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Unmerry Christmas

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It’s noon on Christmas day and NOT ONE PERSON has bothered to so much as call on the phone and wish me a Merry Xmas. 

Gosh.

I knew I was repellant, but I had no idea I was that bad. 

🙁  🙁  🙁

The sky is overcast and threatening to rain. Otherwise Ruby and I would set off on a good long hike. An hour or so of walking would shake off some of the depression. But…

But dontcha just know that about the time we get 45 minutes out the front door, the skies will open and POUR on us. So…to say I hesitate to take off down the sidewalk or up into the hills is to understate. Significantly.

*****

Call up SDXB to wish him a Merry Xmas. He’s busy fixing dinner for guests.

He’s still going strong with New Girlfriend. Which is a good thing: she’s really a neat lady, perfect for him, and she lives out there in Sun City, where he does nowadays.

He wanted me to move out there with him, at the time he decided to head west (FAR west) to escape the Tony Situation. But I’d lived there when my parents were holding forth in those parts. And…uhm…nooo thanks!

Not that it’s a bad place. It’s just…well…majestically not to my taste.

But meanwhile, in our parts the Tony Situation has subsided handsomely. Yea, verily: Tony is actually friendly to me. And weirdly, I rather like him. He really is an amazing man.

So any chance SDXB had of persuading me to move back to noisy, dreary Sun City dissolved in that cauldron.

And therefore what I’d really like to machinate, for the future, is staying here in the Funny Farm until I can’t waddle from the bed to the bathroom; then conveniently dying and leaving the place to my son.

Alternatively: sell the shack, take the proceeds, and buy myself into some miserable old-folkerie.

Few things do I detest more than congregate living. But given the track record of longevity in my family, chances are hideously high that I’ll wrap up my life in one of those horrible places. Lacking a nice Golden Gate Bridge from which to take a flying leap….  😉

*****

Have you noticed how ditzy Americans are about the subject of Death & Dying? Poor creatures! They don’t seem to grasp that Death is part of Life…and that if one person croaks over — for whatever reason — the planet does not, after all, stop rotating.

Oh, well.

****

My plan right now is to ask Wonder Cleaning Lady if she can be hired to come in and take care of me during the pre-Demise weeks or (heaven forfend) months. She worked for the Beatitudes and so has experience in that department. The big roadblock, though, would be that she has — of all things– a family(!!). And no doubt will feel little enthusiasm for lurking around all night to babysit an old lady.

She may, however, know how to find sources of 24-hour care…preferably the kind that does NOT require you to move into a dormitory for old bats. We shall see: so far I haven’t worked up the nerve to ask her.

JAYZUZ!!! Check out the entrance fee for The Beatitudes, the most prominent and probably the best of the old-folks’ prisons here.

Welp. Suicide is painless, so they say…

Better that than having to fork over your kids’ entire inheritance to have someone babysit you into the grave….

****

Holiday Confuse-a-Bat

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😀  Ohhh-kayyy….  It’s Christmas Eve. WHAT am I supposed to be doing today?

Seriously: if we had a plan, I failed to enter it on the calendar. And since nothing can be entered with any certainty in the agèd brain, natcherly I cannot remember whether m’hijito and I had something up…or not.

I assume he’s going to his dad’s or to his friends’ place. His pals usually have a nice holiday shindig. But I don’t recall being invited to it this year…which doesn’t mean I wasn’t invited: only that I can’t remember.

DON’T get old, whatever ya do!!!!!

I kid you not. 

In the Department of Old Age, at this point of course (as you who have moved homes a time or three must know), you’re no doubt living in your last own-it-yourself home. Next one will either be a motel room in an old-folks’ institution or a box in the ground. Or maybe a nice urn for ashes.

But…gee! The other day Ruby and I were walking on the northerly fringe of Upper Richistan, along the bank of the canal bordering that tony district. And what should we see but…wow! THE coolest little tract of very pricey-looking patio homes, laid out along the river-like canal, below a view of the North Mountains. 

Hm.

It’s in a walled development, suggesting a well organized (yeah: expensive) homeowner’s association that takes care of the grounds and amenities.

Gosh.

Walk past, southeasterly.

On the way home, walk past it again, northwesterly.

Could we afford that????

Consider: no more monthly bills for the pool cleaning. No more monthly bills for Gerardo (Yard Dude) and his crew. Your monthly HOA bill no doubt would cover regular security guard service as well as the pool and grounds care.

Hm, indeed…

Very innaresting. I may go back and look at that place more closely; maybe watch for the next “For Sale” sign.

On the other hand…  My house has no nuisancey homeowners’ association to cope with. My yard and pool guys do what I ask them to do, not what they’re assigned to do by the local HOA. And from here I can walk (not have to drive) to not one, not two, but THREE very fine grocery stores, a computer store/repair shop, a Best Buy, and (as if I cared) an excellent restaurant.  If Ruby flies into a yap-fest, few of the neighbors can hear her, and none of them will belly-ache about it.

Hmmmm…

Yeah: no. I reckon this place is going to be the shack M’hijito inherits. If he wants to live here, bully for him. If not, he’ll net about half a million bucks for it. Between that and the value of his shack, he should be able to buy the Great Mansion of the Western World. Looks to me like the best strategy just now is to lay low and cling to my dollars.

And go skinny-dipping in my very own backyard pool! 

😀

Still Pre-Xmasing

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M’hijito called and offered to drive me to the stores. Convenient, since my car has been glommed and apparently I’m never gonna get it back.

So this is one shopping jaunt I don’t have to make on foot. Would be nice if I could remember what I need to buy…  Ohhhh well…

He, then, presumably is on his way over here.

Ruby the Corgi seems just fine today. She must have eaten something that made her sick yesterday: probably some bug or some human detritus lurking in the yard.

Human: less fine. Hip still hurts so much I can barely hobble around. Oh well. Thass overrode, swa maeg thisse.

Well, hafta say this: I’m so glad I don’t live in Sun City, an hour’s drive away from the young man’s house. My present castle is only about 10 minutes from his place.

This allows me to impose on him with regularity. Today, for example, he’s schlepping up here to haul me to a grocery store.

Others who can be imposed upon do exist here. A guy catty-corner across the street drives an Uber cab for example. He’ll come trotting right over if you pester him.

Turns out we have not one, not two, not three but SIX Uber drivers residing here in the ‘Hood! Can you imagine? We never have to call an actual taxicab!

Weather is a little less spectacularly gorgeous than it was yesterday. Some humidity has rolled in, so the sky is a bit overcast — enough to be kinda gray — and the air feels a bit sticky. Not enough to bellyache about…but not Arizona’s usual spectacular winter weather.

Uh oh…here he is.

And so, AWAAAYYY….

Pre-Xmas, Continued…

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Ruby the Corgi seems to have gotten over whatever ailed her, the last time we met in these environs. No barfing(!!). No urgency to get outside.

Luz, the Cleaning Lady from Heaven, just showed up at the door. That was a jolt: I didn’t expect her this week!!!

Fortunately the house was sorta kinda almost picked up. So I didn’t look like quite the chucklehead that I am.

Ohhh well.

This morning: walked and walked and walked all over the ‘Hood. Gorgeous day.

Over on the east side of Main Drag East is a somewhat tonier section of the ‘Hood. Still tract houses, yes: but some look a little larger than ours; some look better built. They have irrigation instead of “desert landscaping” (read “gravel yards”), so the landscaping is pretty and much more inviting than ours.

Briefly, I wondered whether I could afford one of those houses.

VERY briefly: Of course not!!!! No, I cannot afford to maintain an irrigated lot full of mow-it-once-a-week grass. Nor could I afford to air-condition one of those palaces. Or pay the taxes on it.

So much for that idea. 😀

Uh-oh! Xmas-time!!

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Well, Christmas snuck up on me this year. But good! I’ve been loafing with such extravagant loaf-skill that I haven’t paid a bit of attention to the annual merchandising frenzy. And what with my car purloined, I can’t drive to choir…so frankly, I hadn’t even noticed that Christmas comes in three days!

Eeeeek!!!!!

And I have no idea what on earth my son might like to get as a Christmas present. 

Actually, I’m thinking I may make the rounds of our favorite retailers and pick up a fistful of gift certificates for him.

Maybe a bottle of nice wine?  Hmmm…maybe not. Recently the Mayo Quacks decided he had a nice Ailment of Middle Age and so really ought not to be swilling our favorite potables.

Ohhhh well...we’ve got all day to think about that. Whenever I get off my duff, I’ll make a run on the local stores and search out a few things for him.

Pillar to Post…and Back Again!

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What a hoot! For unknown reasons, I got all revved up and launched on a Hike That Would Not Stop this afternoon.

Seriously: I’ve been walking for a good three hours. Pillar to post and back again… And highly entertained by that which is the same and that which has changed around the ‘Hood.

As a practical matter, a surprising amount of the landscape has evolved: newer, different, maybe even a little more upscale. Yet a lot remains in full plus ça change plus ça reste le même mode. It was just plain fun to walk through shopping strips and parking lots and clusters of stores that I’ve visited for years and yet hardly even noticed…so much are they part of the landscape.

Got some good exercise, and really enjoyed the long hike.

During all this, considering: DO I want to pack up and move back out to Sun City, there to join SDXB and his girlfriend? Would I feel safer a whole long way from the traffic and the homeless vagrants and the burglars and the whatnot?

Ultimately, as my feet took me back up the driveway to the front door, the thought that came to mind was Well, no! No, I do NOT want to move to Sun City. No, I wanna stay here. 

I love our neighborhood. I love our neighbors. I love the kids playing in the yards and streets. And I even love the cars and busses and trains rumbling up and down the surrounding main drags.

This is a fun, cool, down-home middle-class urban neighborhood: the sort of place where I feel right at home. And…I ain’t leavin’!

WOOT!