The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ―Edmund Burke
funny Is it even possible to get more ironic than that?
Some a$$hole is flying up and down our little neighborhood street at 40+ mph. Back and forth: roar roar roar.
No. Do not bother to call a cop. That would be a first-class exercise in futility. Just hope the jerk doesn’t hit a kid. Or an unwary neighborhood driver. Or a stray cat. Or a stray dog.
{sigh} Guess that’s just the joy of living anyplace where morons can get access to motor vehicles. But lordie! It’s tedious.
Out the door around 7:30: the little dawg and I head out for her favorite route, circumnavigating the park.
It’s a beautiful morning. Clear, not too smoggy, cool enough to be just this side of cold but not really cold. And as we trot along, who should we come nose-to-nose with but…oh yeah! Wile E. Coyote…
Ohhh shee-ut.
What could make a more delicious breakfast than a 30-pound corgi?
Fortunately, I happen to have in hand a shilelagh that passes as a walking stick — carried for just such an encounter.
Dayum.
Wile E. is the reason I can’t just let Ruby out in the back yard to do her thing, whilst I go on about my business fixing breakfast or dinner. The local coyotes will ghost right over your six- or eight-foot backyard wall and take off with your dwarfish dog.
At any rate…we make our way past the local wildlife without incident. Short-cut through Lower Richistan without incident — probably because a fair number of workmen are out puttering around. Make it back to the house without incident. Hallelujah.
ohhhh well. Give me a four-legged predator over the two-legged variety, any time.
😮
Criminey! Another stupid evening!
Lost Ruby’s dog collar whilst circumnavigating the park, a journey that takes about an hour. Ugh!!
Her nylon collar has her name and phone number, so if by some (highly unlikely!!) miracle, she’s found by someone who cares, they may call me and let me retrieve her. Most people in these parts won’t: they’ll just steal the dog. But at least this gives you an outside chance of getting your pooch back.
So I get home and fart around and fart around..and…eventually…what should come up but the “lost” collar. Dork with it. Kinda get if fixed. But realize tomorrow we’ve gotta go up to the PetSmart and buy some new ID stuff.
Goodie. I can hardly wait.
We hike and we hike through the darkening dusk, dodging vehicles and other people’s dogs. Finally get home.
No, I can NOT find another collar (there should be two or three around here!!!) with her name and phone number. So yes, tomorrow we have to dork with an expensive trip to the pet store. Yay!
Crack of dawn: out the door with the dog.
The derelict who set up camp outside the backyard wall was gone. And — surprise!! — he picked up after himself!! So there was no mess to shovel out after the sun comes up.
Circumambulate the park: beautiful morning. Hip hurts, but not as much as usual: reflect that the beloved, retired Dr. Tim Daley was no doubt right when he said eventually I’ll need a hip replacement.
Yay. I can hardly wait.
😮
Reflect, while hiking around the neighborhood, on where I might go if I actually did decide to move out of Bum Heaven. Only two places come to mind: the Arcadia district, where my now late stepsister used to live; and Fountain Hills, a Whiteyville on the east side of Scottsdale. Neither has much appeal: they’re just too damn far away from where my son lives.
Where else????
Down into my son’s neighborhood? Those houses were built before there was such a thing as air conditioning. They’re designed for swamp cooling (actually, they’re designed for the residents to spend their summers up north…). Plus the area is even noisier than mine.
Welp. Things could be worse: so far 11 people have been killed in the Kentucky storms…which aren’t over. Arizona can have killer weather, too…but not enough to take out a dozen locals at a time.
***
Too bad none of those 11 were goddam phone solicitors. Another one of them was on the horn just now. I try to have some kind of ear-blaster near the phone, so as to zap the bastards with something that will HURT when they call here. Didn’t have one nearby. SCREAMING into the phone as loud as you can may (or may not) be an effective substitute. This a.m. the SHRIEK was emitted in words:
GET THE F**K OFF MY GODDAM PHONE!!!!!!!
Man! Am sick, of goddam phone solicitors.
{gronk!}
Ruby trots out onto the back porch, picks up some piece of debris off the patio, and eats it!
Ohhhh gooodie. There’s another fine vet bill, comin’ up the trail. Assuming she lives long enough to get her to the vet…
***
Wonder-Cleaning Lady is still at the neighbor’s house. It’s three in the afternoon, and the woman has been there all day! I don’t understand how she does what she does.
Normally, she cleans WonderAccountant’s place and then comes over here. But typically, she’s done over there by about 11 a.m. or noon. She must be knocking herself out!!
***
Gaaaahhh! 4:30 in the afterno0n and the poor woman is still laboring away!! HOW does she do that.
I’ve been laboring away all afternoon watching the bubblers water the citrus trees, and I’m exhausted. ;-
The woman is amazing!
Thinking about my mother, for reasons unknown, here in the early hours of a Sunday morning.
She killed herself, the poor woman. Not on purpose…uhm…at least, I don’t think she did it on purpose. At least, not at a conscious level.
She smoked herself to death. Literally: she was never awake when she didn’t have a goddamned cigarette in her hand or in her mouth. She would even smoke in the shower. Understand: she didn’t just light a cigarette and let it burn down. She huffed and puffed on it, all the way down to the filter.
Not surprisingly, she died of cancer.
That cancer may as easily been kicked off by life in hideous Saudi Arabia, where she spent ten years of her (and my) life. Arabia was not a place for humans — least of all for humans of the gringo persuasion. The unholy diseases you could get out there…my God! She caught one of the worst of them — amoebic dysentery. In those days, there wasn’t much they could do to treat it: they put her in the hospital and ran her through three or four rounds of chemotherapy, each of which made her sicker than the disease itself did.
Evil treatment for an evil disease native to an evil place.
If she hadn’t been weakened by the toxic treatments for the amoeba, would she have died anyway? I’m inclined to think she would have. She was a walking smokestack. You knew when she awoke in the morning — or in the middle of the night — by the stink emanating from her bedroom. She started puffing before she lifted her head from the pillow, and she smoked all day long, until she turned off the light at bed-time. I’m certain that what killed her — the immediate cause, anyway — was the tobacco. As it develops, few substances are as addictive as nicotine.
She was murdered by the tobacco peddlers.
But the thing about it is…it was a kind of self-murder. She knew. By the late 1950s, the word was out that tobacco causes cancer. Not so much emphasis was laid on the fact that it’s an addictive drug…so, she was less inclined to recognize that her passion for the damned stuff was not for pleasure but to dodge the discomfort of addiction.
(sigh) She never saw her grandson. Though I was pregnant before she died, she croaked over before he came into this world.
But you hafta say: she didn’t much care for kids. Why she had me utterly escapes me. Once she’d delivered an offspring to my father (was he the one who wanted me???), she took to a killer regimen of contraceptives. They didn’t have the Pill in those days, so to avoid pregnancy required some elaborate machinations…and no doubt the occasional abortion.
Strange people, those…
Nine a.m. and…at last! The jets at Luke Air Force Base have come to light.
They practice every morning along about dawn, when they begin around three hours of maneuvers. So just when the Sun Citizens down the road from the base want to sit on their back porches to take their morning coffee, they get a symphony of roar, roar, ROAAAAARRRRR from fighter jets charging back and forth, as the pilots practice their moves for World War III.
SDXB, who retired to Sun City from a career in journalism and public relations, still works off and on for the base. Practically every day, says he, they get calls from Sun Citizens belly-aching about the racket from that air base.
LOL! Well, folks: wake up! If you don’t want to hear jet engine noise, don’t buy a house five or ten miles up the street from a jet runway.
😀
My mother used to sit on her back porch and sip her morning coffee to the serenade of Luke’s blasting jets. Weirdly — well, probably not: probably as a result of living 10 years overseas in a country where Americans are roundly hated — she convinced herself that she actually liked the sound of those roaring engines. It’s the sound of freedom, she used to simper.
Ohhhhh gawd!
And ohhhhh well: whatever makes you happy.
Yea verily, though…those of us who spent a decade of our lives in a medieval dictatorship do understand what that “sound of freedom” is worth.
Nevertheless: I’m sure glad I no longer live practically beneath the base’s landing and take-off paths!
No kidding. We’re a good 20 miles away here, and the racket is…not quite awful, but still annoying.
*****
Argha! It’s after 10 a.m. and the jets are still roaring away out there. WTF?
That ain’t normal.
Something must be going on. Either its some kind of special exercise, or some sort of sh!t is coming down.
***
All of which — the memory of my mother and how much she loved their little house in Sun City, how much she loved my father — brings back all sorts of depressing and unwelcome other memories.
* The Dragon Lady and what a horrid witch she was
* How she lured my father into marrying her
* How miserable he was, living with her
* How afraid he was to divorce her (“She’ll get all my money!!!”)
Jayzuz, Daddy! Some things are more important than money! Why didn’t I have enough sense to say that to him?
or maybe…
Jayzuz, Daddy! Your daughter’s husband is a partner in one of the most powerful law firms in the Southwest. She’s NOT gunna get all your money. Very probably, she’s not gunna get any of it.
***
Ah well. Nothing like a wee splash of wine to chase away fading regrets. {slurp!}
Seriously: now we’re comin’ on to midday, which is when I dive into my Big Meal of the Day. And I see we have enough chow in the house to concoct a nice little feast and enough to feed Ruby for the next several days.
You realize what this means, right?
Incredibly…
I won’t have to go out and buy food today!!!!!!!
Yahooooooo!
The Hound and I will be set until the first part of next week. CAN you believe it?
So: I can continue to loaf and play with my li’l computer. Ruby can continue to loaf in her favorite throne under the back bathroom’s toilet.