Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

The Ole Guy…The Ole Neighborhood

by

Took a hike up to the corner shopping center, there to pick up some not-very-necessaries and socialize with the locals. On the way home, I walked through the  northwest corner of the ‘Hood, an area that SDXB and I used to frequent when he lived here in Phoenix (before he made his escape to Sun City). At the time, I dwelt closer to noisy, crime-ridden Nineteenth Avenue. SDXB and I used to walk all around in that quarter, just about every day.

One house we passed almost every day belonged to a fella we called “The Ole Guy.” What a nice man he was. He and his wife had lived here forever, and by the time SDXB and I came on the scene, they were gettin’ on in years. She was usually indoors, but he liked to putter around in his yard and with his car, and so he would often be out in front. SDXB and I would hang out with him for awhile as we made our rounds of the’Hood.

Well, of course as you know (if you read FaM much), SDXB decamped to Sun City, chased off by the noisy new light-rail and the blossoming crime rate.

My house is far enough from the damn trains that I can’t hear their racket. And as for the murderers, rapists,, and burglars? Make. My. Day, Gentlemen! 

Plus I had lived in Sun City, hated it, and never ever wanna go back there again. Any day I’d rather have crime than stodgey. 😀

So I stayed.

So did the Ole Guy — for awhile. But soon enough, he had to deposit his wife in a nursing home, pretty much trashing his life and his joy. He disappeared from the scene — believe he moved into the same old-folkerie — and the house was sold to some anonymous suburban types. Dunno that I’ve ever even seen the present owners.

If owners they are: they could be renters, for all I know. 😀

But oh my! I do miss the Ole Guy. What a nice man he was: to my mind an emblem of the neighborhood and all that’s good about it.

And I do miss SDXB, who seems to be living happily ever after in Sun City.

Not “happily” enough to lure me back out there. For one thing, SDXB has a lovely new girlfriend, and I surely wouldn’t want to intrude on that relationship. And for another….ohhhhh boy, did I ever hate living in Sun City. And I ain’t a-goin’ back out there, no many how many old friends of mine have decamped to the place.

So…dayum! I feel like I’m the Last Vestige of the Old Neighborhood.

Which is silly, of course. There are no vestiges: just people who move in and people who move out.

But I suppose the ironic and kinda funny thing about it is that nowadays I’m the equivalent of The Ole Guy. Yeah: the ancient resident who’s lived here since the pyramids were built: that one.

Why stay?

* Too much work to pack up and decamp. (Can you spell laziness?)
* Kids. Migawd, I do love the sound of kids playing! Why would you want to live in a mausoleum where no kidlets are allowed?
* Centrality. We are smack in the middle of everything. The main reason I was trotting around on foot is that M’hijito imagines an old bat shouldn’t be bucketing around the homicidal streets of Phoenix (NEVER have a kid who’s an insurance adjuster!), and so he has protectively purloined the Dog Chariot and  locked it up in his garage. B…F…D…, say I: my house’s location is so superbly central that I don’t need a car to get to several grocery stores (one or two of them damn fancy), a doctor, a dentist, a vet a..this, a that, and another thing. A train line and two bus lines go by right up the street. And an Uber driver lives two houses down from me.
* Upper-middle-class upper-middle-itude. The place is upscale but not upscale. Handsome, cleanly cared for, moderately priced. It is, in short: just my speed, when it comes to real estate.

So…really, this is almost as good as San Francisco used to be for me and my parents, where we never moved our car out of the garage more than once or twice a month.

I figure I can live here until I drop dead, or until I simply cannot walk a block or so. Whichever comes first.

LOL!

But it does have to be said: when you’ve lived in a place for a long time, you do miss your old neighbors and you do miss the good-ole-days. Someday, no doubt, someone will miss me and my funny-looking corgis. But until then…

Well. I intend to reign supreme!

😀

 

Free!! (??) I hope….

by

Woo HOOO! It looks suspiciously like this is NOT cleaning-lady day!

The wonderful Luz (Cleaning Lady from Heaven) is not parked in front of my neighbor’s house (she visits those neighbors before descending on me). It’s almost noon!  So…unless that dear woman picked up another client and has enjoyed scrubbing yet another shack before coming here, I’m FREEEEEE from having to pick up the pig-pen.

Mwa ha hah! Sure do hope so…

Isn’t that awful?  SOOOO lazy that I don’t want to be bothered to shovel aside the litter so she can get at a surface or three to clean!

The other day some obnoxious and nosy financial dudes visited the Funny Farm. This, supposedly for a bland chat…and…yeah. Transparently to nose around in my house and see how I live and probably to see if they can get me committed to an old-folkerie if I dwell in stacks of litter.

Fortunately, because the ineffable Luz was slated to come by in the near future, I had picked up the place and put all the dishes in the washer and stuffed the dirty clothes in the laundry and…voilà! It looked almost like someone civilized lived here.

That was lucky!

{whew!}

If I’m going to be spied upon like that, presumably by my son’s hired help, after this I’m gonna have to make the bed and pick up the clutter the minute I roll out of the sack.

Not that it’s a bad thing to tidy up the place the minute your feet hit the bedroom floor. But that it’s a damn nuisance…and an invasion of one’s privacy.

And it makes me wonder, seriously, if I should pack up and move out of the city.

But….where? 

That mystifies me 

First, because this neighborhood is about as ideal a neighborhood as I can imagine. The house is within easy walking distance of not one, not two, but THREE major (gourmet-style!!) grocery stores, a veterinary, a computer store, a hair stylist, and a Target.

Seriously: I don’t have to travel more than about five or six blocks to get everything needed for day-to-day living here. Truth to tell, I don’t even need to own a car to live here comfortably and conveniently.

Second, because the neighbors are very nice, very friendly. Even Tony the Romanian Landlord has mellowed out! This makes it a pleasant place to live.

Third, because a major regional hospital is about a four-minute ambulance ride from here. Dial 911, and the rescue guys (and gals) show up forthwith.

Fourth: because the crime level — not nil, of course — is surprisingly low for an urban neighborhood. Yes, of course I have fierce burglar-resistant screen doors on all the entrances, and of course they’re kept locked. But I don’t feel especially at risk, sitting here in the Funny Farm. In another neighborhood where we lived, I surely did.

Hmmmm……

Having those two clowns show up here and nose around was…disturbing, to say the least. I may have to hire the cleaning lady to come by once a week. Right now, I surely don’t do that…can’t afford it.

But…let’s think about that: I can afford weekly cleaning help one whole helluva lot better than I can afford to be locked up in a prison for old folks. That would make it easier for Luz to keep the place spotless, and also I could probably put her up to driving me to various retail stores.

So….

I think I should make a few minor changes to my routine: ones that would create the effect of major changes in my day-to-day lazy lifestyle:

  • Forgodsake MAKE THE GODDAM BED the minute Ruby and I roll out of the sack. Be sure the bedroom and bathroom are all tidied up.
  • Pick up the kitchen and stash the dirty dishes in the washer the minute I finish breakfast. Never leave stuff laying around the kitchen or dining room. {How lazy am I? Let us count the ways…}
  • Get in the habit of picking up the house before going to bed, rather than in the morning.

Hm. That probably would do the job, since I do not habitually lay around like a total slob. If some namby-pamby showed up here, assigned with the task of inspecting my living arrangements, they’d think I live like a cleaning lady. 😀  😀  😀

Seriously: pick up the clutter first thing in the morning, and no one who shows up later in the day will get any ideas about senility affecting my lifestyle.

Is it an invasion of my privacy?

Damn right! But nothing like the invasion of (nonexistent!) privacy that would be inflicted on me in one of those prisons for old folks.

Colder than a By-Gawd…

by

Yes: It’s quarter to ten in the morning and 55 degrees out there on the back porch.

Now, in the large scheme of things, that ain’t very cold. Especially not for mid-December. But for mystical, unknowable reasons, it seems damn cold! As my father used to say, Colder’n a by-gawd.

What exactly a by-gawd was (some sort of pagan deity???) and why a by-gawd was expected to be extra cold, I dunno. Or extra hot: it was possible for the day to become “hotter’n a bygawd.”

Arizona’s dry air does tend to mess up your perception of ambient temperature. In the summer, 100 degrees doesn’t seem all that hot. But in the winter, 55 degrees seems oddly chill.

The roar from the blasting fighter jet engines at Luke Air Force Base — just a few miles outside of Sun City — echoes all the way down here to our parts. And that’s a good 20 miles. WHAT a racket.

My mother, an inveterate patriot with a capital P, used to sit on her Sun City back porch in the early mornings and simper, over her coffee, “ohhhh, it’s the sound of FWEEDOM!”  

Yeah.

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

Fortunately, WW III hasn’t quite made it to the back yard. Yet…

But that Air Force Base is one of the several top reasons that you couldn’t get me to move back to Sun City. The racket from those bombers. The hatred of anyone whose skin wasn’t dough-white. The dislike of young people in general (no, do NOT move in with your parents over summer vacation!!!). The mediocrity of the grocery stores. (Hey: old people’s taste buds are dead, so why try to sell them decent food?). Horrible place!

SDXB and New Girlfriend are still holding forth out there. The place is just his speed, of course. She was already there when they met, so I assume Sun City must be to her taste, too.

Last I heard, SDXB was mightily sick. N.G. was trying to attend to him, but she’s even more superannuated than I am, so that job may be beyond her. She’s such a nice lady: I hope she doesn’t lose him…now or anytime in the foreseeable future.

***

Welp, pretty soon now I should get off my duff and trot up to one of the nearby grocery stores. Yes: that is one the several ways in which this district excels over (un)lovely Sun City: we have not one, not two, but THREE excellent grocers within easy walking distance of my house.

* An Albertson’s
* A Sprouts
* A Fry’s

Plus an automobile mechanic, a hair stylist, a pet store, a veterinarian, an optometrist, a computer store, a Target, a drugstore, two sit-down restaurants and unnumbered fast-food joints…on and on. WHY would anyone want to live anywhere else?

😀 Okay, okay: it’s true. SDXB refuses to eat in restaurants, so for him, that detail counts for nothing toward our neighborhood’s livability quotient. He doesn’t keep pets….okay: no vet needed. He has virtually perfect vision…grrrr!  So it’s not hard to see why he fails to regard the ‘Hood as in any way superior to (un)lovely Sun City.

As for moi: I feel like I absolutely fell into it when my Realtor brought me to this place. It simply could NOT be better for a middle-class singleton living in a free-standing house.

The apartment blocks across Main Drag West have, it is true, pretty much filled up with some less-than-desirable neighbors. A cop was shot in the hallway of one of those buildings over there. So…yeah: I do have to keep the possibility of moving elsewhere in the back of what passes for my mind.

And…I do think that if I end up having to move because of real estate deterioration, it’ll be closer to M’hijito’s house. He lives within easy walking distance of the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Grocery Market. So I can imagine buying a place down there. Also, a couple of pretty Fancy-Dan high-rise apartment buildings reside in that direction…right on the lightrail line.

So….if I felt like economic & social pressures would dictate that I’d better move before I start to lose a lot of money on this house, I probably would move down into his district…assuming it looks like he’ll stay in those parts for a good while longer. If he moved to some other part of the Valley, I’d prob’ly trail after him. If he left the Valley…???  I dunno: in that case, I might move into one of those high-rises.

Maybe.

And now it’s night-time….

by

No longer colder than a by-gawd out in the back yard...but not much fun, come 10:00 p.m., as a venue to stand around waiting for the dawg to do her Thing.

And waiting…and waiting…waiting..

Aarrrrgh!!!!

Traffic is roaring back and forth to the north of us. The ridiculous light-rail train is bong-bong-bonging up and down Main Drag West. And here’s a cop copter, sailing over the house.

Looks like Ruby did her Thing just in time to get us back inside before the party begins. We’re in. The doors are locked. Let us hope that will suffice, for the human & the dog.

Pretty night, though. Would be mighty nice in the absence of a few burglars, car thieves, wannabe rapists, and whatnot.

Blech!!! Begins to make Sun City look good….

 

Brrrrrrr! …I think….

by

Colder ‘n’ a by-gawd out there on the back porch. But…but…the thermometer reads 48 degrees….which just ain’t THAT cold.

Need to take the Savage Beast (all 30 pounds of her) for a walk. Now, not later. But my enthusiasm for that project is about nil.

And speaking of dawgs and jobs you’d druther not do: Ruby’s beloved Pool Dude was just here and gone. LORDIE, there’s a real you’d-druther-not!! Slopping around in cold water and chemicals when the air is so cold it makes your hands ache.

Ohhh well. Thanks to that lovely fella, the pool is sparkling clean (and it stays so!), and I do not have to lift one limp little paw to make it that way. Basically, he makes it possible for me to stay in this house.

Well. No: that’s not exactly so. True: I did used to clean the pool myself, which (as you may have surmised) didn’t kill me. My neighbor just to the west has drained her pool. And she leaves it sitting there empty. Actually, during the rainy season she leaves enough of a puddle in the bottom to breed hordes of mosquitoes, which fly in her other next-door neighbor’s windows and bite bite bite bite bite. They put that poor woman (known in her family as Other Daughter, she being the youngest of two) in the hospital. (Mosquitoes carry all sorts of diseases, not just malaria).

I taught Other Daughter’s dad to throw mosquito repellent and insecticide over the wall into the puddle, which seems to have helped some. Hard to tell, though: it’s too cold for skeeters just now.

Why on EARTH would you buy a house with a hole in the ground in which to breed bugs unless you were gonna use the hole in the ground???

Contemplating the neighborhood bullsh!t returns me, irresistibly and unpleasantly, to contemplating the possibility of moving back to Sun City, where people don’t indulge this kind of bat-brained behavior. (Out there, they have other kinds of BS to play with.)

My parents dragged me to Sun City when my father made his first pass at retiring from his job as a sea-going tanker pilot. Even though young people are not allowed in that garden spot, my parents claimed (correctly) that I had weaseled my way into the University of Arizona at the age of 16, and so would be living in dorms in Tucson. But in fact, I spent all the university’s “vacation” time in un-lovely Sun city: winter break, spring break, and three months’ worth of summer break.

Just hated living there! 

Oh, well. Life ain’t what you pay for, is it?

Speaking of (un)lovely Sun City, I haven’t heard from SDXB (“Semi-Demi-Ex-Boyfriend”) in ages. Called out there a few times: no answer. I hope he and New Girlfriend are OK.

Unless medical care in that place has changed a lot since my parents lived there, Sun City is no place to get sick. The horrific excuse for “care” my mother got during her last months is one of several reasons I refused to move westerly, ever westerly when SDXB sold his house here in the ‘Hood and moved out there. That and the gawdawful racket from Luke Air Force Base. And the hate.

Those people hate everyone and everything in any way different from them. Foremost, of course, is skin color. Then affluence: better not be busted & disgusted and try to live out there… Then politics: if you’re a damnfool liberal, you’d better keep your mouth shut. Then religion: Judaism is not high on the list of preferred systems of worship…though my parents regarded Judaism more as a racial category than as a way of thinking.

What an awful place! Even if my son hadn’t been living in central Phoenix, NO WAY would I have followed SDXB out there when he took off for the West Side.

****

But…but…but…

***

It is indeed much cheaper to live out there than it is to live in town.

So occasionally I do think...maybe I should sell the Funny Farm and move out to dreary…uhm…lovely Sun City.

But really…why? 

Unless you hate kids, there’s really no good reason to move out there.

My parents did, effectively. Hate kids, that is. My father was regularly and utterly infuriated when a neighbor’s brats went out in their backyard and hollered and carried on as they played. But…he had good reason: he worked the swing shift, and he often truly needed to sleep all afternoon.

But whereas he could (and did!) beat the bejayzuz out of me for waking him up in mid-afternoon, there was nothing he could do to shut up the neighbors’ li’l darlin’s. If there had been a place to live where kids were not allowed, back in the day, he’d have been living there! 😀

What he would have done with me escapes me. Boarding school, prob’ly.

Anyway, he thought he’d died & gone to hevvin when he learned about child-free Sun City. And that is why and how we got to Arizona.

Heh! What an outcome, eh?  I believe my mother thought they would retire down the West Coast, to a small town between L.A. and San Diego.

It was very pretty down there. But he decided it cost too much. (Life cost too much for my father’s taste, come to think of it…) So when they found Del Webb’s Sun City projects, they thought they’d discovered Nirvana.

And I imagine they selected the one in Arizona because Arizona was SO much cheaper to live in than was anyplace in California.

Infuriating…retrospectively speaking. I had figured I would go to UC Berkeley. With that goal in mind, I’d worked my a$$ off in high school, weaseling my way into the National Honor Society and racking up absurd grade-point averages taking 5 solids every semester. Instead, I ended up in Tucson.

Shee-ut! Why would you do that to your kid?

Oh: because you matter so much more than your kid, right?

😀  😀  😀

Too Silly for Words…

by

Did I tell you folks this story?  I think not. It concerns a little incident that really WAS too silly for words.

So I’m loafing here at the Funny Farm, watching Wonder-Cleaning Lady work her butt off. While she’s thrashing around, two jerks….uhm…guys show up at the door, followed shortly by my son.

The pair, it develops, are from a grown-up baby-sitting agency whose mission is to ride herd on the elderly. And, when possible, consign them to institutions like the Beatitudes, a kind of ambulatory nursing home for the old and the infirm. Apparently, my son has sent these fine gents, whose mission is to demonstrate that I can’t take care of myself.

😀   😀   😀

Well, so I (stupidly!!) let them in the door, and they take up their position in the living room — little knowing that a high-powered cleaning lady is lurking in the back of the house.

The conversation soon turns to evidence that I can’t take care of myself.

No kidding!

Luz has just cleaned the living room and the kitchen. The place is fukkin’ SPOTLESS. The bookshelves have been dusted, tables dusted, the leather furniture dusted, every piece of litter or dirty dish picked up and thrown away or stashed in the dishwasher…on and on and on.

Really: the conversation just got sillier and sillier and sillier. NOTHING the two clowns could see or say indicated the house was less than ideally clean.

So…they weren’t able to use their little visit to lock me up in an old-folkerie. What it did do was warn me and let me know what was up. So you may be sure: I’ll be a whole lot more careful to pick up the clutter and make the bed each day, between visits from Wonder Cleaning-Lady.

In fact, I may move to Sun City, simply by way of getting out of reach…so little stunts like this can’t be pulled on me again.

The very thought makes me cringe: I hated living in Sun City every minute I had to be out there with my parents. But better your own home in a ghetto for the elderly than a noisy apartment in a prison for the elderly.

Can you imagine?