Coffee heat rising

funny

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Moonset

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Ten after three in the morning: the quiet, dark morning. As we scribble, a brilliant three-quarter moon makes its way down the clear black western sky toward the horizon.

What a thing to see!

It’s sublimely beautiful. Truly: one of the most subtly gorgeous sights I’ve ever seen. Made more so, I’ll say, by knowing this is one of the last times — maybe the last time — I’ll ever see such a thing.

If that’s the last scene I get to see on this earth, well then… Thanks, God. It’s a magnificent gift!

As you may guess, Funny is very, very sick indeed. Beyond “funny,” we might say. The peripheral neuropathy, which never takes  pause, is endlessly painful: hands, feet, legs, lips, teeth: everything hurts. Pretty clearly this ailment is never going to heal: we’re coming into the last stage of a life that does not want to step aside and get out of the way. So the darned life is putting up a fight!

Ohhh well. Nothing I can do about it. Except wait until it goes away.

Meanwhile, in these last burning hours and minutes of life, let us enjoy what we have around us.

  • Let us relish the beauty that immerses us.
  • Let us comprehend the brevity and fragility of that beauty.
  • Let us love those who love us.
  • Let us pray for the future of our species.
  • Let us be grateful for life, for the living, for what has come before us and what will come after us.
  • If there is a God — as some of us believe there must be — let us thank that Creator for the beauty of Creation, for its glory and for its horror, for its intimacy and its strangeness, for its past and its future.

Onward. Ever onward!

Zonked and conked

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All of 5 p.m. and the Humann is  falling over face-forward into what passes for its dinner dish.

Which ain’t much, I’ll tellya.

Dunno what the matter is. But I can NOT hold my eyes open. If you’d asked, I’d’ve said I slept well last night. Stayed down til at least 7 a.m.

Loafed all day.

No reason to feel so tired I can barely breathe. But there it is.

Still light outdoors (as in broad freakin’ daylight) and I’m fighting to stay awake.

Nothing much has happened to wear one out. We walked around the park this afternoon: hardly an occasion for much exertion. Came home. Loafed. Loafed some more.

Now: dead exhausted.

WHY?

While visiting the park, we also cruised the Olde Neighborhood in downtown Palmcroft.

Gosh, I do miss that beautiful old place. But not so much as to be willing to shell out an extra couple hundred grand to live there. It’s beautiful, yes. But it ain’t THAT beautiful!

All of which is neither here nor there.

HERE, we have so damn exhausted I can barely gaze across the room!

Why?????

No clue.

***

Along about 5 p.m. now, the human and the dawg are ensconced on the bed. It’ll take little intention and no effort for the human to conker out. Forthwith.

This, of course, will mean the human and her sidekick will wake up along about 11 p.m. … and be up for the Duration. Ugh!

For the nonce, though: amazingly, insanely tired.

 

New Day in the ‘Hood

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Come 11:00 a.m. out there on the sheltered streets of the ‘Hood…it’s really quite lovely. Today will tend toward the Warm side…but just now it’s pleasant enough: not too hot. People and their adorable kids are out in their front yards.

Two of the Adorables were attracted by Ruby the Corgi, who’s kinda adorable herself. They had to dote upon her and walk along with us for a ways. 😀  And so another friendship was made in Heaven.

Meanwhile, my calendar is a mish-mash of conflicting notes. At one point, it appears, the ineffable VC and I planned to meet today. Apparently we changed that to tomorrow morning, but I can’t tell from my scribbles whether we’re supposed to meet at 9:45 or at 11:30 a.m. or…what?????

No clue which is correct. I’m sleepy and do not feel like wrestling with the email to get this right. I’ll try to call her this afternoon; failing that, then compose and send a query by email.

Ugh! Don’t get old, whatever ya do!

 

 

 

“The Sound of Fweedom!”

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Ugh!  The dog and I: just back from an hour+ perambulation of the neighborhood park. Serenaded every damn step of the way with ROAR ROAR ROAR  blasting out of Luke AFB’s jet planes.

When we lived in Sun City, my mother used to start each day sitting on her screen porch, sipping coffee and listening to the interminable ear-splitting blast from those F-15s, which would start the day at dawn and scream on for several hours.

“Ohhhhh,” she would simper, “it’s the sound of fweedom!”

Uhm…no, muther… That’s the sound of World War III, comin’ our way.

Fortunately, it hasn’t arrived yet.

But don’t worry. It will. It will.

That air base is a good 20 miles away from the ‘Hood — or more. But the blast of the jet engines sounds like the damn things are in our backyard.

Anyway, that turned a clear, clean afternoon stroll into something kinda…grody. Noisy. Loud. Threatening. Scary if you have even a clue what those things are intended to do.

                                                       Horrible creature, the human animal…

Real Estate…Run Amok!

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!Jayzuz!!!  Just look at the INSANE prices for houses in our old neighborhood! Just a few lots down the street from our place: $1.3 MILLION.

We paid 30 grand for our house there — the first home we co-owned with a bank — and thought that was just outrageous. Lookit that, for 1900 square feet! Our house was 3,300 square feet…

These shacks are all within walking distance of our old house:

Good lord!!

Well, I guess I’m damn lucky to have this house up in a North Central district. And to have it paid off. By the time we’re ready to sell it, the thing will be worth enough to purchase the moon.

Actually, I hope I’m able to stay here until I croak over. Then M’jihito will get the house — and presumably the proceeds of its sale — which will allow him either to pay off his own house or to sell it and move into my paid-off shack. Or to move wherever he pleases.

Not sure he even wants to stay in the Phoenix area. He’s talked about moving back to Grand Junction, Colorado, whence his father emanated. It’s a little hickish for my taste…but if he could get this kind of money on the sale of my house and his, he could live like a king there.

Cleaning Lady from Heaven!

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Wow!

Really: there is only one word for the woman: WOW!

Luz, the Cleaning Lady from Heaven, just walked out the door…7:30 at night.

She has been here ALL AFTERNOON AND INTO THE EVENING. And no joke: not once has she sat down or even slowed down.

What an amazing person!

The house is beyond spotless. It’s after sunset, and the darn place is glowing in the dark.

Can’t even imagine how she does it. She must be dead exhausted by the time she gets home. Back at her house, she has a family to wrangle…wow! Let’s just hope they know how to fix dinner for her!!

Next week I must give her some kind of gift. But…what???

How about this: a $100 gift certificate for the best Mexican food restaurant in town?

{By and large, a good Mexican restaurant here is far and away superior to most other eateries in these parts…}

That would be enough to treat her whole family…and give her a mightily well earned break from banging around a kitchen.

Tomorrow let us trot around town to confirm where the best chow lines are. Then by the time she comes back for another day of ungodly labor, we’ll have something to show in appreciation.

WHAT a woman!!!!