Coffee heat rising

aging

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. 😀

Day from Hell…on Steroids!

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Jayzuz, what a day!!!!!

Fought with my son all afternoon. Car crapped out. Should take it to the Toyota place tomorrow and waste half the day sitting around there.

But squabbling notwithstanding, His Princeliness mounted his white charger and galloped into battle with the Toyota dealership, bless him! So he’s going over there tomorrow morning to extract the doodad from them.

hoooboy! No doubt just how he wants to spend half the day! 😀

A day or so ago, we got a WONDERFUL HANDSOME BEAUTIFUL HIGH-POWERED PICKUP from the Toyota guys, as a loaner while they worked on my car.

Ohhhhhhh Emmmm Geeeeee!

I want it!

Besides being kewl beyond kewlhood and blessed with a killer souped-up engine, it would be awesome for camping…but more to the point: all-around awesome just to drive the streets.
Seriously: it’s so much fun to drive, it might be worth considering for a future vehicular purchase.
Hmmmm…. S’ppose I could buy a new car like…tomorrow, maybe?
😀

Moonset

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Ten after three in the morning: the quiet, dark morning. As we scribble, a brilliant three-quarter moon makes its way down the clear black western sky toward the horizon.

What a thing to see!

It’s sublimely beautiful. Truly: one of the most subtly gorgeous sights I’ve ever seen. Made more so, I’ll say, by knowing this is one of the last times — maybe the last time — I’ll ever see such a thing.

If that’s the last scene I get to see on this earth, well then… Thanks, God. It’s a magnificent gift!

As you may guess, Funny is very, very sick indeed. Beyond “funny,” we might say. The peripheral neuropathy, which never takes  pause, is endlessly painful: hands, feet, legs, lips, teeth: everything hurts. Pretty clearly this ailment is never going to heal: we’re coming into the last stage of a life that does not want to step aside and get out of the way. So the darned life is putting up a fight!

Ohhh well. Nothing I can do about it. Except wait until it goes away.

Meanwhile, in these last burning hours and minutes of life, let us enjoy what we have around us.

  • Let us relish the beauty that immerses us.
  • Let us comprehend the brevity and fragility of that beauty.
  • Let us love those who love us.
  • Let us pray for the future of our species.
  • Let us be grateful for life, for the living, for what has come before us and what will come after us.
  • If there is a God — as some of us believe there must be — let us thank that Creator for the beauty of Creation, for its glory and for its horror, for its intimacy and its strangeness, for its past and its future.

Onward. Ever onward!

Is There a Place for Me?

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{sigh} As I grow to hate the noise and the crime and the loony toons more and more, I wonder: IS there a place for me in (un)lovely Central Arizona?

Quite possibly not.

North Central Phoenix, where the Funny Farm presently resides, is…what?

* Aging

* Cheaply built, by and large (okay, okay: but better than most newer districts)

* Crime-ridden (no, I would not live here without a pistol and a dog. Why do you ask?)

* Spectacularly noisy

* Low on decent schools (you have to put your kid in private or parochial school if having them learn anything matters to you)

* Segregated (but so is everyplace else around here: Arizona is, after all, a Southern state)

* Hotter than the Hubs: essentially unlivable during the summer, for many folks

So… If I weren’t here in Noise Central, where would I be?

Sure wish I was at the ranch, yea verily even as we sit here and contemplate the local lunacy.

La Maya & La Bethulia moved to the Monterey area in California. Beautiful spot.

But…I can’t afford to live in California, not even (like them) in a trailer. Nor do I especially want to: habitable parts of that state are crowded, noisy, hectic, and spectacularly expensive.

So….where would I go, if I could?

Dunno. The Oro Valley outside of Tucson, maybe. It’s bit on the annoyingly suburban side for my taste: not fond of driving halfway to Timbuktu to fill a grocery cart.

Prescott, a small town up on the Rim north of Phoenix, is very pretty and has its charms. Expensive, though. Lacking in the big-city amenities I’ve come to expect.

Flagstaff: Colder’n’a by-gawd during the winter. Also lacking in little amenities like decent medical care and upscale grocery stores.

Yarnell: a wide spot in the road on the road from Wickenberg to Payson, waaayyy out in the middle of nowhere. Quiet, relatively cool, pleasantly hick-ridden. Our ranch was located just outside of Yarnell.,..and boyoboy, I sure do miss it!

Fountain Hills: A pricey suburb on the northerly edge of Scottsdale. Nice, toney area. My cousin lives there: not necessarily a recommendation, since she decided, some years ago and for unknown reasons, that she can’t stand my existence.

Sun City: Hate Central. And directly under the flight path for the daily jet airplane exercises at Luke Air Force Base. Noooo, thankee!

Truth to tell, there really isn’t anyplace within reasonable living distance of my son’s place and my own stomping grounds that I can even begin to afford. I’m incredibly lucky to have snabbed the Funny Farm before real estate prices rose into the stratosphere, and certainly could not afford to buy anything comparable within reasonable traveling distance of my son’s place.