Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

Outta There!

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Hmmm… Sounds like the cops must have chased off the legions of delinquents, drunks, and morons who inhabit Main Drag North at this hour of a weekend evening. The Roar ROAR ROAR that we normally enjoy at this time of night has suddenly ceased. So…presumably the gendarmes went after the roaring idiots.

It’s the kind of stupid stuff that makes Sun City look good. To the extent that a mausoleum can look good, I suppose.

{chortle!}  Actually, the racket from Main Drag North was one of the reasons SDXB took off for Sun City. He likes to sleep with his windows open..not, indeed, the ideal arrangement in a neighborhood bounded by drag-race tracks.

I, being a female type, keep my doors and windows shut and solidly locked at night.

BANG!

Charming. Another backfire…or fire-cracker…or gunshot.

At any rate…suddenly dead quiet emanates from the ‘Hood’s northern border. So presumably la policia have come awake.

Come a holiday, every moron in the city is outside shooting off their bang-bangs. That turns New Year’s, the Fourth of July, Christmas, Labor Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day…and on and on and on…into noise-making nuisances.

This is one of the reasons SDXB took out for Sun City. When you live in a mausoleum, you don’t have quite the noise problem that you get on the fringe of a slum.

That notwithstanding, I ain’t movin’ to Senility Central. Just close the damn bedroom windows!!

 

 

Real-Estate Dreamin’

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The idle(!!) mind returns to the fine overpriced patio homes I saw yesterday while roaming around the neighborhood. Parked between the canal and the neighborhood that DXH still inhabits, one of those places would be exceptionally convenient for my son. And about three blocks from a major supermarket, allowing me to stock up on groceries without ever thinking about having to drive to a store.

Uhm…

But…waitwait! Don’t I already live in such a ‘hood? Maybe even better: the Funny Farm is not just within walking distance of ONE market, but of FOUR: a Sprouts, a Safeway, an Albertson’s, and a Fry’s! It’s a three-minute drive (or an easy walk) to DXH’s place.

OHHHHkayyy… So much for that excuse to spend money and discommode oneself for a month or so! 😀

Out of sheer luck (given that I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was doing back in the house-hunting day), my present house happens to be located in just about as convenient a spot as possible.

My son’s car makes the location no less convenient for my son than the one down the street from his dad’s place.

The house on Central Avenue…well, it is nigh onto Central, a busy and noisy commuter thoroughfare.

It’s really no closer to shopping than where I am…and as a matter of fact, it has fewer nearby outlets.

Truth to tell, this li’l house here — the one in the neighborhood that my Realtor friend brought to me lo! these MANY years ago — very probably is in about the best location available within Maricopa County.

> It’s in a solidly upper-middle-class residential district

> Trains and busses serve the ‘Hood pretty much 24 hours a day

> Not one but three major hospitals serve the area (John C. Lincoln, Abrazo, and HonorHealth). A number of independent doctors practice out of offices within walking distance.

> The house is within easy walking distance of three major supermarkets (a Sprouts, an Albertson’s, and a Fry’s). And not one but two specialized computer stores.

> And if you have a kid, two excellent K-12 schools and one of the best public high schools in the city serve the district. Plus several private schools.

What more is to ask for? Truth is, this location is by far superior to any others I’ve seen in the past few months.

And…ahem… It’s paid for. 😉

Truth to tell, I don’t at all need a car to live here. This is a perfect neighborhood for an old bat who is reduced to having to get around on foot or by public transit!

And furthermore…  If I’m able to hang in here until I croak over (not unlikely, given my relatives’ track record for health & longevity), my son will inherit a nice house in a pleasant neighborhood that is paid for. 

Hm.

Soooo….no. I reckon I’m NOT interested in any kewl patio homes on the high end of tony North Central Avenue. Who needs it?

😀

Hiking Dogtilda…

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So along about noon or so, I imagine I’d heard nary a word from the Kid, so I assume he doesn’t give a da*n what my Christmas is like.

Grump, say I and grumble! Send him a crabby-ole-lady message and take off into the ‘Hood with the pooch. and…

And…yeah….

The Dawg and I return and take up our chore of loafing loafing after enjoying a very nice, very peaceful, and surprisingly long dog-and-human walk.

GORGEOUS weather!!!!  What a spectacular, clear, cool urban day.

Amazingly quiet out there.  A bit strange, that…but nice. Peaceful.

And what do we hear from our Honored Son?

“We did get together yesterday, Christmas Eve.

“I picked you up in the afternoon and brought you to my house. We had dinner there, and I took you home afterward. I’m attaching a photo from the evening to help anchor it.

“Today I already have plans and am spending the day with my father.”

AUUUGH! Can you BELIEVE that?????  My marbles haven’t fallen out my ears. They’ve melted into a plastic puddle inside my brain!

Presumably melting a fair amount of the brain itself, in the process!

This stuff is, to understate extravagantly, DAMNED SCARY!

Decided to forego visiting the proposed purchase of the Rich Person’s Shack over on toney Central Avenue. WHY, after all, would the Dawg and I want to own another house in what is essentially the same neighborhood, to the tune of a couple hundred thou’ more than we can get for the Funny Farm?

Truth to tell, the F.F. is actually a better house than that fancy shack. Plus… We know all the neighbors here. It’s close to not one, not two, but three major grocery stores. And just now we have an Uber driver residing right across the street, 😀

To move would be madness! 😀  Totally….

***

Back to the immediate moment of hysteria…HOLEEE maquerel!

What I’d better do — I think — by way of maintaining some grip on whatever marbles remain (if any do….) is to create a file in which I write down everything, no matter how consequential or inconsequential, that goes on during course of a day.

So…hmmm…how would this work?…

Possibly a spreadsheet would be easiest to format. So…

Date / time/ event/ people

How’s that? Enter the date and the time. Then list whatever it was that I or we did, and list the names of the folks who were involved. So we’d get something like this:

12/24  /  4:00 – 7:00 p.m.  / Dinner at IDH house. / Ian, Georgia, Jane, & Pete.

This blurb would go in a spreadsheet, so it would be easy to grasp at a glance.

Wacky…but it would have the advantage of heading off TOTAL forgetfulness. At least I could tell at a glance that I actually had visited with M’hijito. And if he had guests: who they were.

Wow.

Dunno about you, but I think this is damn near the scariest thing I’ve EVER experienced…

Our Garden Spot…

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Cop Copter overhead to the north, circling angrily…

BANG! BANGBANG!

Some a$$hole shooting at him, 

Herd the dog inside, follow her in. Shut off the exterior house lights.

Bathe as fast as I can scrub my li’l self. Dry off. Dart into the bed.

Cop is still circling to the northwest, though a further distance away.

And…his copter motor racket fades…he’s sailing off. Thank gawd!

One more gunshot. And now: silence.

 WHAT….

                A…..

                    PLACE…..

And NO, Sun City isn’t one whit better than lovely uptown Phoenix.

Our problem, I fear, is NOT that we’re in the slums of west Phoenix…NOT that we’re dodging bullets in south Phoenix, NOT that we’re trying to look inconspicuous north of the canal, but… Yeah: that we reside in the city of Phoenix. 

Horrible.

Went back and looked at those houses over by the canal, on the east side of ritzy Central Avenue.

Uhh….  huh uh! A dirt path runs behind that little tract of houses, right between their back wall and the canal bank. A perfect trail for every burglar, rapist, and lunatic in North Phoenix.

So…heh…we won’t be looking at that real estate.

Seriously: if Sun City weren’t an hour’s drive away from M’hijito’s house — if it weren’t bathed in the atmosphere of the mausoleum — I would have followed SDXB out there the minute he sold his house and moved westerly, ever westerly.

But I just can’t stand the place. Hated living there when I was stuck out there with my parents. And I sure don’t want to repeat that act. Ugh!

If you wanna live in peace and quiet, d-o-o-n’t retire to Phoenix!!!

Unmerry Christmas

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It’s noon on Christmas day and NOT ONE PERSON has bothered to so much as call on the phone and wish me a Merry Xmas. 

Gosh.

I knew I was repellant, but I had no idea I was that bad. 

🙁  🙁  🙁

The sky is overcast and threatening to rain. Otherwise Ruby and I would set off on a good long hike. An hour or so of walking would shake off some of the depression. But…

But dontcha just know that about the time we get 45 minutes out the front door, the skies will open and POUR on us. So…to say I hesitate to take off down the sidewalk or up into the hills is to understate. Significantly.

*****

Call up SDXB to wish him a Merry Xmas. He’s busy fixing dinner for guests.

He’s still going strong with New Girlfriend. Which is a good thing: she’s really a neat lady, perfect for him, and she lives out there in Sun City, where he does nowadays.

He wanted me to move out there with him, at the time he decided to head west (FAR west) to escape the Tony Situation. But I’d lived there when my parents were holding forth in those parts. And…uhm…nooo thanks!

Not that it’s a bad place. It’s just…well…majestically not to my taste.

But meanwhile, in our parts the Tony Situation has subsided handsomely. Yea, verily: Tony is actually friendly to me. And weirdly, I rather like him. He really is an amazing man.

So any chance SDXB had of persuading me to move back to noisy, dreary Sun City dissolved in that cauldron.

And therefore what I’d really like to machinate, for the future, is staying here in the Funny Farm until I can’t waddle from the bed to the bathroom; then conveniently dying and leaving the place to my son.

Alternatively: sell the shack, take the proceeds, and buy myself into some miserable old-folkerie.

Few things do I detest more than congregate living. But given the track record of longevity in my family, chances are hideously high that I’ll wrap up my life in one of those horrible places. Lacking a nice Golden Gate Bridge from which to take a flying leap….  😉

*****

Have you noticed how ditzy Americans are about the subject of Death & Dying? Poor creatures! They don’t seem to grasp that Death is part of Life…and that if one person croaks over — for whatever reason — the planet does not, after all, stop rotating.

Oh, well.

****

My plan right now is to ask Wonder Cleaning Lady if she can be hired to come in and take care of me during the pre-Demise weeks or (heaven forfend) months. She worked for the Beatitudes and so has experience in that department. The big roadblock, though, would be that she has — of all things– a family(!!). And no doubt will feel little enthusiasm for lurking around all night to babysit an old lady.

She may, however, know how to find sources of 24-hour care…preferably the kind that does NOT require you to move into a dormitory for old bats. We shall see: so far I haven’t worked up the nerve to ask her.

JAYZUZ!!! Check out the entrance fee for The Beatitudes, the most prominent and probably the best of the old-folks’ prisons here.

Welp. Suicide is painless, so they say…

Better that than having to fork over your kids’ entire inheritance to have someone babysit you into the grave….

****

Holiday Confuse-a-Bat

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😀  Ohhh-kayyy….  It’s Christmas Eve. WHAT am I supposed to be doing today?

Seriously: if we had a plan, I failed to enter it on the calendar. And since nothing can be entered with any certainty in the agèd brain, natcherly I cannot remember whether m’hijito and I had something up…or not.

I assume he’s going to his dad’s or to his friends’ place. His pals usually have a nice holiday shindig. But I don’t recall being invited to it this year…which doesn’t mean I wasn’t invited: only that I can’t remember.

DON’T get old, whatever ya do!!!!!

I kid you not. 

In the Department of Old Age, at this point of course (as you who have moved homes a time or three must know), you’re no doubt living in your last own-it-yourself home. Next one will either be a motel room in an old-folks’ institution or a box in the ground. Or maybe a nice urn for ashes.

But…gee! The other day Ruby and I were walking on the northerly fringe of Upper Richistan, along the bank of the canal bordering that tony district. And what should we see but…wow! THE coolest little tract of very pricey-looking patio homes, laid out along the river-like canal, below a view of the North Mountains. 

Hm.

It’s in a walled development, suggesting a well organized (yeah: expensive) homeowner’s association that takes care of the grounds and amenities.

Gosh.

Walk past, southeasterly.

On the way home, walk past it again, northwesterly.

Could we afford that????

Consider: no more monthly bills for the pool cleaning. No more monthly bills for Gerardo (Yard Dude) and his crew. Your monthly HOA bill no doubt would cover regular security guard service as well as the pool and grounds care.

Hm, indeed…

Very innaresting. I may go back and look at that place more closely; maybe watch for the next “For Sale” sign.

On the other hand…  My house has no nuisancey homeowners’ association to cope with. My yard and pool guys do what I ask them to do, not what they’re assigned to do by the local HOA. And from here I can walk (not have to drive) to not one, not two, but THREE very fine grocery stores, a computer store/repair shop, a Best Buy, and (as if I cared) an excellent restaurant.  If Ruby flies into a yap-fest, few of the neighbors can hear her, and none of them will belly-ache about it.

Hmmmm…

Yeah: no. I reckon this place is going to be the shack M’hijito inherits. If he wants to live here, bully for him. If not, he’ll net about half a million bucks for it. Between that and the value of his shack, he should be able to buy the Great Mansion of the Western World. Looks to me like the best strategy just now is to lay low and cling to my dollars.

And go skinny-dipping in my very own backyard pool! 

😀