Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

Loaf-ifariousness

by

Loafing seems to have become the Order of the Day. Ruby is snoozing at the foot of the bed. The Human regards the mere thought of getting off the sack and doing something constructive with…well…horror.

😀

It’s a decently walkable day, actually. A mere 101° in the shade of the back porch, as we’re pushing noon.

That notwithstanding, I’m just not up for hiking to any of the three grocery stores within walking distance. Nor do I feel in the mood to pay an Uber dude to drive me to a store and wait around until I come out with a basketful of purchases.

All of it: waaaayyyy too much like work!

😀

And the fact of the matter is, we have enough canned dawg food to last for at least a week — and maybe a day or two more. The Human also has enough frozen and packaged chow to last her a week or so, too. Soooo….there really is no need to go charging out into the heat to restock the larder.

I’m thinking some Planned Loafing is in order. Decide on a menu that will last as long as Ruby’s stores will last — a week or ten days. Then figure out if some step-&-fetchit service can bring another week or ten days’ worth. And during that time? LOAF.

Loaf, loaf, loaf, and loaf some more. A civilized way of putting that would be REST. 

Rest until the sore hip heals up (if it will)

Rest until the peripheral neuropathy stops buzzing (if it will)

Rest until some serious swimming-pool exercises can get done (if they will)

Rest until Gerardo’s guys come around to renovate the back yard (if they will)

And so on to luxurious infinity! Seriously: just lay off throwing myself around, arrange to have Uber or another cab service schlep me around, pray for the best…and see what happens. Maybe a couple weeks of loafing will bring this spate of weird ailment to an end…

Cool Dude!

by

My son: definite COOL DUDE. 

The man took time off his job(!!) to schlep me up to the Mayo Clinic, there to get a blood test. That’s a bit of a drive, and as you know, sitting around a doctor’s waiting room is always an efficient use of your time. /eyeroll/

Drove me out to the fringe of Ritzy-Titzyville, drove me home, helped with a bunch of ditz… Dang! How nice, eh?

Once left alone back here, I realized a grocery trip was in order. But…it’s hotter than the hubs out there this afternoon. So…guess I’ll wait till sunset and then make a run on the Sprouts or the Fry’s supermarket to pick up bread and dog food and whatnot.

A nuisance, but better than going out there in this heat!

Y’know…this is one of the most conveniently located neighborhoods in the city: not one, not two, but three major grocery markets within easy walking distance. Plus a veterinarian. A hair stylist. A computer store. A Bookman’s. And on and on and on. Truth to tell, between those stores and Amazon, I really hardly even need to leave my house to get my shopping done. Just call ’em on the phone and they’ll deliver!

Seriously! These days, I go into stores to shop more out of boredom than for any need to select loot.

This evening, I’ll hit the supermarket to pick up a few more cans of dog food for Ruby, a jar of maple syrup, a box of tea bags, and whatnot. None of this stuff is urgent…and so the truth is, I may not bother.

Recently the prospect of following SDXB and New Girlfriend out to Sun City has crossed my fevered little mind. But…y’know…  I don’t wanna. 

First, because it’s a bitch of a drive into this part of town from unlovely Sun City. And my son lives here, not anywhere down in that direction. I just don’t see enough of an advantage to living in Old Folks’ Central to actually move out there.

Second. because Sun City is right under the Luke Air Force Base flight path. And so…NOISE???  Lemme tellya NOISE!!!!!

The pilots start their daily practice at dawn, and the jets roar back and forth and up and down for a good four hours. You can’t sit on your back porch without being blasted off your chair.

Hilariously, my mother used to pretend she actually liked that racket. “It’s the sound of freedom!” she used to simper.

Uhm. No, Mom: it’s the sound of World War III, comin’ your way. 

She used to drive me crazy with that “sound of freedom” BS. But I guess she believed it. And hey: whatever makes ya happy, eh?

You can hear those jets blasting all the way up here in North Central: that’s a good 20 miles. Or more. The racket as heard from my parents’ back porch, 20 miles closer to the base, was freakin’ deafening. 

Ohhh well.

So here I am, all alone in fancy-Dan North Central, without any other old buzzards around to keep me company. If I’d get off my duff and go to the church, I surely would make friends and find folks to fill some time. But…well…religion isn’t really my Thing.

And truth to tell, I don’t know of anything else that goes on in the central  part of Phoenix that appeals to me.

Guess I could go back to teaching adjunct in the junior colleges.

But…uhm… Y’know…  That’s work! And I do have a moral objection to that stuff. 😉

Hiking in the nearby desert preserves fills some time. But…man! I’ve had a couple of real creepy experiences up there, and so these days feel little enthusiasm for tromping around the foothills by myself. My friends have all moved to Sun City and waypoints, or else passed away. And so just now I don’t know anyone who would like to keep me company (and act as de facto bodyguard) on those early-morning, pre-hot hours strolls.

Alas, Cool Dude fills his daytime hours with that job of his. So…that doesn’t leave a lot of choice in ways to occupy one’s retirement hours.

****

WOW, is it hot out there. The thermometer doesn’t seem to think so: it’s only registering 105 degrees. But man! Walk out that back door, and it feels like you’re walking into an oven!

Guess it must be a little humid. That’s what makes Arizona heat feel like actual heat. 

Anyway….that will moot tonight’s doggy-walk, for sure. And take care of any silly ideas I might have had about walking up to the grocery store. FORGET that!! 😀

and soooo….

Out the door at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. That’s when the nearest grocers open. In an hour, I can collect enough loot to reload the pantry and get back here just in time to evade the first blast of heat.

 

Hotter than the Hubs

by

And now it’s Saturday, a morning not one whit better than the one that came before and the one that came before that.

HOT. Hot hot hot. 95 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

Clammy.

Sticky. 

Little dawg is scarfing water so frantically she’s choking on it. Human is about to melt. Icky day, and the sun is barely up.

Far as I can see, there’s nothing on the calendar for this Saturday. Sure hope not! ‘Cause if there is, I’m sure not up for it!!!

8:39 in the morning. My son is probably still in the sack…I hope so, because he deserves it. Traveled all over the country. Surged from pillar to post. Worked his a$$ off.

But I should email him (which at least won’t wake him up) and ask if I can take him to lunch, today or tomorrow.

URK! Running low on dawg kibble. Ruby feasts on an overpriced fancy-dan kibble, available locally at the overpriced fancy-dan AJ’s grocery store. Without a car, I’ll have to put my son up to driving me down there, or else hike to Central avenue and catch a bus.

No.

And No.

Turns out we can order this stuff from Amazon. Fifteen bucks for a five-pound bag.

Hm. Exorbitant. But….could be worth it, to avoid having to navigate around in this heat and humidity.

Dang!  Let’s see if the kid will tolerate getting together this weekend. If so, he can drive me down there, or pick up a bag and bring it up here. Otherwise, I’ll get Amazon to ship it.

IMHO, Amazon’s service pays for its over-pricing in spades.

Grrr! Makes a Landlord Look Good!

by

Here’s another fine hassle to fart with this morning: check all the attic fans to see if they fall into this category.  And thereby need to be replaced….

Arrrggghhhh! This is the kind of BS that makes you feel that renting is a good thing, as opposed to owning your place. If I lived in an apartment — or, hell, if some other poor sucker owned the Shack and just rented it to me — someone else would be trudging around the perimeter eyeballing the roof. In the heat. When they’d druther be taking a nap…

***

Far’s I can see, the Shack is not equipped with these things. Its attic is vented with heat-driven whirligig vents.

Well, that’s something, anyway.

Y’know…much as I do enjoy the Funny Farm, with all its space for the dog and its nifty swimming pool and its central location and its (mostly) cool neighbors, sometimes I think…I just don’t wanna live here. Sometimes I think I’druther live in a nice high-rise apartment, with an awesome view  and an army of hired help doing battle with the maintenance.

Now: what next?

Mwa hah hah! Just you wait!

 

Wetter than a By-Gawd!

by

Yech! This has got to be one of the nastier mornings I’ve had the privilege of living through. By the time Ruby and I got back from circumnavigating the park, I was SOAKED with sweat and, presumably, dew. She’s still swilling water, poor li’l thing.

Ugly weather! Sticky, gray, and overcast.

Ohhhh well. At least that meant fewer dog-lovers to have to get around.

WHY are people so stupid about their dogs???  If I hear one more idiot coo, “Ohhh, don’t worry…they just want to pwayyyyyy,” I’m going to wring the turkey’s neck. And maybe his dog’s neck, too.

{Nooooo, stupid. She just wants to remove your dog’s head…}

Anyway, we made it around the park without having to dodge the usual complement of those clowns, mostly because of the icky weather.

Walked past the house where the scion of the family got caught fu*cking some girl who was a few days below the age of consent. He went to jail. His parents went bankrupt. Their once-handsome home is now a decrepit wreck. What a disaster…all the way around!

Something similar happened to a friend of mine. She managed to escape bankruptcy and hang onto her home. These folks seem to have lost the house.

Wow!  If you’ve got a teenaged son, be sure and teach him the meaning of the word “jail-bait.” Yes, sexist, yes nasty term…but it’s the dead-on truth. Get caught diddling an under-age girl, and the government will destroy you AND your family. No kidding.

Hot. Wet. And soggy out there. Mighty glad to get back inside the Funny Farm.

Let’s check the calendar…what new horrors today?

Not many: that’s for sure. Too hot for horrors, I guess!

😀  Seriously: it is too hot to go abroad. So you can’t get into very many shenanigans. Alas.

Glub!!!!!

by

You thought Arizona has “a dry heat,” right?  HAR HAR!!! Just now it feels like Ras Tanura did, when we lived there on the shore of the Persian Gulf: HOT and WET, WET, WETTER THAN WET.

Ugh. Ghastly morning!

Ruby and I: just back from circumnavigating the hood, through this very soggy doggy day. Ugh! Indeed.

M’hijito is gallivanting around the Midwest on business. No idea when he’ll be back: presumably in a couple of days. Looking forward to his return…and am curious to learn how things went for him there.

Traipsing traipsing doggy-traipsing...around the park. Past the house that’s having to be completely rebuilt after the previous owners trashed it. Through the ‘Hood: a pretty place to live.

Every time I walk around this place, I thank my lucky stars that I stumbled upon a Realtor named John Shackleford. He’s the one who brought me to this place, when I was looking for a house of my own after having escaped marriage. It really is a nice area; North Central but not North Central: therefore not North Central prices. That’s how I was able to afford to move here.

My first house here, which I shared with SDXB, was less than a block from the dratted light-rail line. That thing made a lot of noise and, not surprisingly, imported a less than desirable population. SDXB eventually moved out, but bought a house in the neighborhood — actually, just a block from my present palace.

Eventually, I decided to move out of the place we’d occupied — after our idiot city fathers installed that light-rail up Conduit of Blight Blvd, the noise and the human trash from the thing made for an unpleasant place to live. I’d planned to move out of the neighborhood — probably to Scottsdale, East Phoenix, or back to the Encanto district. But this place — a block from where SDXB had moved, came up…far enough from the horrid light-rail to be reasonably quiet, just a block from Lover-Boy, and handsomely renovated by the sellers.

SDXB subsequently moved to Sun City, where — being a stodgy sort — he’s very happy. I’d lived there with my parents and just hated it, so refused to follow him out there.

Soooo…here I am, ensconced happily enough on the edge of unholy Sunnyslope (you don’t wanna know!) and within a few short minutes’ drive of my son’s house. It’s incredibly convenient:

  • 3 major supermarkets (one of them a Sprouts) within easy walking distance
  • a doctor’s office, in the same realm
  • a Walgreen’s: same precinct
  • a veterinarian within walking distance
  • a train running up a main drag, but far enough from the house to avoid noise
  • armies of busses running up the two main drags to the east

One thing is for sure: you don’t need a car here. And that’s good, since my son filched mine…for my own good, dontcha know.

😀  I don’t happen to agree with him that I shouldn’t be driving — that’s BS. But truth to tell, in this location I don’t have to drive! Everything I need is within easy walking distance, even including a doctor and a vet. To gild that lily, a guy across the street is driving an Uber cab.

Seriously: if Uber stays in business, it will be several years before I’m forced to move into a horrible old-folkerie. With any luck, indeed, I’ll die before that happens. And so I will live out most or even all of my last few years in my own calm, quiet and pretty little place. With my own swimming pool, my own yard, and my own funny little dog.

What more could one ask?