Aging in place

Ugh! Here we are in another swampy, hot, sticky Arizona morning. WHAT an ugly day.

Most folks, I suppose, would not consider clear skies and a bright morning sun to be “ugly.” But when  you’re lookin’ at 22 percent humidity…ech! That’s almost 1/4 of the air you breathe in. Glub!

This is the kind of day when I could brain my parents for retiring to hideous Sun City and dragging me here with them.

Well. If they were still here to brain. 😀 My mother smoked herself into the grave at midlife; my father married a dragon-lady and died of despair some years later.

They were deeee-lighted with Sun City, though. My mother so loved it that she persuaded herself to believe the racket from the jet warplanes at nearby Luke Air Force Base was “the sound of freedom.”

Argha! “The sound of freedom,” indeed. Nooo, muther: that was the sound of World War III comin’ your way. She used to drive me nuts with the ultra-patriotic B.S.

Oh, well. She’s gone — not blown to Kingdom Come, thank the heavens. My father’s gone, too, having made himself ultra-miserable by marrying a dragon lady after his poor wife died of tobacco inhalation.

Their decision to move to Arizona for their retirement (didn’t work, BTW: came the next recession, my father had to go back to sea) wrecked my plans for my future. Didn’t exactly wreck my life, but certainly changed its course.

I had been bound for the University of California at Berkeley. (At the time, we were living in exquisite Long Beach.) In line with that ambition, I’d already started taking college courses in high school — by way of proving to UC’s admissions officers that they should let me in to that august institution.

But….you may be damn sure that once we moved to Sun City, my father was not about to pay out-of-state tuition to a California university.

So for me, it was off to the University of Arizona  — at the time a study in mediocrity. All those years of working like a fiend to get into the National Honor Society and become fluent in foreign languages and trudge through summer school and…on and effin’ on… Yeah: all those years, down the drain. I ended up in Tucson, at a school where whatever a female chose to major in didn’t really matter.

Hafta say: my poor parents’ dreams of a glorious, long retirement also went right down the toilet. After my mother died of tobacco poisoning, my father — little understanding that one woman is NOT essentially the same as the next woman — married a vicious hag dear lady who was cruel beyond words. Her meanness drove me off: I saw less and less of them until he died, after which, amazingly enough, I saw nothing of him.

Poor man. He died in misery, stuck with that vicious bi**h. He refused to divorce her, because — said he — “she’ll get all my money!!”

{sigh}

Oh, well. She did not get all his money: she got his happiness and his life. Lovely.

***

Let’s see: What new horrors on the schedule for today?  (…wanders off to inspect wall calendar)

“Call the Beatitudes”

Eeew!!!  WHY?

The Beatitudes is an old-folks’ prison. As if to prove that I do need old-folks’ supervision, I cannot remember why I was supposed to call that horrible place. Presumably, though, to find out how to get in there.

PLEASE, GOD! Let me die first!

Deeply, deeply, deeply do I loathe institutional living.

{heh} Actually, I believe the proposed call was occasioned by learning that the Beatitudes will send someone to your home to babysit you. Apparently, though, you have to move someplace close to their campus… Ugh. I don’t WANT to sell my home and move 20 blocks to the south.

Well…it could be better than having to move into their dreary, depressing institution, though. And eat their dreary, depressing food. Ugh!

Speaking of loathing, BING! In comes a message from T-Mobile. They’re jacking up the phone bill by $8 a month.

For a service I never use. Goodie!

Y’know what?

* It’s too hot and too humid to take the dog for a walk.
* This is not a cleaning-lady day, so that’s another nuisance out of my face.
* The toilet seems to have stopped leaking. (?? Is that even possible??) If so: yet another nuisance sidelined.
* If my calendar has it right, the annoying babysitter isn’t supposed to show up until tomorrow. (!! Please, dear God??!!)

All this adds up to one glorious factoid: I can go back to bed!!! 

WOO HOOOO! 

Hope I’ve got that right.