Coffee heat rising

aging

San Francisco: Take Me Home

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…To the place
I belong…

Parkmerced. That’s where I belong.

Oh, my: what a lovely development, down near the shore of Lake Merced, on the southerly end of San Francisco.

My mother got us in there when we came back from Arabia: before my father came back to the States. We left the Hell-Hole ahead of him, about three or four months before he retired.

He must have had the sh!t-f!t from Hell when he found out how much those high-rise apartments cost! You don’t even wanna think about it!

After he went back to Ras Tanura, our lease ran out and she got us into one of the garden apartments. They weren’t especially fancy — nothing like the gorgeous spaces in the towers — but they weren’t at all bad. If anything, I think I liked ours better than the tower. It had its own little garden. And some kids lived across the street from us.

Oh, well. There we were.

Walking around the ‘Hood this morning: ohhhhh gawd! HOT!  HUMID!! And it’s barely dawn. Can’t say I hate this place…but I sure would rather be in San Francisco!

Passed by the vacant, run-down house once occupied by the couple whose son went to jail. That’ll bankrupt you: be sure of that!

Apparently he fucked some girl who was under the age of consent — and got caught in the act. OFF TO THE SLAM WITH HIM! 

This misadventure cost the parents everything they had. They went belly-up. Lost the house.

Who owns it now (if anyone, other than a bank) I do not know. But it is a WRECK.

Ya hafta say this about the ‘Hood, though: Overall it’s well kept up, tidy, tony-looking. A couple of sections are highly up-scale; indeed. the rest of the place is solidly upper-middle-class.

Sooo…. My house should keep its value. If my son inherits it, he’ll have a nice, debt-free place to live or, if he prefers, a salable piece of property that should land half a million bucks in his bank account.

That’s assuming I don’t have to go into the old-folkerie called the Beatitudes, which he has in mind for me. He may not realize: Those places take everything you have. If I can’t stay out of that place, that’s what will happen. Nothing will be left to pass along to my son.

Probably it would be cheaper — and surely more cost-effective — to hire someone to come in to take care of me in my home through the last months or years of my life. I hope he’ll go along with that… Partly for my sake (nothing makes me cringe more than the mere thought of institutional living) and partly for hi$.

At any rate, as this rumination implies: I ain’t a-gunna get home to San Francisco anytime soon. Surely not in this lifetime. Well… unless — Heaven forfend! — something happened to him before it happens to me. If he predeceased me, I probably would move back to the Bay Area. There really isn’t anyplace else I’d rather live.

My cousin found a lovely resort-like old-folkerie in the East Bay, where he deposited his mother for her last years. I’d be lookin’ for something like that.

Meanwhile, with this house paid off and the Cleaning Lady from Heaven in the offing, I probably will stay here as long as I possibly can — with any luck, for the rest of my life. CL from H has worked as a caretaker for the elderly and the infirm, and so maybe she can be hired full-time to baby-sit me during the final leg of my journey to the Next World. But if not, we know there are lots of folks like her, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone to come in to care for me.

I hope. 

WTF?????

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Okay, friends…and yes, dear foes: I’m about to tell you something I probably shouldn’t tell you. Or anyone.

Stuff is scaring the Hell out of me…even though it probably shouldn’t.

Weird stuff. Stupid stuff. Even serious rational stuff.

For example…

I lost my bicycle. 

Yeah. Lost it BIG time. Don’t know where. Don’t know how. Have only the vaguest idea of when.

The other day I rode my beloved old gaudy pink bicycle through the ‘Hood and over into the classic North Central neighborhood just to the east of here.

That neighborhood is dominated by two historic Catholic high schools — Xavier and Brophy Preparatory — which are surrounded by staunchly middle-class, boring little homes.

As I got tireder and hotter, I came to light at the home of a woman who was hanging out on her front porch. She invited me to take a seat and rest.

It became apparent, before long, that I probably should not ride my bike home in the heat, especially in the fagged-out state I was exhibiting. She brought out a phone, and we called my son.

Shortly, he showed up in his car, coming to light in front of her house.

He loaded me into the vehicle, and we left: he brought me home and deposited me in the air-conditioning.

Here’s where it gets weird: He apparently forgot to load the bike into his vehicle — or didn’t realize he needed to. When we got home: no beloved pink bike! 

I was very much overheated and not in any state for anything more than tumbling into the sack with a cold washcloth on my head. He drove me over to St. Joseph’s hospital, where, by the time we arrived, I had pretty well recovered and cooled down into a safe status. We came home. I forgot all about the bike…until the next morning, when I realized it is GONE!

I want my bike back! 

Getting weirder now: We can’t figure out where we left it. If we left it anywhere. I thought we’d brought it home and left it in the garage.

But it’s not in the garage. Or inside the house. Or in the backyard. Or…anyplace we can imagine.

Did I actually ride my bike over to the high-school neighborhood and carelessly leave it there, when M’Hijito arrived and toted me off?  Dunno. I have no memory of that. He says not. But…it’s a pretty vague-sounding “not.” Maybe I actually walked into that neighborhood???

If so, where the Hell is the bike?

So… I’m bereft at the loss of a beloved bicycle. But more than that: I’m scared sh!tless at the loss of my IQ points!!!  WTF? WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED? 

That is what’s scaring me. Really, really scaring me.

It’s hotter than the Hubs of Hades outdoors today: temps over 110. So walking back over into that neighborhood and trying to explore around is pretty much out of the question.

And M’hijito is (quite reasonably) pretty much out of patience with this shenanigan. He has a job (can you imagine??) and cannot take off to wander around searching for a bike that by now has probably been spirited off to Yuma.

Dunno whether he recognizes that a big, scary part of this moment of lunacy is that I genuinely cannot remember what actually happened at that lady’s house, not in any detail at all. So frankly, I don’t know if we left the bike there…or what. Probably did…but at this point anything’s possible.

At 6:00 p.m., it’s 108 in the shade of the back porch. Too hot, by far, to go exploring around North Central Phoenix — not that we’d  be likely to find anything.

Meanwhile, M’jito, deeply alarmed with this weird behavior of mine, has kiped my car and locked it into his garage. So I can’t climb into it and drive it around that neighborhood on a searching expedition.

Soooo… I guess my beloved pink bike is gone. As in GONE gone. Along with a few of my brain cells, presumably….

Jayzuz! Don’t get old, whatever ya do!!!

And Speakin’ of ARGHA!…

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BING BOOONGGGGGGG!

Ohhhh gawd, NOW what? Stumble to the front door.

It’s the CLEANING LADY FROM HEAVEN! Ohhh damn ohhh hell I thought NEXT week was her week….

Stumble out to the living room. Let her in. Start to pick up litter.

And pick up litter….

And pick up litter….

And pick up litter….

And pick up litter…..

Ohhhhh damn oh hell oh damn…I’d put off this mess until next week!

B-a-a-a-a-d Human!!!!!!!

What’s going on in the backyard?

NO! Hallelujah, boys and girls: it’s NOT Pool Dude. Just the wind blowing stuff around. That’s something. I guess…except tomorrow a.m. we’ll have to vacuum up another nice mess.

This place…

This place…

Gotta think about this place…

Am I gonna stay here for The Duration? SHOULD I???

Those apartments on the west side of Conduit of Blight Boulevard…hmmmm…. They ARE going downhill
…and down…
and down…

They were OK when I moved in to the neighborhood. But over the years, they’ve declined. And just now the decline is mighty steady.

If I’m gonna move to a more stable district, I may have to do so soon. Because…  I do want to leave this house (make that a house) to M’hijito…but it’s gotta be a place that will hold its value.

And just now, that ain’t entirely clear to me. If those apartments continue to slide downhill, they surely will pull down the property values in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Maybe…

Maybe…

Maybe…

…I should betake myself to Scottsdale or Paradise Valley or Fountain Hills before that process gets any further under way.

But dayum, I don’t wanna move. I’ve done more than my share of moving in my lifetime — and then some — and don’t wanna do it again. Especially now that I’m old!

My son expects to sock me away in an old-folkerie, in the not-too-distant future. I expect to take a flying leap off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon before that happens…but either way, this shack needs to hold its value so it can get him into a place that will be a decent investment, real estate-wise. That may mean I’ll need to FIND such a decent investment…now…and get into it before much more time elapses.

Ugh. Spare me yet another move!!!

Joys of the Computer Age

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ARGHA! WordPress — the platform that hosts Funny about Money — wants me to diddle away some time and energy updating this and dorking with that.

Like I have nothin’ else to do, right?

Now I have to pester our honored Web Guru — who also has nothin’ else to do, right? — to get him to do whatever the heck WordPress wants.

Am I the only troglodyte who resents the constant electronic intrusions on one’s time and attention?

grrrrrrrrrr…. Welp, I can’t complain about the Computer Life. F’r hevvinsake, I grew up in the 1950s. Beyond school, a kid had three avenues of access to the Outside World — television, movies, and print journalism. Most of these had to be politically correct — or else. And you had to pay for all of them, one way or another.

{and sigh…} I don’t recall that there were SO MANY demands on one’s time, back in the Dark Ages.

The evening news occupied half an hour — an hour or so if you watched the local news, too.

Of course, you weren’t killing time with blogging. 😀

By and large, you didn’t drive to nearly as many local sites: the grocery store, pharmacy, and local soda shop were within easy walking distance; the grade school was around the corner from our apartment and, a year or so later, my junior high school was a 15-minute bus ride from the pickup point outside our apartment.

The time I would have wasted in front of a computer — mostly cruising the Web and writing blog posts — was killed in front of the television. My mother and I had the TV going almost every moment we were conscious.

These days, I don’t even own a television. Instead, I kill FAR more time loafing with a laptop computer. But…at least a computer is interactive: better than sitting there going duuuuhhhhh in front of a TV all day.

“Don’t even own a television” strikes me as the most interesting part of this matter. Back in the Day, I would’ve been bereft without a TV to fill up the silent hours with pointless noise. I couldn’t begin to focus on my homework without the comforting babble of electronic blah blah blah going on in the background.

Today, silence is golden.

I find the background babble of a TV station — even one that’s running in some public place, such as a department store — to be extremely annoying. Yappa yappa yappa is aggravating, even when you’re not listening to it.

Times change. And people change with the times. I guess…

How about you? Do you let your TV drone on all the time, whether or not you’re actually watching it?

Back from the Hubs of Hades…

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Holeeee sheee-ut! Is it ever HOT out there!  Hotter than the hubs, and damp as the inside of a shower stall.

Seriously: it’s nowhere near as hideously hot ad humid as an Arabian morning used to be. But it’s close.

There, you’d get out of bed and peer out the window to see water dripping off the eaves as though it had rained during the night.

No, it had not: the sky was clear blue and no clouds floated in the sky. It was just SOOOO HUMID that the dew would settle on the roof, flow toward the eaves, and drip off onto the ground.

Miserable place.

Just now, lovely uptown Phoenix ain’t much better. It’s soooo hot and soooo wet out there, it does remind you of grody Ras Tanura. But I must say: water is not actually dripping off the rooftops, they way it used to on the coast of the Persian Gulf.

Even this much humidity is out of the ordinary for lovely uptown Phoenix. It does get damp in late July and August, but not wet enough to make you feel downright soggy. Certainly not wet enough for the dewfall to drizzle off the houses’ eaves.

Anyhoo, we circumnavigated the ‘Hood in a kind of shortened route — east toward the rising sun, north toward my old friend Jerry Jacka‘s house (he’s now long gone), back south toward a beloved old neighbor’s place — she, also long gone.

I fear I will soon be next to be “long gone.” My son would like to lock me up in an old-folkerie called the Beatitudes: a horrible prison for the useless elderly. My plan is to take a flying leap off the North Rim before that can happen…but frankly, I’m not in any hurry to go.

I deeply loathe institutional living. Hated hated hated living in the university’s dorms and do NOT want to spend the last months or (hevvin forfend!) years of my life in some gawdawful old-folkerie. Presumably I’ll have to calculate a way to achieve a final exit…but just now, that is not anything I want to contemplate.

Man! That sky out there is clabbering up! Let’s see what Wunderground calculates that we have in store for today…

Hmmm… 96 degrees as we scribble: at 7:18 in the morning. Predicted high: a chilly 105. “Air quality alert” (what else is new?). Ten percent chance of rain.

In other words: “hot and humid.”

Hungry. Might’s well get up and see what’s in the fridge to eat…

hmmmm… Leftover baked potato, swathed in cheese. Ohhh lookee here! A whole new package of loverly bacon! A package of sweet bright red little tomatoes. And berries, berries, and more berries.

Things are lookin’ up!

Guess I should “look up” and fix a pot of coffee. That would require movin’ around though. Am I capable of that just now?

Dubious.

Report from the Department of Weird Experiences

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Good grief! If it hadn’t been so funny — so goofy — I’d be hiding under the bed right now.

Did you know there are people in this world who cannot imagine why anyone would want to buy a chilled bottle of white wine? Some of those folks reside behind the customer service desk in a certain beloved nearby liquor store.

No kidding!  Hey!  What’s wrong with this fine room-temperature swiggle of white???

This has been one of those days when your fellow citizens are SO goony, SO ignorant, SO far out in left field that you simply have no clue how to respond.

Seriously: Every which way I’ve turned, lurking there has been another wacksh!t experience, another goofball customer “service” clerk, another inexplicable weirdness…to the point where it all comes out kinda hilarious.

But y’know…you hafta love them all! Think how boring this world would be without them! 😀

This morning I hit my favorite local strip mall, right up at the corner of Conduit of Blight and 19th Avenue.

And yeah: you DO have to love Latino culture to love that mall.

Yeah, you DO have to be White Trash yourself to appreciate how cool, how fun, how slippery, how smart the merchants up there are. Yea verily, you need to be such WT that you wish your Daddy were here to blaze the trail through that place for you. Ohhhhh dayum, do you wish your Daddy were here!! And would you love to hear the (hilarious) opinions he would’ve formed, after a day among the locals.

I’d love to be able to say I’d be as entertained as Daddy would’ve been by today’s antics of the locals. But you know…when he was alive I couldn’t read his mind. Now that he’s deader than a doornail, I have no idea whe he would’ve thought.

Well. I have an idea. But I sure as hell could have not been able to guarantee he would’ve thought that.

But ohhhhh… Yeah. He would’ve been…

amused
pissed
wilied up
out of patience
and telling his daughter to get the f*** outta there.

😀

But when you’re my daddy’s daughter, watching a$$holes dig themselves into a$$hole ditches is…well…damn funny.