Coffee heat rising

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…

April 22

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Ungodly racket from the damn air base, way on the FAR side of Sun City. At least a good 29 miles away: roar roar roar roar ROAR. Don’t understand how people living out there can tolerate it, even for a few hours in the morning.

My mother used to sit on her back patio there in Sun City, serenaded by those blasting plane engines. She would simper over her morning coffee, “Ohhhhh, it’s the sound of fweedom!” 

Right, Mom, I dared not say: It’s the sound of World War III coming your way. 

Oh, well. At least we got Ruby’s doggy-walk out of the way, and before it has started to get hot out there. She’s gone off to the back bedroom, there to loaf. And…I suppose blogging is a form of loafing, too.

The (very sweet!) lady who inherited SDXB’s house by welfare-agency fiat is enjoying a fine predicament: The plumbing under the kitchen sink busted open and flooded the house!

Lordie! WHAT a mess.

So she and a daughter were trying to mop up, and trying to get the City to send a repair crew. One of those fine nightmares that none of us needs, eh?

Before SDXB came along and bought the place for a song, it was owned by some very flakey, very feckless folks who let the place go to rack and ruin. He fixed it up handsomely…and then practically gave it away as he fled our quarrel with Tony the Romanian Landlord.

Actually, he had lobbied me earlier to move out to Sun City. I’d lived there before with my parents, and wasn’t bloody well about to go back. So when things intensified here and I still refused to move out, he just sold up and headed west, leaving me behind.

Whatever excuse you need, eh?

Shortly, the Tony quarrel settled down, and now he and I are actually rather friendly — walked around the park together just the other day.

Must decide what (if anything) to do today. The dawg and I are in full-out Lazy Mode: it’s too damn hot out there to do much hiking, and without a car, I can’t even get to the grocery store without hiking through the heat.

Actually, I can: ask the guy across the street who drives an Uber. But…what? Pay someone to drive me 8 or 10 blocks? Gimme a break!

😀

There’s a corner shopping center much closer, I must admit. But the neighborhood over there is a little shadier: you’re likely to get hustled, and as a woman alone I don’t feel very safe in those conditions.

So…yeah: maybe I should have followed SDXB out to (un)lovely Sun City. But….no. Nope I truly hated living out there with my parents.

Been there.

Done That.

Ain’t doin’ it again. 

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!