Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

Soggy Doggy Day

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Echhhh! Seven a.m. on a June Wednesday, here in lovely uptown Phoenix. WHAT A SWAMP out there.

Just back from walking the dog around the ‘Hood. For a change, not too many “ohhhh, they just wannna pwa-a-ay!” morons came our way, so I didn’t have to drag Ruby out of any fights. That was refreshing.

But “refreshing” ain’t the word for today’s weather. Hot and wet: the air so saturated it actually feels soggy against your skin.

So much for “a dry heat,” eh?

Oh well. At least we got our exercise walk. Doesn’t look like any of the expected nuisance visitors have showed up at the door. If they did, they didn’t leave any sign of their (brief) presence.

You know what that means, though…don’t you?

Yeah: it means that the minute I get a fresh pot of coffee poured and sit down to sip a mugful of it, we’ll get BING B-O-O-O-N-G!!! at the front door. Followed by ARF ARF ARF ARF YAP YAP ARF ARF!!!!!!

Shee-ut.

I can’t even remember what today’s nuisances are supposed to pester me with today. Recruiters for one of the old-folkeries, I think. Someone my son sent over, too…on the assumption that my marbles have fallen out my ears and are scattered all over the floor.

These people pass judgment on your mental grip…which means I have to get the house picked up, spick & span, so they don’t conclude that I’m too batshit to take care of myself. Which they will, if they see a mess in this place.

And y’know…I don’t WANT to clean house right this minute, at 7:15 in the morning. I want a cup of coffee and a bite of breakfast and time to rest from this morning’s tromp around the park.

Anyway, I figure the minute I get the coffee poured, it’ll be BING-BONG, followed by a gang of wannabe babysitters.

Fortunately, Wonder Cleaning-Lady keeps the house preternaturally clean. So all I have to do is make the bed and keep the litter picked up. That’s a helluva lot better than charging through four bedrooms, two baths, a family room, a living room, and a kitchen to clean up the zoo. First thing in the morning….

Weird new phenomenon: The peripheral neuropathy has faded to the point where it’s almost gone.  Right now, if I weren’t pounding on a keyboard, I wouldn’t feel it at all!!!

What makes that weird?  Well: I was told it cannot and will not go away. It’s permanent: misery to follow you for the rest of your life.

Huh.

Maybe it isn’t true that PN doesn’t go away? The Cleveland Clinic seems to claim that it can resolve…

So…gosh! Wouldn’t THAT be something? I’d resigned myself to a future of nonstop tingling and pain. But…either I’m getting used to it or it’s getting better.

…and Again… Still Hotter than Hades!

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Quickie circumnavigation of the block, by way of running off some neurotic frustration. Come 2:30 in the afternoon, the pavement out there is WAY too hot for Ruby the Corgi’s little feet. So, to her disgust, she got left home while her human sweltered its way down the road.

HOLEE mackerel, it’s hot out there! Back porch thermometer reads 109 degrees: fully in the shade! 

Ugh!  WHY do I stay in this godawful place?

Well: there’s a question…one that drives the next question: WHERE would I go other than this godawful place?

My son is here, and I have no desire to move away from him. Nor do I have any desire to move TO the alternatives.

  • San Francisco Bay Area: love it, but can’t afford it
  • Southern California: and how is that any better than here?
  • San Diego: don’t know anyone there anymore; don’t wanna start all over
  • Ft. Worth, Texas: All my relatives have moved or croaked over; don’t know anyone left there

On and on…really, there isn’t anyplace where I’d rather live than here.

Actually, Arizona has a lot to recommend it, surprisingly enough.

Phoenix is an actual big city, with big-city amenities.

When I was teaching, Arizona State University (on the other side of the Valley) paid a decent salary and hired me full-time.

This place does have a cultural life, believe it or not: two excellent museums in Phoenix alone, plus a couple of theater troupes and historical museums and three universities — one of them nationally prominent — and a plethora of historic sites, and…on and on. It’s a pretty nice and reasonably interesting place to live, to tell the truth.

And it has slews of decent restaurants — including some that exceed decent. I no longer eat out, but when Dear Husband was in the offing, we raided the local eateries a couple times a week.

****

And now it’s coming on to 6:00 p.m. Cleaning Lady from Heaven is still blasting around, bless her. Outside: 108 degrees, or so we’re told by Wunderground. Could be: it’s hotter than the hubs out there.

Talk about jobs you’d druther not have! Cleaning people’s houses: eek! 

She does an excellent job…well, actually, she’s a Godsend. This place is beyond spotless by the time she goes out the door.

And what that means, in the current short run, is that the next time the government busybodies come over here to inspect my lifestyle, they’ll think I run around cleaning my house every day.

Yes. Somebody sends busybodies to check on me. They come from some office in the State of Arizona. So far they’ve been  no worse than a passing nuisance — largely, I suspect, because of this fine woman’s work. Yes: I do clean my house…but nothing like as magnificently as she does. Last time the State’s spies dropped by, she had just been here…and so they saw…

* no dust anywhere
* freshly vacuumed and mopped tile floors throughout (the shack has no carpets)
* sparkling clean kitchen counters and appliances
* sparkling clean bathrooms
* a freshly made bed
* shiny clean windows

She’s just finishing up right now…and once again the place is as clean and organized as a museum.

I do hope Big Brother’s last inspection actually will be the last. That surprise descent upon my home was truly infuriating! Who they HELL do they think they are, nosing through my house? Out of the blue, without my invitation or permission!

Anyway, if we’ve gotten rid of those busybodies, it will be solely because of CL from H’s excellent work. 

Hotter Than the Hubs!

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Seriously: It must be a jillion degrees in the shade out there in the back yard.

Okay, okay: hold the melodrama. Let’s see what Wunderground says the temp really is:

Brrrrr! A chilly 103 degrees in the shade!

Who’d’ve thunk it was that crisp out there? Predicted high for today: 105 degrees. Tomorrow: 107.

Lovely. Garden spot!

WHY do I stay in this place????

Oh yeah: because the Kid lives here.

Be assured: if my fine son weren’t parked in this berg, I wouldn’t be, either!

LOL! Truth to tell, I’m coming to hate living in Phoenix — L.A. East. Too hot, too Los Angelized, too grody, too damn bourgeois.

{sigh}

Given that my son is parked here, though, I guess I’m not moving away. Ain’t movin’ away from where that kid lives!

His presence, though, doesn’t make me like living here any more than I already hate it.

Ohhh well: no point in belly-aching…doesn’t do any good, does it?

Hafta say: I ain’t fond of Phoenix.

Where would I go, if I could escape?

Not Sun City, that’s for damn sure!!  😀

Actually, if I were gonna stay in Arizona, one of my residence spots of choice would be the Oro Valley, a suburb on the north side of Tucson. A little wide spot situated beneath the Santa Catalina Mountains, it’s moderately upscale, reasonably safe, and very pretty. Certainly cooler during the summer.

In the absence of my son, I’d move down there in an instant.

But…he’s here. So I’m here.

And that’s that! 😀

 

Morning in Lovely(?) Arizona

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The Corgi is out back, sniffing every corner of the yard — her daily task, right? The Human loafs, feet on the hassock, computer on the lap. All is quiet…for the nonce.

Not looking forward to this morning, though. M’Hijito has hired a babysitter to come in and supervise me, forgodsake. Today, as I understand it, is to be her first day on the job.

It’s only a little after seven, and so we presumably have an hour or two before she surfaces.

Once the poor soul is welcomed into the Funny Farm and has a chance to look around, we’ll have to try to get to know each other. And since Funny is in fact One Weird Chick, …heh!!  We’ll see how long she lasts!

😀

Seriously: I am a strange little broad and always have been, since I was a little kid. As a child, I had hardly any friends, because I did not and could not fit in with the crowd.

Over half a century of life on this earth indeed has taught me to keep my mouth shut. But that’s easy enough when the victim…uh…companion isn’t living with you. When you’ve got someone in your face all day long…well…that’s a whole ‘nother story.

So, truth to tell, even though I’m interested to meet this new person, I’m sure not looking forward to it.

By now Ruby and I would have circumambulated the ‘Hood on our morning walk. Instead, we’ve had to sit here and wait for the babysitter to show up. Of course, she has not done so, and because June is one of the hotter months in lovely central Arizona, our chance for a doggy-walk is already lost.

Since it’s unreasonable to ask some poor underpaid soul to surface before 7 in the morning, I’ll have to go over to the locksmith’s shop and have him make another key, to give to this lady. That will allow her to get into the house while Ruby and I are out junketing around the neighborhood.

Just what I wanna do: hand out front-door keys to all and sundry…

Meanwhile, my office looks like a bomb dropped in there. WHAT a mess! Instead of loafing here playing with the computer, I should be back there shoveling out that room.

Ugh! Grand way to start the day, eh?

This is part of what makes my character weird: I don’t like people telling me what to do with my life or what to do with my time. 

Ever has it been thus. So…school was a PITA. Organized sports: PITA. Church activities: PITA.

Huh….  What happened over the years to incline me to dislike other people so?

Hmmmm…

Well: my earliest memory is of the time I was playing in a sandbox with a neighbor’s two brats. I was under three years old, because this happened before we left for Arabia…and we arrived in that sylvan realm a day before I turned three.

We’re sitting there in a sandbox in front of the house my mother had rented in Berkeley, California. The neighbor’s two brats are there, too, playing with me.

I imagine we’re all having a good time, when the brat girl picks up a load of sand in her little kiddie shovel and SLAMS IT INTO MY FACE. 

Slams it into my EYES.

Oh, my god! Never has anything hurt so much, before or since.

And there you are, folks:

That is how I learned to dislike and to distrust other people. That lesson, we might add, has never been forgotten.

And that’s why I don’t want strangers in my home. It’s why I don’t want the babysitter my son has hired in my home. It’s why just now I do not want to sit here waiting for the woman to show up; but instead I crave to be striding around the park behind a bouncing corgi.

Humanity: God’s gift to Satan.

Hotter Than the Hubs!

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No: I kid you not: it really IS hotter than the Hubs of Hades out there on the front sidewalk. Hotter than that on the asphalt pavement.

Fortunately, we still have enough of our marbles to stay off the ashphalt! 😀

Just back from circumnavigating the neighborhood. Spavined a tendon in an ankle a couple days ago. It’s getting better…and  now  needs to be exercised gently with some regular walking.

So…out the door, with our kewl Walking Stick in hand.

Excellent! No strain, no pain on the sore paw. Well…except for the extravagant heat. Wunderground claims it’s 108 out there just now…but waddaya bet Wunderground’s thermometers are not sitting on an asphalt road?

Thinking, contemplating to pass the hiking time…. Would I, Could I like to be back in San Francisco?

Well, yeah. Actually, I’d like to be in Berkeley, where my late relatives used to live. Pretty little suburb. Nifty gourmet grocery store up at the top of the hill, next to the tunnel where the light rail came in from the East Bay. Miss it.

Miss it a lot. But…

* Realistically, I couldn’t afford to live in the Bay Area.
* Realistically, my son is here and I ain’t movin’ away from him.
* Realistically, I couldn’t afford California income taxes.
* Realistically, I couldn’t afford the nice warm clothes one needs when living there.

So…get used to HOT! 😀

O’course, I’m already used to hot, having grown up in lovely Saudi Arabia, and having been planted in Arizona at the age of 17.

So: kwitcher bellyachin’ lady. You ain’t movin’ anywhere!

😀

GLUBBY Glubby Day

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Good Gawd!  High noon on a mid-June day, and…it’s 110 in the shade of the back porch! Today’s high was predicted to be a mere 108 degrees, with 38% chance of rain.

UNbelievable.

The dawg and I shot out of the house at dawn. It was already too late to be walking around out there. But tonight the temp is supposed to drop to a chilly 87 degrees.

Brrr! Better get out the jacket! 

Seriously: the only way Ruby can get her daily walk, in this kinda weather, is to take her out at sunrise, before the concrete and asphalt can heat up. Wait too long, and her little feet will be scorched.

This is the time of year when, really, I do wish I lived somewhere else. And…really…if my son weren’t here, I most surely would live somewhere else. Far, far from here!

Where would I go?

Well…the San Francisco Bay Area is whence my mother’s better side of the family emanated. Most of those folks are long gone…but the City is still there.

Given all the money in the world, I’d rent a flat in the Marina. Beautiful spot!

Given half the money in the world, I’d buy or rent a house in Berkeley: aging but handsome and urbane.

But of course, I do not have all the money in the world, or even half of it. Here in Arizona, a pauper like me (heh!) could afford to wriggle into any of several fairly pleasant venues.

One is a suburb of Scottsdale called Fountain Hills. It’s pretty expensive: upper-middle-class, close to the Mayo Clinic, near a slew of suburban amenities. Nice homes, though often cheaply built. Right now, the median listing price is just $799,000.

Yep. Must hurry right out and buy one!

Moving on… Another famously tony area is called North Central Phoenix. That’s where the Funny Farm resides: on the fringe of that district.

Here’s a one-bedroom, one-bath palace in North Central: a mere $94,500. What a bargain! An actual house, though, rather than a dinky condo? Get ready to pony up $745,000.

Every time I peruse the local real estate ads, I get more horrified.

Well, if by some miracle I can hang onto the Funny Farm until I die, M’hijito will inherit a valuable chunk of dirt. Zillow thinks my house is worth $584,000. Not much, by comparison of other Los-Angelized real estate in these parts.

But…he has expressed a desire to move to his dad’s home town in Colorado: a little burg called Grand Junction. Prices there are MUCH lower. For a fraction of what he can get for my house, he can buy a palace there.

Small town living is not to my taste, personally. But…he hasn’t spent his childhood in such a place, and so maybe as a grown man he might find it pleasant enough. Highly desirable, even.