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funny

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My poor father!

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He would have been trying to save the equivalent of something over a million dollars in today’s money.

I doubt if he would have thought of it in those terms. He surely was aware that a hundred grand (his coveted goal) was a lot of money for a working-class guy. But a MILLION BUCKS’ worth? Probably not a concept that would have presented itself to him.

He did it, y’know. No kidding: He stashed a hundred thousand dollars in savings — that was his life’s savings goal — and then quit his job.

Shortly thereafter, the stock market crashed. 

So much for his hundred grand, eh?

Oh well. He went back to work for another couple years and then…soldiered on.

My mother died: the love of his life killed herself with tobacco sticks. He sent me through college. Then he quit his job, figuring at least to live ever after without having to work his a$$ off.

Frankly…I cannot imagine that he would have kept at his savings goal if he had thought of it as the equivalent of a million dollars. It would have been beyond his comprehension. But to tellya the truth, that is what the man accomplished in his lifetime.

He may have intuited that there was no way in Hell he could ever earn & save the inflation-adjusted equivalent of a million bucks. But I doubt if he actually knew it, at least not at a gut level.

I sure hope he didn’t.

That is what it amounted to, y’know. His goal of a hundred grand, by the time he retired, would have equated to just about a million dollars, in the change of his time.

Shhhh! Don’t tell him, though!

7:00 a.m.: The Moron Hour

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Why IS it that every  moron on the planet turns out of their house at 7 in the morning? With their dog, o’course!

Just back from the morning DoggyWalk. Nasty morning: hot, overcast, and wet. Back porch thermometer registers a mere 85 degrees.

Days like this, sometimes rain just coalesces out of the air. Don’t even need clouds to make it rain!

Welp, that doesn’t seem to be happening today…not yet, anyway. Wunderground predicts a 15% chance of rain and just now registers an ambient temperature of 85 degrees. Not very hot. But yeah: damp, that’s for sure.

Ruby never seems fazed by a soggy atmosphere. Maybe the thick furry coat protects her, to some degree from the elements: whether cold and wet or hot and wet.

At this hour, everybody and their little brother, sister,, and grandmother is out tromping around with their dawg. And they just don’t seem to get it that “they just want to pwaaaayyy” doesn’t apply to your dog. No, stupid… my dog just wants to rip their dog’s throat out. 

After you tell them to please keep their dog back and they refuse to do so, they get all peeved when your dog goes in for the kill.

Speaking of dogs, M’hijito bought a puppy yesterday, to replace his beloved old white golden retriever who croaked over a few days ago.

Oh, my, what a little cutie! And the parents were also white retrievers, so this one will grow up to look a lot like the Late, Great Jake.

I should call him — the kid, that is, not the dawg — and see if he’d like me to bring something over for lunch from the AJ’s deli. That would be pleasant…and an excuse to see the new pup. 😉

***

Meanwhile: ugh!  My hip is spavined and hurts like Hell.

Years ago, the Late, Great Dr. Daley — one of the finest GPs ever to walk the surface of the Earth — told me that someday I’d have to get surgery on that hip. Looks like the Someday has arrived.

Just what I need: surgery, and then weeks in the hospital recuperating and going through endless physical therapy. Whee…I can hardly wait.

Could I even walk from AJ’s to M’jito’s just now? Probably: once I get going, the gait seems to move along OK. The problem, I think, would be trapping a bus, getting down to Central & Camelback, and then hiking to the Kid’s place.

Dunno. A guy across the street has taken up the Uber business. I may ask him to drive me down to the store…and maybe for a few extra bucks he could be persuaded to stick around long enough to schlep me from the AJ’s to the Kid’s house.

The Uber thing looks like quite the little Godsend. I’ve only tried it once, but it really was The Business! The guy showed up at my house right away, schlepped me across the city, and then showed up again at the dentist’s office to schlep me home.

Truth to tell, it really may be that Phoenix has turned into enough of a Big City that you could live here without owning a car. M’hijito would like to get rid of mine — apparently he thinks that at 80 I’ve reached such a state of decrepitude I’m not safe to be driving. And I’ll tellya: if I knew for sure that a car would show up when I call for it — and show up in a timely manner — I’d agree with him.

But…well…that is something that I don’t know. Actually, to the contrary: I do know…a cab is not gonna show up on time when you need it. Period. This ain’t San Francisco, folks: this is Phoenix.

And no: dyed-in-the-wool Phoenicians do not ride cabs.

 

BREAK TIME!!!!!!!

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Okay, it’s time for Funny to take a little vacation. 😀

Seriously: I seem to have teetered off the Deep End and begun to write bizarre stuff in these posts. I’ve not been aware of the bizarritude, but when a friend brought a moment of Looney Toons to my attention, I thought…well…EGAD!!!!!

What on earth would lead me to write wack-sh!t posts containing putative suicide threats…that escapes me. I was not aware that quite so many marbles had rolled out my ears.

So…let’s build a little “platform” here from which to clarify matters and intentions, and then let’s have Funny take a li’l vacation.

Here we go…

I. THE PLATFORM

Folks, do know: I am not about to throw myself off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, to season my chocolate soda with arsenic, or to blow out my brains with my daddy’s pistol.

If I posted something — anything — that could be interpreted as a suicide threat, rest assured: THAT WAS NOT MY INTENTION. 

Nope. No. No way. Not about to exit stage left, now or any time in the foreseeable future.

****

II. The AUTHORIAL WEIRDNESS

Overall, I happen to be contented and upbeat. Happy with my home. Delighted with my  friends. Awed by my son.  Entertained by my doggy pal. Endlessly amazed by the phalanxes of cop helicopters buzzing overhead ( 😀 Another copter is up there as we scribble!)

So: have no fear.

Do bear in mind that I have an eccentric sense of humor, one that easily drags me toward the Dark Side. But that indicates nothing more than that my sense of humor is warped, indeed.

Don’t be scared.

III. A PASSAGE OF PEACE

Okay, while we all calm down, let’s give Funny about Money a rest.

No, Funny is NOT going away. 

We’ll take a break of TWO WEEKS, starting tomorrow, July 16.

This means no narrative posts will appear at Funny-about-money.com between July 16 and July 29. That’s 14 days.

Don’t panic: we’ll be back! But over that two-week period — starting tomorrow — we’ll give it a rest.

  • It does not mean I don’t love you.
  • It does not mean I’m taking Funny down.
  • It does not mean I won’t be back. 

It just means we’re taking a li’l vacation. 

Sorry to do this, but it does look as though we need to cool down a bit. LOL! Especially on a 116-degree day!! 😀

{chortle!} In the Department of Wacksh!t…

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{chortle!!!}  Noooo, I am not taking Funny about Money off the air because some sensitive soul imagines one of its posts is…is…really????…is suicidal. 

No kidding.

The more I study it, the stupider it looks.

Seriously. WHERE in any of the posts that have appeared over the past three weeks is there any hint of suicidal ideation?

Let’s see what topics we’ve had of late..Maybe we can find a meditation on throwing oneself off the Golden Gate Bridge…

Morning in Aridzona.  Okay, here I do say I’d druther drop dead than rot away in an old folks’ home. Hmmmm… Does that lead you to believe I’m getting ready to throw myself off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon?

San Francisco: Take Me Home. A sentimental reminiscence of the time my parents and I lived in S.F. I was in junior high school at the time. Loved it. Not interested in throwing myself off the Bay Bridge.

Reeeel Estate! Sentimental reminiscing on how I loved living in San Francisco.

Hotter than the Hubs and Crazier than a Loon. Blah blah blah about kids and coreligionists I’ve (apparently) annoyed in various inscrutable ways.

On and on…dayum, but I do have other things to do that are more interesting than trying to unravel this silly little mystery. Sorry, folks…but I don’t think anything I’ve posted lately suggests I’ve gone raving suicidal. What IS the matter with people???????

😀

 

Still Kickin’

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Okay…not to say grrrrrr….  Funny about Money is still online, despite the momentary threat to its existence.

So far no one has tried (actively, anyway) to force me to take the site down. So…I dearly hope THAT dust has settled.

Just back from a Ruby-free hike around the ‘Hood. It’s too, TOO hot to take the little dog out in the late morning sun. Matter of fact it was rather too hot for the Human, too…

Well. It really isn’t THAT hot. Only 100 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

O’course, I wasn’t in the shade…I was walkin’ around in the full blast of the sunlight. 😀  By and large, Arizonans can’t tell the difference, eh?

Visited the shopping center just to the north of us. Saw nothing of interest. Failed to go in and pester the bike shop guys. Ohhh well….

Even though that place isn’t far from here, in the heat it sure seemed further than normal. 😀

LOL! Maybe we could convince my honored coreligionist that a jaunt up to the local shopping center in 100-degree heat IS an attempted suicide, eh?

I’ve calmed down a bit from that passage of flaming bullshit. Whether the flames will flare up again remains to be seen, but at least right now I’m no longer in such a f*cking rage that I’m ready to throw everything in the campfire. 😀

My son has co-opted my bicycle. So I went up to one of the big general stores in that shopping center to see if I could find a similar bike, and if so, how much it would cost. Answer to Question No. 1: nope. Answer to question No 2: irrelevant. 

Sheee-ut!

So after I cool down and after the atmosphere cools down a bit, I’ll have to make a run on one of the big department stores — or on the nearest Sears — and see if I can find a bike to replace the purloined number.

That assumes I stay in Phoenix, though. This bullshit has stretched my patience beyond its limits! Just now I’m considering whether I should sell the house and move out of easy driving distance from North Central Phoenix.

Sun City, maybe?

Ugh! I hated living in Sun City. SDXB is out there now and has enjoyed it until recently. Just now he’s too ill to enjoy much of anything, and it remains to be seen if and when he will recover.

However…any number of other pleasant enough venues await. Far more pleasant, as a matter of fact:

* Fountain Hills
* Moon Valley
* Marginally livable districts in Tempe
* Paradise Valley
* The Encanto district
* The Alvarado district

All of these are more than good enough places to live, with all the amenities an old bat needs to survive more or less comfortably. And…none of them is Sun City. 😀

When my parents lived out there, we found that the medical care was…well…beyond abominable. There was my mother, dying of cancer — something that was OBVIOUS to anyone who saw her and anyone who knew her — and those effing greedy quacks out there were telling us it was all in her pretty little head.

No kidding. Terminal cancer: imaginary.

I guess we all imagined she died, too. And that she was cremated. And that an urn full of her ashes resides in the Sun City mausoleum.

All in our pretty little heads, right?

That episode, among other things, is a primary reason that you could not pay me to live in Sun City. Nay, not for a zillion bucks. I hate that place, and wouldn’t go near it if SDXB and NG weren’t out there now.

Horrible.

Reeeel Estate!

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Gosh! Lookeee here!

This high-rise is just down the street from where DXH and I used to live, right in the center of the toniest part of mid-town Phoenix.

How kewl can you get, eh?

Seriously: I do like this li’l hovel. It’s literally right down the street from where DXH and I used to live, and smack in the middle of what is now the most stylish part of North Central Avenue.

Given just the slightest provocation, and I’d move there in an instant.

Seriously: I did love living in that district. And when I was a kid in San Francisco, I loved living in a high-rise. Betcha I could get used to this dive real quick.

Moving though….ugh! More trouble than it’s worth, I suspect.

But…hmmmmm…..  Mebbe not, eh?