Coffee heat rising

aging

Hotter Than the Hubs

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Now, waitaminit here. How do we know the Hubs of Hades are hot?

Some cultures picture the domain of the afterlife as colder than a by-gawd. Could be, I suppose.

Oh well. Dawg and I are back from an hour’s perambulation of the ‘Hood. And yes, it IS damn hot out there. Worse, though: it’s humid. Sticky. Icky. But we did make it to the front door without melting. Just.

Still fretting about the “social workers” (uh huh…) or whatever they were who showed up at the door yesterday. Godlmighty!!!

It was just raw luck that Wonder-Cleaning Lady was here in the morning. And that she’d finished her job and left. Those two busybodies must have thought I keep the house spotlessly clean as a routine matter…an illusion that threw them off the track. They sat around making small talk and then (finally!!) wandered off into the afternoon heat. If they were as stupid as they looked, they must have thought all my little housewifely marbles were intact and I keep my house all clean and dusted and vacuumed and mopped al the time… Jayzuz!

What incredible luck. Seriously.

Wonder-Cleaning Lady paid for her wages, year after year of them, right there in that one afternoon!

At any rate, I have an idea who sicced them on me. We won’t be socializing with that one again!!

But the question is, will this unsuccessful foray bring a stop to any more efforts to protect me from my senile little self? And what else might they do to herd me into an old-folkerie?

Honestly. I will die if I get locked up in one of those awful places. And no, that is NOT an exaggeration.

Back in college, I hated, loathed, and despised every goddamn moment of living in the dorms. And I sure as hell don’t want to end my life in that predicament!!!

Mercifully, my roommate’s mother found a way to get us out. Girls were required to live in the grody dormitories at the University of Arizona, unless they were living with their families. But her mom had a cousin who lived in Tucson.

!!!

We told the Authorities that we would be living with this woman, and our mothers signed off on that little fib.

Forthwith, we rented an apartment, moved in, and lived happily ever after. Till we both graduated, that is.

Who will tell Big Mommy and Daddy that I’m living with some relative this time? I dunno. Unless I can hire somebody, I have no idea how I can evade the old-folkerie, short of moving out of town.

Which, if forced to it, is exactly what I’ll do.

oooo

But I’d druther NOT be forced to it. I love this house and this neighborhood. I love the yard. I love the pool. I love the neighbors. (Well…most of ’em 😀 ) How exactly to escape some societal dictate about where and how you will live kinda escapes me.

Better engage that issue now and have things set up to make my escape. 

Outta Here?

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Hmmmm…. IS it time to get outta here?

I’m thinking, the more I contemplate events of the past week or so, that it surely is time: that I need to get on the road NOW, not later. Hire a Realtor to unload the palace. Pack up the chariot. Toss the dawg in and jump in after her. And take off in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes.

This situation is NOT good. At best, we’re looking at weeks or months or — gawd forfend, more(!) — of harassment and hassle from the Authorities. Having to hire a lawyer. Putting up a fight while pretending to be on my best behavior.

At worst, we’re looking at my son being prosecuted, me being adjudicated, my home being lost to pay lawyers’ fees…holeeee shit!

Dayum.

Where would I go?

I dunno. La Maya and La Bethulia took up residence in a trailer on the Pacific Coast. I might make my way to their trailer park and try to buy a place there.

Colorado, maybe? I rather like DXH’s home town, Grand Junction. It’s a little hickish for my taste. But still…it does have its rustic appeal. With any luck, maybe it’s too far out in the sticks to attract nosy social workers.

Where else?

Mexico. Low cost of living. Balmy (often hot) weather. Awesome Mexican food! 😀

Deeper into Latin America?  Hmmm…a bit more of a Learning Experience than I care to take on at this age. But…ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I guess.

Great Britain?  Been there, done that. Not fond of being that cold. Or damp.

Moving: it really doesn’t appeal to me. Especially not moving out of the country. So that leaves, as a choice, hanging in here and taking my chances with Big Brother and his social workers.

And that DOES leave me not knowing which way to jump. Common sense tells me to get the Hell out of here while I can. But inertia tells me to lean back, prop my feet on the hassock, and relax.

 

Hee heeee! And I imagined I was drinking…WHAT?

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My goodness. Sometimes one does wonder if somehow one is absorbing a little whiskey through the air!  What on EARTH???????

Just now, I’m puttering around the Funny Farm and thinking, ohhhhh, I’d like to walk up to the grocery store and buy a cool li’l snack and also something for the Doggy-Woggy! 

Ohhhhhh, wouldn’t that be nice??

Uhm. Well. No. Just stepped out into the backyard to attend to some minuscule task and… MY GAWD!  It is ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN DEGREES in the shade out there!!!!!

Holeeee maquerel!!!!!!

So. Neither the Doggy Woggy nor the Wacky Human are getting any nummies this afternoon. CAN you imagine????

Seriously: I can’t remember that Arabia, that hell-hole of heat and humidity, was ever this hot.

Gosh, I hated that place. Didn’t know any better because I started out there at an age just short of three years old. But dumb as I was and inexperienced as I was, I did know when the air was so hot and thick you could barely breathe it. And I was happy — more happy than you can imagine! — when after ten years in that horrible place my father decided to quit Aramco and take a job in California.

Freedom’s just another word….

Now…California, I do miss! Arizona leaves a lot to be desired: like a livable climate and a sophisticated culture. It’s a helluva lot better than Saudi Arabia. But it still would not be my first choice of domiciles.

Why did my parents retire here, to Arizona?

Cheap, I reckon. Sun City offered decently built tract houses in a pretty safe setting, for a price that would have been half of what they’d have had to pay to own a place in California.

Well, I’ll tellya… Sun City was a helluva lot better than Saudi Arabia. But it still would never have been my choice of places to live.

Where my father was concerned, if it was cheap (yet middle-class in ambience), it was good. And yeah: the real estate was cheap there, out in the middle of the cotton fields.

It’s all built up now, and not a bad place to live — in a whitey-white suburban way. Not my taste, but he and my mother liked it. My mother loved it, actually, and that must have gratified my father.

Now…hmmmmm…. If we were in Sun City right now, would I be able to walk to the nearest grocery store and snab a bottle of white wine?

Yeah. I expect.

The walk would be much longer — that place only has a couple of small shopping centers, for acre on acre on acre of houses. It would be hotter: hardly any trees grow out there. But it could be done.

Given my ‘druthers, I’d stay here. The houses are similar, the prices aren’t much higher, and the amenities are far more abundant. Sun City: a ghetto for old folks.

A ghetto’s a ghetto’s a ghetto….

Hotter than a Two-Dollar Cookstove…

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Jayzuz!! As we scribble — at 6:05 p.m..,early evening! — it’s 109 degrees out there on the back porch. 

Got that? A hundred and nine degrees in the freakin’ SHADE of the back porch!!!!! 

Auuughhhh! 

Even (un)lovely Saudi Arabia never got THIS warm and cozy. Horrible!!!!!

We lived right on the shore of the Persian Gulf, so it did tend to get pretty humid. Temps soared into the low 100s…sometimes. But pushing 110? Not so much.

Just now, we have a little high overcast, but it doesn’t seem very humid….hmmmm…we have a resource that Saudi Arabia couldn’t offer at the time: Wunderground. 

Let us inquire…

Hmmmm….

110 degrees in the shade
No overcast
“Active warning: Extreme heat” eeeek, be very scared!
Full forecast: 115 tomorrow

Well. That will make for a nice, cozy night and a …uhmmm….balmy day tomorrow.

LOL! You have to be balmy, all right, to choose to live in this place! 😀

Seriously, though: the winters are lovely. Even at its coldest, the low desert doesn’t get snow. Usually, though, the winter days are cool and clear and pretty as can be.

Invited M’Hijito to come up and spend the night here. The Funny Farm is some 30 or 40 years newer than his place, and accordingly better vented, better insulated, and much better air-conditioned. It looks, though, like he’ll hold his own down in old Central Phoenix.

******

Ever so much later… 11:14 p.m. in yet another endless night.

To make everything perfect, it appears that I have a dental abscess. Look this up in the Hypochondriac’s Treasure Chest (i.e., the Internet), and you learn this requires dental surgery. Ohhh goodie! More pain, pain, and pain. 

I can hardly wait.

People think I’m being morbid when I joke about dying, finally getting free of all this sh!t. (At least I think and hope I’m dying…most folks, it develops, are so terrified of the end that they can’t see the appeal to it…)  But y’know…it’s NOT morbid to want to be free of pain. Free of fear. Free of pointless medical procedures that induce more pain and fear. Free of stupid BS that does not encourage you but leaves you hopeless.

No.

Freedom’s just another word
For nothin’ left to lose…

Ole’ Janis had somethin’ there…

That’s what death means, you know: Nothing left to lose. It’s not, of course, a joke. It’s plain, unadulterated truth. At some point life ends. And at that point…well, yeah: you have nothin’ left to lose. And nothing left to be afraid of.

Do not go gently into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light!

So Dylan Thomas begged his dying father. But…no, Dylan, my man. There’s no point in raging. The light dies for all of us. No amount of raging will change that.

What it means is that at some point, the pain stops.
At some point, there’s no need to rage.
At some point you will be set free.

And that, my friends, is not a bad thing. 

August 5 Heat, Continued…

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So the day that I began describing this morning has trundled on. And on. And on.

Now it’s late afternoon. Hotter than a two-dollar cookstove out there. No kidding: As we scribble, the back porch thermometer registers 110 degrees in the shade of the back porch overhang!

Yeah: that’s 110 in the shade! 😮

WHAT a place, eh?

Today has been quiet…probably because it’s too damn hot for anybody to get up to any hijinks. 😀

But I’ll tellya: the hijinks of recent days are still eating at my nerves. Enough, I might remark, that for brief periods I seriously consider piling my stuff and the dawg in the car and driving outta here.

Where would “outta here” be?  

I dunno. Grand Junction, Colorado, is a pleasant enough venue. A little cold in the winter. A little hickish. But a LONG way from here, and in another state. Presumably out of Arizona’s jurisdiction.

That those two social-worker women who showed up here had, in hand, a record of the night that SDXB and I got into a fight and I stalked off down an alley, ending up at a neighbor’s place…WOW! 

Sorry, folks, but THAT scares the Hell outta me. That little flap happened years ago! How much else does Big Brother have on me? And what can be done with that “else”?

Jayzuz!

Haven’t yet decided what, if anything, to do about this. I don’t want to leave, for two reasons:

* Most important, I absolutely don’t want to leave M’Hijito behind. I love my son, relish his company, and do NOT want to sever relations with him…or even to put any distance between us.

* And I love my home. It’s perfect for me and the dawg, probably the most pleasant place I’ve ever lived in, and you may be sure I do not want to leave. This place is where I want to live until I die.

Which I expect will not be soon!

Seriously: That sounds overweening. But I’ve known several women who have lived here in the ‘Hood, all by their little old selves, dwelling in these houses well into advanced old age. Most notable was my first neighbor here. She was in her 90s when her son carted her off to an old-folkerie — WELL into her 90s. And going strong.

But after her, I’ve also known several others who’ve been able to stay here into their dotage, as the young pups have moved into these houses, fixed them up, and jacked up the property values. A-n-n-d…

…I love young pups and enjoy having them as neighbors.
…As they upgrade the houses, they jack up property values all around them, which means that…
….When I croak over, my son will inherit a house worth A WHOLE LOT more than I paid for it, and a whole lot more than one would expect inflation to increase that value.

I want him to get the benefit of that sharp increase in value. And that’s one reason (far from the only one!) that I hope to stay here through my dotage and until I die: Money, honey! 😀

The cost of locking me up in the desired old-folkerie would absorb every penny we get from sale of this house…and then some. The longer I survive to take up space there, the more of my savings will be taken away from me.

And, at the risk of repeating myself: I want those savings to go to my son, not to some damn depressing institution!

Beloved Contract Workers….

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Bein’ an old lady alone with a 25-pound dog in lovely Phoenix, well…natcherly I have a swimming pool, right? And natcherly it takes up about a third of the back yard.  And, it bein’ a swimming pool, natcherly it has to be kept clean.

In lovely Arizona, maintaining a pool involves much more than a weekly brush-down and a slug of chemicals.

Much, much more.

It really needs to be swept down every day. And it certainly needs to have its chemicals kept current…that would be acid, chlorine, and whatnot.

It’s not very hard, and as a matter of fact this ole’ lady can do the job just fine.

Problem is, a pool requires daily maintenance, not — as some would think — weekly maintenance.

And that causes the ole’ lady to become surprisingly bored with the job. 😀

Just in from the backyard, about five minutes ago. Looks good out there. Thanks to Pool Dude, the guy who comes around once a week and beats back the algae, the water is just plain pristine. No kidding: downright crystal-clear.

Everything else is crystalline, too: the equipment is in good shape, the system’s working fine…nary a glitch in sight or hearing. YAY!

This state of affairs is not because of a busy ole’ lady but because of the Beloved Pool Dude.

Lemme tellya: THAT is a guy who earns his keep. In spades! 

He comes around early in the week to clean, service the pump and filter, and apply chemicals. Today, incredibly, is Saturday and that thing is still crystal-clear. He is making it possible for this ole’ lady to stay in her house. Because at this age? NOT A CHANCE would I be able to keep that hole in the ground even half as clean as he does. To say nothing of keeping the equipment running as though it were brand-new.

The pool and the backyard are, taken together, a main reason I absolutely do not want to move into an old-folkerie like the Beatitudes.

That water out there? It doesn’t have anyone else’s germs in it but mine. Well…and a few birds’. 😀

That fencing out there? It keeps the Ruby Doo out of the drink. (Ever had to jump in the pool to rescue a dog? Innaresting experience…) And it serves nicely for the occasional bird to perch on.

That equipment out there? It runs seven days a week, nooo problem no trouble no hassle. Once a week, Pool Dude checks it and administers whatever maintenance is needed.

He’s not the only guy who comes around to keep this place running. We have Gerardo and his crew, about whom you read every couple of weeks. Those guys…ohhhhh Lordie! WHO would want their jobs? Talk about working like horses…  They not only beat back the weeds and maintain the desert landscaping in 110-degree heat, they keep the watering system working, trim the voracious trees and shrubs, and control the vines that pile up along the back and east walls. The thorny vines… The ones that keep the prowlers, peeping Toms, and cats out. There’s a reason they’re called cat’s claw vines.

Then we have the watering system guy, who (along with Gerardo) keeps that large and complicated system running. Properly.

And Wonder-Cleaning Lady, who kindly absolves me from housework. Just about all housework, short of dropping the dinner dishes in the dishwasher.

And the electrician, who is certifiably smarter than the average cat. By about 1000 percent…

And the plumber, who understands products and systems that date back to the early 1970s…

How do I love Gerardo and his colleagues? Let me count the ways…  WAIT! I can’t count that high! 

😀  <3  😀