Coffee heat rising

Hotter than the Hubs…

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Did you know you can work up a lather just by walking around a few blocks in your neighborhood?

😀

Well. Yeah: if you live in (un)lovely Arizona, you sure can!

It is HOT and WET out there! Lightly overcast: feels almost like Saudi Arabia used to feel. And that, for those who haven’t enjoyed the experience, feels a great deal like the inner circles of Hell.

That notwithstanding, today’s damp and steamy stroll was surprisingly pleasant. Passed a young couple in their front yard, showing off their new baby to friends. awwwww! 

<3  <3  <3

Our financial advisor was supposed to send over a candidate for the cleaning lady position he (unilaterally) proposes to offer. NEVVERMIND that I have a very fine cleaning lady who has worked for me over the past several  years and whom I have no intention of replacing.

Hey! I’m just the Little Woman, right? Who cares what I think?

Anyway, if she showed up while I was stumbling around the ‘Hood, I missed her. She didn’t call and she didn’t leave a note, so I’ll assume either she never surfaced or else he smartened up enough to call her off.

😀

Life. Gets sillier and sillier, doesn’t it?

Passed a new life as I was ambling about: a young couple with a brand-new baby. Too, too delightful. 

Dayum, but I love this neighborhood. And “love this neighborhood” is THE specific reason I do NOT wish to be locked up the the Beatitudes, an old-folkerie from Hell.

How the Hell do I evade that?

****

Do hafta say, though, that this IS the nicest neighborhood I’ve ever lived in. And since I’ve lived in places all over the damn planet — from here to Saudi Arabia — that is sayin’ something. And that’s why I most decidedly NOT want to be moved out of here.

For what it costs to live in a prison for old folks, I’m pretty sure I can hire someone to come here and take care of me. You can be damn sure I’m gonna try, anyhow.

Main trick will be to find someone responsible, competent, and incapable of stealing stuff.

And, as you know…that’ll be a trick! 

😀

Weather: Best Described as Awful

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Hot(!) dang, but yes indeed: it’s HOT here in the loafing room!

😀 Didja know you could work up a sweat by typing? 😀  Neither did I!!

Wunderground claims it’s only 98 degrees out there. Bullsh!t…

Hmmmmm…   Apparently it’s not that far off, though. In the shade of the back porch, my thermometer reads…ayup! Ninety-eight! Who’d’ve thunk it? Humidity: only 7 percent. Just not that hot.

So…I dunno why it feels like it’s hotter than the Hubs: indoors as well as outdoors.

Three and a half more months of sizzling weather! June, July, and August. September is hot here, too, but the nights begin to cool off along about then.

For sure: if my son weren’t here, I would be back in the Bay Area, whence my mother’s family came. Right now it’s allegedly 65º in the City. Looks like the high this week will come on Monday: 76 degrees. Ohhhkayyy…. 

Ohhh well. At least the Human and the Dawg are not up on the Rim, at our erstwhile Ranch. The place is burning down. Wickenburg, a town northwest of the Valley on the way to California, has had evacuations and SWAT teams and all sorts of drama. This is where our ranch was — well, a few miles outside of Wickenburg. I do miss the ranch, that’s for sure… But boy! Am I glad we’re not there now!

***

Starting to feel a bit better, from whatever ailed me. Must have been some kind of virus: a mild flu? WhatEVER: I’ve sure felt crummy over the past few days.

The spider bite unwound overnight, mercifully. This morning it’s pretty well gone! No pain…doesn’t even itch. That, I would call atypical…but I ain’t fightin’ it!

***

Stupid stuff going on here…stupid enough to stupefy Funny.

For reasons I can’t imagine, my financial advisor decided that he would rescue me from myself by hiring a cleaning lady and siccing her on me.

?????????

He never did seem to get the picture that I have a cleaning lady: a first-rate one. So this woman is supposed to show up here next week…and…I guess I don’t know what to do about that. If my present employee shows up when this woman is batting around, you can be sure my lady will quit on the spot.

And I don’t want to lose her. She does a first-rate job on every part of the house, and I don’t NEED another cleaning lady!!  Not at all.

I guess I should get off my duff and call off financial dude. But complicating matters, my son got into the middle of this transaction. And I’m afraid if I cancel New Cleaning Lady, that will annoy Dear Son enough to cause a conflict.

And just now…well…conflict is not what I’m up for.

Too hot for that, y’know…

 

STUNG!

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black widow spiderOne of Arizona’s fine black widow spiders caught me on the left foot yesterday. CHOMP!

Hurt?  Lemme tellya hurt!

Called St. Joe’s hospital. They said to watch and wait. If it flares up a lot, to come in to see a doctor.

Yeah. Well. Looks like I’ll be paying them a visit, soon enough.

Oddly, the neuropathy in the hands seems milder, as though it has settled down a bit.

So pretty clearly the mad tingling and hurting in the left foot and lower leg are aftermath of the spider bite.

WHEN, forgawdsake, is this stuff EVER GONNA STOP???

Passworded Out!

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Gawdlmighty, every freakin’  thing you need to do on the Internet now demands a password. And by damn, they all have to be different!

No way can I even begin to remember all these things. So they’re typed out and taped to the shell of my laptop.

Okay, okay: it’s not THAT big a deal. Just now only three sets of secret codes are taped to the computer. But it’s annoying.

Very annoying.

Speaking of annoying, we’re told some sort of social workers are supposed to show up here this morning — within an hour or so, far as I can tell.

> Who these folks are: unknown
> What agency they’re from: unknown
> Who sicced them on me: unknown.

Soon as they show up, I’ll have to demand that they show me some credentials. But…who knows whether those will be real or counterfeit?

Whether they represent some sort of threat or risk to me: also unknown. Is someone trying to stampede me into an old-folkerie? If so, who might that be and what grounds might they be advancing as an excuse to lock me up?

Anyway, I sure could do without it.

This morning’s weird antic means I can’t take poor li’l Ruby (or poor li’l me) for a walk before it gets hot outside.

Assuredly, I am NOT a happy camperette over this. I do NOT like officious types poking their noses into my business; I do NOT feel obligated to discuss my personal issues with strangers, and I highly resent having these people show up at my door to demand…what?

Made even less happy because, as you know and I know, the likelihood that these people are looking for excuses to declare me incompetent to live on my own is exceptionally high. Gets higher with every minute that my age proceeds toward 90… So somehow I’ve got to make myself look competent, competent, and ultra-competent:

  • The house must be picked up
  • The furniture must be dusted
  • The bed must be made
  • The breakfast dishes must be stashed in the washer
  • And…and…good morning, America! 

I am NOT in the mood to cope with a lot of housekeeping ditz this morning. Or any morning: that’s why I hire a cleaning lady! 

Unfortunately, she hasn’t been around for almost a week, so I’ve got to retrace her steps and tidy up everything. And I don’t wanna. All I wanna do is finish my morning coffee!

What concerns me most about this, though, is the possibility that whoever tattled on me is angling to get me committed to an old-folkerie. And that is something I regard with horror.

I most surely do NOT want to live in an institution! I hated, loathed, and despised every minute of living in our college dorms. Not because the dorm-mates weren’t nice, not because the dorms weren’t maintained well enough…not because of anything other than that I deeply, profoundly dislike communal living.

Give me a cave in the Himalayas and I’ll be fine! 😀

 

Hotter Than a Two-Dollar Cookstove…

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So in my latest post, there I am raving on about how happy I don’t have a laborer’s job, flinging myself and a pile of tools around in the ungodly heat. And…egad!  I kid you not: ANY manual-labor job that has to be done outdoors is downright suicidal on an Arizona summer day.

One of the men working across the street had left his truck’s headlights on. None of his coworkers seemed to have noticed. So I stopped to let him know…and in the process, to thank him for the ungawdly job he’s doing to keep our neighborhood functioning. He was kinda nonplussed by that…but then he seemed to get a kick out of it.

😀

It’s damn near too hot to breathe out there! How our guys manage to do physical work on days like this…well, it just mystifies me.

About all I could manage was to stumble around the block — short route — and stagger back into the house.

No: I can’t plunge into the pool. At noon on an Arizona day, that’s an invitation to skin cancer.

So here we are, loafing in the AC and scarfing cheddar on bread. Boring, but at least we’re still alive.

That’s something. I guess.

Jobs We’re Glad We Don’t Have!

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Egad!!!!!  It’s a chilly 100 degrees out there: rather cooler than it feels. As we loaf in the shade, who do we see across the road but a crew of men flinging themselves around in that unholy heat. Actually, they have a flatbed truck and a large hoist, with which they’re hauling a whole-house air-conditioning unit onto the neighbor’s roof.

And migawd, WHAT a job!

Definitely, indisputably one of those jobs you’re glad you don’t have!

LOL! Another job I’m mighty glad I don’t have is wrangled by my excellent neighbor straight across the southerly street: He drives a cab for Uber.

HOLEE mackerel! In this heat!! And in Phoenix’s unholy L.A.-style traffic!!!

It’s almost too horrible to contemplate.

Seriously: Phoenix traffic really is gawdawful. Drivers here roar around like lunatics. Add the heat and the crowded conditions, and you have a freakin’ nightmare.

So…one COULD, with some degree of logic and sanity, argue that my son did me a favor by purloining my car.

As a practical matter, I’m discovering that I don’t need to own a car(!!!): this neighborhood is swarming with Uber drivers! That’s above & beyond the guy who lives right across the street. We’re told that a half-dozen hold forth just in the few nearby square blocks.

If that’s the case, then there really is no reason to own a car!

And that is something this ole’ California driver finds just plain downright astonishing.

What DXH and I used to find truly astonishing was that in London, we truly had no call to own a car. When we got over there for the three-month period we dedicated to the research I was doing for the Robert Sidney book, we discovered that between the Underground, the city busses, and the local taxicabs, we didn’t need to rent a car at all!

That saved us a ton of money…to say nothing of vast stores of aggravation. Driving in London is almost as much fun as driving in New York City.

***

Whew!! The guys across the street got the AC unit back on the neighbor’s roof. Looks like they’re gonna have to re-lay some or all of the shingles. Doesn’t THAT sound like fun, in 110-degree heat!

LOAFING: The best of all possible occupations!