Coffee heat rising

aging

Really: There is no answer, is there?

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He had already decided that he wanted to move out of Sun City and into Orangewood, the old-folkerie of his choice. But she was having none of it.  Because he adored her, he wasn’t about to insist that she move someplace where she didn’t want to live. Surely 10 years in Saudi Arabia must have been enough of that!

So they stayed in Sun City until, eventually, her cigarette puffing and the effects of the gawdawful meds for the gawdawful gastric diseases she picked up in Arabia killed her. And he was ready: within hours after she died, he had the place packed up, an apartment rented at the old-folkerie, their house on the market: and he was ready to move.

I couldn’t have lived there, at that old-folkerie. It was institutional misery on a grand scale…just horrid! I could barely stand the rules in grade school, to say nothing of having to accustom oneself to living in a prison for the elderly.

The key, I think, was that he didn’t mind institutional living. He’d spent most of his adult life on ships, going to sea, What would have made me crazy felt like normal living conditions to him. And without my mother at his side, there was no reason for him to have to take care of a house.

To him, living in Orangewood, a holding pen for the elderly, felt normal. It must not, at base, have felt much different from living on a ship: Crowded conditions. Bad food. Someone else’s schedule dictating your life. He seemed to like it…and in fact, my guess is he may have liked it more than owning and having to run his house.

My mother, sadly, died soon after he retired — in her mid-sixties. She smoked herself to death. Her relatives — rabid Christian Scientists — didn’t drink and didn’t smoke. She did both: a-plenty. Basically, she smoked herself right into the grave.

Seriously: she was never awake when she didn’t have a cancer stick in her mouth. You knew when she woke up in the night because you could smell the stink from her f*cking cigarette. You knew that she was awake in the morning because the first thing she did before she lifted her head from her pillow was light up a f*cking cigarette. You knew when she was about to turn out the bedside lamp at night because the last thing she did before she went to sleep was to puff her way through one last f*cking cigarette. And that, amazingly, is no exaggeration.

He smoked, too, but not every living, breathing moment of conscious existence. He probably went through eight or ten cigarettes a day, if that many.

She smoked constantly.

Literally: she was never conscious when she wasn’t smoking. And no, she did NOT care that her sidestream smoke made her little girl sick. No, she did NOT care that I asked her to please not smoke so damn much around me. No, she did NOT care that doctors told her the smoking would kill her.

Not surprisingly, the habit did kill her. In a way, the surprise is that it let her live so long: she died on my birthday in her 65th year.

Sixty-five is a lot of years to puff your way through every goddamned conscious moment, eh? So you’ve gotta figure she was a pretty tough character…all things considered.

He loved her so. Oh, my, how he loved her.

***

No, he never complained about her f*cking tobacco habit. He smoked, too, but nothing like as much as she did.

He cared for her, lovingly and richly, through every ugly minute of the last weeks and months of her life. Did it even register with her that her idiotic habit created weeks of torture for him? If it did, apparently she didn’t care; no more than she cared that her fu*king clouds of smoke made her little girl sick.

***

After she died, he moved out of their sweet Sun City house. I’d say he couldn’t stand to stay there after the torment she’d put him through…but that wasn’t true at all. Before she fell ill, he had already decided to move into the (horrid, IMHO!) retirement/nursing home in town, an institution called Orangewood. It consisted of tiny apartments, barely big enough for one or two people, in an environment where you were watched every G.D. moment, regaled by the neighbors’ idiot TV shows, and fed disgusting institutional food.

Couldn’t have been much different from living on shipboard, I guess.

He seemed OK there, and before long took up with a hag whom he (foolishly!) married. And there he lived unhappily ever after.

Yeah. My mother killed herself. And she sure as Hell didn’t do him any good.

***

I never did understand why, when she knew she was making herself hideously sick, why she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she was making her daughter sick. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she was piling awful, ugly work onto the man who loved her more than life. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she’d have a shot at living longer if she’d quit with the cancer sticks. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew she stank. And stank. And stank of fucking cigarette smoke. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew her whole home stank. And stank. And stank of fucking cigarette smoke. But she just kept right on puffing away.

She knew he would have to watch her die, one ugly inch at a time. But she just kept right on puffing away.

WHY???? What on earth, what in the name of God would make you persist with that?

That was the thing that puzzled me, and still does. She must have known how much she was making him suffer. She must have known how miserable she was making her daughter. WHY would you do that to the people who love you?

Yeah: it’s an addiction. But y’know: people can get over addiction. When you can see you’re harming the people around you who care about you, the sane thing to do is to quit harming them. How hard is that, really?

###

Dawgy Walk…Through the Swamp

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Blech! That is hardly an understatement. 6:30 in the morning and it feels like a freakin’ sauna out there! What a horrible day!

It’s 90 degrees in the shade of the back porch. 8:30 a.m.  Truly does feel like a freakin’ SAUNA out there, it’s sooo hot and soooo WET. 

I’ve seen days like this in (un)lovely Saudi Arabia when the air was so wet that rain would start to fall out of a clear blue sky. Presumably the only reason that isn’t happening now is that we’re not parked on a beach next to the freakin’ Persian Gulf. Yech!!!

But…I’ll bet if we were much closer to the Sea of Cortes, that sky would indeed be spitting rain on our heads.

DXH is in Chicago, for some sort of business meetings. I forgot….and called him as dawn cracked this morning. Thereby interrupting him and annoying him royally.

Jeez. Don’t get old, whatever ya do!!  😮

Don’t have much to do today…I don’t think this is Cleaning Lady Day. If that guess is correct, then there’s no need to race around the house picking up litter.

Hmmmm… Found a roadside doctor practicing next door to the Albertson’s shopping center. I’m thinking I should try to build a doctor-patient relationship with the guy…not because he seems so wonderful, but because he’s so convenient. The Mayo, where our docs practice, is a good hour’s drive from here. I can walk to this guy’s office. So it would be good to have him on the string for ailments that would benefit from a doctor’s attention but that clearly are not terminal….

That would help a lot.

The MayoDocs are great when you have something wrong that’s real and that’s significant. But driving to the other side of Timbuktu to have every little sniffle checked? Not so much. 

This is one of the great things about living in the thick of a major metropolitan area: you don’t HAVE to drive from pillar to post to get things done. In fact, just now I don’t have to drive anywhere: everything I need and do is within walking distance. Failing that, though, we have an Uber driver living across the street — one of half a dozen who inhabit the ‘Hood. I can hire him to schlep me around the Valley.

I’m pretty sure I can get this new doc to overrule the Mayo quacks’ opinion that oh dear oh dear I mustn’t be driving. But the truth is, I’m not sure I want to be bothered. The main thing just now is that I need the driver’s license to serve as identification. Driving per se is beside the point. Cashing a check is the point.

So I need New Quack to help me retrieve my driver’s license. If he will.

😀

Gosh, I’m tired of Stupid Stuff. 

Does it not occur to you that Stupid Stuff ebbs and flows like the tide?

For a nice long time, things flow smoothly and calmly and sanely. And then all of a sudden a freakin’ FLOOD of Stupid Stuff pours down on you like an ocean wave? Just now, we’re definitely at high-tide. I feel like I’m drowning in Stupid Stuff!

And frankly, wayyyyy too much of it is emanating from those suckers at the Mayo: the ones who listen to my son bellyaching about me but never think to ask me about the cause of the bellyaching.

That, I think, is why I need to hire on some docs who a) don’t know me; b) don’t know my son; and c) have heard nothing from the opinionated set at the Mayo Clinic. Let them hear me whine about my current “symptom,” let them examine me, and let them form their own conclusions about what, if anything, ails me.

Haunted!

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LOL!  Ya just think some damfool ailment is gone, and wooooooOOO, like Caspar the Ghost it’s b-a-a-a-c-k!!!

Here I thought the hip pain was magically healed…gone…free of limping and aching and whining!!!!!

Uh. No.

It’s back now, and with a vengeance.

What DID I do to bring it back?

Nothing, that I can think of. Just sitting here, loafing and playing with the computer. Get up to go to the bathroom and OOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

By damn, I can barely hobble across the room!

No idea what kicked it off.

* Not sitting in any goofy position
* Not hiking around the neighborhood with the dawg
* Not loafing in the bed cattywampus
* Not scrubbing the floors
* Not climbing on ladders
* NOTHING!!!!!

And now, here we are: hurting like HELL!

DAYUM! I was gonna hike across Main Drag West to haunt the computer store. But now…well…I’d be surprised if I can walk that far. And if I can…whether I can walk all the way back home.

{sigh}

If I were a grown-up, I would get into the pool and exercise the thing a bit. And that might work the pain out.

Or…heh…it might cripple up the damn hip enough to leave me stuck in the drink.

So much for that idea….

Once I get up and start to move around, it feels better. Not cured, but not crippling either. So I assume (hope) it’s nothing serious.

This morning: discovered online that the Romanian Landlord has a nursing home of some kind, established on one of the residential streets to the south of us. Interesting. I’ve heard that Romanians tend to get into the nursing home and care business…didn’t realize he was doing that. Last I heard, he’d closed down the reform school for juvenile delinquents.

That one must have caused way too much trouble for the poor guy. You just can’t imagine how much static flapped out of that enterprise! He being no fool, he recognizes which side of the bread is buttered, so within a few months he closed that one down. Right now, he’s renting the house to a very bland young couple…and frankly, I think that’s a very smart move on his part.

As long as they pay the rent, he makes a profit on the place. And so far, they’ve been quiet and inoffensive. Let’s hope they stay that way…

DOUBLE Dayum!!!  Dare to sit down (wouldn’tcha think by now I’d know better?) and here comes Gerardo’s crew, descending on both the back yard and the front yard at once. ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR…that’ll be a hundred bucks.

Think o’that. A hundred dolla for about 30 minutes of work.

Y’know, he’s jacked up his price. Now…it’s true, costs are going up everywhere. So he probably NEEDs to increase his billing. But dayum!!! A HUNDRED DOLLARS for thirty minutes of charging back and forth around the yard???????

True, they do an awesome job. But…that seems like a lot for not very much time.

On the other hand, he does have four guys roaring around out there. So in theory, it’s really two hours’ worth of a single yard dude’s labor. But gosh.

It really does make a box in the sky look good. 

{sigh} I imagine the proposed high-rise apartment on North Central Avenue would have its associated monthly costs. Probably not a lot less than a hundred bucks — trash pick-up, hall clean-up, window washing, receptionist’s time, security guard, underground garage maintenance…yeah. Probably not a lot less than Gerardo bills.

But…geez!

*********

Report from the Hubs.

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It’s not that hot out there, really. At a few minutes to 8:00 a.m., the thermometer reads a mild 98 degrees. But it’s WET. High, filmy white clouds lurk overhead. Apparently they’re ushering in a ground-level cloud of sickening humidity. So…what we have is hot…wet…and miserable. 

Dawg and I are back from the morning park circumnavigation. As usual, anyone who spots Ruby  has to fall in love with her. But…for a change and probably because of the miserable climate, nobody stopped us to coo and simper over her ineffable cuteness.

For reasons unknown, I spent most of the hike speculating on the character of my long-late grandmother, a chippie whom I never knew. Well before I came on the scene, she died of a uterine cancer supposedly induced by the many abortions she had, around the time my mother came on the scene.

So, as a little girl my mother was sent from New York State (where the surprised paternal grandparents most decidedly did NOT want to raise her) to California, where the maternal grandmother absolutely did want her. So we’re told. Truth to tell, apparently the poor child was about as unwanted as any bastard child could be. But because the California grandmother was willing to bring her up, she landed on the West Coast. So that made the California grandmother my great-grandmother, whom I rarely saw until we came back to the States after spending ten years in Saudi Arabia.

Strange people, those. The grandparents were Christian Scientists, a sect that, from what I’m told, was regarded as extravagant crack-pottery at the time. I do know that my great-grandmother lived well into her 90s, believing she could pray herself well whenever she got ill. Same applied to her daughter: my great-aunt. They thrived…whether because of innate constitutional strength or because Christian Scientists really can talk to God is unknown.

😀

All of which is hardly here nor there. Except for the weather. Today it feels surprisingly like Saudi Arabia out there — where I grew up while my father worked for ARAMCO (Arabian-American Oil Company). Hot. Stuffy. Wet.

Not as wet as lovely Rasty Nasty (my father’s sobriquet for Ras Tanura, the American camp where we lived). There, you can see the condensing humidity literally drip off the roof like rain. Clear blue sky, and water is drizzling off the eaves!

Ugh! WHAT a place!

Oh well: thank the Gods we’re not there.

****

Sometime today — or at least this week — I want to make my way over to The Terraces, the old-folkerie where my father retreated after my mother died. At that time, it was known as “Orangewood.” Why they changed the name, I dunno. But it looks like rather little else has changed over there.

Unlike the daunting Beatitudes, most of the apartments at The Terraces are at ground level. Or, at the worst, in buildings that are no more than three stories high.

As a practical matter, I don’t wanna live in either one. But my mother and I lived in a high-rise in San Francisco right after we came back from Saudi Arabia. So yea verily: I indeed do know I don’t want to be cooped up in a high-rise again.

Don’t want to live in either of the Terraces’ places, to tell the truth. But it looks like pretty quick, I’ll have no choice…

Honestly, any day I’d rather be dead than locked up in some institution. I just HATED living in the dorms back in college. And now it looks like…yeah…we’re headed that way again.

The prospect makes me cringe! Surely, there MUST be a better way to spend the last few years of your life.

But…well, my son is in no position to babysit me through that final period. Nor would I want him to do so.

It just feels like there must be some better way. Maybe hire someone like Luz, our Wonder-Cleaning Lady — to come in and stay at night?

Like she has nothing better to do, either….

Hmmmmm….  I wonder if it would be possible to keep one’s house and stay in it during the day, but rent space in one of those old-folkeries for the evenings and nights.

Then you could go over to the old-person’s prison for, say, dinner and then for the night. Have breakfast there, if breakfast is your thing. And then come back to your home to loaf for the daytime hours.

This at least would give you a little privacy, a little peace and quiet. You would have your own space for at least some part of your last days. But you could get a couple of (yucky…) meals and safety for the night-time hours for the other part of the day.

At one point, the problem would be getting back and forth between the prison and your home. My son has ordered that I may not drive anymore — and in fact has engineered that legally. I could walk to the old-folkerie nearest to my house. Besides, an Uber driver lives catty-corner across the street from me: probably I could hire him to come pick me up every afternoon or evening. But then he’d have to deliver me back and forth to jail…and that’s asking a lot. He probably wouldn’t be willing to commit to that on a regular basis.

One other huge problem with those baby-sit-you-thru-your-last-days institutions is that they literally do take everything you’ve got. So…little or nothing will be left for my son. And that also is NOT what I want.

No. I want him to get what remains of the money my father left to me, plus whatever is in my own savings accounts by the time I croak over. HIM…not some baby-sitting business.

But just now, it’s not real clear how to make that happen.

The Choirless Sunday Proceeds

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Hmmmmm…. So, the MayoQuacks are (again!) precluding my attending choir or even going to church by demanding that we traipse to the Mayo Clinic way to Hell and gone out in Scottsdale.

Yes. That’s damn near an hour’s drive. 

Not like my son has nothing else to do with his time, either — right?

This is NOT the first time the damn Mayo has scheduled — unilaterally, no feedback from the victim — an appointment on Sunday morning, on the f8cking far side of Scottsdale.

Why do they do that?  Why are they even open at all on Sundays, other than for emergency visits? Today’s junket is for a rather routine (if exceptionally annoying) test.

Most annoyingly, it’s not the first time they’ve done this. Apparently busting up the patient’s religious worship and weekend activities is S.O.P. with that bunch.

Appealing to M’hijito is pointless: he thinks the Mayo can do no wrong.

***

So…how is The Ailment coming along?

Therein lies the question, hm?

Frankly, I think it’s getting a little better. The crazy-making tingling has been gone — as in GONE gone — for a fair part of the morning (it’s ten to noon as we scribble). Just now, it’s back — possibly as a result of my pounding on the keyboard. But…no: the lip tingling is back, too…and…well, I don’t chew on the keyboard. 😀

I suspect the fact that the bzzzzzzzzzzz in the lips and hands died down for the past two or three hours is tryin’ to tell us something. It may be that this thing is just gonna take a long time to clear up, a little at a time.

Meanwhile, we get to waste our time, energy, and gasoline schlepping to the effin’ far side of effin’ Scottsdale.

And mean-meanwhile, a hefty list of grocery-store needs awaits. I’m hoping I can get my beleaguered son to take me to AJ’s Fancy-Dan Overpriced Grocery Store on the way home from Doctor Hell. Or at least to a Fry’s or a Safeway…we shall see.

****

Hmmmmmmm…..  Okay, I’ve gotten up from the beloved Thos. Moser rocking chair — a hard wooden affair — twice. And each time, standing up has NOT hurt!

What is the body tryin’ to say to us?

Well…we haven’t given it enough time to have a serious say: my sojourns in the rocker have been quite brief. A matter of minutes.

Míjito is presumably on his way over here as we scribble. So let’s try sitting here until he surfaces: with any luck, at least 15 or 20 minutes, but better: 30 or 40 minutes.

If sitting down in a non-sagging chair without wriggling that joint around is what makes it stop hurting,… well… we surely can arrange that. Every day, all the time, eh?

Or, if gently swaying back and forth in a wooden rocker makes it stop hurting…whaddaya bet we can manage that, too?

Choirless Sunday

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Ugh. Still haven’t figured out how to stay out of Orangewood, the prison for old folks [now called “The Terraces,” apparently]. Oh well: I’ll figure that out later…if it can be figured out.

Meanwhile, it was off to the park with the Human and the Dog. Speaking of “Ugh!,” the weather is sunny…and soggy. A humid, shiny morning: less than perfectly pleasant. That notwithstanding, we circumnavigated the park — upwards of a mile’s stroll — with me mooning along: wishing I could be back on the church choir.

After the beloved Scott retired from the choir’s directorship, the new clergy took to hiring guys who expected choir members to be able to sing on the professional level. Well…I can sing along just fine. And I can carry a tune just fine. But in Arabia, we did not have music lessons. 

Well: some did. Our neighbors hired a piano instructor for their kid. But my father was not ABOUT to spend his hard-earned riyals on any such thing!

Result: I cannot read music! If I can hear a piece of music, I have no trouble learning it. But I can’t read sheet music.

That kinda disqualifies me from the much fancier choir our church now has. All of those folks are functioning on the professional level or close to it…and believe me, they can figure out how something is supposed to sound by reading the sheet music.

So that’s disappointing.

If I had a car (still do not: and I expect that quarrel to be permanent), I could go out to the Unitarian church, which has a kind of sing-along choir. For my taste, though, they’re a bit too lovey-dovey. I’m just NOT the hug-and-kiss type. You’re all very nice, folks: but keep your hands (and your lips) to yourself!

The Methodist church down on Central Avenue, which was similar to the Episcopalian outfit I was attending, has closed. Property values in that upscale business district had gone too high, apparently, to allow a low-rent tenant like a church to continue.

There’s another Episcopalian church (I think that’s what they are…) down by the park. But I found it singularly uninspiring: left me less than enthused about driving down there and dodging the park’s population of bums.

Heh! So…that leaves Sunday morning for Doggy-Walks!