Coffee heat rising

funny

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Kissy-Wissy…icky wicky???

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Bangin’ around, looking for a church whose choir someone of my modest skills could join. One whose customs and thinking do not make someone of my modest religiosity nuts.

Far’s I can tell, if any such institutions exist, they’re few and far between.

The choir at the Episcopal church where I sang for some years first dissolved (after the choir director left) and the came back much morphed into…what?????? Nothing I could sing for, thankyouverymuch.

The choir at the Unitarian church where I’ve been known to hang out is all very…{urk}…lovey-dovey. Ohhhh how we love each other. Just keep your hands to yourself, dammit! Love love lovey-dovey and NO, I am NOT gonna kiss you, for godsake!

Baptists are…well…you know: Baptists.

Catholics? I’ll never make the traditional desiderata.

So. Far’s I can tell, I’m done with choral singing. One option, I suppose, is to take a voice class at one of the local community colleges. Do I really wanna do that? And pay for the privilege? And once I have an AA in music — heavy on communal voice — THEN what?

Makes me sad. Very sad.

 

AUUUGGH!!!

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It
Just
NEVER
Freakin’
STOPS!

Now Google won’t let me into my G-mail account. And NO, I didn’t change a password. NO, I didn’t do anything weird.

So presumably that account has been hacked. Ducky.

Dammit. Now, come ten o’clock this morning, I’ve got to schlep across the city to the computer store and beg them to try to get me back into my email.

Either that or…what? Create a whole new G-mail account?

Uh huh…and how do I go about informing all the people and companies that have my current G-mail address?

Well. I guess this is a whop upside the head with a bit of (OBVIOUS!) practical advice: Keep a list of every email address for folks you do business with and folks you socialize with. PRINT IT OUT. Keep burning paper and ink every three or four weeks to print out new updates.

Gaaawwwd how sick AM i of life in the glorious new 21st Century?

Wow! Sprouts: OUTTA THERE

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Okay. This evening tore it: I ain’t a-goin’ back to our Sprouts, no way no how!

How many times do you have to be hustled over your plastic grocery bag to get sick of it?

How many times do you have to be panhandled in the parking lot to get sick of it?

How many times do you have to tell the cashier NO, you’re not paying for a plastic bag, before they’re allowed to be free?

Gaaaahhh!

Out the door, headed for the parking lot….there to be intercepted by a female panhandler. She ain’t takin’ “no” for an answer. I have to charge and push my way around her to get to my car. Manage to dodge into it, start the engine, and drive away from her, irked.

Yeah.

The plastic grocery bag: NO, I am not paying for a plastic bag. Therefore, NO, my groceries don’t get bagged. Therefore, packing the groceries out of the shopping cart into the back of my car delays my escape from the hustling panhandler.

True: we do not live in the greatest of neighborhoods. And true: the Sprouts parking lot is crawling with nuisances. (Not so much, the Albertson’s lot across the road: not since they hired an armed security guard to stand out there and watch the comings and goings.)

Should I know better than to shop at that Sprouts?

Yes.

But… It’s a drive to the next closest Sprouts; it’s coming onto dusk; I don’t wanna drive across the city in the dark to buy a few minor items. Yes, I could buy the stuff at AJ’s, just down the road or the Albertson’s across the street: for about three times what Sprouts charges.

Yet… {sigh} I’m afraid that after this I’ll be burning gas to shop at the Walmart on Dunlap, at the Sprouts on 20th Street, at the AJ’s on Camelback. Enough, after all, is enough.

Gorgeous Morning

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The sun has risen on a magnificent clear day. Ruby the Corgi and I have circumambulated the ‘Hood, and now we’re back in the shack waiting for the water to heat so as to make a pot of awesome coffee. And I think…

I’m thinking about a friend of mine and his wife, who was one of my graduate students…

…he used to get up in the morning and walk to work, while she got up and made trouble. And oh, my goodness! Could that lady make trouble! She went to graduate school to learn the best techniques. Seriously: she had taken an M.A. and then pursued a Ph.D. in political science. 😀

They lived in a handsome patio home within walking distance of a prominent horse track, where he had a moderately prestigious job.  Meanwhile, her day job was to make trouble in the condo association. She was very good at it.

When they started finding death threats taped to their front gate, they decided to sell up and move to a house in a nearby development called Moon Valley. And that place was a piece of junk!

I know, because I helped them repair and paint the interior before they moved in. The south-facing wall was so flimsy and so spectacularly uninsulated that the tile floor was actually hot under my bare feet for a good yard inside the building. And flimsy indeed: you could take your fist and punch a hole through the outside wall. Reach inside, unlock the front door’s deadbolt, and let yourself in.

No kidding: it did happen.

He came down with cancer and died, not at all pleased with his wife’s behavior. She shifted around to a few condos and apartments here in the Valley; then moved back to the Midwest, where her family lived. Can’t find her online, so I figure she must have passed away by now — she was no spring chicken when I knew her, and that was some years ago.

Ah, the thoughts that occupy one’s mind on a gorgeous morning….

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a…NUT CASE!

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LOL! Yes, I do believe we’ve ascertained that it’s a nut case, abetted by an industrious bird.

Or…who knows?…maybe  by a space alien.

Just now I’m perched on a kitchen chair in the garage, trying to ascertain whether a persistent beep!… beep!… beep!… is coming from the house-wide smoke alarm system, from something gone on the fritz in the car, or from the resident fruitcake’s imagination.

😀

And lo! It begins to appear that the perp is actually a bird. WHAT bird remains unknown: this is not a call I’ve ever heard from the local avian set…and I’ve lived here since 19 and aught-62. I think I would have learned to recognize a fire-alarmish beep coming from a bird.

****

Well… Yeah. And No.

It IS the flickin’ smoke alarm. Not the giant garage-based house-wide fire alarm system, but one of the cute little portable smoke alarms that you attach to your ceiling with a Velcro strip.

It’s sitting out there chirping to itself as we sit here, type, and guzzle coffee.

😀

So in a couple of hours — whenever I get off my duff, whenever the Ace Hardware store is open, I’ll have to traipse out and buy a new smoke alarm. Then figure out how to get it back up in the garage.

If that one is crapping out, it means all the rest of them are on the verge of crapping out, too. Hmmm…let’s see…. Hmmmmmm….

Not to say Uh oh….

Come to get up off my duff and check, and what do I see but that most of the li’l cheapo fire alarms have long been retired from service. FIVE of them have been removed from their stations.

WTF?

Welp. That’ll be a li’l chore for Bila the Handyman. He can climb up on a ladder and replace the darn things. Won’t he be pleased!

They must have crapped out one at a time, with lengthy periods in between. Otherwise I would’ve noticed that we…uhhhh….no longer have a functioning smoke alarm in most of the rooms.

/eyeroll/

Ohhhh well. I’ve got a bunch of other chores for him to do. So this will enrich his month’s income nicely.

*****

Along comes, of all things, a stray German shepherd!

She comes trotting up the street to the front patio and peers in the gates.

Ruby is beside herself with fascination. Neither dog makes a move to eat the other one.

Hmmmmm…. She has no collar. No ID. oboyoboy would i like to have THAT dawg!

uh oh… That’s not nice, is it?

Oh well. Before I can engage a plan to steal her, she trots off down the street.

The damn smoke alarms continue to beep. I begin to suspect it’s not the little portable alarms, but the ancient house-wide alarm that some previous owner installed, lo these many years ago.

I have NO idea how to turn it off or even if it can be turned off (thought it was turned off at the time I moved in here).

Seems like if you could shut it off, it would’ve been turned off by a prior owner, since it was nonfunctional when I appeared on the scene.

Cripes. The wandering pooch is after the neighbor’s stray cat. Oh well…it gets them both outta my yard, anyway.

The beeping continues. Could it be a bird, cheeping outside?

Hm. Anything’s possible. I guess.

If so, it’s a bird with an alto cheep. That’s kinda weird.

One of those days…

Argh! With the Perps on Our Tail

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Lordie! Ruby and I, winding up this evening’s dog-and-human walk, shoot up the street, across the yard, and into the house, cop copters hot on our tail. Dunno what’s goin’ on out there, but whatever it is, it’s got the cops all riled up.

Dart in the house. Check the exterior doors:

Front door:

Screen door secured.
Heavy interior door locked, with deadbolt.

Side door:

Screen door flimsily locked
Sliding glass door securely locked (we hope)

Back door:

Screen door securely locked
Interior door securely locked.
Butcher knife in hand

Dog door(s)

Interior and exterior doors secured
Doors hidden behind outdoor chairs

Bedroom door

Securely locked

Dog on full alert
Human on full alert

Dog & human climb onto bed to sorta relax
Cop helicopter flies off

What
A
Goddamn
Place

Does start to make Sun City look good, hm?

Well. Actually, no. IMHO nothing makes Sun City look good. BUT….it does make Fountain Hills look good. It makes Moon Valley look sorta good. It makes the Biltmore district look real good, if only one had a few million bucks to drop on real estate.

Why, again, are we still bere????

S