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Excellent Day from Hell!

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Hell is right…It is hotter than the hubs of Hades out there. And, to gild that fricaséed lily: overcast and humid. Ugh!

Just back from a (hot! wet!) stroll to the corner grocery store. One of the Unexpected Consequences of M’hijito’s scheme to make me crazy by stealing my car is the astonishing discovery that, by dayum, I don’t need that damn car. 

And worse yet: I don’t want it. 

No kidding. I’ve totally lost my desire to drive a car down to the corner Albertson’s or up to the big ole’ El Rancho a few blocks’ stroll to the north.

{chortle!}

Seriously, if I’d gotten off my duff this morning — when I should have! — the grocery-store stroll would have been a pleasure and a joy. I do love our neighborhood, and I get the biggest kick out of the passers-by and the passers-through. If you’re gonna live in Phoenix, this is the place to be!

Seriously: if you were stuck in this burg, where else could you live this pleasantly and this conveniently?

hmmmm

Well, OK:  I’d say the Encanto District.

DXH and I lived there a good 15 years or so. And I will say, I did love it. “Quiet and safe place to live”? So one of the city’s websites has it…  Well, one could dispute that. If one loves the melody of fire engine and ambulance sirens, 24/7, well then…yeah. oh so quiet. Uh huh! 

If one lives with a German shepherd who chases a midnight intruder out the back door (poor guy!),, then…sure. oh so safe.

You couldn’t pay me to go back there. But then, no one is paying me here to live on the southern edge of Phoenix’s (un)lovely Sunnyslope district. And I feel neither more nor less safe than we felt in Encanto.

“Safe” is not a term that applies to a big city. 😀

***

Anyhoo, truth to tell, the proximity of several upscale fancy-dan grocery stores and two top-level hospitals and a veterinarian beyond belief and…on and on and on…makes this neighborhood a highly desirable hideaway.

One of these days, I hope to be able to leave this house to M’Hijito. At that time, he’ll have to decide whether he likes these environs or not. But y’know…enough folks out there will think they do like these environs that he’ll be able to sell this place for a chunk of cash that will fill his pockets.

If he chooses not to do so, he’ll have an exceptionally pleasant little house surrounded by exceptionally pleasant neighbors in the middle of a lovely middle-class commercial district.

And that, my friends. will be enough to please my ghost. 

😉

BING BONG!

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Amazon Dude! He/She/It just left a bag of fine, overpriced dry dog food on the doorstep.

M’Hijito was supposed to take me to the local supermarket to pick up…the same. I’d forgotten I’d ordered the stuff online.

He hasn’t shown up yet. So….that gives me a paroxysm of Motherly Worry, but on the other hand, it relieves me of one last hassle of the day.

M’Hijito works out of his house, mostly online and on the phone for his vast employer. This keeps him ludicrously busy (as in it would drive me crazy!). So I expect he’s rassling with his bosses’ clients just now. WhatEVER: this delivery means I don’t have to traipse to the hated grocery store. Ruby has her food and my feet are comfortably ensconced on the hassock.

😀

I think what I’ll do, by way of strategy, if we find he’s not able to come over and schlep me to the store for the other stuff, is just put that chore off until morning. They open at 6:00 a.m., which provides a good shot at walking over there before it gets too hot. Got about a dozen items to buy…

But, this new roller-cart I bought is just the business! The thing makes it possible to grab a week’s worth shopping items and ROLL THEM HOME. Free of hassle. Free of the damn car. Free of everything except the occasional nuisance sh!thead.

Think I’ll wait, though, until tomorrow, partly to dodge the day’s-end heat and partly to dodge the legions of sh!t-heads. If I get to the store as dawn cracks, I should be able to get home before the panhandlers hit the streets.

Jeez. What a place we live in!

 

Jayzuz! STOP THE WORLD!!!

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Problem is, stopping the world and jumping off prob’ly won’t do me much good today….  If I touch it, it goes SPRRROOOOOINNNGGG!!!

What a mess. literally: everything I touch is what a mess. 

Well…the computer is letting me type…sorta. We’ll see if it saves to disk, and we’ll see if it lets this post go online.

How do I doubt it?
….and….
How do I doubt it?

Oh, well.  On the brighter side, my son has kindly volunteered to make a grocery-store run for me.

On the dimmer side…by myself, I couldn’t get to the store for love nor money. To say nothing of to the store and back home. This business of kiping my car puts me in one helluva bind!  Whatever I need to get done, I can’t do. Wherever I need to go, I can’t get there.

Whinge!!!

Y’know…an annoying aspect of this fiasco is that my great-aunt and her mother, my great-grandmother, lived in Berkeley for decades and never had — or needed — a car. Sooo…why do I feel I can’t survive without a vehicle?

The aunt worked in San Francisco, a top-level functionary at Crocker-Anglo National Bank. She walked a block up the hill from her home, hopped on a light-rail train, and rode into the city. Hopped off practically in front of the bank.

The great-grandmother used to walk up that hill every day or two to shop at the neighborhood grocery store and drugstore. Then she’d haul the groceries two blocks back down the hill.

They both lived well into their 90s, with no ailments that they ever complained about. Now…they were Christian Scientists and so they didn’t complain about their ailments. Prayed them away, right?  But truth to tell: they appeared to be in the pink of health right up to their end: in their 90s.

Hmmmm…. Lookee here! This is Saturn’s Day! 

Hot dayum! Somehow, despite my good son’s offer to schlep to the grocery store, I had the idea we were in a weekday!

Man! Talk about unstuck in time!

Well. This is good. It means he’ll be able to kill a couple of hours on my errands, and I won’t have to risk life & limb walking (hobbling?) to the slum grocery store to the north of us.

Heh. Actually, that store is a supermarket. And a pretty nice one. But the neighborhood surrounding it is a bit…alarming. I do NOT like to go up there on foot, and most of the time, once in a car I’ll go somewhere else.

And therein lies the difference between my aunt’s transportation challenge and mine. It was not unsafe for her to walk from her house to the train stop, nor was it unsafe for her to ride across the Bay, get off in downtown San Francisco, and walk into the bank

Lemme tellya: you could not pay me to ride a bus or that damn lightrail into downtown Phoenix. Nor would I get out and walk around down there. That is NOT what any woman in her right mind does.

Phoenix is L.A. East…and that is not sayin’ a good thing.

Hotter Than the Hubs…Again…

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Don’t even wanna KNOW what the temp is out there! Let’s see what we can find out from Wunderground, thereby stoking our neurosis without having to get up and walk onto the back porch to look at the thermometer…

Ah! A chilly 106 degrees in the shade…at 4:54 p.m.

Balmy, eh?

Stupidly, I walked down to the Albertson’s shopping center a couple hours ago. Extraordinarily bad idea! Just about fricaseed by the time I stumbled back in the house.

And…and…WHY is it so freakin’ hot in here, two hours later?

Because the AC is off. Or something….it’s set to some brain-banging STUPID temperature.

Just discovered that fiasco! Turned the unit back on (WHO the hell turned it off, and why?????). Set it for 77.

The motor just started to run. Temp inside the house is in the 80s just now–far as I can tell. May be higher. So it’ll take a couple hours to cool back down into a bearable temperature.

Well, it’s only a bit after 5:00 p.m. at the moment. So by bed-time, maybe the house will be sleep-able….

My hair is soaking wet. And since I haven’t been in the pool, that ain’t a good sign.

What the HECK happened here? This is not a cleaning-lady day. Far as I can recall, no workmen have been in the house. And you may be sure I wouldn’t have turned the AC off.  Soooo….how did the thermostat get set at a Hades-like temp?????

Jeez. I wonder if someone could have come in the house and, in a moment of funny-ha-ha humor, messed with the thermostat? But…who?  Cleaning lady?  WHY? She’s no vicious nut case, and so wouldn’t have done a thing like that. Plumber? Don’t think he has a key.

Is it possible to dork with the thermostat from outside the house? If you get on the roof with the unit, for example?

Oh well. The thing is blasting cool air into the room just now. Soon it will be blasting a vast power bill into the house….

 

Old Age Creepin’ Up…

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LOL!  I swear-ta-gawd, the whole “old age” cliché gets closer and closer to reality the more years you spend on this earth.

Just up the road from the Funny Farm — really, within walking distance on a temperate day — stands an aging shopping mall called Metrocenter.

It used to be a hangout for young folks, back in the day when I was a young pup. Several huge department stores, yes; but also a passel of cute little shops and fast-food eateries and ice cream shops and…on and on. As the morning sun glows here in the Funny Farm’s front patio, I was just thinking I’d like to run over there this afternoon and grab some ice cream. Maybe do some shopping in the fancy little shops or the big, gorgeous department stores.  But…

Uhm…

Noooo…wake up, dearie! Metrocenter is no more. They’re tearing it down and turning the site into a fancy residential project, complete with its own shopping center. Looks like it’s probably going to be private, or pretty close to it.

That’s too bad. It was a fun place to hang out. Makes one feel bad, because you realize you’re the one who is no more! 

Hotter than the Hubs

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Ruby and I must have gotten a later start on the morning’s neighborhood stroll than I thought, at the time we set out. Lordie, it’s AFTER 10:00 A.M. Not good, on a “spring” (hah!) morning in lovely uptown Phoenix.

Holeee doggerel, is it hot out there. 

Y’know what job I’d most NOT like to have, here in lovely uptown Phoenix? ANY job that requires you to work outside!

This morning we passed a crew of guys who were gutting out and renovating the Alleged Molester’s house. This, actually, is a handsome middle-class home backing right onto the park. It was occupied by a family whose son dated some girl who was a few days under the age of consent. Hopped into the sack with her…and they were hard at it when her mother came home and caught them in the act.

The mother called the cops, and the young fella was arrested for statutory rape. He went to prison. His parents lost their shirts. They ended up abandoning the house, which turned into a wreck and has been standing decrepit on that corner for upwards of a year.

Well, someone has gotten ahold of it, apparently, and they’re shoveling it out and renovating it. You don’t even wanna know what that project must cost. The pool was drained and allowed to stand dry for well upwards of a year, so it’s ruined: basically ha$ to be rebuilt. The roof has been redone. Workers inside the house seem to be pulling out and replacing almost everything.

If they put it on the market, it’ll be interesting to see how much they try to get for it.

Two lots to the east, another house is being gutted out and renovated. Another huge project: who can even imagine the cost?

Well, if and when the speculators put those houses on the market, we shall see what they do for the price of real estate here in the ‘Hood. The other properties on that street are pretty upscale, so I imagine we’ll see the whole area go through the financial roof.