Coffee heat rising

aging

Now What???

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In a moment of misguided chumminess, I lent my laptop to a business acquaintance. This is a guy I’ve known for years, outwardly very professional, a successful chiropractor by trade.

Bad move! Among other antics, he contrived to break the computer, rendering it nonfunctional. My son has taken it to a computer store, in hopes of getting it fixed…but that hope ain’t one I hold out.

Can’t afford to buy another one. That unit was tax-deductible, purchased when I used it mostly for the editorial business. Now that I’ve pretty much retired from that gig and from teaching, I get no break on its cost. And my son is more than ever convinced that I’m crazy, largely because of long-standing friendship with Mr. Computer Vandal.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago my car was trashed, when I rear-ended some woman on a dark, wet, rainy road.

Now I’m banned from driving (by the Kid) and so have to walk to the stores. I do still have a driver’s license…but no vehicle! He has glommed it and stashed it at his house…rather too far to reach without a car.

Luckily, the ‘Hood is richly endowed with neighborhood stores and chains: Sprouts, Albertson’s, Fry’s, Walgreen’s, Bookman’s, and a cute little liquor store in which to feel righteous by “buying local” when scoring a bottle of wine.

Dunno which way to jump just now. I could sneak around and rent a car. But frankly, that seems like more trouble than it’s worth. In the first place, I don’t want to go behind M’hijto’s back, no matter how unreasonable I think his driving ban is. Plus…about three houses down the street, a neighbor has gone into the Uber business. If I would get off my duff long enough to contact him, I could probably get him or one of his colleagues to drive me just about everywhere I need to go.

One damnfool thing after another, eh?

Yet to decide whether to pursue the scheme to convert the garage, now empty, into an art studio. Probably not: sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. Still…hmmmmm…. I do like it as an idea.

 

Glorious Morning in the Gorgeous ‘Hood

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Well. It ain’t exactly “gorgeous.” But it’s exceptionally pleasant: a big green park, irrigated lawns in every direction, handsome 1950s and 60s ranch houses punctuated here and there with newer stately mansions. Inviting enough.

The corgi and I set out at dawn to circumnavigate the park and then traipse through the northerly flange that comprises Upper Richistan, the pastures, and a tract of what must once have been a toney suburb.

Drifting northerly, up toward Gangbanger’s Way, we come to the long cul-de-sac where our dear elderly friend and co-hiker used to live. Apparently the house still belongs to her, tho’ she’s gone: nowhere to be seen. As she sank deeper into the sands of Old Age, she was consigned to a “life-care community” — read “nursing home.” Exactly the fate, as she told me many months ago, that she hoped to evade.

I think she must still be living (if being stuck in one of those places can be called “living”), because the house stands there vacant, its furniture (visible through the front windows) still just as she left it.

Her plan was to leave the house to her son, who lives in another state.

Why did she believe he would want it? He doesn’t live in Arizona! She must have thought it would make a good investment for him. He apparently thinks otherwise…but oddly, has not disposed of the place. Months after her disappearance, it stands there vacant. I’m afraid that detail — vacant, not sold — indicates the worst: she’s infirm but not free of these earthly chains. Locked up in some nursing home or old-folkerie. God help her!

The little street makes for a nice neighborhood. But alas, that extends only to the visual aspects. It’s a block south of Gangbanger’s Way, where motorcyclists and hot-rodders roar back and forth into the night.  Even where my house is — at least a half-mile away, probably more — the racket is so crazy-making you can’t leave a window open at night.

People get used to that noise. My first apartment stood right on the curb of a hectic main drag called Thomas Road. My mother couldn’t understand how I could bear to live there — whenever she visited, the traffic noise would about drive her bats. But I didn’t even notice it!

So, I imagine that must have been the case for Garnett, too.

Meanwhile, closer to home: Some developer is building a passing huge mansion over in Lower Richistan. It’s unclear to me whether this lumbering (heh!) structure is to comprise two dwellings — i.e., a pair of townhouses — or whether it’s going to be one house. The latter, I think. They’ve got the frame up and have installed most of the fire-proofing. This morning they were applying brickwork and drywall over that.

Won’t the neighbors be thrilled?

 

Ohhhh Most Brilliant of Web Gurus!

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Well, our wonderful Grayson, the guy who keeps this site online and functioning, got me back in after I forgot (lost??) the password.

God bless him!!

Geez. I must be Alzheimering out. The more I fool with computer hoo-hah, the more opaque it gets to me.

Even when I print out this kind of ditz and tape it to the computer monitor’s frame, I still cannot get reliably in to this website, that website, or the other.

{sigh} I’m awfully afraid this is part of memory loss associated with aging. As the days go by, I recall less and less. Eighty-seven gerjillion passwords? F’geddaboudit. Due dates for bills?  Gimme a break. Who borrowed my laptop? I dunno.… Nothing is distracting me. I’m not sick. With no job, I’m never harried by work tasks, office politics, and general b.s. It looks alarmingly like the brain is simply wearing out.

Then we have mundane questions like…oh, say…what time is it?

  • The computer says it’s 8:47 a.m.
  • Clock on my desk: defunct. Can’t find it.
  • Bedside clock in the other room: 10 minutes to 2:00 (huh???)
  • Timer on the kitchen stove: 8:47
  • Clock in the dining room: 8:55
  • Best guess: HUH??????

 Figure out that it’s quarter after 9:00. Reset clocks, changing battery in one of ’em.

Cute li’l clock…wonder where I got it? Oh well. If only it didn’t have to be reloaded with batteries and dorked with to show what is apparently the current time.

Seriously: I can NOT keep track of all this ditz, much less make sense of six conflicting blobs of data.

Please, dear God: next time you bring me back to this planet, would you drop me on a desert island? One with no clocks? No computers? Maybe even no other humans???

But coffee, Sire. Plenty of coffee. Pleeze…..

Another Junket Through the Hood

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Yesterday’s little plug of sentementalia drew me onward ever onward: back out into the mid-morning heat (and in Arizona that IS heat) and into the depths of our lovely little neighborhood.

Yes, it is lovely! I was soooo lucky to stumble upon the Realtor who brought me here. The place is kind of a best-kept secret…and it is well-kept. The houses are tidy and nicely painted…the yards, whether grass or desert-landscaped, are handsome and clean…the towering trees: gorgeous gushers of shade. What a beautiful place to live!

Now that I’m old, one of my fondest wishes is to leave this lovely little house to my son, Ian the Great. I believe he likes the place…but even if he doesn’t, selling it would deliver a sh!tload of money to him. One way or another, he would profit: either a pretty house large enough for a family with three or four kids, or a highly salable place whose profit would set him up in business wherever he chose.

Sometimes I think…if I were young verging on middle-age, would I stay here if all my relatives croaked over?

Huh. As with everything, it depends.

But if I had a decent job that paid decently — my son surely does — I would think likely! Very likely.

If I needed to go somewhere else to pad the retirement fund..well…it would depend. And “depend” means an awful lot of things…

…depend on whether I had kids and where I wanted to send them to school
…depend on where the extended family lived
…depend on what the Honored Spouse wanted
…depend on future prospects for this proposed “decent job”
…depend on our idea of a desirable cultural life
…depend on whether the spouse and I could survive a 110-degree summer day…

Yea, verily! As we scribble, it’s only about 98 degrees out there — downright chilly!

Seriously: I don’t consider that very hot, having grown up in balmy Saudi Arabia and spent most of my adulthood in the Sonoran desert. But it just could be that normal humans would regard this place as an outpost of Hell.

Personally, I don’t. I think it’s frikkin’ gorgeous, an outpost of heaven. But…each to his/her own, eh?

Stumbling toward Eternity

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Sooo very sick! Surely this can’t go on much longer. I’m ready to. go…but f’rgodsake, WHERE is the exit door?

Tried to make an appointment with the much missed Young Dr. Kildare. That didn’t work. First off, he’s moved his practice to Sun City, halfway on the other side of the globe. I’m not supposed to be driving at all these days (hah!). Fact is, even  though I’m cheating and praying not to get caught, it’s just too darn far to drive.

Then we have the fact that my mother died horribly of neglect and abuse out there. During the last months of her lifetime, medical “care” in Sun City left a whole lot to be desired (like, say…care). The very thought of seeing a doctor and trying to get care in Sun City makes me cringe.

It’s time to go. Wbere tbe heck IS that Exit door?

She’s B-a-a-a-c-k…

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You lucky souls! 😉

What can I say? Apparently earlier efforts on my part to get back into FaM  failed because of my superb dork-up powers. Our wonderful Web guru, Grayson Bell, has not only put Funny about Money back online but even managed to teach its proprietor how to get back in.

Probably. We shall see as soon as we hit “Publish.”

One nightmare hassle after another in these parts. Wrestling with the state driver’s license office…over, from what I can tell, absolutely nothing. Finally got them to issue the current driver’s license, replete with a hideous photo. Mercifully (…i guess…) it doesn’t have to be renewed again until 2030. By then I’ll no doubt be driving around Heaven with the angels.

This afternoon, my poor beset son is dragging me clear across the Valley to see a neurologist about the stubborn case of peripheral neuropathy that’s been haunting me for the past several weeks. NATURALLY, as soon as one gets in a doctor’s door, the ailment disappears. The buzzing, tingling, and burning are, as of this minute, about 90% or even maybe 95% gone. Left to my own devices, I’d cancel today’s appointment. But since he’s been worried about this…thing, whatever it is…I’m quietly hunkering down and letting him haul me out there.

Understand: we’re talking about a 40-minute trek (one-way!) through horrible traffic. If that doesn’t set off your nerves, nothing will!

Ohhh well… Just now we loaf on the back patio, soaking up a spectacularly beautiful morning. High cirrus clouds wisp across a gorgeous blue sky. North Mountain, a favorite hiking venue, looms above the neighbor’s house. If I had any sense, I’d be up there on a trail now, racking up an hour of exercise time. But…as we know, I haven’t any sense. 😀