Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

Palm Tree Heebie Jeebies

by

Should I have those trees taken out?

The WonderAccountants — my neighbors straight across the street — removed the palm trees that were growing along the edges of their pool. And they surely seemed not to regret it…yea, verily, Mr. W.A. was very pleased.

Whose idea was it, in the first place, to plant PALM TREES next to a swimming pool??? They don’t throw enough shade to matter. But what a mess those damn things make!!!

Every year, I’ve got to get someone in here several times per season to shovel out the palm tree debris. And once a year, someone has to climb 50 or 100 feet up each one of the damn things and prune out the dead fronds and seed stuff.

What kind of moron plants a palm tree next to a swimming pool? To say nothing of FOUR goddamn palm trees, which is what we’ve got surrounding that pool in the backyard!

Next big project, I guess, will need to be to hire a lumberjack to come in here and cut those damn things down. My neighbors across the street — the beloved and brilliant WonderAccountants — did exactly that. And they’re pleased with the result.

Accenting today’s palm tree conundrum, we have today’s unholy weather. Incredibly hot. Incredibly humid: 9 percent humidity, saith Wunderground (that, I would say, is conservative).

Truth to tell, though: I dunno that I’ll be staying here long enough to make it worth the cost of hiring someone to come in and chop down those damn palm trees. My son would like to consign me to a cringe-making old-folkerie called the Beatitudes. It’s better, as far as I can tell, than other places like it in the Phoenix area. But…it still is basically a prison.

Still…I hafta admit: it’s hard to see how I could manage staying in my home, on my own, until I reach the Last Breath. The cost of hiring someone to babysit me through these final years would be just brain-banging. Plus…who is going to ride herd on this worthy person? My son, after all, has a job, of all the astonishing things.

So he can’t be here keeping an eye on any such character.

Hm.

Here’s a thought. Wanna see me scare the bejayzus out of a young man?  😀  Picture this:

We could hire a babysitter for me, right?  Only instead of having her come here to ride herd on me, we have me and her go down to my son’s house (he works out of his home) and stay there during the week days.

Voilà! If I can be trained to stay out of his hair, he can do his work, and the sitter can fix lunch and dinner for us both and then drive me back to the Funny Farm.

Doesn’t THAT sound like fun?

😀

Mwa ha ha!

Thank Goodness for Amazon!

by

Saudi-style weather: Hot, wet, sticky. Eighty-four degrees right now, at 7:20 in the morning: 105 predicted.

Out the door with the corgi, at dawn’s early light. Everyone else has the same idea: we have to circumvent the park to evade the potential dog fights.

Cleaning lady on her way this morning. That….

wait wait wait! It’s not the cleaning lady! WonderAccountant (who lives across the street, BTW) reports that her understanding is the woman who is supposed to show up is more on the order of a babysitter…hired by Dear Son.

Ohhhhh gooooodie…  

Just what I need: someone new to poke her nose into my business…

Mwa ha ha! Today, what we’ll have her poke her nose into is a grueling trip to Sprouts!  Poor babe….

Seriously: I need a few grocery items, but not enough to justify trudging block after block through 100-degree heat. If any such person does show up, what we’ll do right off the bat is put her up to schlepping around.

Hmmmmm……  Along that line, d’you suppose Sprouts delivers? If it does…how does one engineer that?

Hmmmmm….. They do deliver, but….the process to order up stuff is brain-banging. And it’s not clear that they deliver in this area.

Anyway, I can order up the dawg food from Amazon. Fresh groceries: apparently not so much.

Well. Let’s see if the proposed woman shows up here. If she does, first thing we do to make her crazy is ask her to schlep us over to the Sprouts. From there: straight downhill, the poor child!

😀

 

The Gentrification of the ‘Hood

by

Well… Truth to tell, the ‘Hood started out gentrified.

This has always been an upper-middle-class urban neighborhood. But of late?  HOLEE maquerel!

Young people are buying up our 1950s and ’60’s ranch houses and turning them into freaking palaces. Give this trend another ten years, and real estate here is gonna be not just through the roof but hovering in the stratosphere. 

And THAT is a primary reason why I want to stay out of an old-folkerie and in my home: all the way up to the moment I die. BECAUSE I want my son to inherit what will no doubt be a very hot, very pricey piece of centrally located real estate.

Yeah: my guess is that in ten years this place will be worth twice its current value…and houses here are already absurdly overpriced.

So, whenever M’hijito gets this place, he’ll be able to move into Fancy Danville here, or sell the shack and move wherever he wants: debt-free. Yeah: the Funny Farm was paid off some years ago, over my financial advisor’s vociferous objections.

Looks like Financial Dude was wrong and I was right. If the present trend continues, these houses — now on the edge of one of the most upscale districts in the Valley — will be worth TONS of money. My son will be able to occupy a stylishly antique pile in a neighborhood of overpriced 1950s tract houses (overpriced when new! outrageous now…), or he can sell this place and retire on the proceeds.

In any event, it now appears we’ll have something to leave to M’hijito that will be worth a sh!tload of money. One way or the ‘tother: no matter what he chooses to do with it.

Another Day, Another Nightmare y-Cumin’ In

by

Ugh! Here we go again! Another noxious day in lovely uptown Phoenix. Just what I need, eh?

Today, someone named “Janie” is supposed to show up here. Who she is and what she’s primed to do: those details escape me. I assume she’s a babysitter.

Just what I need: another nosey nuisance in my face all day!

Well…the vacuum cleaner busted. So one thing we can do with this lady is make her drive it over to the Worst Buy, where they’ll repair the thing. Failing that, I suppose I can buy another vacuum. Just what I wanna spend a hundred-fifty or two hundred bucks on.

{chortle!} Seriously: if it weren’t for having to spend time with my fellow humans, it is a GORGEOUS day. Nay verily: a SPECTACULARLY gorgeous day. Cool. Smog-free. Lovely dawn. A gentle breeze barely moving the trees.

HOW do I not want to get in someone’s car and traipse around the city, looking for someone to repair a vacuum cleaner?

So…I expect that will be the nightmare of the day. The main one, anyway.

{sigh}

What a gorgeous morning! Normally, in this kind of weather the dawg and I would be taking a nice walk through the neighborhood. But no…

The “Janie” creature hasn’t shown up. It’s only 7:30, so it’ll probably be another hour or so before she surfaces. And by then it’ll be too hot to traipse over the sun-baked asphalt roads. So that will mean Ruby and I will get no walk this morning.

Y’know, the problem with living as a lone wolf is that when you do have to interact with people, it’s annoying. Annoying as Hell, one might say.

I don’t want people around me — especially not at this hour, first thing in the morning. And I don’t want to have to negotiate my day’s activities around the comings and goings of someone else.

Ugh. Need to take a bath and wash my hair. But…noooooo. Can’t be lounging in the bathtub with my ears underwater when some woman shows up at the front door.

So that means to get cleaned up, I’ll have to wait till she’s here. And that means I won’t have any privacy to bathe and put on clothes.

Ugh and UGH.

What I really wanna do is go back to bed. But obviously: that ain’t gonna happen. Not with this woman showing up.

***********

LOL! Not to say ohhhh forgodsake! 

Janie the Wonder-Cleaning Lady takes it upon herself to CLEAN AND REPAIR MY VACUUM CLEANER! Nothing I say will dissuade her!

Now she’s pouring tap water over the parts.

So…we’ll be buying a new vacuum cleaner one of these days.

Jayzuz!

Now she’s taking the filter to “put it in the sun so it’ll dry.” Nevermind that the ….  Ohgawd, the poor soul is making so much chaos, I actually lost track of what I was scribbling here!!!!

😀

Please, God. Take me now!  

I hope heaven is free of helpful nuisances. 

 

 

 

A Little Escape…Of Sorts

by

{chortle!} Looks like I escaped a nuisance that was slated to descend on me today. 😀

Mijito arranged for some woman that he’d hired for babysitting me to show up this morning. It’s now mid-afternoon: no sign of the woman.

😀

Unkind as it is of me, I’m afraid I’m MIGHTY GLAD she hasn’t shown up.

No, I do NOT want some employee bopping in here every day or so to check on me and pester me. I do just fine all by my stupid little self!

Yes, I would welcome someone to drive me to grocery stores and the like. But guess what? An Uber driver lives right across the street. All I have to do is call the Uber number here in town and they’ll send him over.

Most of the shopping I do routinely is available within easy walking distance, though. That, however, does NOT apply when the outside temperature exceeds 100 degrees. At this time of year: yeah, I do need that Uber dude. Most of the year, not so much.

Anyway, I was (as a matter of fact) figuring that whenever this new babysitter showed up, I’d have her take me to the Albertson’s (supermarket) and to the computer store. But…evidently not! 

All that means, though, is that now I don’t have to go out in 100-degree heat this afternoon!

Awwwww….what a shame, eh?

Around the Swamp…uhm, Park

by

Hot, soggy morning. Ruby and I: just back from circumambulating the big, green park that forms the centerpiece of the ‘Hood,

Handsome young parents roll their adorable toddlers around in strollers. Other old buzzards like me dodder around behind our dogs. Athletic middle-aged types stride or jog past us. Workmen shoveling out the house vacated by the couple who lost everything when their son was arrested on some absurd charge putter around the corner house. Early commuters zip past on the mini-arterial that runs up the center of the ‘Hood. Very pretty, very classy spot.

Briefly, I considered buying that house. But…well, no.

It just requires TOO much work. That crew of workmen have been there for a couple of weeks, and it sure doesn’t look like they’re gonna be finished soon. Plus the pool was allowed to stand in the sun and dry out, ruining the plaster and probably everything that runs the thing. And the traffic on the road that runs past it is fairly fierce. Nope. don’t think so!

Plus it’s too damn public The house backs onto the park. Even with a bank of oleanders running along the back fence, it’s too easy for passers-by and burglars to see into the yard and, if they look closely, through the French doors and into the house.

I do believe the place I’m in will be a much better investment to pass along to my son — assuming I can manage to stay here until I croak over. It’s in excellent shape: decently maintained inside and out; pool running well and also well maintained; a decent distance from busy (read “noisy”) roads… No: this is the place.

This is the place I need to hand along to my son!