Coffee heat rising

Aging in place

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! 

😀

Still Pre-Xmasing

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M’hijito called and offered to drive me to the stores. Convenient, since my car has been glommed and apparently I’m never gonna get it back.

So this is one shopping jaunt I don’t have to make on foot. Would be nice if I could remember what I need to buy…  Ohhhh well…

He, then, presumably is on his way over here.

Ruby the Corgi seems just fine today. She must have eaten something that made her sick yesterday: probably some bug or some human detritus lurking in the yard.

Human: less fine. Hip still hurts so much I can barely hobble around. Oh well. Thass overrode, swa maeg thisse.

Well, hafta say this: I’m so glad I don’t live in Sun City, an hour’s drive away from the young man’s house. My present castle is only about 10 minutes from his place.

This allows me to impose on him with regularity. Today, for example, he’s schlepping up here to haul me to a grocery store.

Others who can be imposed upon do exist here. A guy catty-corner across the street drives an Uber cab for example. He’ll come trotting right over if you pester him.

Turns out we have not one, not two, not three but SIX Uber drivers residing here in the ‘Hood! Can you imagine? We never have to call an actual taxicab!

Weather is a little less spectacularly gorgeous than it was yesterday. Some humidity has rolled in, so the sky is a bit overcast — enough to be kinda gray — and the air feels a bit sticky. Not enough to bellyache about…but not Arizona’s usual spectacular winter weather.

Uh oh…here he is.

And so, AWAAAYYY….

Pillar to Post…and Back Again!

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What a hoot! For unknown reasons, I got all revved up and launched on a Hike That Would Not Stop this afternoon.

Seriously: I’ve been walking for a good three hours. Pillar to post and back again… And highly entertained by that which is the same and that which has changed around the ‘Hood.

As a practical matter, a surprising amount of the landscape has evolved: newer, different, maybe even a little more upscale. Yet a lot remains in full plus ça change plus ça reste le même mode. It was just plain fun to walk through shopping strips and parking lots and clusters of stores that I’ve visited for years and yet hardly even noticed…so much are they part of the landscape.

Got some good exercise, and really enjoyed the long hike.

During all this, considering: DO I want to pack up and move back out to Sun City, there to join SDXB and his girlfriend? Would I feel safer a whole long way from the traffic and the homeless vagrants and the burglars and the whatnot?

Ultimately, as my feet took me back up the driveway to the front door, the thought that came to mind was Well, no! No, I do NOT want to move to Sun City. No, I wanna stay here. 

I love our neighborhood. I love our neighbors. I love the kids playing in the yards and streets. And I even love the cars and busses and trains rumbling up and down the surrounding main drags.

This is a fun, cool, down-home middle-class urban neighborhood: the sort of place where I feel right at home. And…I ain’t leavin’!

WOOT!