Coffee heat rising

Another Rasty-Nasty Day in Lovely Uptown Phoenix

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Ugh!!! What an UGLY, icky morning!!! 

Dog and Human: just back from the dawn stroll around the ‘Hood. Make that dawn swim! Literally, it is SO WET out there that you almost feel like you’re swimming along the sidewalk. As we scribble, we’re lookin’ at FORTY-TWO PERCENT humidity!!!

Yeah: “But it’s a dry heat,” right?

Uh huh. And indeed, here at 7:20 in the morning we’re lookin’ at 92 degrees out there! Supposed to get up to 107° this afternoon, with “heavy thunderstorm.”

Ohhh well. At least we got our daily exercise walk in.

I swear ta gawd! This is what it was like on the shore of the gawdawful Persian Gulf, during the nine years my parents and I lived there. Except hot-and-soggy weather wasn’t confined to the mid-summer. It was hot and wet most of the time.

My father called the company town where we lived “Rasty Nasty.” That was his take on the compound’s Arabic name: Ras Tanura.

Horrible place.

Phoenix is only partly horrible, eh? By comparison….  At least most of the year the weather is reasonably pleasant here, or more or less tolerable.

The little dawg is plopped on the cool tile floor, panting. The human’s hair is soaked in sweat. Just now this place ain’t a helluva lot better than Rasty Nasty, that’s for sure. At least, though, soon enough the humidity will dry out and, here in late July, we’ll arrive back at the “tolerable” level. Sorta….

That was never the case in Rasty Nasty….

 

…and WHERE did my marbles go????

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If there was ever any question of whether I’m nuttier than a fruitcake, we just resolved it.

For the love of GAWD! I just stumbled in the house after walking home from the shops down on the corner of Main Drag South and Lunatic Road West. Whatever was the MATTER with me that I betook myself on a safari like that????? In the freakin’ middle of the afternoon???!?

Whatever marbles I might have awakened with this morning apparently rolled out my ears by the time I took off on that expedition. When we say “stupid,” we mean STUPID.

Hey. All I wanted to do was go into my favorite cheap liquor store and buy a bottle of more-or-less palatable cheap white wine.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

Even on a hot afternoon… Forgodsake, it’s only 105 out there just now. And for lovely uptown Arizona, that ain’t very hot.

Thought I was gunna DIE by the time I staggered in the front door!!! HOLEEE mackerel, is it hot out there!

Wunderground tells us it’s NOT that hot: only 102º….and no, for Arizona, that ain’t very hot. BUT….we’re also informed that we have 15% precipitation. And yeah…that is fairly damp for lovely uptown Phoenix.

Y’know….  If my son weren’t here, I’d be in San Francisco — where I belong — right this very minute.

And really: when my idiot parents decided to move to Sun City — dragging me into Arizona with them — I should have had enough sense to say Hell No I Won’t Go!!!!  And if I’d had that much brainpower, chances are very high that yes, I’d still be home in the Bay Area, whither my maternal relatives emanated.

But no. I didn’t have that much sense. And so now I’m paying the Stupidity Tariff. 

So…yeah. Where did my marbles go?

I dunno.

If I knew where they went, I would dig them out from under the bed…or wherever they rolled. But…they don’t seem to be there. 😮

Marbles….marbles…  Well, with them or without them: I hate Arizona!!! And if I could find a way — any way, anyhow — to get away from this place, by damn!  I surely would!

Hotter Than the Hubs…Again!

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Holeee maquerel! It’s just like freakin’ Saudi Arabia out there, on the shores of the horrible Persian Gulf! Hot, wet, gray, and SOGGY SOGGY SOGGY!

The Dawg and I just returned from our morning perambulation of the ‘Hood. Honest ta Gawd, I thought I was  gonna expire before we got back from that (not-very-lengthy) stroll! It’s hotter than Hell, wetter than an active shower stall, and…ENDLESS.

We finally stumbled back to the house. As we scribble, the dawg is trying to ingest about a gallon of water out of her bowl. I’m drenched in sweat and do not feel like getting up and throwing myself around preparatory to the arrival of a nuisance cleaning lady…oh, wait!  It says here we’re at SUNDAY! 

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! I’ve been imagining it was Monday!

Huh! Maybe I can persuade my poor son to come over to dinner. Or even take him out to a nice restaurant dinner….  He may have other ideas. But that’s OK. Can’t hurt to ask, eh?

If it’s raining, we won’t be grilling anything. Hmmmm….  What CAN we decoct? Pasta, probably: that’s always easy and usually edible.

EW! It’s supposed to reach 102 degrees today…at 45% humidity!  

Talk about feeling like Saudi Arabia. Horrible!

This is really unusual weather for Arizona, though. It’s VERY rarely this wet. What used to be routine in unlovely Saudi Arabia is essentially nonexistent here.

What a ghastly place to live that was. Can’t imagine how my poor mother survived nine unholy years in that gawdawful place. Her health wasn’t great to start with. But that my father would put her through a decade of misery like that…wow!  Was he mean, or was he just stupid?

Oh well. That was their problem. Today is my problem.

Pray, if you will, that the air-conditioning doesn’t go out today! 

😮

The Great Clothespin Caper

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Well, I finally got a box of wooden clothespins ordered up.…received, and hidden inside the garage. So that little caper is resolved.

Yeah: Believe it or not, some a$$-hole actually STOLE THE BAG OF CLOTHESPINS that hung off my clothesline. No kidding!

The clothesline resides in the shelter of the side porch, on the west side of the house. Some sh!thead workman who was at my house lifted the clothespins and made off with them the other day.

Thank the Heavens for Amazon!  Since I’m no longer allowed to drive a car, I would be out of luck, since there’s no way I could walk to a local dime store or Target to buy another batch of clothespins. Can you imagine?

This new collection will have to reside inside the garage, adding another small layer of inconvenience to the Hassle Factors that now, more and more, characterize my daily life.

But just think of that: I actually have to hide my clothespins to keep some clown from stealing them!

Y’know, it’s the kind of thing I would have expected when we lived in Saudi Arabia. There, Americans (and Europeans…and any other aliens) were regarded as depraved and godless heathens. The locals felt entitled to steal anything that wasn’t red-hot or nailed down. But here? In the land of the free, the home of the brave? Clothespins???? 

Jeez. If you’re gonna steal something, steal something that’s worth some cash.

{chortle!} Speaking inconveniences inflicted by the army of workmen: One of the turkeys, for reasons I cannot imagine, hauled my gas barbecue off its brick stand, hauled it out into the middle of the backyard and LEFT IT THERE, parked in the dirt.

Well…it’s already 6:30. Ruby and I had better get going on the morning’s dog-and-human walk. Pretty quick, we’ll have another army of nuisances at the front door…and if I don’t get a mile of walking in every day, this damned spavined hip freezes right up. Speaking of nuisances… 😮

Don’t get old, kids…whatever ya do!

Hotter than the Hubs…Again!

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It’s not really THAT hot out there on the (un)lovely back porch. But it feels hotter than the proverbial Hubs. My guess is that’s because the air is just saturated: 37% humidity. 

Could that really mean that more than a third of the air we’re breathing is …water????

Possibly. It feels like (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, where we lived on the shore of the (hot, soggy!) Persian Gulf. There, some mornings would be SO humid you’d wake up to a clear blue sky and see rain pouring down in front of your window.

Ugh!

We’re not that extreme. Yet. I hope. But it sure is nasty out there just now.

Thank gawd for central air-conditioning. Real air-conditioning, not the swamp-cooling we had out there. The machines we have here actually do dry out and cool the air before blasting it into the house.

And that makes a summer afternoon here almost tolerable. Assuming you don’t go outside…

Swampy Dampy Day

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Uch!  Just back from an attempted doggy-walk. That was a serious FAIL!!!

The air is thick with moisture….literally. Feels almost like you’re walking through Jell-O out there. No exaggeration!

The human needs to make a grocery-store run…but that ain’t gunna happen today,  not without a car. My dear son, as you recall, managed to confiscate the Dog Chariot, so I am stuck here in the ‘Hood, on foot, with no viable means of transport other than paying for a cab.

No, don’t even ask about the public (heh!) “transportation” here.

An Uber driver dwells across the street…but no, I’m not about to trot over to his house and lean on his doorbell at 7:30 in the morning.

You can arrange someone to deliver groceries. But that’s a pretty hilarious joke! Americans don’t eat decent food and they don’t cook. So when you ask some poor soul to pick up a pile of groceries on a list, you get…  Well… Something between har har and ugh! 

This leaves me with having to walk six or eight blocks (each way!) to the Albertson’s or the Sprouts or the Fry’s, or else trying to mooch a ride with a neighbor. Or paying through the schnozola to get a cabby to drive me back and forth.

At any rate, I ain’t about to walk to any of the local stores through this grim weather. So…hope for the best in the freezer! 😀