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July 4? Really? And…then what?

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Here we are on our nation’s birthday. Strolled through the neighborhood, basically to pass the time and to eyeball the neighbors’ homes. And…well…

It’s overcast and gray and wet out there. Not raining…yet. But I reckon it will be, soon enough.

So much for watching the fireworks, eh?

Usually, a bunch of them are visible from our parts. A large housing tract to the north of us puts on quite a show. Neighbors here in the ‘Hood customarily blast the sky for a couple of hours. And the City (or some such entity) expends money and gunpowder on a big show in the central part of town.

We’ll see how that goes tonight, depending on the weather.

***

Meanwhile, today’s sight-seeing stroll suggests the ‘Hood’s property values are holding strong….and probably rising. What I saw this afternoon, hiking from pillar to post, makes me feel very glad that I did not move out to Sun City when SDXB made his escape.

These houses — and this whole neighborhood — are looking better and better. Homes are not only being maintained handsomely, they’re being upgraded, enlarged, fancified. And you can bet their value is upgrading like crazy, too.

It would appear that, as predicted some time ago, the presence of the recently installed light-rail train has indeed jacked up the appeal and the value of the ‘Hood. If that continues, by the time my son inherits this house, it will be worth a sh!tload of money. He’ll be able to sell it and invest the proceeds; or sell his own home and move in here free & clear; or sell both houses and move to…where? San Francisco?

For sure.

Or, I suppose, he could turn one of the two houses into a rental and use that real estate to generate a steady income.

Interesting, eh? 

Humdidity!

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Just back from a walk around the immediate neighborhood: really, not more than five or six blocks, all told. It is SO HOT out there — under cloudy gray skies — that by the time I got back to the Funny Farm, I was just drenched in sweat.

Well…sweat or humidity. It’s VERY wet out there just now: reminiscent of (un)lovely Ras Tanura, the gringo housing camp perched on the shore of the Persian Gulf, there on the edge of Saudi Arabia. That was where we lived during the 10 interminable years that my father worked out there.

Hmmmm…  Just now, Wunderground claims the humidity is 67 percent under cloudy skies, at 87 degrees.

Yuch! No  wonder it feels so balmy out there… As in you’d be balmy to stick your nose out the door!

Truly an unpleasant stroll.

Said stroll took me, as usual, past SDXB’s old house, where he dwelt before Tony the Romanian Landlord scared him so much he moved to Sun City. He — SDXB — tried to get me to go out there, too. Having been there & done that, I declined.

But…hmmm…of course every time I walk by SDXB’s old place, every time I miss his companionship, I wonder: DO I want to move back out to (un)lovely Sun City?

And…well…the answer is invariably NO. Been there, done that, don’t wanna do it again.

My parents dragged me to Sun City when they retired (in their first attempt…) and installed me in the cute little house they bought out there.

  • I hated it.
  • I hated it.
  • I hated it.
  • And I hated it some more….

Seriously: living in a place where a whole class of people is openly declared unwelcome is…just not what I wanna do. Can’t think of anything or anyplace more unpleasant.

  • I was hated.
  • I was unwelcome.
  • I was considered weird.
  • I had to drive way to Hell and Gone into the city to go to work.
  • I loathed the racket from the Luke Air Force Base war planes roaring over our house, starting every day at 6:00 a.m.
  • I detested the ubiquitous gravel landscaping.
  • And I hated it that they didn’t have a decent grocery store out there. Apparently old folks don’t cook and don’t eat fresh food. Right?

Sooooo glad to be away from there!!! And you may be sure: I ain’t goin’ back. SDXB or no SDXB!

Ohhh well. That’s more there than here. In more immediate circumstances: yea verily! It’s hotter than Hell outdoors, right here in the ’Hood, even though the sky is solid gray from horizon to horizon. And yes: it’s amazingly humid.

Not as spectacularly so as some days could get in Saudi Arabia. But still: the air is soggy and your clothes are wet when you stagger in the door.

Garden spot, this…

Soggy Doggy July 4!

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Wow! Is it ever hot and wet out there!

The Hound and the Human just got back from cirucmnavigating the park. 😀  All sorts of July 4 shenanigans are going on over there. WHAT a hoot!

Hot and overcast: Thermometer reads in the 90s…under the shade of the back porch! Patchy gray clouds loom overhead. To the east: high, streaky white clouds look like they were applied with a paintbrush.

The park: more fun than life!  You never so SO MANY adorable little kids running around, shooting back and forth around their handsome young parents. A small band is banging out clichéd music. Dogs are frolicking. Cops are loafing.

Too, too good.

Meanwhile, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such icky weather here. Normally, when we say “it’s a dry heat,” we ain’t kidding. Today, though: it looks like Saudi Arabia out there: hot and dripping wet! The sky: coated with gray overcast. The air: like a steam bath. And it’s supposed to hit 116 here this afternoon.

Well…guess I can be glad I’m not still in Saudi Arabia, where this kind of weather was par for the course during any given summer day. Rasty Nasty’s weather report for today predicts 57% humidity; no rain; temps in the low 100s.

Garden spot!

My father worked down on the docks of the oil camp where we lived. He was a harbor pilot: steering tankers and freighters in and out of their parking spots. Surely a job exceeding “horrible.”

At any rate, he was on track to accruing enough capital to retire and move us all back to the States when my mother came down with amoebic dysentery. That did in his beautifully laid plans. He had to send her and me back to San Francisco, where she was locked up in a hospital for weeks. The doctors (probably at her behest…) told him she was NOT to go back to Arabia. He took a job in the Bay Area, shipping out of the East Bay. And so we escaped that horrible place.

Thank God!

ARF!

Report from the Hubs of Hades

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Yow!!  Is it ever HOT out there!!!

Dawdled half the day away and so didn’t get out for the usual morning walk. Stupidly, I figured I’d go on out along about 3:00 p.m.

Bad idea. Extraordinarily bad idea.

As we scribble, it’s a mere 103 degrees out there, in full sun. 😀 Might’ crisp, eh???

Oh, well. Undeterrable, I take it into my feeble head to stroll past my old house and SDXB’s old house…not far from the Funny Farm, really: just a block to the north. My first house here was about two blocks to the west, on the same street as SDXB’s place.

Ye GAWDS!!!!!  

It must be a little damp out there, because it feels like the damn place has turned into an electric oven. Actually, Wunderground tells us the humidity is only 4%. So…dunno why it feels so unholy hot out there, except maybe because it’s late in the afternoon.

Ohhhhh well… Made it back to the Funny Farm without passing out, which just now seems like a bit of an accomplishment. We won’t pull THAT stunt again!!

***  😀 ***

Seriously, I do need to get off my duff and get that exercise walk in: EVERY DAY. Problem has been: various visitors and pests have been descending on me first thing in the morning, so I’ve had to sit around until they’re gone….and by then, a whole lot of other chores and tasks are waiting to get done. And by then, too, it’s already to goddamn hot to be frolicking up and down the sidewalks.

So:

After this, the Dawg and the Human shoot out that door no later than 7 a.m.  

That will get us back here by 8:00 — earlier, if we’re lucky. And though it’ll be getting hot by then, it won’t be paw-singeing or human-fainting. Yet.

Gosh, I miss SDXB.

Not so much as I’m willing to follow him to Sun City… Been there: ain’t goin’ there again. But I do wish he hadn’t moved away. He was a good neighbor and a pleasant friend.

He likes Sun City, though. Dwelling in a mausoleum never much appealed to me (hated the place when my parents lived there). But he and New Girlfriend seem to enjoy it and the unholy roar from the Luke Air Force Base fighter jets….loveleeee.

My mother loved it, too. She used to sit on her back porch every morning sipping her coffee over the morning paper and, when I was around, socializing with me. Incredibly, she actually claimed to LIKE that ungodly airplane racket.”Ohhh! It’s the sound of fweedom!” she would simper.

“Noooo, muther! That’s the sound of World War III, comin’ your way.” /eyeroll/

That was something I never could understand! The noise was just SO unpleasant…and forgodsake, first thing in the morning! 

Mysterious, people are….

So, anyway: After this, Ruby and I are out of the sack at dawn and on the road! That should get us back here before the worst of the heat comes up. Still will be hot: at this time of year we’re looking at temps in excess of 105 degrees. But nigh unto dawn, it should be tolerable.

There’s Hope! (?) !

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Apparently Amazon is about to hugely expand its grocery delivery service. If that’s so — speaking of “huge” –it would solve a vast problem for me.

My son has purloined my car, believing that old bats shouldn’t be allowed to drive. Never mind that I’ve never been in a serious accident. Never mind that I haven’t even been in a fender-bender in years. Ohhhhhh no!  Old bats mustn’t drive!

Well… The truth is the main reason I do drive around here is to pick up groceries and drugstore items. This New! Improved! delivery service from Amazon (whose service already is pretty amazing…) will virtually eliminate any need for me to drive around at all, except to get to a doctor or a dentist.

A-a-n-nd-d….right across the street we have an Uber driver. He or one of his colleagues can schlep me to appointments. Meanwhile, if Amazon delivers, I’ll have almost no need to drive anywhere at all.

Jeez.

It’s like going back in time. 

When I was a kid, we didn’t own a car. Didn’t need one. Taxis and public transit took us everywhere we needed to go.

If that holds forth again any time in the near future, it’ll save a huge amount of money…and the PITAs of car fueling and maintenance, and repair will GO AWAY!

Can you imagine?

One of Those Days, Continued

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Magically, the toilet has started working properly. Yep: outta the blue. This was shortly after I’d called WonderAccountant to get the number of the excellent plumber we share.

The telephone started working, too. Why?????

So I had to phone her back and call off THAT excursion. She must think I’m even crazier than I am.

Tooth hurts tooth hurts tooth hurts tooth hurts and not a DAYUM thing I can do about it. Too early to reach the dentist on the phone; plus it wouldn’t matter anyway because I can’t get to his office without a car.

There’s a dentist down the road from the Funny Farm, but I don’t have their phone number…so that is going to entail walking down there in 100-degree heat and soggy humidity. And…very probably finding them Not Open.

W.A. sounded a bit harassed this morning. Probably (as usual) working too hard. Having her nutty neighbor pester her over the phone surely cannot help her own sense of harassment… {sigh}

I fear it may be getting time for me to move into one of those horrid old-folks’ institutions. You know: where you live in a dormitory and you have staff baby-sitting you and execrable food served up in a dining hall.

Ugh. Any day I’d rather take a flying leap off the North Rim. But…what are you gonna do?