August in (un)Lovely Arizona

Seven a.m. sharp. Just back from a mile-long walk through the ‘Hood and Upper Richistan with Ruby the Corgi. Weather is HIDEOUS. Hot, cloudless, but dripping wet.

This did mean, mercifully, fewer nitwits trotting around behind their “fur-babies,” which meant less pestering, fewer evasion maneuvers, and faster progress. Usually our route is littered with numbskulls who want your dog to socialize with their dog, which they confuse with their kid.

So this morning hardly anyone was out, thank the soggy heavens. I reckon that’s because a) relatively few people are in town — August is escape month around here — and b) those who are in town aren’t given to braving 112-degree weather when it’s so wet the water rolls off your face and down your back the minute you step out the front door.

No sign of Pool Dude having been here.  That suggests one of two things:

a) He’s having car trouble; or
b) He’s wrestling with some unholy problem in someone else’s pool.

Either way: Lucky Him, eh?

No sign, either, of the much-vaunted monsoon rains. Those summer storms, which blow up from the Sea of Cortes in August when it gets hot and muggy here, treat us to spectacular lightning shows and — more to the point — drop the temp a good 20 degrees in the course of an hour or two. This makes the late afternoons and evenings tolerable and keeps the inside of your house in the air-conditionable range.

As it is in this morning’s state of meteorological affairs: nope! It is HOTTER THAN THE HUBS in the house. Ruby and I have moved into the middle bedroom, located right underneath the air conditioner. This status means that the freshly cooled air said machine emits goes directly into that room. It’s the only room in the house that’s reasonably comfortable all day and into the night.

Unfortunately, though, when Big Corporate Brother took television away from us (no, I am not paying for hour on hour of schlock shot through with advertising), I converted that room from the TV Room into a bedroom. But, alas, didn’t have enough sense to buy a full- or queen-sized bed. A twin bed is not great for an adult American, and it’s really too narrow for a human and a dog.

And nice try, but have you ever attempted to say “no” to a corgi?

Noooo way in Hell is that hound gonna be kept off the bed.

***

Jeeeminee! Lookit this: SIX CARS pile up on the unlovely I-17 freeway, the route that loops around the city and then heads for Flagstaff. The 17 to Thunderbird and then westerly, westerly, ever-westerly to the campus was the route I used to take when I worked at ASU West.

Or it was for awhile, anyway. After a bit, the endlessly repeated dramas persuaded me to take the surface streets, all the way.

Oddly, driving up there on the surface roads doesn’t take much longer…probably because they aren’t that heavily trafficked and because the stretch on the freeway is only about half the distance to the campus — or less, maybe.

***

8:30 a.m. Still no Pool Dude. He’s normally here and long gone by this hour.

{sigh}  This development now means one of (at least) seven things. Take your pick:

• He’s caught the epizootic and is sick in bed. Or worse: in some hospital ward…
• His truck broke down and he’s wrestling with trying to get it started.
• He got in an accident while driving to a job and is now screwed, screwed, ge-screwed.
• He had some major problem with a pool at a client’s house where he goes before he comes here.
• He’s PO’ed at me because I had Swimming Pool Service & Repair address a problem that looked to me like it was More Major than he was equipped to address.
• He’s decided to quit the pool maintenance bidness and is leaving it to his (former) customers to figure that out.
• My phones aren’t working, and when (if) he tried to call me, he couldn’t get through.

None of these is a good sign.

He also may, of course, have keeled over from a heat stroke. How outdoor workers manage to survive laboring in an Arizona summer remains a mystery. Gerardo’s guys were over here the other day, tooling around the yard as though this unholy heat were a balmy spring day. They just amaze me.

Today is supposed to be relatively cool, saith the Wunderground folks. It’s only supposed to reach 110. But…by Thursday: 114. Saturday and Sunday: 116. And then chilling back down to 114 next Monday.

Just hope to Gawd the air-conditioner holds. It’s an aging unit now — I had it installed shortly after I moved in here, which was more than the day before yesterday… Soon, that thing is gonna give up the ghost and have to be replaced. And the harder it has to work, the sooner it’s gonna crap out.

****

Okay, call WonderAccountant: is Our Beloved Luz, the Cleaning Lady from Heaven, due today?

Nope. Not till next week.

uh-HUH. Well, on one level, that’s a relief: I am fully not in the mood for the Cleaning Lady Jamboree.

On another: uhmmmm…. I don’t see a record in the checkbook that I paid her last week. Holeee Sh!t…did I fail to pay her? {moan}  Yet another confusion to try to figure out.

While WA and I are on the phone, BING-BONG!!!

Front door. Some turkey is out there going door-to-door. I chase him off. He gets nasty. Take a flyer, chucklehead!

****

Heh heh heh…How d’you like this as a sign for the front gate?

NO SOLICITING, PLEASE!

We are not interested in anything you are selling.

We are not interested in your political campaign.

We have already signed your petition,

or, if not, have already decided not to sign it.

DO NOT PESTER BY JANGLING THE DOORBELL, PLEASE.

The answer is and always will be

NO!

Seriously….like Life doesn’t have enough hassles without some goofball showing up at your door trying to pitch some product, some political hustle, some petition for something you don’t care about?

Welp…still no sign of Pool Dude. That makes him about three or four hours late, since he usually surfaces around 7 or 8 a.m. It’s hotter than the Hubs out there, so I think the path of least resistance will be to wait until this evening before hooking up the hose vac. Then schlep the leaves and gunk off the bottom.

That could be contraindicated by the time of year: in mid-summer, we often get dust storms late in the afternoon, which is what dumped the present mound of trash in there.

Welp…it’s after noon. I’d better get off my duff and fix a decent meal, since the sky is clabbering up and that means there’s a good shot the weather will be antithetical to grilling the swell slab of mahi I’ve got sitting in the freezer. And so…awayyyy…

Stay cool!