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How is it possible to HURT this much????

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December 26: Oh. My. GAWD! The Pain!!!!

What the heck did I do to myself???????

NO idea. All I know is my left hip hurts so much I can barely walk. And that is NOT an exaggeration!

Launching into the afternoon in a state of High Boredom, I took it into my pea-brained li’l head to walk about 16 blocks easterly, through a side-strip of Upper Richistan, to explore an upscale North Central block of fancy-Dan patio homes. This is a development I’ve long admired. And recently, I’ve taken to thinking I might sell the Funny Farm and buy one of those places.

Thereby freeing me from yard work, pool cleaning, and general hassle. Right?

The place is roughly of this ilk, though not at all the same. It’s in the same neighborhood, though. And “only” 400 grand…

So there I am, going oooohhh ahhh, I could live in THIS place, “when..OWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!”

The right hip goes out.

It goes out…and it STAYS out.

Hurt?   Lemme tellya HURT. 

What I did to set it off, I have noooo idea. But there I was: a good 16 blocks from home. In spectacular agony!

Limped and trudged and trudged and limped and finally after around 40 minutes of struggle, managed to make it back to the house. My GAWD does that hip hurt!!!!!  

And totally out of the blue. What on earth did I do to myself???

So here we are: the dawg and the human, perched on the bed. The human: hips and lower back wrapped in a heating pad, set to “high.”

MIGAWD! I don’t know when I’ve ever had anything HURT so much. And why? how? I have no clue!

*****

Didn’t get much of a chance to look at the real estate over there. And unless this injury (whatever it is) miraculously heals up overnight, I won’t get any such chance. If it’s not better tomorrow, I’ll have to put my poor son up to driving me to the ER. That, or hire a cab.

dayUM, but I’m sick & tired of doctoring. Pray (please!!!) that this hitch-in-the-giddyup goes away by tomorrow morning! 

Batteries Battened Down…

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Chortle!  Have you noticed that smoke alarm batteries invariably pick the middle of the night to run out of juice?

How do the things know?  😀

So…it was climb up on a ladder and unhook the living-room alarm from its seat on the ceiling. Disconnect the juice from the beeper.

HUH…that’s the last battery on the ceiling, by dayum! Guess I’ve been…uhm…remiss (not to say plug-lazy) about getting someone over here to fix the gadgets.

After the holidays are over, I’ll have to call a Happy Handyman to come over and replace all half-dozen of them. And…after this, not be so darned lazy about the things.

Why do gadgets of this sort invariably pick THE most inconvenient  moment to go on the fritz?

Ever notice that?

How DO they know?

Hiking Dogtilda…

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So along about noon or so, I imagine I’d heard nary a word from the Kid, so I assume he doesn’t give a da*n what my Christmas is like.

Grump, say I and grumble! Send him a crabby-ole-lady message and take off into the ‘Hood with the pooch. and…

And…yeah….

The Dawg and I return and take up our chore of loafing loafing after enjoying a very nice, very peaceful, and surprisingly long dog-and-human walk.

GORGEOUS weather!!!!  What a spectacular, clear, cool urban day.

Amazingly quiet out there.  A bit strange, that…but nice. Peaceful.

And what do we hear from our Honored Son?

“We did get together yesterday, Christmas Eve.

“I picked you up in the afternoon and brought you to my house. We had dinner there, and I took you home afterward. I’m attaching a photo from the evening to help anchor it.

“Today I already have plans and am spending the day with my father.”

AUUUGH! Can you BELIEVE that?????  My marbles haven’t fallen out my ears. They’ve melted into a plastic puddle inside my brain!

Presumably melting a fair amount of the brain itself, in the process!

This stuff is, to understate extravagantly, DAMNED SCARY!

Decided to forego visiting the proposed purchase of the Rich Person’s Shack over on toney Central Avenue. WHY, after all, would the Dawg and I want to own another house in what is essentially the same neighborhood, to the tune of a couple hundred thou’ more than we can get for the Funny Farm?

Truth to tell, the F.F. is actually a better house than that fancy shack. Plus… We know all the neighbors here. It’s close to not one, not two, but three major grocery stores. And just now we have an Uber driver residing right across the street, 😀

To move would be madness! 😀  Totally….

***

Back to the immediate moment of hysteria…HOLEEE maquerel!

What I’d better do — I think — by way of maintaining some grip on whatever marbles remain (if any do….) is to create a file in which I write down everything, no matter how consequential or inconsequential, that goes on during course of a day.

So…hmmm…how would this work?…

Possibly a spreadsheet would be easiest to format. So…

Date / time/ event/ people

How’s that? Enter the date and the time. Then list whatever it was that I or we did, and list the names of the folks who were involved. So we’d get something like this:

12/24  /  4:00 – 7:00 p.m.  / Dinner at IDH house. / Ian, Georgia, Jane, & Pete.

This blurb would go in a spreadsheet, so it would be easy to grasp at a glance.

Wacky…but it would have the advantage of heading off TOTAL forgetfulness. At least I could tell at a glance that I actually had visited with M’hijito. And if he had guests: who they were.

Wow.

Dunno about you, but I think this is damn near the scariest thing I’ve EVER experienced…

Merry Xmas!!

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Waiting to hear from M’hijito to see if he’s coming over for dinner, or if the’s been hijacked by his dad. 😀

One way or the ‘tother will be fine. We have some nice steaks defrosting. If he doesn’t want to surface here, he can come over on the weekend to tear into them.

Meanwhile, Ruby and I loaf. If it turns out the Kid is not coming over here this Christmas Day, that’s fine. The Dawg and the Human now have plenty of fine food, plus a gorgeous afternoon in which to circumnavigate the neighborhood.

And it is a spectacular day for a long, lazy walk through the ‘Hood.

The more I see of days like this, the more I wonder what nutty worm got into my head as I was looking (almost seriously!) at shacks in surrounding neighborhoods.  And the more I think…uhhh…NO, thankee! 

Seriously: I have no desire to move out of the Funny Farm. This is a handsome, solidly built block house, with classy tile floors and nice paint jobs and tony windows and up-to-date appliances… WHY on earth would I want to move someplace else?

Truth to tell, with a firmer grip on my marbles just now, I most certainly do not. 

None of the places we saw over the past few days are any better than this one, and the neighborhoods have drawbacks (like noise and access to strangers and rackety main drags) that this one does not. So…I reckon Ruby and I will be hanging out here for the next several whiles.

A serious advantage to the Funny Farm that these other places lack is that with its outrageous four bedrooms, the FF has plenty of room to accommodate a babysitter for the elderly.

Yes: if I need someone to come in and be here to oversee me 24 hours a day, I can offer the person her own bedroom and bathroom. All hers. No sharing. No nuisance. This should (I hope) put off the dread day when I will need to be consigned to an old-folkerie: with any luck, by some weeks… with more luck, by several months. Or maybe even years: who knows?

No sign of my son or word from him this Christmas Day. Presumably he’s at his dad’s.

Would’ve been nice to know if he’s planning on dinner here. However, we’re amply supplied: a gorgous T-bone big enough to feed Napoleon’s troops, which we can toss on the grill when he gets here. If he chooses not to be here… 😀 …Then we have enough steak to feed the FatLady a good three or four dinners.

So the Big Question just  now is… Are Ruby and I going for a walk this afternoon — sans kid? Or are we gonna loaf around and see if he shows up?

Well, he has a key, so if and when he gets here, he can let himself in. And if he doesn’t get here? Ruby and I can throw ourselves on the chow!

LOL!  See why I just luuuuv Christmas so damn much?
😮 

Our Garden Spot…

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Cop Copter overhead to the north, circling angrily…

BANG! BANGBANG!

Some a$$hole shooting at him, 

Herd the dog inside, follow her in. Shut off the exterior house lights.

Bathe as fast as I can scrub my li’l self. Dry off. Dart into the bed.

Cop is still circling to the northwest, though a further distance away.

And…his copter motor racket fades…he’s sailing off. Thank gawd!

One more gunshot. And now: silence.

 WHAT….

                A…..

                    PLACE…..

And NO, Sun City isn’t one whit better than lovely uptown Phoenix.

Our problem, I fear, is NOT that we’re in the slums of west Phoenix…NOT that we’re dodging bullets in south Phoenix, NOT that we’re trying to look inconspicuous north of the canal, but… Yeah: that we reside in the city of Phoenix. 

Horrible.

Went back and looked at those houses over by the canal, on the east side of ritzy Central Avenue.

Uhh….  huh uh! A dirt path runs behind that little tract of houses, right between their back wall and the canal bank. A perfect trail for every burglar, rapist, and lunatic in North Phoenix.

So…heh…we won’t be looking at that real estate.

Seriously: if Sun City weren’t an hour’s drive away from M’hijito’s house — if it weren’t bathed in the atmosphere of the mausoleum — I would have followed SDXB out there the minute he sold his house and moved westerly, ever westerly.

But I just can’t stand the place. Hated living there when I was stuck out there with my parents. And I sure don’t want to repeat that act. Ugh!

If you wanna live in peace and quiet, d-o-o-n’t retire to Phoenix!!!

Unmerry Christmas

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It’s noon on Christmas day and NOT ONE PERSON has bothered to so much as call on the phone and wish me a Merry Xmas. 

Gosh.

I knew I was repellant, but I had no idea I was that bad. 

🙁  🙁  🙁

The sky is overcast and threatening to rain. Otherwise Ruby and I would set off on a good long hike. An hour or so of walking would shake off some of the depression. But…

But dontcha just know that about the time we get 45 minutes out the front door, the skies will open and POUR on us. So…to say I hesitate to take off down the sidewalk or up into the hills is to understate. Significantly.

*****

Call up SDXB to wish him a Merry Xmas. He’s busy fixing dinner for guests.

He’s still going strong with New Girlfriend. Which is a good thing: she’s really a neat lady, perfect for him, and she lives out there in Sun City, where he does nowadays.

He wanted me to move out there with him, at the time he decided to head west (FAR west) to escape the Tony Situation. But I’d lived there when my parents were holding forth in those parts. And…uhm…nooo thanks!

Not that it’s a bad place. It’s just…well…majestically not to my taste.

But meanwhile, in our parts the Tony Situation has subsided handsomely. Yea, verily: Tony is actually friendly to me. And weirdly, I rather like him. He really is an amazing man.

So any chance SDXB had of persuading me to move back to noisy, dreary Sun City dissolved in that cauldron.

And therefore what I’d really like to machinate, for the future, is staying here in the Funny Farm until I can’t waddle from the bed to the bathroom; then conveniently dying and leaving the place to my son.

Alternatively: sell the shack, take the proceeds, and buy myself into some miserable old-folkerie.

Few things do I detest more than congregate living. But given the track record of longevity in my family, chances are hideously high that I’ll wrap up my life in one of those horrible places. Lacking a nice Golden Gate Bridge from which to take a flying leap….  😉

*****

Have you noticed how ditzy Americans are about the subject of Death & Dying? Poor creatures! They don’t seem to grasp that Death is part of Life…and that if one person croaks over — for whatever reason — the planet does not, after all, stop rotating.

Oh, well.

****

My plan right now is to ask Wonder Cleaning Lady if she can be hired to come in and take care of me during the pre-Demise weeks or (heaven forfend) months. She worked for the Beatitudes and so has experience in that department. The big roadblock, though, would be that she has — of all things– a family(!!). And no doubt will feel little enthusiasm for lurking around all night to babysit an old lady.

She may, however, know how to find sources of 24-hour care…preferably the kind that does NOT require you to move into a dormitory for old bats. We shall see: so far I haven’t worked up the nerve to ask her.

JAYZUZ!!! Check out the entrance fee for The Beatitudes, the most prominent and probably the best of the old-folks’ prisons here.

Welp. Suicide is painless, so they say…

Better that than having to fork over your kids’ entire inheritance to have someone babysit you into the grave….

****