Coffee heat rising

funny

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AMAZON!!

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Woo HOO! Thank the hevvins for Amazon and its insane home delivery!

As that paeon hints, their deliveries aren’t always perfect. But…in 110-degree heat, they sure do beat hiking down Main Drag West to the Sprouts, running around the store grabbing this, that, and the ‘tother; and then charging back through the heat to the Funny Farm!

My GAWD, it’s hot out there!

The back-porch thermometer says it’s only 105 in the backyard (with high, thick clouds in the offing…). Wunderground claims it’s 107. WhatEVER. It’s too hot and humid for human life, IMHO.

Anyhow, Amazon’s delivery guy just showed up with the pool floater I ordered. Didn’t bother to ring the doorbell, but fortunately I spotted his truck when he pulled up to the house.  So now we can re-load the chlorine in the backyard drink–without having to hike halfway to Timbuktu to get to the pool store.

My son’s having kiped my car is…well… I can think of a number of terms, all of them highly unflattering. But the long and the short of it is…UNHOLY INCONVENIENCE. When you live in an L.A.-style city like Phoenix, you NEED a car to get around, even to the most minor and relatively close destinations. Especially in 110-degree heat.

The Uber guy across the street would have charged me through the wazoo to drive over to the pool store and back. So…at least now we have the chlorine floating gadget. And we’re not bankrupted. Quite.

That’s something.

I guess. 

Not Exactly HOTTER than the Hubs…

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But at least VEERING toward hot as the Hubs of Hades. Outdoors: hot, sticky, gummy weather. Indoors: sticky and gummy.

July is the time of year when you do NOT want to be killing time in Arizona. The heat is fierce, and no, it is most surely not a “dry heat.” It’s as humid and sticky as (un)lovely Saudi Arabia used to be when we lived out there. Yuck!

Wunderground claims it’s only 94º outside. Supposed to get up to 107º during the day. If you asked me, I’d say we’d reached that goal already! At ten in the morning…

Ugh. If my parents were still living, I’d brain them both for dragging me to this hellish place.

They thought Sun City, over on the far west side of Phoenix, was just loverly. 

Yeah…

No accounting for taste, eh? If you love the sound of fighter jets roaring up and down, starting along about 5 in the morning: just loverly. If you love folks who hate kids and wish to live in a place where no such critters exist: loverly. If you love folks who hate people whose skin is darker than theirs and wish to live in a place where no dusky types reside: loverly. If you love grocery stores that sell nothing more exotic than a T-bone steak: loverly.

Ye gawds, did I hate living out there!

Finally got a job in town, one that supported a studio apartment’s rental. So…was able to escape loverly Sun City.

Now in my old age: here I am, parked in North Phoenix….most certainly not in the retirement environs of Sun City. To this day, the appeal of that place escapes me. Reckon it must be….what? ….

The whitey-whitness (No kidding: just a few months ago an African-American friend of mine bought a house out there. Within weeks he was literally HOUNDED out of the place!)

The ultra-tidy sameness of the architecture and of what passes for the landscaping. (Nothing like a gravel lawn to stay nice and neat, eh?)

The relative cheapness of the houses. (A comparable house in town would cost half again as much…or more.)

The remoteness from the rough-and-tumble noise of a big city. (Sun City is characterized by the silence of the tomb….when fighter jets aren’t blasting back and forth.)

One could go on and on, I suppose….but one would prefer not to.

Never was so happy as when I got into graduate school and made my escape to a university campus.

Ugh!!!

If You Have the Right of Way…

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…Then forgodsake TAKE IT!!!!!

Do NOT stop in the intersection and sit there looking stupid!

WHY, for Godsake, do idiots insist on doing that???

NO, it’s NOT “polite” to sit there going duuuuhhhhh when a pedestrian who does not have the right-of-way is standing on the curb waiting for you to get the f*** out of the road!!!!!!!

Then there are the morons who see you walking along a sidewalk as you approach the curb to an intersection. They’re already IN the damn intersection, and they stop and…yeah: stop the car and sit there looking stupid!

Whenever I come across one of these chuckleheads, I actually have to TURN AROUND AND WALK BACK IN THE DIRECTION I CAME FROM to get the nitwit to take his or her right-of-way. And NO, I’m NOT gonna walk out in front of some idiot who already has the right-of-way in an intersection.

WHY are people such blooming DIMWITS?

Stupidity is annoying enough under the best of conditions. But forgodsake. When it’s 110° in the shade and the nitwit is standing there holding you up while he’s trying to be “polite,” it’s freaking infuriating. 

Sheee-ut!  READ THE RULES OF THE ROAD in your state. Learn them. Then — please!— ABIDE BY THEM. 

Another Rasty-Nasty Day in Lovely Uptown Phoenix

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Ugh!!! What an UGLY, icky morning!!! 

Dog and Human: just back from the dawn stroll around the ‘Hood. Make that dawn swim! Literally, it is SO WET out there that you almost feel like you’re swimming along the sidewalk. As we scribble, we’re lookin’ at FORTY-TWO PERCENT humidity!!!

Yeah: “But it’s a dry heat,” right?

Uh huh. And indeed, here at 7:20 in the morning we’re lookin’ at 92 degrees out there! Supposed to get up to 107° this afternoon, with “heavy thunderstorm.”

Ohhh well. At least we got our daily exercise walk in.

I swear ta gawd! This is what it was like on the shore of the gawdawful Persian Gulf, during the nine years my parents and I lived there. Except hot-and-soggy weather wasn’t confined to the mid-summer. It was hot and wet most of the time.

My father called the company town where we lived “Rasty Nasty.” That was his take on the compound’s Arabic name: Ras Tanura.

Horrible place.

Phoenix is only partly horrible, eh? By comparison….  At least most of the year the weather is reasonably pleasant here, or more or less tolerable.

The little dawg is plopped on the cool tile floor, panting. The human’s hair is soaked in sweat. Just now this place ain’t a helluva lot better than Rasty Nasty, that’s for sure. At least, though, soon enough the humidity will dry out and, here in late July, we’ll arrive back at the “tolerable” level. Sorta….

That was never the case in Rasty Nasty….

 

…and WHERE did my marbles go????

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If there was ever any question of whether I’m nuttier than a fruitcake, we just resolved it.

For the love of GAWD! I just stumbled in the house after walking home from the shops down on the corner of Main Drag South and Lunatic Road West. Whatever was the MATTER with me that I betook myself on a safari like that????? In the freakin’ middle of the afternoon???!?

Whatever marbles I might have awakened with this morning apparently rolled out my ears by the time I took off on that expedition. When we say “stupid,” we mean STUPID.

Hey. All I wanted to do was go into my favorite cheap liquor store and buy a bottle of more-or-less palatable cheap white wine.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

Even on a hot afternoon… Forgodsake, it’s only 105 out there just now. And for lovely uptown Arizona, that ain’t very hot.

Thought I was gunna DIE by the time I staggered in the front door!!! HOLEEE mackerel, is it hot out there!

Wunderground tells us it’s NOT that hot: only 102º….and no, for Arizona, that ain’t very hot. BUT….we’re also informed that we have 15% precipitation. And yeah…that is fairly damp for lovely uptown Phoenix.

Y’know….  If my son weren’t here, I’d be in San Francisco — where I belong — right this very minute.

And really: when my idiot parents decided to move to Sun City — dragging me into Arizona with them — I should have had enough sense to say Hell No I Won’t Go!!!!  And if I’d had that much brainpower, chances are very high that yes, I’d still be home in the Bay Area, whither my maternal relatives emanated.

But no. I didn’t have that much sense. And so now I’m paying the Stupidity Tariff. 

So…yeah. Where did my marbles go?

I dunno.

If I knew where they went, I would dig them out from under the bed…or wherever they rolled. But…they don’t seem to be there. 😮

Marbles….marbles…  Well, with them or without them: I hate Arizona!!! And if I could find a way — any way, anyhow — to get away from this place, by damn!  I surely would!

Hotter Than the Hubs…Again!

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Holeee maquerel! It’s just like freakin’ Saudi Arabia out there, on the shores of the horrible Persian Gulf! Hot, wet, gray, and SOGGY SOGGY SOGGY!

The Dawg and I just returned from our morning perambulation of the ‘Hood. Honest ta Gawd, I thought I was  gonna expire before we got back from that (not-very-lengthy) stroll! It’s hotter than Hell, wetter than an active shower stall, and…ENDLESS.

We finally stumbled back to the house. As we scribble, the dawg is trying to ingest about a gallon of water out of her bowl. I’m drenched in sweat and do not feel like getting up and throwing myself around preparatory to the arrival of a nuisance cleaning lady…oh, wait!  It says here we’re at SUNDAY! 

Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! I’ve been imagining it was Monday!

Huh! Maybe I can persuade my poor son to come over to dinner. Or even take him out to a nice restaurant dinner….  He may have other ideas. But that’s OK. Can’t hurt to ask, eh?

If it’s raining, we won’t be grilling anything. Hmmmm….  What CAN we decoct? Pasta, probably: that’s always easy and usually edible.

EW! It’s supposed to reach 102 degrees today…at 45% humidity!  

Talk about feeling like Saudi Arabia. Horrible!

This is really unusual weather for Arizona, though. It’s VERY rarely this wet. What used to be routine in unlovely Saudi Arabia is essentially nonexistent here.

What a ghastly place to live that was. Can’t imagine how my poor mother survived nine unholy years in that gawdawful place. Her health wasn’t great to start with. But that my father would put her through a decade of misery like that…wow!  Was he mean, or was he just stupid?

Oh well. That was their problem. Today is my problem.

Pray, if you will, that the air-conditioning doesn’t go out today! 

😮