Coffee heat rising

aging

Hurts Like Hell! Down through the ages…

by

No kidding. It’s 6:00 in the evening, and the hip pain has been holding forth all day. Not any better as the sun goes down.

Seriously, this thing DOES hurt like the dickens. Won’t say I’ve never had anything hurt this much…but it’s close. Very close.

Contemplating the ancestors and the family history… 

Here’s my grandmother, who never met me and never met her fine Arizona grandson. That, as it develops, is because her cancer killed her before either of us came along. Apparently her promiscuity (so we’re told by the more prudish set in the family) was what did her in: fu*king every guy who came along gave her cancer. Right?

Or not: Ancestors.com tells us she died in 1979…

WHERE do people come up with this stuff? 

At any rate, no matter what caused it or when, my mother’s story was that the woman’s gut filled up with what apparently was a reproductive cancer, and that was the end of her. My mother, then a young teenager, was made to attend her on her deathbed, an experience guaranteed to instill horror in the kid for the rest of her life.

Didn’t stop her from smoking, though….

I incline to believe her story about Olive’s death over the one on Ancestors.com. After all, my mother was not an Internet page. 😀

But seriously: her recollections of what she saw and did while tending to Olive were vivid and gawdawful, not something she would have made up. At no time was it necessary to invent some wild story about being present at the woman’s deathbed — all she had to do was say, in the simplest of phrasing, that her mother died of uterine cancer. Period.

That’s quite horrifying enough.

But…BUT…. It gets a whole lot more horrifying when you contemplate the possibility that my mother may have been lying about Olive’s death. Altogether. That Olive did not die of cancer in the 1930s and that she may have been living when I was born. Yea verily: she could have still been living when my son — her great-grandson — was born.

And that, my friends, is what we call bizarre….

When You Are a Dog…

by

You most certainly do know how to loaf!

LOL! Ruby the Ineffable Corgi has been practicing her loafing skills all day…and by golly, it’s quarter after 1:00 in the afternoon!

And..there will be no distractions from the Ridiculous Human, by golly! 

It’s heavily overcast and just a bit chilly: 60 degrees or so. Rain predicted today and this evening; thunderstorms tomorrow.

Do we wanna go out and trot around the ‘Hood?

Hm. Prob’ly not. Normally, this cool, shady day would make a fine strolling occasion. But the agony in the right hip most certainly would not! OUCH! Dunno what on earth I did to hurt myself, but whatever it was, it inflicted a fine spavining job on the hip joint.

So I think rather than taking a chance on aggravating that — or on getting stuck several blocks from home, in the rain(!) — we will medicate ourself with heavy doses of loafing. Highly therapeutic, eh?

Boyoboy, is it ever gray out there. You just know, dontcha, that if we’re dumb enough to start hiking (heh! or limping) around the park, the heavens will open and dump BUCKETS of water on us. It’s supposed to rain today, tonight, and tomorrow, with thunderstorms tomorrow. So saith Wunderground.

This means we won’t be able to grill any of the meat that’s sitting in the fridge. However, and mercifully, my wonderful son bought several packages of delicious-looking prepared chow at the nearby Sprouts. So we have two or three days’ worth of meals sitting in the fridge!

Arf! we say to that.

Ruby is conkered out and seems not the slightest bit perturbed at the fact of missing out on the daily hike. I wonder if dogs realize that heavy clouds mean rain, and rain means (ugh!!!) getting wet?

Glorioski!

by

What a GORGEOUS morning!!!  High, thin clouds gently floating overhead. The blue sky peering through them. And splendidly temperate, inviting you to park yourself on the back porch, crunch a cookie, and guzzle black coffee.

Truth to tell, for all its eccentricities Arizona really IS a splendid place to live. Don’t know how my father found out about Sun City, but somehow he did…and forthwith he and my mother retired to those stodgy environs.

They hadn’t been there more than a year or two when a monster recession hit. My father, who had invested all his savings in the stock market, lost his proverbial shirt.

So, he had to pack up and go back to sea, the poor guy. Shipped out as first mate for a company that ran oil tankers out of southern California.

In the interim, my mother sat in front of the TV and smoked…and smoked…and smoked…and smoked herself into a fine case of cancer.

It didn’t make itself obvious until after he had swung his second retirement, and to his infinite delight had quit his job (again!) and gone back to Sun City to spend what he expected to be the rest of his years with the Love of His Life.

Staunch right-wingers, neither of them believed any of the maunderings that came out of the federal government. So, they were kinda blindsided when my mother’s non-stop smoking habit did indeed lead to an inoperable case of cancer, just as Big Brother said it would. As she died horribly, he never left her bedside, but took care of her, the house, the car, the shopping, the cooking, the finances…and the doctoring.

After she died, he couldn’t bear to stay in the place they’d dreamed would be their retirement haven and happy home. So he sold it and moved to an old-folkerie in Phoenix. And…a sad story attaches to that….

In short, though: that she killed herself with cancer sticks meant that she killed any chance for a contented retirement for him. If I’d been him, I’d have taken a long leap off the side of the Golden Gate Bridge. But…he was made of stronger stuff than I am.

He was an exceptionally handsome man…and the instant he walked into the old-folkerie’s dining room, he was, shall we say, noticed.

Forthwith, one of the inmates ambushed him. He was flattered — this was a guy who never looked twice at any woman other than his wife. That meeting led to an exceptionally unhappy marriage — one he refused to dissolve because he imagined “she’ll get all my money.”

And also because he had a daughter who was too stupid and too naive to say “But Daddy: your son-in-law is one of the most powerful lawyers in the Southwest. She’s not gonna get all your precious money!”

So…he was stupid and I was remiss and the new wife was a witch. Between the three of us, we concocted a fine unhappy passage through the end of his life.

If there’s anything to learn from that escapade, it’s…what?

When you experience a major life change (such as the death of a spouse), don’t make any sudden moves. 

If he’d waited just six months before jumping into marital “bliss” with the Dragon Lady, he no doubt would never have married her. He would still be lonely, but he would not have been freaking miserable.

When you plan ahead for the major passages of your life — retirement, for example, or marriage, or the rearing of children — think of and plan for ALL the contingencies. Not just the things you imagine will happen or hope will happen. But for the catastrophes and the fu*k-ups, too.

If money or major commitments are part of a “major passage” of your life, consult a lawyer and a financial advisor before jumping into anything.

******
arrrrghhhh!!!

Here’s the Cleaning Lady from Heaven, at the front door. It’s MUCH later in the morning than I imagined!!  LOL! I thought it was about 9 a.m.

Uhhhm…welllll… No. It’s damn near 11:30! She’s already cleaned the WonderAccountants’ house, straight across the street. And now here she is, ready to work her magic on the Funny Farm.

Seriously: this lady is about the most wonderful human being you could ever have working for you. If I ever took it into my feeble little mind to start a cleaning service (what, me? work???), she would be the one I’d hire as its manager.

Well…let’s wrap this up… ONWARD!

Morning in Arizona…

by

Ahhhhhh! Is that coffee good, or IS that coffee GOOD?

Waiting for Wonder-Cleaning Lady to surface…if she’s gonna surface. It’s 9:40 in the morning now, and she hasn’t appeared at the Wonder-Accountants’ house — she goes there first; then comes to the Funny Farm. Sooo…I think (hope!) it’s safe to assume this isn’t one of her work days.

Oh! Yes: of course it’s safe!!!!  This ain’t Monday, folks...TODAY IS SATURDAY!

😀

Who’d’a thunk it? 

😀  😀

Man! I am in so much pain this morning, I can’t even tell what day of the week it is!!!

Put my back out a day or so ago, and just now it’s trying to remind me that I’m crippled. Doing a pretty good job of that, too….

Oh well. This means I don’t have to tear around the place picking up things and shoveling junk out of Wonder-Cleaning Lady’s way. That’s a relief!

Figured to take the Savage Corgi for a walk this morning, after it warms up a little. Just now, Wunderground says it’s 60 degrees out there. Which ain’t that cold…my guess is Wunderground is wrong and my back porch thermometer is right: 60 degrees. Ooops!!

😀

Reading was never one of my strong points.

😉

A-n-n-d… LORDIE! Did you see the news reports about the fire in that Swiss ski resort’s bar? Dear God!

Y’know, THAT is why I won’t go into those places. Never make a big deal of it…just always have something else to do or some other idea for amusement when friends want to spend the evening bar-hopping. Take yourself to a popular one and look around you… It’s pretty obvious: if you needed to get out in a hurry, you could find yourself in big trouble.

Kinda tells you something, right? Stay home to get snockered! 

We used to stop in Switzerland — occasionally — along the journey between New York and Dhahran. This was during the ten years my parents and I spent in (un)lovely Saudi Arabia. Every two years, they had a long leave…three months off(!!).

We would fly into New York, buy or lease a car, and shoot cross-country as fast as my father could manage: first to his brother’s place in Texas; then to my mother’s best friend’s place in Southern California; then up to the San Francisco Bay Area to hang out with the relatives for a short while; then like a rocket back to New York. Thence to Beirut, en route to Dhahran.

What a life. Ugh! 

Some of the American ex-pats out there would use their leave time to travel around India, Pakistan, Lebanon, and waypoints. My father, being a tanker captain, had his fill of travel and wanted nothing more than to get back to the U.S. and hunker down with friends or relatives.

At any rate, Switzerland was one of the favorites for the ex-pats. I think some folks spent their entire long leave there. It is a pretty place. Especially if you’re not dodging burning roof beams…

Pain Pain Pain!

by

Augh!!!!  WHAT a way to start the New Year!

My left hip hurts SO much — for reasons that frankly, I do not understand — that I can barely stand up from a chair or hobble across a room. Amazing pain!

Apparently I spavined a hip joint — how, I do not know. The result: pain, pain, pain, and more pain. And no, aspirin doesn’t do a damn thing for it.

Soooo….  I assume that this will go on for at least a couple of weeks — that assumption, based on experience. If it’s not gone after about three weeks, then it’s off to the accursed Mayo Clinic again! 

Ohhhhh my gawd, do I ever hate traipsing to Scottsdale to go to a doctor!

Young Dr. Kildare, that adorable young fella, closed his office up the street here and moved his practice to fukkin’ Sun City. And lemme tellya…

After the monstrous experiences my mother had with her Sun City quack, you could not pay me to go to a doctor out there. Not even YDK. That he opened a practice there does not tell me it’s possible for a Sun City doctor to be competent; it tells me that YDK is very probably incompetent.

The Mayo, as we know, is supposed to be the best. They certainly think so… And bein’ better than anyone else, docs out there peer down their noses at you, condescend to you, and treat you as if you had an IQ in the negative numbers.

But with YDK now ensconced as far on the west side as the Mayo is on the east side, there’s hardly any point in traipsing halfway to Yuma to get care that’s no better than you’ll get halfway to Payson.

We thought medical care in this country left something to be desired, yea verily back in the day? Little did we know! We had yet to experience medical “care” that does not come up to the level of care. 

I suppose I could decamp to Canada, where the socialized system is supposedly somewhat better than ours. Or somewhat worse, depending on your point of view. But…I have an allergy to snow! 😉

{sigh}  My poor li’l dawg! I was going to take her for a walk this afternoon. But…just now I can barely walk across the room…to say nothing of the mile or so around the park.

This hound is not gonna be happy with me when she sees me dodder back into the bedroom and climb into the sack. But…tough nugies, dawg! I couldn’t walk her to the end of the block, much less on her usual park-encircling route.

Outta here!

December 29, Part II

by

Well…that must have amused the neighbors no end! 😀  😀  😀

Ruby and I set out for a dusk doggy-walk. We had just gotten under way — literally, just a few steps up the driveway — when OOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

The human’s back went out.

And I do mean out. As in OUT out.

Dunno when I’ve ever had my back hurt this much!

Fortunately, we hadn’t gone far. We managed to turn around and get back in the house…. Lordie!! WHAT would have happened if we’d  been a few blocks down the road???

Now I’m in the bed, cooking the back on a heating pad. Afraid to soak in a hot bath, lest I not be able to climb out of the tub.

Holee mackerel! Lemme tellya HURT!

Can’t even begin to imagine what set that off. Far as I know, no injuries have occurred recently, nor did I make any weird mis-steps. Just out of the blue, pain PAIN PAIN!!!

Weird.