Coffee heat rising

aging

Arfa Arfa OUCH OUCH!

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OUCH OUCH OUCH!!!!!!!

Come about six o’clock at night. Nothing will ARF do but what we must ARF a doggy-walk around the park. That’s about a mile’s dog-drag.

Ohhhh goodie…

We start out.

Drag drag yank yank drag drag HEEL, DAMMIT!!! Drag yank drag yank yank yank drag…..

Ohhhhh Hell  Enough is arfing enough. The human commits an about-face and hauls the Dawg back to the house drag yank drag yank yank yank drag…..  And lemme tellya, that HURTS the sore, tired hands.

We trudge back toward the house. The neighbors no doubt feel their suspicions are confirmed: I am nuts. Drag yank drag yank yank yank drag…finally make it back to our front yard. Up to the door. Into the house.

Ughhhhh!!!!!

The feet hurt. The shins hurt. The hands hurt. They all hurt like the dickens: the friction makes the peripheral neuropathy kick in with a vengeance. So we get yank yank hurt yank burn burn yank yank hurt hurt ROAR with pain.

By now the Human is royally pi$$ed. The Dog is dragging with all her wolfish strength.

Sheee-ut! My fingernails are lifting off the nail beds, which makes the yank-fest hurt even more than normal. By the time we get back to the Funny Farm, the Human is uniquely pi$$ed.

Now the feet hurt, the hands hurt, the chronically pained lips hurt… f-u-u-u-u-c-k!!!

Sez here the last time I took an ibuprofen was 2:2o a.m.

Hmmmmm…. Pretty sure I dropped one in the afternoon. Whaddayabet that’s 2:20 p.m. Hmmmm…

It’s after 6:00 p.m. now. So…presumably another one won’t poison me.

Swill an ibuprofen and a B12 pill. EEEEWWWWW!!!!!

I hate bolting down pills almost as much as I hate being stabbed with shots.

Smear the last of the CBD balm on the chronically burning lips. Tomorrow I’ll have to go out and buy some more of that stuff. Ugh!

CBD cream and balm are the only things I’ve found, so far, that work fairly promptly and effectively on the horrid neuropathic pain.

Dunno what is causing this ailment and dunno what might make it go away. All I know is, it hurts like the dickens. Very, very tired of it.

Too early to crash in the sack: it’s not even 6:30 yet. In the unlikely event that I should fall asleep now (give or take an hour), I’d be up at 1:30 in the morning: for the duration.

I hate laying awake through the wee hours almost as much as I hate tingling and burning from fingertips to elbows.

Dammit! Even my teeth hurt!

Make. It. Stop, Lord!

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Lock on the side gate: busted.

Latch on the kitchen door: busted.

Nails on both index fingers: lifting off their beds. Hurts.

Drag my computer into the bedroom, so at least I can put my feet up while playing at blogging and waiting for the locksmith: the phone’s gone.

Search search search around the house. Finally find a phone extension. drag it to bedroom; drop it in its cradle.

Phone jangles: repairman. Says he’s on his way.

Coffee: stone cold.

*****

Adorably handsome repair-dude shows up at the front door.

{sigh!}
Can I carry your tool kit for you all day?
<3

***

He charges off to Home Depot, there to do battle in the hardware department. He apparently imagines I’ll be irked because his bosses charge me enough to cover his gas and his time.

DUDE! If only they knew how much I’d be willing to pay to get you to do this job!

Fortunately, they don’t…

Spavined hip: EXCRUCIATING!

Don’t get old, whatever ya do. When you’re old, you hurt all the time.

Hmmm…

Y’know, another little pain that afflicts you in your old age is sentimentality.

Yesterday, I left the Dog Chariot off at the repair shop up on the corner. Getting home, then, required me to walk through the neighborhood of aging 1950s tract houses that stands just to the north of the ‘Hood.

Gosh, but construction was ticky-tacky in the Good Ole Days!

Prob’ly no worse than it is today, when you come down to it. Tract housing is tract housing is tract housing: is, was, and ever shall be. 😀

Walked past the former home of a favorite old neighbor. WHAT   a nice man! He and his equally pleasant wife moved out generations ago…I wanna say they moved into an old-folkerie. But don’t recall the details.

Sure do miss them, though. They were as nice as you could get.

****

Something there is about the modern American custom of locking up the elderly in old-folkeries. Ugh! What a fate to look forward to!

For what it costs to live in an old folks’ prison, you could hire someone to come in every day, pick up after you, fix the days’ meals, drive you to the grocery store or the quack…  Why lock yourself up to get those privileges?

Learned this from The Cleaning Lady from Heaven, who (it develops) has done exactly that kind of thing.

So…I sit around wondering about my father: could he have stayed in his cute little Sun City home until he arrived at his last days and hours?

Hm.

Possibly. But we have this huge difference between him and me: he went to sea all his adult life. Ran away from home at 17, lied about his age, and joined the Navy. From there on, he shipped out by way of making his living.

Hence, two major differences, temperamentally, between him and me:

* He did not mind institutional living. For him: bad food, annoying noise from fellow inmates, daily schedules determined by someone else: those were just normal life. For me: that kinda stuff drives me nuts.

* And he had a wife (until she smoked herself into the grave). She did the shopping. She did the cooking. She did the cleaning. She did the budgeting. She organized their social life.

Hm. As for moi…. I have no problem with cooking — actually, I rather enjoy it. I hire out the cleaning, the yardwork, and the bookkeeping. As for a social life…whazzat?

****
Ah hah!

Here’s part of my social life, right now: An adorable young workman.

He’s here to replace the worn-out deadbolt on the back door.

That’s good.

Also good: he’s more than adequately scenic.

*********

The gorgeous creature replaced the kaput deadbolt — and did so with a piece that matches the rest of the kitchen hardware in color and finish. To accomplish that, he made a trek to Home Depot, one of my very least favorite activities.

Came back with a new lock set, took out the sad old one, installed the new one…et voilà!

So…hmmmmmmmm…

Maybe we don’t wanna make it ALL stop, Dear Lord…

😀

STOP THE WORLD!!

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😀  First good thing that’s happened this morning, as dawn proceeds to break: I have managed to weasel my way into the FaM website.

At 6:45 in the morning, all Hell is breaking loose, and as far as I can tell the terrorized demons are running off down the road.

Worst thing under way: the diabetes that runs in my family has apparently decided to visit me. At least, I assume that’s what these hair-raising and painful symptoms are. Can’t get in to see a quack at the Mayo. And the beloved Young Dr. Kildare has quit the practice of medicine to return to his first love, social work. His partners have moved to Sun City, an hour’s drive from here.

So later this morning I will have to go to one of those roadside docs — one resides about five minutes from here — and ask (again!!) to be tested for the Family Disease.

Failing that, I do have a friend who’s a chiropractor…vaguely, I hope he may be able to connect me with an M.D. who can test me for full-on diabetes.

To frost those cookies, the deadbolt on the back door has frozen shut. Joy! I cannot get the kitchen door open to let the dog outside!!!!!

So whenever the hour hits 8:00 or 9:00 o’clock — that is, whenever somebody’s shop opens — I have to call a locksmith and try to get him over here to fix that damn thing.

You realize…this means that if a fire starts in the kitchen, I can’t get out into the backyard. The dog and I will somehow have to make our way through the garage or else around Robin Hood’s Barn to get out the front door.

Hm. It also means I can’t get at the key to open the backyard gate into the alley, since that thing hangs on the inside of the back screen door.

Hm and hm… Do we have an extra key…???

Yes. It looks like it.

OK. If and when I can get a locksmith here, he’ll need to make me a couple more keys.

These adventures are just the frosting on the cake. This diabetes thing is a REAL terror.l

My mother’s grandmother, who raised my mother in Upstate New York back before there was such a thing as insulin, died of the disease. It runs in the family. I’ve been told (repeatedly!) that I’m “pre-diabetic” (none of the quacks seems able to explain what that really means), but apparently the implication has been that sooner or later I’ll develop the disease.,

We may now be at the “sooner than later” point…

Oh…lookee here! Just to make everything perfect, the clothes dryer just went on the fritz!

AAAUUUUGHHH!

************************************************

8:02 a.m.

The dryer decided to start working again. Hallelujuah brothers & sisters!

I smashed my hand in the back door. Doesn’t appear to be anything broken, though.

Will have to wait another hour to get thru to make an appointment at the Mayo…unless I decide to take my chances with one of the li’l roadside quacks closer to home. I don’t trust those guys…but…frankly, I don’t trust doctors in general. So what’s the difference?

**************

WOW!

Everything I touch goes S-P-R-R-R-O-I-N-N-G!!!!!!!!

Migawd, I can’t unlock the back screen door without breaking something!

*****

On the other hand:

* The clothes washer is running again…apparently working OK
* The smashed hand seems not to have any broken bones
* The clothes dryer is running, normally far’s I can tell
* The padlock on the back gate is now working: no clue what made it go on the fritz

But meanwhile, it’s not even 9 a.m. and I can’t get in or out the back door.

gaaaaahhhhh!

Tryin’ Again…

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Believe we’ve lost several posts since the last time I was here scribbling. And…well…I am NOT in the mood for struggling with the Internet just now.

So let’s freakin’ start over.

Today is Sunday, March 16.

It’s 3:40 in the afternoon. A rather stuffy and damp afternoon, one with high clouds lurking overhead.

Ruby and I are just back from circumnavigating the park. Enjoyed watching teams of young people playing soccer and volleyball. Nice way to spend time…

Contemplated the potential joys of inhabiting some other neighborhood.

My cousin lives in an outlying suburb called Fountain Hills. A little higher in elevation, it’s a bit cooler than the more central parts of the Valley. It’s practically within walking distance of the Mayo Clinic.

Would I like to live there?

I might, if my cousin were just a shade friendlier. For reasons I cannot imagine, she visibly dislikes me. Dunno what on earth I did to piss her off permanently, but she’s openly hostile to me whenever we’re within hollering distance. So…that does nothing to encourage me to move to the far northeast side of the Valley.

How about Sun City?  Way to Hell and gone on the west side?

Ugh! Nothing feels more repellent to me than the Old Folks’ Ghetto. Make that the Whitey-White Old Folks’ Ghetto.

My mother loved the place after she and my father came to light there. But…I never could see the charm to its visual and social monotony.

How about back down into the historic central part of the city?

Well. Yeah: I did like living there. Thirty years ago… However…today? Maybe not so much.

Social-stratum-wise, it’s about the same: a popular destination for the young, the affluent, and the upwardly mobile. But…but….

First off, it’s noisy. The upscale neighborhoods are bordered by large, incredibly busy commuter roads. So every morning and every evening you get roar roar roar from seven-lane roads that don’t let you turn left. A major regional hospital occupies a large corner to the north, and another one stands to the southeast: ambulances shriek past at all hours of the day and night. And Sky Harbor Airport calls jet plane traffic to the south and east, roar roar roar roar roar — also at all hours of the day and night.

So…even though it’s a pretty and a historically interesting neighborhood, it’s less than perfectly ideal. Especially given the crime rate, which is pretty breathtaking.

Not that we don’t have a healthy crime rate up here in Sunnyslop. But with only one regional hospital we do get lots less siren music.

Ohhhhh my…. WHERE would I go if I could escape from lovely uptown Phoenix?

Hm.

Just about noplace in Arizona. It’s much of a sameness, all across the state…when you come right down to it. Loved living on the ranch, but it probably wouldn’t be safe for an old lady: at this age, you need to be closer to medical and social services than thirty miles out in the middle of nowhere.

So…. {sigh}…  I’m probably about in an ideal location, given my age, my health, and my social status. I do like it here, even though there are places I’d like better.

La Maya and La Bethulia have moved to the area around Monterey, California. It is beautiful there. And cold. And foggy. And expensive. No way in Hell could I afford to live there.

SDXB’s relatives live in Seattle. It also is quite lovely. And a bit too expensive for my budget.

I do love New Mexico. But…I don’t know anyone there, and at this age you may be sure I don’t wanna start all over.

Back to the San Francisco Bay Area? All my relatives in those  parts are long gone, left for the Other World many a year ago. No longer knowing anyone there and without a job there, I can’t imagine much of any point in moving back.

So I feel like I’m kinda stuck here, trapped by inertia. There’s noplace else to go to that makes sense, and I sure don’t wanna work hard enough to create any such place.

Arizona: Garden spot. I guess.

Renovations

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The young(ish) couple who bought my neighbor Sally’s house are over there madly renovating. Sounds like a buzz saw — or maybe a floor sander — whirring away.

Hm. While we think of it…let’s go on a li’l doggy walk and poke our nosy schnozz into their business as we stroll by…

****

So we’re ARF! ARF!  out the door. Around the park. through the south side of Lower Richistan. Ruby: beside her canid self with doggy joy.

And it’s ROAR! ROAR!! ROAR!!! from Luke Air Force, off to the southwest side of Our Fair City. Holy mackerel, what a racket!

That racket is one of the several reasons you couldn’t pay me to live in Sun City: the melody of jet fighter planes soaring overhead, taking off from an Air Force Base just down the road from one’s backyard. That’s about as far from what I wanna hear over morning coffee and evening cocktails as you can get.

Hilariously, my mother claimed to love it. She would sit on her screened back porch, swill her coffee, and listen to those blasting jets engines as the sun came up.

ohhhh, she would coo. It’s the sound of freedom!

ahhhh…no, Mom. It’s the sound of World War III, comin’ your way….

WHY are humans so fukkin stupid?????

Ohhh well…

The pair who bought the Beloved Sally’s house behind me: nicest neighbors you could hope to have. A yardful of screaming kids: maybe not so much. But only a  couple of kids in sight just now…and that makes for a reasonably QUIET occupancy.

They may have bought the place on spec, though. We shall see. I hope they last a good long while.  But whatever: for the nonce, they’re about as ideal as you can get.

Secretly, I even enjoy and am happy to have Tony the (Amazing!) Romanian Landlord as a neighbor. Forgodsake don’t tell him, though! Who knows what shenanigans he’ll get up to if he hears that bit of apostasy! 😀

Meanwhile, the young people behind us are  busy fancifying Sally’s shack.

* On the one hand, I hope they spiff it up and extract a nice profit from it.
* On the other hand: I rather like that bunch and would  be pleased if they hung around a few years.
* On the third hand, soon it will be time for me to move into an old-folkerie or some such horror. And I surely would like either to leave this house to my son as a fine investment or to be able to sell it and add the proceeds to the pile of dough I hope to leave to him.

Please, God: let me exit, stage left before that third exigency comes to pass.

ROOOOARRRR!

Is that another F-15? Or is it Cosmic laughter?

She Done Did Herself In

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Thinking about my mother, for reasons unknown, here in the early hours of a Sunday morning.

She killed herself, the poor woman. Not on purpose…uhm…at least, I don’t think she did it on purpose. At least, not at a conscious level.

She smoked herself to death. Literally: she was never awake when she didn’t have a goddamned cigarette in her hand or in her mouth. She would even smoke in the shower. Understand: she didn’t just light a cigarette and let it burn down. She huffed and puffed on it, all the way down to the filter.

Not surprisingly, she died of cancer.

That cancer may as easily been kicked off by life in hideous Saudi Arabia, where she spent ten years of her (and my) life. Arabia was not a place for humans — least of all for humans of the gringo persuasion. The unholy diseases you could get out there…my God! She caught one of the worst of them — amoebic dysentery.  In those days, there wasn’t much they could do to treat it: they put her in the hospital and ran her through three or four rounds of chemotherapy, each of which made her sicker than the disease itself did.

Evil treatment for an evil disease native to an evil place.

If she hadn’t been weakened by the toxic treatments for the amoeba, would she have died anyway? I’m inclined to think she would have. She was a walking smokestack. You knew when she awoke in the morning — or in the middle of the night — by the stink emanating from her bedroom. She started puffing before she lifted her head from the pillow, and she smoked all day long, until she turned off the light at bed-time. I’m certain that what killed her — the immediate cause, anyway — was the tobacco. As it develops, few substances are as addictive as nicotine.

She was murdered by the tobacco peddlers.

But the thing about it is…it was a kind of self-murder. She knew. By the late 1950s, the word was out that tobacco causes cancer. Not so much emphasis was laid on the fact that it’s an addictive drug…so, she was less inclined to recognize that her passion for the damned stuff was not for pleasure but to dodge the discomfort of addiction.

(sigh) She never saw her grandson. Though I was pregnant before she died, she croaked over before he came into this world.

But you hafta say: she didn’t much care for kids. Why she had me utterly escapes me. Once she’d delivered an offspring to my father (was he the one who wanted me???), she took to a killer regimen of contraceptives. They didn’t have the Pill in those days, so to avoid pregnancy required some elaborate machinations…and no doubt the occasional abortion.

Strange people, those…