Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

And Speakin’ of Colder Than a By-Gawd…

by

😀  What an insane afternoon!

We’re back from the late-day perambulation of the park. EGAD, but it’s cold out there! Overcast, windy, and…well.. more than “crisp.” Colder than a by-gawd, as my father would have said.

Ruby has patrolled the neighborhood streets and inspected the park. Clouds have blown up during the time we wandered about: it’s dark gray out there now.

Wunderground predicts an 84% chance of rain…I’d say that’s a conservative estimate. Supposedly 52 degrees out in the backyard just now…but again: I’d say, “conservative estimate.”

We’ve managed to repair to the Funny Farm, and Ruby has taken up her position at the foot of the bed.

…. uhhh….

Well, no: She’s taken up her position at the chow bowl, having rousted the human and demanded a pile of Dawg Food.

😀

{sigh}. I hope the stuff races through her forthwith, so we can get her out into the backyard before it starts to rain. Which will happen…soon, I imagine.

Well…what if?

What if we lived in Fountain Hills, a suburban locale I covet?

It would be colder there than it is here. And no doubt windier.

What if we still lived downtown, in the antique and very classy central-city neighborhoods?

‘Twould be no warmer there than it is here, but a WHOLE lot noisier. We’re comin’ on to rush hour, so would be serenaded with traffic noise and ambulance sirens and fire-engine sirens and…gaaaaaaahhhh!

On the other hand, we’d be closer to M’hijito’s house, so it would be easier for us to pester him. 😀  😀  😀

How’s about Sun City, the garden spot where my parents took up residence for their retirement?

Well…they STILL hate “minorities” out there, even after all these years. A friend of mine — a fella of the dusky persuasion — bought a place in Sun City. He was hounded out in less than six months.

Though I myself am of the paler persuasion, you couldn’t pay me to move out there. What awful people!

So…here we are, Ruby the Corgi and I, loafing on a bed in lovely North Central Phoenix. Ruby has enchanted a number of the locals, having strolled around the park and cutied them into submission. The skies have clabbered up and turned threateningly gray. Ruby, unconcerned, snoozes. I scribble.

What can  we say? Other than arf!

Renovations

by

The young(ish) couple who bought my neighbor Sally’s house are over there madly renovating. Sounds like a buzz saw — or maybe a floor sander — whirring away.

Hm. While we think of it…let’s go on a li’l doggy walk and poke our nosy schnozz into their business as we stroll by…

****

So we’re ARF! ARF!  out the door. Around the park. through the south side of Lower Richistan. Ruby: beside her canid self with doggy joy.

And it’s ROAR! ROAR!! ROAR!!! from Luke Air Force, off to the southwest side of Our Fair City. Holy mackerel, what a racket!

That racket is one of the several reasons you couldn’t pay me to live in Sun City: the melody of jet fighter planes soaring overhead, taking off from an Air Force Base just down the road from one’s backyard. That’s about as far from what I wanna hear over morning coffee and evening cocktails as you can get.

Hilariously, my mother claimed to love it. She would sit on her screened back porch, swill her coffee, and listen to those blasting jets engines as the sun came up.

ohhhh, she would coo. It’s the sound of freedom!

ahhhh…no, Mom. It’s the sound of World War III, comin’ your way….

WHY are humans so fukkin stupid?????

Ohhh well…

The pair who bought the Beloved Sally’s house behind me: nicest neighbors you could hope to have. A yardful of screaming kids: maybe not so much. But only a  couple of kids in sight just now…and that makes for a reasonably QUIET occupancy.

They may have bought the place on spec, though. We shall see. I hope they last a good long while.  But whatever: for the nonce, they’re about as ideal as you can get.

Secretly, I even enjoy and am happy to have Tony the (Amazing!) Romanian Landlord as a neighbor. Forgodsake don’t tell him, though! Who knows what shenanigans he’ll get up to if he hears that bit of apostasy! 😀

Meanwhile, the young people behind us are  busy fancifying Sally’s shack.

* On the one hand, I hope they spiff it up and extract a nice profit from it.
* On the other hand: I rather like that bunch and would  be pleased if they hung around a few years.
* On the third hand, soon it will be time for me to move into an old-folkerie or some such horror. And I surely would like either to leave this house to my son as a fine investment or to be able to sell it and add the proceeds to the pile of dough I hope to leave to him.

Please, God: let me exit, stage left before that third exigency comes to pass.

ROOOOARRRR!

Is that another F-15? Or is it Cosmic laughter?

Another Day, Another Taxpayer-Funded Dollah…

by

Mwa hah ha!  Social Security: what could be better?

Seriously, I do hafta say that I am mightily grateful for the wee Social Security income that trickles in each month. Yes, I do have enough in savings to live on as a retiree…for the time being. But…that’s assuming I do NOT acquire the insane longevity of my non-smoking forebears.

Yeah: the Christian Scientists on my mother’s side of the family lived into outrageously advanced old age — and by and large, they did so independently. They were well into their late 90s when they croaked over…and might have lived even longer if they’d been given to the blandishments of modern medicine.

Would they have wanted to? Ah. Yea verily: that is the question.

My son dragged me out to the Mayo yesterday, an annoying and time-wasting trip. Among the several sillinesses to which they subjected me was this…uhm…Olde Folke’s IQ Test. As it were.

And as it were, it was the stupidest thing you could ever hope not to encounter. Seriously: an unutterable and frustrating waste of time.

Frustrating because I had better things to do of an afternoon.

Unutterable because one probably should not openly express one’s opinion of such stupidity, especially not to the professional who is inflicting the stupidity on you.

When you come away from an encounter like that, you find yourself thinking “Them thar Christian Scientists had somethin’…”

Fundamental Questions of Olde Age

by

What am I doing?

What am I supposed to be doing?

Who the Hell am I?

And why am I here?

Yes. There we have the fundamental questions
that confront the aging mind.

😀

Was just about to fly out the door and trudge down to the ever-pricey AJ’s fancy-Dan grocery store, there to buy some swell stuff for the mid-day dinner. Charging around, it occurred to me to wonder…

* Waitaminit! What’s in the freezer?
* Waitanotherminit!! Whats wrong with this spectacularly fancy piece of spectacularly expensive steak?

and…

* Is there some REASON I can’t add this fresh, crisp asparagus to the menu?
* What??? No potatoes? Really??? What’s wrong with a fistful of freshly cooked pasta?

Sometimes I do wonder what’s wrong with me. At least this noon I escape the vicissitudes of old-age brain haze (for once!!), come away with what will be a very nice dinner, and not have to shell out another dime for it.

***

Y’know…ten years ago — even five years ago — it would never have occurred to me to traipse out into the (pricey!!!!) wilds to buy the makings for today’s mid-day feast. I would have known what was in the fridge. I would have known there was no need to go charging out in the traffic and scoop up $30 worth of fancy food and wine at AJ’s.

So…

Now we scribble while we wait for the kettle of water to come to a boil for the pasta. We swill wine by way of passing the time. And we wonder which drain our IQ points trickled down.

<<sigh>>

Worrying about SDXB and NG (New Girlfriend). He says she’s under the weather…apparently seriously so.

This is highly worrisome: first because she’s a lovely person and does not deserve to be sick; and second because he’s transparently in love with her and needs to have her in his life.

***

And in the Department of Weirdness…

Last  night I dreamed of returning to the sweet middle-class Berkeley  neighborhood where the relatives who raised my mother lived. And…

…how much I miss those women
…how much I miss Berkeley
…how much I miss the San Francisco Bay Area
…Oh hell! How much I miss my mother

How dast she smoke herself into the grave?

If heroin peddlers and cocaine peddlers and even marijuana peddlers are regarded as criminals, why the Hell aren’t tobacco peddlers legally recognized as the craven murderers that they are?

Ah well…movin’ on.

Maybe we’re all craven murderers? is that possible?

Daydreaming on in this vein, I found myself remembering Berkeley and the oh-so-long dead relatives, so vividly that they seemed almost real, almost here: and I wondered WTF is wrong with me.

If this is senility, my friends…then senility is freakin’ weird!

Argh! When was the last time….

by

I felt this weary at 6:00 p.m?

LOL! Just this minute, I could very easily fall face-forward in the sack and conker out…

Alas, that would mean that along about 10:00 p.m. — tonight! — I’d be WIDE AWAKE with noooo hope of getting back to sleep…

Ohhhh well….

Dawg and I: just back from a mile-long perambulation of the park. Pretty quiet out there. Numbers of cute li’l kids playing. A couple of athletic teams bopping balls back and forth. The moon glowing brightly against a dark blue dusk sky.

Ahh, the young people are so fine, so much pleasure to watch. It really IS a beautiful neighborhood, full of excellent young folks alive with energy. My idea of energy is getting all the way around the park — about a mile — without conkering out.

The hound, being as lazy and as superannuated as her human. has taken up her position at the foot of the mattress and is busy conkering out. It’s only 7:00, but frankly I doubt if I’ll last much longer than she will… zzzzzzzzzz

*****

After Dark…

LOL! So there I wuz, going on about how beautiful the’Hood is. That was this afternoon. Now it’s coming onto 8 p.m., and what we have is BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Gunfire or backfires — or maybe a bit of both — resonating down from Conduit of Blight Blvd.

Honestly. This kind of sh!t makes the mausoleum that is Sun City look good. Which is sayin’ something.

Something horrible.

Ugh. I should have moved out to Sun City when SDXB did.

Trouble is, I hated living out there with my parents. The Silence of the Mausoleum is just not my idea of pleasant.

On the other hand…the whiz of ricocheting bullets is prob’ly not all that grand, either.

Phoenix: LA. East.
What a dump!

Wow! I’m in!!

by

Dunno how, but for reasons unknown WordPress just let me back into Funny about Money.

Yeah. Here we are, coming onto midnight. The crazy-making Ailment is kicking up, making every tap on the keyboard HURT. And now the goddamn system goes down.

Yeah. Now I can’t get back into my li’l website.

Wander off. Go over to Dropbox. Mess with Google News. Dodge another gunshot. Wonder where the cops are (they usually show up when the bullets start to fly).

Put the dishes in the washer and turn on the machine. Come back to bed. Lift the dog onto the bed. Climb under the covers. Hear the cop copter returning…hmmmm…he’s a ways to the north.

That means the pistol-waving clowns are probably on Main Drag North.

Charming.

Oh well: at least they’re not in the back yard.

Rub CBD cream into the buzzing hands. Console self with reflection that the pain and tingling actually have backed off considerably.

Seriously: just now only the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands are buzzing like an electric current was flowing through them. Earlier, that buzz extended up the forearms to the elbow, up the lower legs to the knees, over the lips, and through the upper gums.

Palms and soles, I can live with.

Let the dog out. Wait till she does Her Thing and then call her back in — in addition to the melody of gunshots ringing out, it’s also the Coyote Hour. Those li’l pups jump over your backyard wall and will go after your dog if you’re stupid enough to let your dog out.

What. A. Place.

Dog gets on the bed.

Stick the new dirty dishes in the washer. Turn it on. Come back to bed. Rub CBD cream into the tingling hands.

Interestingly — oddly — the buzz of peripheral neuropathy has backed off a little. Not gone, by any means…but just now it’s significantly milder. BUT…whatever ails me is causing my fingernails to lift off their beds. That hurts, but not as much as one would expect.

Just what I need: to have my fingernails fall off!

😀

Ain’t life in Olde Age grand?