Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

Good Morning, Dogmerica!

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Scarfety chomp munch munch scarf scarf chomp…  Ruby’s way of greeting the morning. Arf! we say to that.

Lately back from the ayem tromp around the park. Apparently the Human tromped on an ant’s nest: Crazy-itchy spots on the feet.

Hey, stupid! Next time remember to wear a decent pair of shoes! 

😀

Honestly! Humans aren’t very bright, are they?

It is a beautiful morning, though. High, thin overcast softens the brilliant sunlight and gives it a golden cast. Ruby as usual enamored herself of every passing human.

My gawd but people love corgis. The cuteness does it, apparently.

* * *

{sigh} We may be coming up on the last few morning walks around that park. M’hijito has been talking up the glories of prisons for the decrepit such as Orangewood, a dreadful motel that my father moved into after my mother died.

It’s not actually dreadful, objectively speaking. It’s just that..well…communal living is about as not my style as anything can get.

Truly. I despise living in close quarters with other people

  • No, I do NOT want to listen to your choice of television shows.
  • No, I do NOT want to hear your toilet flush.
  • No, I do NOT want to overhear your conversations.
  • No, I do NOT want to hear your microwave beeping.
  • No, I do NOT want to listen to your favorite radio talk show.
  • No, I do NOT want to smell whatever packaged gunk you’ve heated in your microwave.
  • No, I do NOT want to listen to your dog yap.
  • No, I do NOT want you to have to listen to my dog yap…
  • No, no, no, no, and N-O-O-O-O-O!!!!!!!

Seriously: It’s getting harder and harder to see how I’m going to avoid being locked up in an institution for the elderly and the decrepit. And that is NOT the way I want to go out.

I hated, loathed and despised living in the university dorms. Just HATED it!!!!!

That was the way I began my adulthood. And now it’s beginning to look like that’s the way I’m going to end adulthood.

There simply MUST be a better way to pass through the tag end of your life. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it is!

***

On the other hand, it does have to be said that these jails offer some serious benefits for the unattached elderly.

The staff at Orangewood were wonderful to my father. You couldn’t hope to find more caring, more skilled, and more knowledgeable prison guar…uhmmm…caretakers. I surely couldn’t have given him even a decent fraction of the attention and care that he got from them.

He doted on my mother — apparently loved her more than anyone or anything in his life — so she was cared for like a queen during the last weeks and months of her life. By the time he fell ill, though, I was running late on the deadline for my dissertation and could NOT interrupt that project to hang out at Orangewood and nurse him as he passed into the Next World. And it might be recalled that he had bestowed one beating too many on me as I was growing up, a circumstance that left me with no great desire to scotch the Ph.D. and stay at his house or at some institution to babysit him.

He had already decided to move to Orangewood — the only reason he wasn’t ensconced there when my mother’s smoking habit caught up with her was that she had flat refused to move out of her beloved Sun City house. She wasn’t in her funeral urn more than a few minutes before he was arranging to get out of Sun City and into the old-folkerie.

He liked that kind of thing, though. Institutional living would’ve made me crazy then and will make me crazy now, if I’m forced into it. How exactly to avoid it, though, kinda escapes me.

Why You Have a Kid…

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Ever ask yourself that? Why DO you have a kid? 

Welp, I’ll tellya: Its because your kid is smarter than you.

Yep. That’s it: no question. Chances are your kid started out smarter than you. But as time passed, the brat got smarter and smarter…the brat figured out more things…the brat adapted to the changing times… And by golly! The kid’s a grown man or a grown woman, and about ten times smarter than you!

Meanwhile, all that time, your own marbles have been rolling out your ears.

😀

Seriously: you would not believe how amazing Mi’jito is…because I can’t believe it myself. Not just because he knows so much more than I do (that’s to be expected, as our culture evolves over a couple of decades), but because he knows what to do with that so much more stuff. 

Computers, especially. Of course. Money: investments, real estate.

All this moonie admiration brings us around to the question of how to handle my estate...which includes everything my father left me, plus real estate, plus more money, plus…plus…plus…on and freakin’ on.

I plan to leave him my house…but DO I want to do that? A house is not 100% asset. It also has drawbacks. It has expenses. It may have loans against its equity. It may be falling down in its old age. It has taxes. And depreciation. And ever-growing costs of upkeep. Questions of neighborhood stability — or instability. Crackpot neighbors. Bat-brained city projects…augh!

Lately I’ve been thinking maybe I should look at the type of old-folkerie my father consigned himself to, after my mother died. The one he went into is actually within (lengthy) walking distance of the Funny Farm: once called Orangewood, it’s now dubbed The Terraces.

It has as its benefit some halfway decent apartments and a skilled, experienced staff who look after you. But the place is much changed today from what it was in my father’s heyday. So…I have no idea, really, what I’d be getting into.

My house is very comfortable and in a moderately safe district. Hiring someone to come in and take care of me surely wouldn’t cost any MORE than parking me in some institution. It might not cost as much. And you can be sure it wouldn’t make me anywhere near as miserable.

What I would need to do, though — something I’ve neglected! — is get back in with the church, show up down there at least once a week and preferably more, and cultivate friendships and activities.

Without a job, it must be admitted: I’ve let my social life lapse. Just now I don’t know anyone and don’t do anything. But really…how hard would it be to get back into some activities to let me rub elbows with other old bats?

Hmmm….  So, I guess starting in the next couple of weeks, I should get off my duff and go JOIN a few things.

Let’s see how that goes. If it revives “a life,” then I can basically rebuild what I had before I slid into the present lethargy.

But if it has no positive effect, then I’ll need to think a whole lot more seriously about moving into an old-folkerie, where staff can ride herd on me 24/7.

Ugh.

Good Morning, America! And…

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…DUCK FOR COVER!

LOL! 8:00 in the morning, and you can hear those damn fighter jets from Luke Air Force Base all the way over here in North Central Phoenix! 

What

A

Racket!

Yes, the Sound of Death is no lullabye. That’s for sure.

People who live in Sun City bitch nonstop about the noise from Luke, right up the road from the Old Folks’ Ghetto. That actually creates SDXB’s job out there: as a semi-retired PR guy for the Air Force, he volunteers to staff the phones in the base’s public relations office. Every morning, rafts of Sun Citizens call in to bellyache about the roar from the jet plane exercises.

Hilariously, my mother used to LOVE that racket. She’d sit on her back porch, there in Sun City, and take her morning coffee to the lullaby of F-16s taking off and landing. “It’s the sound of freedom,” she would coo.

There’s a wild-eyed right-winger for you!  😀

By a weird coincidence, my house was built by the same outfit that built out Sun City. And, although it’s designed for more than two people, it bears a weird resemblance to my parents’ Sun City house:

* gray slump-block walls
* aluminum-framed sliding doors and windows
* asphalt shingle roofing
* sloping roofs over attics

Well, at least we have actual garages. Webb apparently felt a place to put a car was unnecessary for an old f*rt…presumably the new residents would be too old to drive, right?

Well. No. Out there, the houses have cheesily built lean-to carports. STEAL THIS CAR! that sign says…. 😀

Actually, what the local thieves used to do was climb on top of the car, reach up to the carport ceiling, and slide open the door to the attic. From there, they’d hop into the attic, walk across the beams to the living-room or kitchen area, saw a hole in that ceiling, and drop down into the house. From there, they’d steal you blind.

Lovely.

Here, my dowdy li’l Sun City-style house does have an actual garage with an actual garage door. 

LOL! If I’d known this subdivision was built by the same outfit that built Sun City, I wouldn’t have bought a house here. Not on a bet.

But that prejudice notwithstanding…it’s not a bad little shack. Not at all. Construction is sturdy. Design is sensible. Lots are large enough to put plenty of space between you and the neighbor. Alleyways are included, and they’re lined with 8-foot-high block walls.

Sun City has no alleys, and no backyard walls. Take your morning coffee in your backyard, and you can watch your neighbor do the same as the jets scream overhead.

They scream overhead here, too…occasionally. But at least they’re far enough away to put some distance between the natives and the racket-makers.

Ugh!! This is gonna be another beautiful day in Arizona: 28 percent humidity under clear (hot!!) skies.

In the Department of Jobs You’re Glad You Don’t Have, Mr. and Mrs Wonderaccount (right across the street) have hired a team of painters to spiff up their shack. I need those guys over here, too. But…well…luring them to my house would require me to get up off my duff. And I ain’t about to do that!

Wow! Not to Say Good Grief!!!

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Strolled down to the commercial corner at Main Drag South, there to find out if I need another covid shot…or what.

Chatted with the pharmacist at the Albertson’s. He said not. Apparently I’m now about as covid-proof as I’m gonna get.

Which, I suspect, ain’t 100%.

It is hotter than the proverbial hubs out there. Left me highly resenting my son’s having kiped my car…left me wondering how (or if) I could snare another car. Then, as I hiked off steam, I realized that if I want to be schlepped around in a car, I can call Uber…and not have to gas up, store, service, wash, and pay taxes on a four-wheeled gas-guzzler.

EGAD! INSIGHT!!!!!

Today has gotta be one of the worst days of the whole year for walking around the city streets. It’s effin’ hot and it’s effin’ humid. As we scribble, the back-porch thermometer reads 100 degrees in the shade…and no part of today’s stroll was in any shade.

And y’know what?  Walking through the heat was just not that bad. 

For one thing, I’m probably getting used to hiking around the place. And for another, all that walking is building strength and stamina. And that’s not a bad thing…it’s a good thing!

Yes. Strangely enough, as I swam through the swampy air it occurred to me that walking to the commercial parts of the neighborhood is about the best thing I can do for myself — healthwise, that is.

I’ve already built up a lot of energy…weirdly, an hour or more of hiking through unholy heat did exactly nothing to wear me out. Got home…waved to the neighbors as they climbed in their car…pranced into the house…fixed iced tea and lunch…  And thought, Well! That was no BFD!

So…yeah. That IS what I’ve about concluded: Not having a car is no BFD. 

At least not in an urbanized residential district full of shops and taxicabs… 😉

GRONK! Another sylvan day in Arizona

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Grrrr!!!  I AIN’T GOIN’!!! No, nope, nooooo way! Not goin’ out in that unholy swampy heat to hike three blocks to a grocery store. The dawg and I can go hungry, by dayum!

Truth to tell, neither of us is about to go hungry. The larder has enough dog & human food to tide us over for several days. After which, we may hope, my present spate of crabbiness will have passed.

Seriously: What DO we need?

* Not dog food: three or four cans lurk in the storage room.
* Not human food. What remains on the shelves may not be the most delicious chow on the planet, but it’s perfectly OK and it’s unspoiled.
* Not wine. We’re on the wagon.
* Not cleaning goods. Everything is in stock.
* Not anything that I can think of, offhand.

And I figure that if you can’t think of it, you must not need it very badly. 😀

Hope that’s true, because I just made up my mind to skip this morning’s planned grocery junket.

Seriously: The weather is REVOLTING this morning. Hot, soggy, hazy, uggh-leee. Probably won’t be any better tomorrow…but if I can put off this hiking trip until tomorrow, maybe I’ll resent it a little less

***

Check this out: Duet: Partners in Health and Aging.  Apparently this is a volunteer group that will send folks out to do your grocery shopping or drive you around the city or whatever.

I’ve tried to reach them: no one answers the phone at their office. Apparently the “group” of volunteers isn’t large enough to man the phones. But…what the hey! Later today, I’ll try again.

If I can foist the annoying errands onto someone else, that will solve a HUGE  part of the problems poised by those idiots at the Mayo Clinic having put the kaibosh on my driver’s license.

There may be some other volunteer organization of this ilk. If today’s effort to get through to Duet fails, I’ll see if anyone else out there is in the free-help biz.

*****  Later ****

Yes…I did get through to someone at Duet.

To avail oneself of their benefits, you have to sign up with them and give them a bunch of private information. And they demand your phone number.

I explained that, because of the outrageous number of nuisance calls I get — day in and day out — I’ve had to block incoming from all but a few area codes.

He just didn’t seem to “get it.” Truly: I don’t think he understood what I was saying:  eight or ten nuisance calls a day naturally leads to one rejecting most incoming calls.

So…I don’t expect to get far with that bunch.

Ohhhh well. The world hasn’t ended yet. Probably won’t, in the near future.

Soggy Doggy Day

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Wait what? You say the sky is supposed to be blue??? Where DID you get that idea? 😀

Another gray, soggy day. Grayer, even, than the last two days, which have been passing grim.

When you are a corgi, though, you don’t put up with any bellyaching from the Human. So, at Ruby’s behest, it was out the door and off to circumambulate the park, as usual.

And to the Human’s surprise, that worked out pretty well! We did not get rained on. Most of the usual dog-walkers, having more sense than the Human, were hiding out. The cloud cover kept the temperature in the comfortable range. Gee…kinda reminded one of San Francisco.

We probably should go up to the nearby grocer’s and pick up a little more food. But that would require hauling out of our chair and walking around, which is more than the Human feels like fooling with just now. In fact, there’s more than enough chow for both the Human and the Hound to cover the next two or three days.

So…we’ll take our chances.

The hip does hurt, though. A lot: especially if I sit or lay around awhile. What makes it better — other than aspirin — is getting up and walking. But that, of course, is ominously like (gag!) work.

Passed the night in nightmares about living in an old-folkerie. My father, as I may have mentioned in an earlier post, signed himself into one of those. But…he didn’t mind institutional living, having gone to sea all his adult life.

He ran away from home at 17, lied about his age, and weaseled his way into the Coast Guard. From there, it was into the Navy, and after that, a life-long career in the Merchant Marine.

Me, I hate bad food. I hate the sound of the neighbors’ TV, radio, and shower running. I just don’t like living with people. Gimme a dawg as a room-mate, any day.

Ruby is now conkered out on the floor. Looks like tromping around in the sticky, humid heat is a bit hard on her. Hope that’s the issue, and not some ailment.

😮

Speaking of tromping around in the heat, though…  One thing that I’ve discovered, quite handily, through the late series of misadventures is the amazing fact that you don’t really need a car to get around this neighborhood just fine! 

Consider: Within easy walking distance of my house, we have THREE major supermarkets…and that’s if you don’t consider Sprouts a supermarket.

Me, I regard Sprouts as a kind of specialty store. And it’s just three or four blocks down the street.

We also have…

  • a dentist
  • a hair stylist
  • a computer store
  • a Walgreen’s
  • a discount clothing store
  • two major supermarkets
  • a car rental and tire shop
  • a car mechanic’s shop
  • a 24-hour doctor’s office
  • A veterinarian

And on and on…

So, I guess if you’ve just gotta get yourself crippled up, this is the place to do it!