Coffee heat rising

And Speakin’ of Colder Than a By-Gawd…

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😀  What an insane afternoon!

We’re back from the late-day perambulation of the park. EGAD, but it’s cold out there! Overcast, windy, and…well.. more than “crisp.” Colder than a by-gawd, as my father would have said.

Ruby has patrolled the neighborhood streets and inspected the park. Clouds have blown up during the time we wandered about: it’s dark gray out there now.

Wunderground predicts an 84% chance of rain…I’d say that’s a conservative estimate. Supposedly 52 degrees out in the backyard just now…but again: I’d say, “conservative estimate.”

We’ve managed to repair to the Funny Farm, and Ruby has taken up her position at the foot of the bed.

…. uhhh….

Well, no: She’s taken up her position at the chow bowl, having rousted the human and demanded a pile of Dawg Food.

😀

{sigh}. I hope the stuff races through her forthwith, so we can get her out into the backyard before it starts to rain. Which will happen…soon, I imagine.

Well…what if?

What if we lived in Fountain Hills, a suburban locale I covet?

It would be colder there than it is here. And no doubt windier.

What if we still lived downtown, in the antique and very classy central-city neighborhoods?

‘Twould be no warmer there than it is here, but a WHOLE lot noisier. We’re comin’ on to rush hour, so would be serenaded with traffic noise and ambulance sirens and fire-engine sirens and…gaaaaaaahhhh!

On the other hand, we’d be closer to M’hijito’s house, so it would be easier for us to pester him. 😀  😀  😀

How’s about Sun City, the garden spot where my parents took up residence for their retirement?

Well…they STILL hate “minorities” out there, even after all these years. A friend of mine — a fella of the dusky persuasion — bought a place in Sun City. He was hounded out in less than six months.

Though I myself am of the paler persuasion, you couldn’t pay me to move out there. What awful people!

So…here we are, Ruby the Corgi and I, loafing on a bed in lovely North Central Phoenix. Ruby has enchanted a number of the locals, having strolled around the park and cutied them into submission. The skies have clabbered up and turned threateningly gray. Ruby, unconcerned, snoozes. I scribble.

What can  we say? Other than arf!

Augh!!

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Dunno if this will go online or not.

Everything I just wrote has…CRASHED.

Why? I do not know.

Get it back? Not as far as I can see.

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Dayum!!!!!!!

Let’s try to get today’s half-baked effort at a post — which has kindly been disappeared — back online.

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So, this afternoon it was off to the park with Ruby the Incredible Corgi.

My goodness, that dawg does love the park. Believe it’s the grass she worships. It certainly isn’t other dogs, whom she wishes to exterminate. Probably not other humans, whom she tries to seduce by emanating cuteness. Surely not dragging her human around there, a task that has gotta be a nuisance for even the most human-suckered hounds.

Whom gnows?

Seriously: it IS very funny how she seduces humans. The poor critters think she is, bar none, the cutest most adorable sheerly loveable critter they’ve ever seen. If she knew how to persuade them to donate funds to our credit union account, by now we’d be loafing on the beach in Tahiti.

Weather: gray, depressing. But not yet raining. My guess: unlikely to rain. Not very soon, anyhow.

Politics: stupid as iusual.

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Hit “publish”

If this doesn’t work, i fukkin; GIVE UP!

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Okay, we’re on Effort #3 to go online.

Hope for the best. I guess.

Re-Battening Down the Hatches…

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{chortle!} We’re told another terrifying storm is on its way, due this evening. Yesterday’s terrifying storm has come and gone. Nary a shingle blew off the roof.

Hmmm… This is innaresting: the villains who have taken over the Republican Party want to dispense with Social Security and Medicare. You won’t mind covering your parents’ medical bills in their old age, right? 😀

What a fukkin bunch!!!

Honestly, sometimes I can NOT believe I used to be a Republican.

A Goldwater Republican.

Yes. Afraid so.

Tellya something: Barry would not put up with the BS emanating from the party these days.

Boyoboy, do I miss Barry Goldwater. Used to work for him on a volunteer basis. In those days, I was a bit young to extract money in exchange for work. But I sure as Hell wasn’t too young for political enthusiasms. 😀

 

Doggy-Walk-a-Rama

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Just shading on to 6:00 p.m. Here we are, Ruby and I, back at the house after an hour’s traipse around the park. This afternoon: a PERFECT time for that journey. Skies are working on overcast. Breeze is cool. The park is chuckablock full of young people playing and practicing sports. Too much scenic fun!!!

Ruby trots right along at this time of day. At any time of day, really. But it’s especially fun late in the afternoon, because the park is over-run with young soccer players and baseball players and football players. It’s a nice, big park, all grassy: great site for hordes of practicing young athletes.

So despite the spavined hip, I managed to get in a little exercise. Ruby has returned home looking quite pleased. Skies are filling with clouds: looks like we probably dodged the rain showers by about an hour.

Our old park, the highlight of the mid-town Encanto neighorhood, was really quite lovely, too. Graced by a golf course and a couple of spacious lakes; surrounded by one of the most upscale housing tracts in the Valley.

Our houses here are neither historic nor mansion-like. But they are handsome, well maintained, and pleasant. The neighborhood feels relatively safer than Encanto; fewer stoned transients lurking around.  Not that you don’t see the occasional bum over here…but the place isn’t overrun with them.

Just now the sky is coming on to spectacularly gray: reckon it’ll rain within the next hour or two. Hm…let us check the honored Wunderground…

hmmmm… Overcast. 74% chance of rain.

Speaking of Gnus: holeeee sh!t!

Lookit this!!

See that exploding tanker? That, right there, is the kind of ship my father sailed. He was a tanker captain and pilot.

And in the holee crap! department, we have this little astonishment. Amazing that the woman got out of there in one piece.

Man, give me 110 degrees any day, over 110 mph.

And speaking of the Gnus of the Day: The Republicans are at it again. Planning to take your Social Security away from you. Two trillion bucks? Hey…who needs it, eh?

Dayum! I cannot believe I used to be an active Republican. A Goldwater Girl, even. Never again, of that you can be sure.

She Knew

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Of course she knew.

There was no way she could have not known. Surely not by the time we came back to the States, along about 1958.

By then the fact that smoking tobacco would give you cancer had been discovered; argued back and forth; tested; proven… No. By the time we arrived in San Francisco, after ten hellish years in Saudi Arabia, everyone knew:

Smoking gives you cancer.

How hard is that to understand?

Well. Very hard, if you’re determined not to believe it.

And she was: she refused to believe it.

So she — my mother — ignored all the news reports. She ignored all the scientific studies. She ignored the statistics. She ignored her little girl coughing and gasping as the house filled with stinking carcinogens. She probably never even noticed that the house stank to high heaven.

Okay. Let’s suppose she didn’t believe it. Let’s suppose she thought those news reports and scientific studies and statistics really were shameless propaganda, the product of Goodie-Goodies and profit-drive competitors to the tobacco industry. Let’s suppose she thought the stink of tobacco smoke smelled good: a comforting aroma. The scent of home.

Override common sense with addiction and…uhm…okayyyy….maybe you couldn’t figure it out for yourself.

Y’know, folks…

If it’s illegal to sell cocaine because users can get addicted to it…
If it’s illegal to sell heroin because users can get addicted to it…
If it’s illegal to sell marijuana because the Goodie-Goodie set thinks it’s immoral…

WHY THE F*CK ISN’T IT ILLEGAL TO SELL TOBACCO?????????

Soggy Doggy Saturday

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Looks like it rained all night! But by light of day, maybe not so much. Skies are clear and blue, except for some distant clouds. Puddles of water lay all around: on the sidewalks, in the streets, in the park. Ruby, as usual, is beside herself with Dawg Joy to get out of the house and circumnavigate the park. The Human: not so much.

It’s nose-running cold out there. I’ve done something unknown to my right hip, which hurts like Hell — not  a circumstance that makes one feel thrilled about being dragged a mile and a half around the ‘Hood.

But presumably because of the rain, the place was not completely overrun by morons and their dogs.

Why ARE people sooooo idiotic about dogs? The fantasy that your dog is somehow like your kid is one of the stupidest things… Dammit, folks! Your dog is NOT you little “fur-baby”. It’s a highly evolved wolf, whose instinct is to clear the area of potential threats and nuisances to its pack.

Because this concept is beyond the locals’ comprehension, any time you take off during the Doggy Hour, you’re going to run into some idiot who bounds up to you cooing don’t worry! they just wanna plaaaayyyy.

Uh huh. If removing your dog’s head is your idea of “play,” sure: she just wants to plaaayyyyyy.

God, I’m sick of stupid.

Aggravating that mood disorder: somehow I spavined a hip. Every step hurts like Hell — and getting dragged along for every step doesn’t help.

grrrrrrrrr…. Actually, the hip phenomenon is getting better. It’s noticeably improved over yesterday. So…I figure I must have just pulled a muscle.

Meanwhile, the jet engine noise is ROOOOARRRRING away. But not, oddly, from the Sun City area in the West Valley. This morning the racket is echoing down from the north: the Moon Valley area.

That must please the locals no end.

One of my dearest friends bought a house up there. I almost followed suit. Luckily, though, because I volunteered to help her and her husband with the painting and repairs before they moved in, I got a real good look at how cheaply built those places are. Cheesiest construction you’ve ever seen. So…I stayed here, and have not regretted it.

Far as I can see, there really is no place in the Phoenix area that’s reasonably quiet. Not even the tomb-like Sun City/Youngtown, thanks to that air base.

Welp…better get up and fix some breakfast, before I faint dead away. Enough’s enough. I guess.