Coffee heat rising

aging

Summer Storm-time

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1:40 p.m.
November 18, 2025…still!

Fine freshet of an Arizona afternoon storm is y-rollin’ in. kerBOOM!  Thunder growls angrily in from the west. The sky has turned ash gray as clouds gallop ahead of the wind. Ruby the Corgi loafs on the bed, gazing out the window…apparently unfazed.

What un-fine timing. Tonight M’ijito is dragging me to the brain-banging booooring physical therapy studio, there to blow away another two hours going hup-hup-hup-hup-hup-hup-hup-hup-…..to amazingly little avail.

Ugh. If I’ve got to waste my time, I’d rather waste it loafing with Ruby.

Ohhhhh, well. It gets one out of the house. I guess. And presumably onto the rain-soaked streets…

Meanwhile, the pain is sloooooowwwleeee easing off, about an atom’s width at a time. Eventually it will go away. Then with any luck the ludicrous physical therapy antics will also go away.

The other evening I got SO frustrated with the mindless, pointless hup-hup-hupping that I sneaked out of the gym and ran off down the street. M’jito had gone off someplace (no doubt even more bored than his muther was), so I contrived to slip out and trot away without getting caught.

You can be sure he won’t let that happen again, eh?

Already it’s seemed a strangely long day. It’s only about a quarter to two. yet if feels like we ought to be rounding on 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. Why? Probably the thick cloud cover: the sky is a uniform dark gray, so you can’t estimate the time (not on a bet) by studying the height and angle of the sun.  And lookee there! It’s raining again!

How do I not want to drive through the rain, in the dark, for the privilege of a pointless hup-hup-hup session?  ARRRGH!  Let me count the pointless ways!

Go Ahead: Just TRY to Put Your Feet Up and Relax!

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Feed the dog • Pick up the dishes, and • put them in the dishwasher •  Pour the coffee • Lock the back screen door and • open the kitchen door to let in some cool, clean(ish) air • Find the computer • Peruse the latest news • Check Wunderground’s (unremarkable) weather prediction for the day • Settle into an easy chair to swill coffee and…

…and you get RRRRROOOOAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!

Ayup! Another Cop Copter chase.

They’re zooming around just to the north of us — about four or six blocks, I’d say.

Jayzuz! There is never a fukkin’ dull moment around this place!!!!

Well. That’s not fair. Ruby and I circumnavigated the park as dawn cracked this morning. Except for one idiot who deliberately tried to run us down in his car (no mistaking the deliberate part), it was quiet. No cops around there, either, to see the charging commuter.

Ugh! Makes Sun City look good!

Well. No…hafta take that back. IMHO, nothing makes Sun City look good. A dreary mausoleum a pleasant place to live does not make.

Yesterday the neighbors had a grand birthday party for their pre-teen kids. What fun! A joyous mob of them running around the street, which had been closed off for the festivities.

Why on earth would you want to live someplace where that couldn’t happen??

 

Gettin’ Old…how is it possible???

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Gosh. As dawn cracked this morning, I happened to think of a long-gone Arizona Highways colleague, Jerry Jacka. He was one of the great landscape photographers of the Western World…I’ll tellya! Look him up in the Font of All Electronic Wisdom (the Internet, of course) and discover…my gawd! He was EIGHTY-THREE when he croaked over. And that was in 2017!!!

I myself must be older than Methuseleh (not doin’ the math: don’t wanna know!). LOL! No wonder I hurt from stem to stern and back again…all. the. time.

Y’know…I’ve not been conscious of that much time passing. Don’t pay attention to birthdays. Don’t really care and don’t wanna know. But truth to tell, Jerry and I were about the same age. That he has croaked over and someone new is living in his handsome Southwestern-style house is NOT a good sign…

***

Not much longer for me, I’m afraid.

Women in my family — those who didn’t drink and didn’t smoke — lived to ripe old ages. My great-grandmother, Gree, was 90 years old when she died. Her daughter, my great-aunt, also lived to age 90…so we’re told. I believe she was older than that — but for sure, she wasn’t any younger.

They were both devout Christian Scientists: never saw a doctor, never swallowed anything that looked like a medicine. And surely never swilled any booze.

Who can imagine how long they might have lived if they’d had medical care!

As for moi, truth to tell none of these pills seems to be doing a damn thing to help pain. About all they’re doing is making my ears ring!

→ My hands still hurt.
→ My hips still hurt.
→ My lips still hurt.
→ The gums around my upper teeth still hurt.
→ The soles of my feet still feel like an electric current is zapping through them…

hurt hurt hurt hurt hurt 

And frikkin’ never stop hurting!

Whatddaya bet I won’t live longer than to age 90, either? 😀

One can only hope…

😀  😮  😀

 

‘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…

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…

Too Gorgeous to be Miserable…

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Seriously, this afternoon — along about 3:00 p.m. — is SO mellow, so soft, so clean, and SO beautiful that even the plague of little maladies fails to make one miserable. Just…incredibly…lovely!

Maladies? Ohhh…just a few…

Peripheral neuropathy: frantic buzzing and burning in the hands, soles of the feet, and lips. Hurts. Makes you crazy.

Fingernails: lifting from the nail beds. No indication of why, or of what one can do about it.

Awful sore and itchy spot on the tail end. Dunno what to do about it. Rubbing in an analgesic does…hmmm…essentially nothing.

As of this morning, the hip pain was gone. But now it’s back! No idea why.

Dared to try to sit out on the back porch to take in this gorgeous afternoon.

B-a-a-d idea!

Place is swarming with mosquitos. Forthwith, had to dart back inside. Slam the screen door. Slam the kitchen door. RUN AWAY!!!

###

Thinking about my father: the jobs he had, how hard he worked to support me and my mother.

He was a tanker captain and, when he worked a shore job, a harbor pilot.

Maneuvering oil tankers across the ocean paid him well. But the job took him away from home for weeks on end. And…y’know…weirdly, the man was basically a homebody. A harbor pilot’s job is dangerous and demanding…he must have been exhausted most of the time during the ten years he did that in Saudi Arabia.

When he finally retired to Sun City, he and my mother had…ohhh…about 18 months together until the cancer sticks she’d smoked in gay, stinking abandon since she was 16 years old ganged up on her and killed her. She died horribly of tobacco-induced cancer shortly after they settled into their Dream Home in the suburbs of Phoenix.

They’re both gone now. The only relative I have left is my excellent son. And…heh…that does put some strain on him, the poor man! 😀

Seriously: he works ferociously for the insurance company that employs him. I would go back to teaching freshman comp if I had to work that hard!!! It doesn’t leave him much time or energy for riding herd on an ailing old bat. So…well…I try to keep from belly-aching too much. But he does know I’m ailing…and that the indications of that ailing do NOT bode well.

Oh, well. The sooner I croak over, the sooner I stop hurting. Right? 😀