Coffee heat rising

funny

This post may be a paid guest contribution.

Morning in the ‘Hood

by

Not to say “mourning.” One of the neighbors passed away this week, leaving a bereft spouse. Nice folks: it is a loss, for everyone who knew them.

Well, if you have to croak over, you couldn’t pick a nicer time of year to do it — not in central Arizona, anyway. Beautiful weather. Gorgeous day to be buried, if interment is your choice.

Unknown whether the widow will stay in the house — right next door to the Wonder-Accountants’ place. Can’t imagine what I’d do if I were her. As a practical matter, these houses are reasonably sized: not hard for one person to care for, and not so elaborate you can’t afford a housecleaner and a yard crew. I find this place easy to care for and pleasant to live in. But…well…if you had a miasma of memories to cope with, that might be a different matter, indeed.

***

In other sylvan realms:

Dare not leave Ruby the Corgi out in the front courtyard by herself. Just now we have a pair of coyotes roaming the ‘Hood. Saw them over at the park yesterday. One of them — to say nothing of two! — would make short work of the Short Stuff. 😉

Seriously: she wouldn’t have a chance to defend herself against a coyote. That’s one reason I don’t like to leave her out in the backyard alone: Our canine neighbors trot up and down the alley, and they could hop over that six-foot wall in a trice.

So anyway…Ruby and I are therefore loafing in the front courtyard, listening to the beloved Accountant neighbor working on his yard.

****

Meanwhile…serious loafing.

Probably not the most salubrious way to diddle away the day. Doing NOTHING led me to think about an old friend and colleague from graduate school, neither seen nor heard from in years. Stumble upon her name in LinkedIn. And yep! She’s apparently still teaching at Scottsdale Community College.

Urk! What a way to spend your life. How can I say how much I appreciate being so seriously without ambition that I haven’t spent the past 20+ years killing time and boring students witless at some junior college.

Have I done great things? Nope. Neither has she.

Have I been bored out of my mind for the past 20 years? Absolutely not!

Uhm…so…what HAVE I done?

Yeah, I’ve taught a few junior college courses.

I’ve published a pile of books, all of them through respectable publishing houses.

I’ve taught a fistful of university courses.

I’ve edited and published academic publications for that university. Also a PR publication or three.

I’ve traveled the world: Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific islands, Alaska, Mexico, the US..the US…and the US, Europe, the Middle East, on and on and freaking on….

And hey! I’m running one of the Great Blogs of the Western World!

😀

 

Coyote Jamboree

by

A pair of coyotes have found the neighborhood park. Ruby and I were over there yesterday…and kinda dodged out of the way.

{grump! crab!!}

Decided against taking her over there for this morning’s dog’n’human stroll. Not that I don’t think I can fend off a coyote (I do carry a shilelagh with me, partly for that purpose). But…well…just not in the mood for confrontation, whether of the human or the canid variety.

And so, we loaf.

Lately, I’ve daydreamed about moving back out to Sun City. 

Heh!

Know what roams around the streets and backyards of Sun City?

Ayup! Coyotes!

Two legs, four legs…what’s the difference, eh?

Neighbor across the street — one of the WonderAccountants — reports that his neighbor on the other side from my house croaked over last night.

That makes me feel so sad. I didn’t know them well — just to say “hello” as the dog and I stumble up the sidewalk in front of their house. But they are unmistakably nice, kind, lovely neighbors.

I wonder if his widow will stay put, or move into some more elder-oriented digs? I hope she stays…but…you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, eh?

Heh… One thing I don’t gotta do is move out of this house…and surely not to horrible Sun City.

My parents bought a house out there when my father retired. I just hated that place!

Actually my present house was built by Del Webb, the guy who engineered Sun City. But for some reason, I find it a lot more comfortable than my parents’ place. Something about the design, the size…whatEVER. Plus the backyards are all fenced in (none o’ that nonsense in Sun City!!!!), and the house has a gorgeous pool. And it’s close to shopping — from here I can easily walk (!!) to a Sprouts, to an Albertson’s, to a Fry’s, and to a Walgreen’s. None o’ THAT nonsense in SC, either! 😀

And we have kids. That, IMHO, is a very big deal, indeed. I do love the sound of kids playing.

Anyway, I wonder what the surviving neighbor will do?

Wonder if my son would like to buy that house, if she decides to trudge off to an old-folkerie? How KEWL would that be?

Well.

I’d think it was kewl. He’d probably think it was a PITA. 😀

Ohhh well. One crazy idea after another, eh?

LOL! I don’t wanna move, that’s for sure. Main reason: I have moved altogether too many times in my life, between spending ten years in the Middle East and then gallivanting all over California for six or eight years. Never wanna fill up another cardboard box with newspaper-wrapped dishes again!

EVER!

And truth to tell… I think (hope!!) I’ll be able to engineer things so that I can stay here in the Funny Farm until such time as I croak over.

As long as I don’t have a stroke that seriously disables me, that should be possible. I’d have to hire someone to come in — probably every day — but given the cost of an old-folks’ prison, the expense might not be any more than having to move into an old-folkerie.

Hire someone to come babysit — maybe even stay overnight in a spare bedroom, if necessary. Get someone to deliver food. And get Uber to tote me around the city…  And basically, that would be about it.

Yes, it would cost more than it’s costing me now to live here. But not THAT much more. And very surely nothing like as much as an old-folkerie would cost.

Well. It’s something to consider.

Stay Away from My Doorbell…Stay Away from…

by

LOL! How’s about “Stay away from My House“?

This town is alive with door-to-door nuisances. I’ve pretty well learned never to answer the door. As policies go, that one leaves something to be desired: it causes you to miss calls from folks you do want to see. But…they number only about one in five of the hordes who show up at the house.

My neighbor to the west won’t answer the door at all. Doesn’t seem to matter whether she thinks she knows who’s out there or not. Ring her doorbell, and you get…nothin’.  If you want to see her, you have to call her on the phone and arrange to get together.

Ahhhh, the good ole days…when people were people and neighbors were friends. If you can imagine, my great-aunt’s house in Berkeley had — hang onto your hat — GLASS PANES in the front door. She could see whoever was out there, and decide on the spot whether to talk with them or not. Today, I wouldn’t have glass in an exterior door, not on a bet.

“Pleeze! Burgle this house!”

But…forgodsake, can you freakin’ imagine??? We live in a country today where you don’t dare answer the front doorbell.  Certainly not unless you know who’s out there. Not just who they are, but what they want.

Dayum, I miss Berkeley. What a pretty, peaceful, and civilized little burg.

Not that way anymore, of that you can be sure.

Seriously: I don’t think I’d feel safe living in my relatives’ pretty little Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house today. Too many druggies. Too many burglars. Too many wannabe rapists. Too many plain ole-fashioned pests.

Today, there really are only two nearby places I can think of where I would feel relatively safe:

One is dreary, boring, Sun City, baking away like a plate of cookies under the roaring path of Luke Air Force Base’s endless battalions of fighter jets. Horrible, whitey-white, hostile place.

The other is Fountain Hills: quiet, cheaply built, and baking away under the desert sun. Well. “Quiet” except during the breakfast hour and the dinner/cocktail hour, when HORDES of passenger and fighter jets pour into Sky Harbor airport, just to the south.

No, thankee.

Do I feel safe here at the Funny Farm?

Surely you jest…. 😀

Just now, though, the back door is hanging open, beckoning to every panhandler, druggy, and wannabe burglar who wanders up the alley. They have to make a special effort to see over the back wall, though: it’s topped with a good three feet of thorny, tangled vines. And if you wander into the backyard from any direction, you set off the Doggy Alarm, whose barkfest gives me plenty of time to shut and lock the door or to grab a pistol. Or both.

What.
A.
Place.

But…far as I can see, just about all of America is What. A Place these days.

More October 5 Scribbling

by

Not much else to do but scribble…sorry about that, folks! 😀

Hot and humid outside, coming on to four in the afternoon. Ruby and her human have traipsed around the neighborhood. Admired kids playing. Damn near melted in the heat. The Human kept remarking that she wanted to back to go San Francisco. The Corgi wondered what on earth the human was talking about.

My mother emanated from California. I had relatives who lived in San Francisco’s East Bay. Believe it or not, my lively aunt and great-grandmother occupied a genu-wine Frank Lloyd Wright bungalow, right there in the Berkeley foothills.

Dang, do I miss it! And them!

They were one lively pair of old bats, both widowed and living out their old age in the family manse. What a pretty little house, too. I never met the uncle: he was long gone before I came into this world. And the two women were well into their 80s — great-grandmother in her 90s, come to think of it. But they lived independently and happily in that little house.

And…heh heh!!!! Tellya one thing for sure! Nary an afternoon ever reached anything like 100 degrees in that place!! 😀

 

Ohhhh, the Terrror!!!

by

Just back from the morning park circumnavigation. The place is overrun with dog-walkers…and…a fine pair of coyotes! 

LOL! One of the funniest things about living in the Hood is how brain-banging stupid the locals are about the coyotes that wander in off the desert — about six blocks to the north of us. Ohhhh the terror!! Ohhhhh the horror! Ohhhhh the panic!

The coyotes occasionally roam in off the desert preserve, about six or eight blocks to the north of the Hood. And yes, they will grab your dog if you leave it out in a place where they can jump a fence.

But no, they will not attack you or your dog as you stroll around the neighborhood streets. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.

Odd that people don’t seem to know that, isn’t it? Not as much fun to be un-scared, I guess. 😀

It was interesting, though, that the pair were roaming around the park, humans be damned. Clearly, they were not afraid of the local riff-raff. And that, to tell the truth, is not a good sign. You don’t want them to be unafraid of humans: you want them to exit, stage left the minute they see you.

So it was eye-catching that the two were just trotting about their business, smack in the middle of a human-infested park. At the height of the Doggy-Walk Hour….  Hmmmm….

I carry a shilelagh with me when I take Ruby out. Main reason is that I can wrap her leash around it, allowing her to drag me around without removing the hide off the palms of my hands. But it would do well to bat one of the wild pups, if they decided to try filet of corgi for breakfast.

Jets from Luke Air Force Base roaring around overhead this morning. Frankly, I find those avatars of World War III a great deal more alarming than a furry wild dog. WHAT a racket those planes make!

My mother, about as smart as the coyote-fearers, used to sit on her back porch in Sun City (right down the road from Luke), and soak up the racket from those planes.

“Ohhhhhhh,” she would simper, “it’s the sound of freedom!”

Uhm…no, Mom: it’s the sound of World War III, comin’ your way…

Never did understand why that rather obvious fact didn’t register with her.

Humans. They’re even weirder than coyotes.

Headin’ Toward Hallowe’en!

by

It’s only the fourth of October. But o’course, that means we only have about twenty-eight days till HALLOWE’EN!  My favorite annual holiday!!!

People here already have silly witches and wizards set up in their yards. This is a neighborhood that embraces pagan rites, bless’em! So we get a great deal of fun hootenannying going on around here. I love it!!!

Dunno if my son will invite me down to his house for the door-to-door festivities. Sometimes his friends throw a party…so if he’s over on the other side of the Valley, he and I won’t be watching ghosts and goblins running around his streets.

That’s fine, because the WonderAccountants — neighbors across the road — love to sit outside on their driveway and hand out treats. I bring some to add to the booty and go over to join them.

That is MORE FUN than Carter has oats. The neighborhood just north of ours is a low-end affair populated largely by poor whites and Hispanics. And THOSE folks do know how to have fun with their kids.

Hordes of costumed terrors show up, driven into the ‘Hood in their relatives’ or neighbors’ vehicles. And ohhhh! The amazing, the wild, the CRAZY costumes! 

Also, o’course, having all of us sitting out in front pretty much puts the eefus on the vandalism. We have fun, they collect loot, and our yards and homes stay pretty much intact.

Ruby the Corgi has already dragged the Human from the neighborhood ‘s northerly posts to its southerly pillars this morning. That journey takes us past the former home of an old colleague, Jerry Jacka — a historically spectacular Arizona Highways photographer. He is, alas, long gone…as we soon will be, too, no doubt. But you can be sure no one will remember my house as the abode of a historically spectacular Arizona Highways and Phoenix Magazine sub-editor. 😀

Ohhhhh well. If ya wanna be famous, you’ve gotta pick your poison. Or so it appears.

YIPES!!!!!

Sprinkling system just sprang to life in the front courtyard, whereinat I was loafing while scribbling this…AUGH!

Hound and I darted into the house, barely in time to keep the computer from getting drenched.

DARN IT! Such a gorgeous morning: all I wanted to do was sit outside, absorb coffee, scribble random thoughts, and enjoy the day.

But noooooooo….   😀

{sigh}  Jerry Jacka: one of the great (truly!) landscape photographers of the Western World…. Ye gods, was that guy good at what he did! And what a privilege it was to work on staff for Arizona Highways when he and the rest of that crew were freelancing for us. I will say: that is the one paying staff job, anywhere, that I really do miss and I really do wish I were still doing.

But…ohhhh well. Now I am old. Now I am tired. It’s comin’ on to ten in the morning and…egad! I wanna go back to bed! 

When did it become the style to take one’s afternoon nap at mid-morning?

😮

Ohhh well, indeed….the Human will be better served by laying its spavined hip under a heating pad than by dodging sprinklers or loafing around the living room. And Ruby would rather do her loafing job atop the bed than anywhere else in the house or yard. 😀

And so…to work!