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Zowie!!!

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CAN you believe it???  WordPress let me back into Funny about Money on the FIRST TRY!

Zowie! It’s a miracle! 😀

Just back from trudging around the park with Ruby the Corgi. Usually this is pleasantly fun, and today is no serious exception. Kids playing. Grown-ups loafing and socializing. Other dawgs walking their humans. Beautiful, sunny afternoon: bright but not too hot.

My son still has the purloined car, so any shopping has to be done within walking distance.

But…but… In the “can you believe it” department,  THAT is no problem. Everything we need IS within walking distance!

  • Two supermarkets
  • A pet store
  • A computer store
  • A Sprouts
  • A Bookman’s
  • A QT
  • A hair stylist
  • ….on and on

When Caligula made off with my car, really: I did expect to be seriously inconvenienced. Enough to consider selling my house and moving to a suburb on the far east or far west side.

But..nay verily! 

You don’t need a car to live in this neighborhood conveniently. 

I sorta kinda knew this. But had never tried it out. Now, though, I have…and what I’ve found is that I can easily walk to any of the many stores in this area.

LOL! That may not be so when the weather’s hitting 110 degrees. During that period, I’ll have to call an Uber or a cab. But that ain’t very long, in these parts. Even in the summertime, you have a couple hours in the morning when you can walk around without risk of heat stroke.

Truth to tell, though, this neighborhood is incredibly convenient, and well stocked with a generous array of retailers within easy walking distance.

So. That does away with the (horrible!) plan to move to Sun City or Fountain Hills, stodgy suburbs on the far west and far east sides of the city. Looks like I’ll be hanging out here until they come to lock me into the old-folkerie.

And with any luck, I’ll croak over before then. 😀

If this state of affairs proves to be permanent, I probably will ask His Lordship to sell that car, so I can pocket a few grand and no longer be hassled with licensing and insuring it. We shall see…

And we’re b-a-a-c-k!

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Yep: the Hound and the Human are back from another park circumnavigating junket.

WHAT a beautiful night! Perfect temperature. Velvety dark evening. Kids playing. Kids playing. Kids playing. Teenagers batting baseballs and batting baseballs and batting baseballs. A brilliant full moon pouring light down through the darkening sky.

Just freakin’ gorgeous.

Walking through the dusk, I’m reminded of what an evening at sea must have been like for my father. He was a seaman: a merchant mariner, mostly shipping on oil tankers. This vocation got him a very fine, handsomely paid job in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia: one that included housing for his family and a short leave with a two-week trip to venues like Beirut and Delhi and a long leave with a trip back to New York, whence we would launch our biennial automobile trip across the United States.

Start in New York City.

Cruise southerly and westerly, down through Maryland and waypoints. Eventually arrive in Dallas.

Camp there with his brother for two or three weeks. Then get back on the road.

Westerly, westerly, through Colorado and across the Rockies, through Nevada, Arizona, and them-such waypoints. Arrive at the home of my mother’s best friend, in Long Beach, California.

Hang out with her for a week or two.

Then northerly, northerly, up the coast to the Bay Area. Hang out with my relatives in Berkeley for a month or so.

And back, like a rocket, across the continent to New York City, there to turn in the car, hop on a plane, and head back to Dhahran.

Some vacation, eh?

Well. I guess it would have been cool…once. But we did it every time we came back to the States. That was every two years. 😀

So that is what I’m reminded of by a brilliant azure night with Venus hanging over us and warm air circulating around us. What a life!

‘Round & ‘Round They Go…ARF!

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Eighty-nine degrees out there, sez Wunderground, with 12% humidity.

Ohhh yah? Couldn’t prove that by me.

Just back from a junket around the park, dragged forth by a small dog. I’d have said it was nigh unto 90 degrees, ayup… and freakin’ WET. Humid. Soggy. 

😀

Thinkin’ about my late stepsister as we traipsed along. Many of the 70s-ish ranch houses remind one of her family’s place. I do miss her. Even though her politics were somewhere to the right of Benito Mussolini’s, she was a smart woman, an interesting woman, and a fun person to be around.

{sigh} Ah, the bygone days…

How she came to spring from the loins of the witch my father married after my mother died: that escapes me. That woman was one of the meanest humans I’ve ever met: nasty, nasty, and nastier. In startling contrast, her daughter, who became a Superior Court judge, was one of the nicest people you could hope to meet.

They’re all dead now: Witch stepmother, smart step-sister, sister’s bright daughter, sister’s mentally stunted son, and her lawyerly husband. Ohhh well: nothing lasts forever.

Which is probably just as well…

November 4, continued….

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Some hours have passed since this morning’s post. My excellent son is presumably on his way over here to pick up the shopping list he asked for when he volunteered (!!!!!) to make a grocery run for me.  How cool IS that, anyway?

Now I won’t have to hike to the Sprouts or the Albertson’s to pick up a few provisions. Since summer is y’cumin’ in, this is a BIG help.

And…here he is!

Ahhh! And now to LOAF!

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Dayum, but Olde Age has its compensations. 😀  The biggest is NOT HAVING TO GET DRESSED AND TRUDGE OFF TO WORK!!!

Wheeee! Here we are, dawn’s early light cheerily glowing in the window. The Dawg and the Human stuffed with breakfast. Human lingering over a cup of hot coffee.

Beloved Pool Dude has been here and gone, leaving the Hole in the Ground into Which to Pour Money spotlessly, sparkling clean. Bless that wonderful man!

Ruby thinks he IS wonderful. And weirdly, she seems to know what day of the week it is. On Pool Dude Day, she lurks by the back door, waiting…waiting…waiting for the Moment of Joy when he shows up.

And yea verily, on that morning he does show up. Then we have a Magnificent Moment of Doggy Joy, after which Ruby must tear outside and stand there at the pool fence’s gate, admiring his magnificence.

Apparently many of these guys are ex-convicts. Pool cleaning is one of the…uhm…trades for which Arizona prisons train inmates. So, theoretically, when they get back on the street they’ll have some other way to earn money than by stealing your car, eh?

At any rate, I have no idea what about the guy makes him seem so splendid to a corgi. But without doubt, she thinks he’s about the best Human ever to stumble across the surface of the earth.

Whenever I get off my duff, I do need to trudge down to the neighborhood clinic to…uhmmmm…. wwwaaaaitaminit!

I wuz about to say, to try to get the doc to do something about the constant maddening ITCH in my feet and legs, and as the computer cruises happily across the Internet it lands on a page that tells us...

Vitamin B12: Common Side Effects (Oral Supplements and Injections)

  • Headache
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Mild diarrhea
  • Itching or a skin rash/acne
  • Dizziness
  • Tingling sensation in hands and feet (peripheral neuropathy)
  • Weakness or fatigue 

And which Vitamin B-gulper do we know who has a mad itch and crazy-making tingling in the hands and feet?

For.
The.
Luv.
of.
GAWD!!!!!

Manufacturers of OTC nostrums should be required to list ALL a drug’s potential side effects on the label! In 14-point type!!!

Man! I just stumbled across that li’l blurb. Wasn’t looking for it. And now know why my hands and feet and lips and gums feel like an electric current is buzzing through my body.

GodDAMMIT. I wish I’d known this two weeks ago. 

Ugh!!! Wonder how long it’ll take for this stuff to wear off… Bare minimum two or three days, whaddaya bet? More likely a week or two.

Wouldn’t you think that by now, having arrived in the middle of Olde Age, I would KNOW BETTER????? 

Yea verily, by now shouldn’t I have figured out that just about every damn pill I drop down my throat has some untoward side effect?

Argh!! My Christian Scientist crackpot relatives may not have been crackpots, after all. Maybe they had somethin’ there…

Another incredibly gorgeous morning!

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Seriously: WHERE do these incredible mornings come from?

Back in the house from a pillar-to-post trek: local doctor (no one home), Sprouts, mysteriously emptied store in the Sprouts shopping center, computer store, Albertson’s, on and on and unendingly on. Ruby was with me, so some of these stores did not welcome our custom. Which was fine: I wasn’t ready to drop a lot of money there, anyway.

Right hip hurts so much I could cry. No sign that it will quit hurting soon. This was what I wanted to chat with a doctor about…LOL! To no avail, eh? That which you want, you cannot have! 

But hey! What’s a little pain & agony when you have a SPECTACULARLY gorgeous day and a funny little dog?

Too bad Americans don’t follow the customs of their British cousins where dogs in stores are concerned. In London, for example, you’ll find people with their dogs at their side in most stores and many restaurants.

This morning I could not bear to leave Her Cuteness behind as I traipsed through the neighboring commercial district. So along she came. This meant, to probable loss for an occasional merchant, that we couldn’t go into some stores and therefore I did not buy some goods from those stores.

Ohhhh well. A couple bucks not spent, a couple bucks saved.

Meanwhile, this morning’s weather is BEYOND spectacularly gorgeous. High -flying thin clouds stained the dawn sky with orange streaks, then settled down into white fluff over blue background.

Corner doctor’s office was closed. So…heh! We’ll just have to traipse on through the pain. 

Seriously: it can’t be that bad; otherwise I couldn’t possibly have made today’s little trek. Yes, it hurt…but not enough to keep the Dog and the Human inside.

Passers-by simply DOTE on this little corgi! My, do they admire Ruby. And (one presumes) covet her. She’s well behaved and trots along minding her own doggy business, so the waves of admiration did nothing to submerge us.

And now the Human is walloped. Dawg is already snoozing at the foot of the bed. Let us turn out the light and absent ourself…

Happy November 3!