Coffee heat rising

funny

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Wee Stroke of Luck!

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Wow! That was close!

Somebody — who it was, I think I know — adulterated some leftovers in the fridge with a hefty dose of hot sauce or jalapeño. Took a bite — fortunately, a tiny bite — and damn near choked to death!

Seriously… Here by myself and unable to speak, I did begin to wonder what on earth I was gonna do. Thank the gawds, the searing, burning sensation passed and I was able to breathe again.

But wow!  What kind of vicious nit-wit does a thing like that?

I suspect I know: only one outsider has been in the house since I put that stuff in the fridge. Can’t prove it…but won’t be inviting her back in to do housework again. That’s for sure!

Better throw out all the other leftovers in the fridge, too. Holeee sheee-ut!!!!

EEEEK!!!

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Ohhh migawd!  It’s 5:33 p.m., and the temperature in the shade of the back porch is 103 degrees!

Wunderground shows the temp as 115°, with a low of 91° predicted for tonight and a high of 117° tomorrow.

Jayzuz! Be scared. Be VERY scared.

Seriously: this is scary weather. Get lost wandering around out there, and you can end up in a life-threatening situation. Have your air-conditioning go out, and to survive the night you’ll need to move into a motel.

This is why one of my little chants is “I hate Arizona.”  No. I kid you not. If I could afford to move away and I could persuade my son to come with me, I would be soooo outta here! It’s a horrible place to live, between the antediluvian politics and the gawdawful heat. Truly, the main reason — more accurately the only reason — I stay here is because my son is here.

This month’s power bill is going to be astronomical. Honestly, I don’t think the AC has gone off even once since I rolled out of the sack at dawn’s early light. Betcha it’ll be two or three hundred dollars. At least. 

***

The rose vines on the west side are FRIED. Very much doubt that they’ll come back. Just set the hose to pour water to them…but the watering system was already set to irrigate them. The result: parched!

Understand: the whole yard has an automatic watering system, which should protect the jungle from drought.

FAIL!

Everything is just seared. I very much doubt that many of these plants will spring back. We’ll see, in a couple of weeks or so. But…right now, it sure looks like we’ll be installing a whole new passel of roses and vines.

Un…freakin’…believable!

 

Another Icky-Sticky Morning

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Just back from the a.m. doggy-walk. Made it around the park and through the low-rent section of Upper Richistan. Whew!!! What an icky-sticky day!!!

It’s 95 degrees out there, at 7:00 a.m.  
115 degrees predicted, with 3% chance of rain.

I’d say that’s a conservative guess: the air is damn near as soggy as the Americans’ digs on the shore of the Persian Gulf, out there where we lived in (un)lovely Saudi Arabia.  Yuck!!!  The humidity could get so high that sometimes it would rain out of a clear blue sky.

No kidding. You’d be standing there under the sun and splat! It would start to rain.

What a horrible place!

My father was getting paid in spades as a harbor pilot working out of Ras Tanura, a port on the Gulf. Money was what mattered most to him. His most heart-felt ambition was to retire as early as possible. To meet that goal, he was willing to work like a draft-horse. And he did…

We finally got him to take us home after my mother  came down (supposedly?) with amoebic dysentery. Her best friend was a nurse in the camp clinic. The two women persuaded said friend’s lover, a doctor in that clinic, to tell my father that my mother needed to be sent back to the United States. And left there.

😀

So we escaped from that little corner of Hell. My heartbroken father was forced to take a job sailing out of Northern California, and my mother and I got ourselves parked in San Francisco.

He labored on ships until he’d amassed enough in savings to justify quitting. Arizona was the proposed retirement venue, mostly because it was cheap to live here. They could buy a house in cash (he wouldn’t buy anything on time!) and bake their way through the final years of their lives.

Nevermind that it meant I couldn’t go to UC Berkeley, my target university all through high school and junior high school. Nevermind that my mother suffered extravagantly in the extravagant heat. Nevermind the endless roar of jet planes blasting out of nearby Luke Air Force Base. Nevermind the open, outright hate expressed by Sun City residents who deeply resented the presence of anyone under age 50. Nevermind that his decision permanently changed the trajectory of my life.

Oh, well. Who cares. She’s just a girl, eh?

***

So here I am, in a different corner of Hell. Arizona is decidedly NOT where I would have chosen to live.

But it’s where I ended up, where I married, and where our son grew up.

Said son decided, after graduating from a fancy private college, to take a job here in Phoenix. I’m not moving away from him. And so that leaves me here, still in lovely uptown Arizona.

What a place!

Hotter Than the Hubs….

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HO-lee maquerel!  As we scribble — coming on to 6:00 p.m. — the thermometer in the shade of the back porch reads 109 degrees.

Garden spot, eh?

Just walked over to the park and back… Couldn’t take the Ruby, because the pavements — all of them — are too hot for her feet. Couldn’t make it all the way around, either: the air is too hot for the human!

Ugh! WHAT a place!!!!  What on earth possessed my parents to drag us to this corner of Hell, lo! these many years ago?

O’course…you could ask what on earth possesses me to stay here….

Just crazy, I guess.

Actually, it’s because my son is here. He has a job here. His dad is here. And he ain’t about to go anyplace else.

So…. I reckon as long as he stays in Phoenix, I’ll stay here too. If he decamps to some other garden spot, I may follow him. If he goes someplace where I can’t follow…well! Then I’ll be on my way to the higher altitudes of the hills around Tucson or else headed for Payson or Prescott (small towns in the plateaus above the desert) or…maybe straight back to San Francisco, where I belong.

Those exigencies don’t make me like this place a helluva lot more, though. It’s fine in the fall, the winter, and the early spring — climate-wise, anyway. The overall Los-Angelization is a trait I could do without, any time of the year or the day.

For the Luv of GAWD!!!!!

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KeeeeRAP!!!!!

Come the crack of dawn, the dawg is dragging me around the park on the usual morning Doggy-Walk. And what fun happens?

Yeah.

SHE DRAGS ME THROUGH AN ANT NEST!

The li’l ladies are out for their morning forage, so they’re swarming all over the place. I don’t notice them until it’s too late: now they’re all over my sandaled feet and legs, going bite bite bite bite-bite-bite BITE BITE BITE!!!

Hurt? Lemme tellya HURT.

We scurry away and I manage to bat most of the little gals off my skin. But now my feet and legs HURT LIKE THE DICKENS.

We turn around and race back toward the house, through the horrible SWAMPY morning. A classic nasty Arizona summer day is dawning, and the goddam place feels like the Okefenokee Swamp!  Holy crap, is it gawdawful out there!

Now my feet are covered in stinging, itchy ant bites. Coating them in calamine lotion doesn’t seem to be doing much good.

GAWD, but I hate Arizona!!!!!  What a horrid place to live. A thousand curses on my idiot parents for dragging us to this horrible, nightmare right-wing dump.

Yeah: part of their joy in this hole was its right-wing aspect. They abominated LIBarulism, which was one reason they were miserable in California. Barry Goldwater was holding forth here at the time. Believe it or not, I used to be a Goldwater Girl, one of his gingery little supporters.

Over time, the scales fell from my myopic eyes. Now you couldn’t get me anywhere near the right-wing crazies. Sorry if you’re one of them…but… Been there, done that!

What a horrible place this is, full of horrible people. If my son weren’t here, I’d be SOOOO FAR GONE from here!

Where would I be, if I had my choice?

I dunno. Not Hell, that’s for sure.

The east side of the San Francisco Bay Area, if I could afford it. But no doubt I couldn’t even begin to afford it.

My mother’s relatives lived in Berkeley, having settled there early in the last century, when it was reasonable to do so. I think their little bungalow is now valued at nigh unto a million dollars. Here’s one on the Web, just up the street from their place, at over two million dollars. But…it looks like that place is about twice the size of theirs.

So obviously, I couldn’t afford to live there today.

These days, I think I probably would consider the east side of Tucson. Weather’s decent there — because of the mild elevation, it’s not even too horrid in the summer. But there, too, unless you’re willing to go into a “townhouse” (which I believe means “apartment”), the prices are outta sight.

Since the Funny Farm is situated on the fringe of Phoenix’s highly upscale North Central district, presumably this place will be worth a fair amount when my son inherits it…. That’s assuming I can manage to live here long enough to be able to pass it to him but not so long as to be relegated to a prison for the elderly — and unfortunately, longevity is a thing among women on my mother’s side of the family.

So, I’ll probably be dragged off (kicking and screaming, you may be sure!) to one of the horrid old-folkeries that are now in vogue. Those places take everything you have in exchange for babysitting you through your dotage. And so…if I don’t drop dead fairly soon, presumably little or nothing will be left for my son.

What times we live in, eh?

Hotter Than the Hubs!

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It’s pouring rain, hot and sticky outside…and some poor wretch is out there weedwhacking a neighbor’s lawn! 

Yow! Talk about jobs you’re glad you don’t have….

At a little past 7:00, Ruby and I are back from the morning circumnavigation, just in time.

Despite the gray skies and now steady rain, our honored Weather Service tells us to expect “extreme heat” this afternoon. Temps are supposed to get up to 110 today, 114 on Thursday, and 116(!!!) on Friday.

That’s more than my air-conditioning system can handle. And far more than M’hijito’s aged system will beat back. He may have to come here or over to his dad’s place to live through the afternoons. And probably to sleep at night.

What an awful place. WHY do we live here?

Yeah: because our parents dragged us here, right?

California. Make that Northern California. That’s where I came from. And that’s where I belong!