
Temperature in the deepest shade of the back porch: 111°

Holeeee Maquerel! Just stumbled in the house from (stupidly!) walking around the neighborhood.

If the unholy heat weren’t bad enough, I’ve managed to inflict a whole lot of equally dangerous behavior on myself: beer after beer after beer, every goddamn day!

Yes. My swizzling habit has returned. Not — mercifully — with a vengeance…but enough that I’ve been swilling two or three alcoholic drinks a day.

Holee shee-ut!  WAKE UP, ya dumb broad!

Staggering through yesterday’s heat, one clear thought finally struck me: GOTTA GET OFF THE SAUCE! 

Once.
and.
For All.  

So here we are, stone cold sober, sitting in a living-room chair emanating gawdawful heat from this afternoon’s (very stupid!) walk through the neighborhood heat.

Yeah. Wunderground claims it’s 105 degrees out there. But the thermometer in the shade of my back porch indeed does read 111 degrees. 

Floating in from the north and the east are banks and blankets of soggy-looking clouds. Ugh!! 

Well…I’ve managed to get into the air-conditioning while clinging to life. If I survive long enough, I’ll jump into the bathtub. But later. Not now.

New cleaning-lady surfaced today. Very nice woman! Smart and interesting. She worked very hard…oh gawd! Talk about jobs you’re glad you don’t have!  At any rate, I hope she’ll be back, so I can hire her on a permanent basis.

If not…these woods are full of cleaning ladies: in less than two weeks, I’ll have someone permanent in here.

Meanwhile, though, the WonderAccountants have taken it into their heads to retire. 

Gawd help us!!!!

So now I’ve got to find a new accountant/bookkeeper. That’ll be a challenge.

One to take on tomorrow. Not now!

Hotter Than the Hubs!

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No: I kid you not: it really IS hotter than the Hubs of Hades out there on the front sidewalk. Hotter than that on the asphalt pavement.

Fortunately, we still have enough of our marbles to stay off the ashphalt! 😀

Just back from circumnavigating the neighborhood. Spavined a tendon in an ankle a couple days ago. It’s getting better…and  now  needs to be exercised gently with some regular walking.

So…out the door, with our kewl Walking Stick in hand.

Excellent! No strain, no pain on the sore paw. Well…except for the extravagant heat. Wunderground claims it’s 108 out there just now…but waddaya bet Wunderground’s thermometers are not sitting on an asphalt road?

Thinking, contemplating to pass the hiking time…. Would I, Could I like to be back in San Francisco?

Well, yeah. Actually, I’d like to be in Berkeley, where my late relatives used to live. Pretty little suburb. Nifty gourmet grocery store up at the top of the hill, next to the tunnel where the light rail came in from the East Bay. Miss it.

Miss it a lot. But…

* Realistically, I couldn’t afford to live in the Bay Area.
* Realistically, my son is here and I ain’t movin’ away from him.
* Realistically, I couldn’t afford California income taxes.
* Realistically, I couldn’t afford the nice warm clothes one needs when living there.

So…get used to HOT! 😀

O’course, I’m already used to hot, having grown up in lovely Saudi Arabia, and having been planted in Arizona at the age of 17.

So: kwitcher bellyachin’ lady. You ain’t movin’ anywhere!

😀

GLUBBY Glubby Day

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Good Gawd!  High noon on a mid-June day, and…it’s 110 in the shade of the back porch! Today’s high was predicted to be a mere 108 degrees, with 38% chance of rain.

UNbelievable.

The dawg and I shot out of the house at dawn. It was already too late to be walking around out there. But tonight the temp is supposed to drop to a chilly 87 degrees.

Brrr! Better get out the jacket! 

Seriously: the only way Ruby can get her daily walk, in this kinda weather, is to take her out at sunrise, before the concrete and asphalt can heat up. Wait too long, and her little feet will be scorched.

This is the time of year when, really, I do wish I lived somewhere else. And…really…if my son weren’t here, I most surely would live somewhere else. Far, far from here!

Where would I go?

Well…the San Francisco Bay Area is whence my mother’s better side of the family emanated. Most of those folks are long gone…but the City is still there.

Given all the money in the world, I’d rent a flat in the Marina. Beautiful spot!

Given half the money in the world, I’d buy or rent a house in Berkeley: aging but handsome and urbane.

But of course, I do not have all the money in the world, or even half of it. Here in Arizona, a pauper like me (heh!) could afford to wriggle into any of several fairly pleasant venues.

One is a suburb of Scottsdale called Fountain Hills. It’s pretty expensive: upper-middle-class, close to the Mayo Clinic, near a slew of suburban amenities. Nice homes, though often cheaply built. Right now, the median listing price is just $799,000.

Yep. Must hurry right out and buy one!

Moving on… Another famously tony area is called North Central Phoenix. That’s where the Funny Farm resides: on the fringe of that district.

Here’s a one-bedroom, one-bath palace in North Central: a mere $94,500. What a bargain! An actual house, though, rather than a dinky condo? Get ready to pony up $745,000.

Every time I peruse the local real estate ads, I get more horrified.

Well, if by some miracle I can hang onto the Funny Farm until I die, M’hijito will inherit a valuable chunk of dirt. Zillow thinks my house is worth $584,000. Not much, by comparison of other Los-Angelized real estate in these parts.

But…he has expressed a desire to move to his dad’s home town in Colorado: a little burg called Grand Junction. Prices there are MUCH lower. For a fraction of what he can get for my house, he can buy a palace there.

Small town living is not to my taste, personally. But…he hasn’t spent his childhood in such a place, and so maybe as a grown man he might find it pleasant enough. Highly desirable, even.