Coffee heat rising

funny

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Thank You, Good Realtor!!!

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Y’know, my good Realtor Friend, a guy named John Shackleford, did me one of the greatest favors anyone ever did for me: by bringing me to this house, in this neighborhood.

What a lovely, peaceful, pretty place to live!

Ruby and I just got back from one of our circumnavigations of the ‘Hood. And oh, my! What a pretty day.

The park: brilliant emerald green in the spring sunshine. The weather; insanely beautiful. The kids: playing magnificently in the park, kicking  balls and chasing around. The dogs: handsomely trotting along  beside their humans. The sky, delicately painted with fine, thin white clouds against a deep blue background. The birds: singing and flying around in avian joy.

What more could you possibly want, eh?

Just now, I can’t think of much.

It really is a beautiful, upper-middle-class North Central Phoenix neighborhood. Just about anything you want or need is within easy walking distance — as I’ve discovered to my amazement, now that my son has kiped my car.

Yes, it’s true: living here, I actually don’t need a car! Get rid of the chariot, and come to find out you have, within easy walking distance,

  • 3 top-flight grocery stores
  • a veterinarian
  • a computer store
  • a bookstore/computer software store
  • a hair stylist
  • a doctor (of sorts)
  • a magnificently stocked drugstore
  • 3 pharmacies
  • 2 major urban hospitals with top-rated emergency rooms
  • a fine young lawyer

One could go on and on…but basically, the message is, you can get about 95% of the goods and services you need without ever setting foot in a gasoline-powered vehicle. 

Y’know, this characteristic of the neighborhood never fully dawned on me until after my son kiped my car. I mean…well, of course I knew all these places were here. But until the car disappeared from my garage, it never really registered with me that I didn’t need to drive to these places!

Seriously: in the summertime, get going early enough and you can do your errands before the heat comes up. Raining? Call an Uber…like, the one whose owner lives straight across the streeet. (Turns out a half-dozen Uber drivers live right here in the Hood!)

It’s every bit as good as San Francisco in that way. When my mother and I lived there, back in the Dark Ages of the late 1950s and early 60s, we did have a car. But we never used it unless my mother and I had to drive across the Bay to pick up my father when his ship came in. (He was a Merchant Marine pilot.) I’d guess we never turned on the ignition more than twice a month.

And now, between Uber and just about every daily need within easy walking distance, I find myself in the same situation. I don’t really need a car! 

Mwa ha ha!!!

My son has it in his garage. And frankly, he can have the damn thing. I may sign over the registration to him, next time I have to pay for it.

No, Thank You!!! And it works!

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Okay, so now we’ve posted a fresh new edition of our front-door message:

Please be kind enough not to steal this sign

NO SOLICITING, PLEASE

NO PETITIONS, PLEASE

Kindly do not jangle the doorbell.

Occupant is ill and does not wish to yak with you.

Occupant does NOT buy from solicitors.

Astonishingly, I’ve found this little poster actually works to discourage nuisances and idiots from leaning on the doorbell or pounding on the screen door in their efforts to peddle stuff. These days, I hardly get ANY hustlers at the door!

Before I came up with this thing, I’d get at least one pest every two or three days — often one or two a day.

Frankly, I really am amazed that it does work. I seal it inside one of those transparent plastic binder sheet holders. This keeps it dry and seems to protect it pretty well from the ravages of the sun — although it’s in the shade most of the day, anyhow.

LOL! I guess they figure if you’re gonna go to that much trouble to make a sign to shoo them off, you’re not gonna buy anything from them or stand around listening to their political gab. First time I made one of these things, I figured they’d just steal it.

But amazingly, no! Never have had one stolen(!!). And the nuisance doorbell-jangling has fallen to nil. That’s why I know it’s working: we get rafts of those pests.

You do have to put it inside a plastic binder sheet, partly because if they can tear down a piece of paper, they will take that, and partly because the plastic cover nicely protects your sign from rain and blasting sunlight.

Gawd. What a world, eh? Where you have to erect weather-proof signs to keep people from pestering you in your own home!

Loafing: The Impossible Dream…

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87 gerjillion things to have to do before leaving for the dentist this morning:

Clean teeth
Wash face
Paint face
Comb hair
Make bed
Put dishes in washer (= take clean dishes out of washer & put away)

Hip hurts. What have I done to myself this time????

Pick up DR table (= put away piles of junk
Pay pool guy
Call AC guy: water leak
Track down new lawyer (mine just died) to review deathbed transfer of property and financial instruments to M’ijito
Shovel off kitchen counter

Hip hurts.

Beep beep! Microwave nagging.

Problem: short on patience for doing things that really DO need to get done. Now.

Frustrating to have to fart with all the little stuff when you’re in a hurry…my son is on his way over here…get stuff together for dentist, find shoes, get into shoes, heat mug of cold coffee, find purse, find wallet

Hip hurts.

Beep beep!

Copy and paste a line into this page

Beep beep!

Rinse out coffee pot.
Pour coffee grounds on plants outside.
Rinse again.
Pour out more coffee grounds.

Hip hurts.

Rinse again

Beep beep!

Pour rinse water on plants outside

Beep beep!

Hurt.
Hurt.
Hurt some more.

STOP THE FUKKIN’ WORLD! I WANNA GET OFF!!!!!

And the morning is just getting started. My son is on his way over here to drag me to the dentist. How can I count the ways I can hardly wait for that encounter?

Soooo…. THAT is what my poor son has to cope with, when he shows up at the door ready to trot me out into the wilderness. CAN you imagine? Poor guy!!

RINGY DINGY!

Leap up, run across the room, grab the phone.

Nuisance phone solicitor. To get rid of the  nuisance message they left, you have to click through FOUR stages on your phone.

Oh damm. Here’s the kid! Prepare for more fun!

Now for some serious loafing…

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Out the door, an hour or so ago. It being Thanksgiving Eve, none of the hired help is around: no sign of Gerardo the Great, no sign of the Luz the Ineffable Cleaning Lady.

Our neighbor and wonder-accountant reached Luz, whom she also hires. Luz is NOT working today, thankyouverymuch.

To which we say: hooooraaaaayyyy!

Ruby and I shoot outside, to perform a pleasantly loafifarious stroll: around the park, through the Richistans…what more could one crave on an exquisitely beautiful afternoon?

M’hijito and I…well, between the time I started this sentence and right this minute (a few seconds later…)…are at each others’ throats, arguing and slinging insults back and forth over the phone. {sigh}

Just what we needed to make a nice “vacation” day, eh? In a matter of minutes, we’ve turned a beautiful afternoon into a nightmare. And y’know…I’m pretty much beyond being able to handle that stuff. Tired, lonely, need a friend…do not need a slew of insults shoved in my ear.

Welp, I can’t handle this stuff just now. So in a couple of minutes, the dog and I will set out again, for an endlessly long journey to…who knows where?

Outta here!

Mayo-Trapped!

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So here I am stuck inside one of the Mayo Clinic’s many blood-sucking rooms. Sunday morning again: once again.

Just asked my son why these appointments are always made on Sunday — one of the reasons I dropped out of choir. Got a crabby answer…but apparently he’s the one who’s been doing this. Like…he didn’t KNOW I had a standing activity on Sundays?

Innaresting.

***

Now they’ve got me trapped in a treatment room with a needle stuck in an arm, pumping some sort of gunk into me. The kid and I have been fighting — jolly fun — and so (reasonably enough) he has taken his computer and stalked off to the lobby, leaving me to sit here all alone with a needle stuck in my arm.

Dare not readdress the question of who repeatedly schedules these accursed appointments on Sunday mornings, guaranteeing that I can’t go to choir. That’s OK, I guess, because I dropped out of choir awhile back — for other reasons. But if that were not the case, by now I’d be outta there once and for all.

At any rate, I’ve come to hate this place with a passion — altruistic and marvelously scientific as it is. Actually, it’s a  sentiment that has a long backstory:

While I was growing up in Saudi Arabia, Aramco employees families and their families had to take rafts of shots every six months. None of those were pleasant, but some were notably painful — particularly typhus, typhoid, and cholera. The latter two REALLY hurt! So I learned to fear and hate clinics, hospitals, and medical staff.

That kind of prejudices me against this place, and against this seemingly ENDLESS stint of sitting here with a needle stuck in my arm, even though the treatment is pretty much painless.

Seriously: the infusion takes an hour…and that only covers pumping the gunk into your arm. Doesn’t count the hour’s driving time or any time spent sitting around in waiting rooms. Theee pitz! 

We squabbled on the way out here, so my invitation to take him to a late lunch/early dinner was rejected. Ohhh well: a lovely steak is sitting in the fridge, waiting to be barbecued.

But it’s only 1:30 in the afternoon, leaving a good hour (or more) to go. And GAWD, do I hate this place!

Glub!

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Yeah, verily: It’s a glubifarious morning. You should see that rain pouring down out of the skyfull of dark gray clouds! Thank Gawd for coffee, that’s all I can say!!

It obviates my plan to traipse to the grocery stores this morning. What with my honored son having persuaded the stump-dumb doctors at the Mayo to cancel my driver’s license (!!!!!!), I can’t get to a store except on foot or by paying through the schnozzola to hire an Uber cab.

Our beloved Uber driver lives right across the street…and I can assure you that he will not want to be rousted out to schlep the Little Old Lady six blocks to the Albertson’s or the Sprouts. Fortunately, there’s enough Dawg-and-Humann food in the house to sustain Ruby and me for a few days. So whenever the rain stops, I can run (literally!) to the nearest shopping center and grab enough chow to tide us over until the weather clears.

Wow! What an ugleeeee morning! Wunderground seems to have missed the boat (heh!!) by predicting a mere 30% chance of rain today. Asleep at the switch, eh, folks?