Coffee heat rising

Angst

The Evolution of Car-Freedom

by

Another (un)lovely day in Phoenix. Leave us all FLEE it…

LOL! That’s a take-off on the daily pitch of a guy who, back in the Day, was probably Phoenix’s all-time greatest morning talk-show host.

He’s long gone now. But anyone who’s  been in the Valley for a lifetime or so remembers his daily greeting:

It’s a beautiful day in Arizona…
Leave us all enjoy it!

Yeah. Arizonans were that illiterate, back in the day. 😀 He was much beloved, though…and frankly, much missed.

Truth to tell, it’s hotter than a by-gawd out there just now.

“A beautiful day,” it ain’t.

So far, quite to the contrary.

Oh…really, though…. Look at it through the right lens, and it’s funnier than a crutch.

****

My son has decided that I should get off the sauce. My terrifying drinking habits have led him to believe I’m a lush!  And he wants me to swear off.

What are those terrifying habits?

-> Swilling down a couple of glasses of wine with the large meal of the day. “Dinner,” most Americans would call it, except that I partake of this pile of chow at noon, when most of us are eating what we would call “Lunch.”

This latter feast, as you no doubt know if you live on this half of the globe, is taken at mid-day and is usually a light meal.

Okay. Being a little weird (and having grown up in an entirely different country…), I stoke up the barbecue along about noon and sizzle myself a portion of meat (steak, lamb, pork chop, fish filet, or the like), a starch (potato, pasta, beans, whatnot), and a green or yellow vegetable (broccoli, asparagus, green beans, carrots, corn, etc.). This makes a large meal: large enough to soak up whatever wine I decide to lap down with it.

A few hours later, at what most FaM readers would call “dinner time,” I have a much smaller, lighter meal, usually without benefit of booze.

Well.

Observing me chow down on what I call “the big meal of the day” (i.e., lunch in your jargon), and seeing me swill down a glass of wine with it, Wonder Cleaning-Lady concluded that I am a lush.

Yes. She decided that because I was drinking an alcoholic beverage at mid-day — along about noon — I must be a drunk. 

{Understand: a “glass” of wine in my house is a wine glass…one of those bubbles atop a stem. Filled to the top, it holds about a third of what a standard US-style glass holds…and it’s never filled to the top.)

To make things worse…ooooohhhh gawd! Get this:

She was here on a day after I’d been awake the better part of an insomniac night.

I’d had almost no sleep the night before she showed up here. And all the time she was banging and roaring around the house, what I most craved was just to go back to bed. 

Not an option, of course.

So…stupidly…ooooh HOW stupidly!… I put my noon meal on the table. Sat down to eat it, accompanied by the usual partial glass of red wine. And feeling soooooooooo tired that I pushed the plate aside, laid my head in my arms on the table, and promptly FELL ASLEEP.

No kidding.

So what does she do?

She whips out her little camera (we all carry a camera with us, everyplace we go, right?) and snaps photos of me with my head in my arms on the table, a half-full glass of red wine sitting there next to my noggin.. 

These, she soon displays to my son, telling him that I was so drunk I fell asleep at the dinner table while she was here.

Yes. I did fall asleep.
No. I did not pass out in a drunken stupor.

But o’course, he couldn’t tell that from a snapshot. And nothing I could say would persuade him of what really happened.

So now the Kid is on High Alert at all times. He thinks I’m a drunk, and he thinks I’m pirating wine to swizzle at every opportunity.

I know: it would be funny if it weren’t so damn stupid!

Funny or stupid — or even serious, if you prefer — it has created a shopping-bag full of trouble for me.

At this point, I can’t persuade M’hijito that I’m not a lush and that I do not loaf around the house all day swilling booze.

So convinced is he that he raided my kitchen and stole the two bottles of sinful wine it contained: a bottle of red and a bottle of white. He also made off with my car, because he imagines I cruise around the city three sheets to the wind!

Hm.

I really SHOULD fire the cleaning lady, shouldn’t I? The woman has created a gigantic kettle full of trouble for me. How to get out of that kettle escapes me at the moment.

But that poses its own little headaches:

* Good cleaning ladies are notoriously hard to come by. And you may be real sure I don’t want to clean this four-bedroom palace myself.

* If I can her, will that not just damn me by my own actions? It will look like I’m firing her because she knows I guzzle down the vast kegs of wine at noon that she reported to my son.

* And yeah: I do hate cleaning house! So much so that I’m inclined to let this stupid flap go, just to hang onto the woman.

The latter is itself probably pretty stupid, eh? 

I mean, after all: If she’s going to squeal on me to my son because I dared to swill a glass of wine with lunch, what other trouble will she make for me? 

* People in a given trade tend to know each other. So let’s say I do can her and hire a new cleaning lady: next thing we know New CL will also think I’m a lush, having been told so by the present incumbent.

****

{sigh} I’m brought back to my periodically recurring thought: that I should sell this house and move out of Phoenix.

Just. 

Get. 

Away.

From.

Here.

But y’know…I don’t wanna!

* I love my house.
* I like my neighbors.
* Even the Romanian Landlord and I are acting like friends of late.
* The house is paid for.
* I could walk to my son’s house from here.
* I don’t wanna move away! 

So here we are: I’m living in a lovely house with a huge, EMPTY garage. My son has absconded with my car. I’m not about to get into a fight with him over that damn thing.

And we have an army of Uber drivers in this neighborhood…

We have a busy and efficient light-rail system running right up the west side of the ‘Hood…

The neighbors and I are getting along fine of late…

It’s (relatively!) safe here…

And, gilding all those lilies, just about all of the grocery stores and household marketers are within reasonable walking distance.

So no: I don’t wanna move away from here!!!!

And I ain’t a-gonna. 

Idle Question of the Day…

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Why, after my mother died, did my father choose to enter the Orangewood “Retirement Community” (read “prison for old folks”) rather than the Beatitudes, a larger and more established prison?

I could walk to either of these places from here. If I could afford to give this house to my son (moot: when I have to go into a “retirement community,” I most certainly will not be able to afford any such generosity), I could consign myself to either institution and be within walking distance of where he could live.

If he chose to do so.

More likely, he’d sell this place. Either bank the money and stay in his present home, or leave the proceeds from the sale to pay off his own mortgage.

Orangewood is on a single story. It’s built like…oh…I dunno…it kind of reminds you of a motel. Spread out. Grassy views outside most of the apartments. Laundry rooms down the hall from your place. A chow hall serving awful food — you’re required to show up there for at least one (bad!) meal a day, so they can count you.

The Beatitudes, another option for old-folks’ “living,” occupies a high-rise — actually, more like a mid-rise building. It’s built like a hotel, with the chow line and meeting rooms on the ground floor.

Either way, to my mind they’re depressing places. Mostly because I strongly dislike communal living — hated living the college dorms, don’t wanna wrap up my life that way.

But…it’s hard to see any way around them.

I probably could hire someone to come in and take care of me. But…who’s to oversee such a person? Unless someone were checking on me daily, how could we be sure I was being kept clean, that I was fed regularly (and decently), that the house was kept clean, that nothing was stolen…on and on and on. Expecting my son to ride herd in that way is, I fear, expecting too much. He has…you know…a life. And he can’t take half of it to devote to riding herd on my last months or (heaven forfend!) years.

Probably one of the best of the many excellent things my father did for me was to move himself into an old-folkery after my mother died. If I’d had to take care of him, I would never have finished the dissertation, never have completed the Ph.D.

But why on earth would that have mattered? Yes, I did get one (count it, 1) halfway decent job because of the doctorate. Published a book or three. But helle’s belles! I could have done as well or better without a Ph.D. in freakin’ English.

Annoying, isn’t it, to arrive at the end of life and realize you flubbed it? 😀 You wasted God only knows how many years.

Now what?

Glub!

by

Wow, what a horrid morning. 

By the time the dawg and I got home from peregrinating around the park and Lower Richistan, I was soaking wet. It is so humid out there that you come inside with your clothes soggy.

Meanwhile, fighter jets ROOOOOAAR out of Luke Air Force Base, preparing for the next World War,

My mother used to love to sit on her back porch in Sun City and listen to them charging back and forth. Didn’t ever seem to dawn on her that the nuclear war they were built to engage would mean the end of her sweet little Sun City house, the end of  American life as she knew it, and the end of her.

I guess she either didn’t believe World War III was gonna happen (and fortunately, she was right in that…at least, so far) or she just didn’t care. The war racket used to terrify the bedoodles out of me. But really: why? Once it started to happen, you weren’t gonna live through it. So why get all exercised about it, eh?

And now that I’m old, I suppose I don’t care, either. At  least, I don’t get so alarmed at the prospect. Once it starts to happen, I’ll be dead. So…what’s to care about?

The Night Comes…

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Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

                                                             –Dylan Thomas

One of my favorite poems since I first read it, now “Do Not Go Gentle”  seems to speak directly to the moment. Here at the end of life, one’s impulse indeed is to fight the pending end, to quarrel with it, to sock it back, to dodge out of its way.

All futility, of course. Life begins. Life ends. We can’t evade those fundamental truths.

Is life itself futile? 

I don’t know. If there’s a God, why would that god invent such an elaborate creation, if not for some reason?

Okay, okay: Out of boredom.

Yeah, that makes some sense. It might even make more sense than the theory that God created life to satisfy some goal, to make something happen, because it mattered.

Sometimes it seems as though nothing matters. Other times, as though everything matters.

What to make of that confusion? 

Nothing, I reckon. Who, after all, are we to imagine that God — if there is a God — would have some reason for building creation? Other than boredom, that is.

What we need to contend with, on a logical and on an emotional level, is simply that none of it makes any sense. Not to the mere human mind, anyway.

If it did make sense, we would not ask these questions, would we? We would not imagine or envision a God, would we? Because we would know. If there were a Truth, we would know that truth.

We who are human may imagine we know truth. But objectively speaking: no. We cannot. Because we’re merely human. Existence is so vast, so outrageous that there’s no way for we who are humans to make sense of it.

Maybe it doesn’t make sense, hm?

How’m I Gonna Get it???

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Well. I ain’t a gonna get it. 

Wine, that is. From the nearest fancy yuppy grocery store. Because I can’t get to said store without risking my life. And I ain’t a-gonna risk my life for a bottle of Sauvignon blanc.

No kidding: As we scribble, the temperature in the deepest shade of the back porch registers 108 degrees. Humidity is 19 percent.

My son has kiped my car, so I can’t drive the five blocks or so to the Sprouts or the Albertson’s to snab a bottle of wine.

And just now I would like nothing much more than a nice cold glass of white wine.

Could call Uber and have my neighbor Uber driver schlep me across the street, through the unholy heat, to snab a bottle at the Sprouts. But…seriously?????? 

Nope. I’m desperate, but I’m not so desperate as to hire a cab to drive me four blocks to a local grocery store.

Man!!  It is hotter than the hubs of Hades here this afternoon, even though 108 just isn’t that hot. It must be a bit humid out there, making the heat feel more intense than it is.

So I reckon tomorrow morning I’ll turn out of the sack early and show up at the store as the opening bell jangles. Yea verily: They all open at 7:00 a.m. So if I’m at their door at seven, I should be able to snab a bottle or two of booze and get back here before it gets dangerously hot.

{chortle!} You couldn’t do that in Sun City. Leastwise, I don’t recall that one can. Not unless you lived right next door to the shopping center. The place is VAST.

Lately I’ve considered following SDXB out to that indeed vast, monotone retirement city. It would have a few advantages: lots of other old bats; probably less traffic and fewer screaming ambulances; no kids yowling. But…

Well…been there, done that. Don’t think Sun City is my Thing.

****

SDXB just called from Seattle, where he’s visiting his sister and brother-in-law. They have a lovely home there, up north where the weather is cool at this time of year.

His sister is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Heaven help her. That’s about the saddest news I’ve had in life: she’s an active, vivacious woman, very outdoorsy, very lively. To be crippled up with an ailment like that must be seven kinds of torture.

Well. Rather few of us are gonna get out of this place without some kind of torture, I guess. About the best we can hope for is that it will be relatively brief.

****

OMG!!!

M’ijito just showed up at the door. He went by the grocery store and surfaced with bag after bag of loot — even including a bottle of white wine!

Gosh. Now I won’t have to make a grocery run for the better part of a week. And I won’t have to sneak off to my favorite secret wine shop to snab a bottle of addictive slosh.

Wow!

Tried to get him to stay for dinner, but he took off like a cannonball.

See? That there would never happen if I were parked in Sun City!

😀

OMG. Not to say ha ha ha hee hee ha hah! 

He brought me a bottle of — hang onto your hat — zero alcohol white wine!

Zero flavor, too. It’s billed as Sauvignon blanc…and it has about as much flavor as tap water.

It was very thoughtful, though. What a sweetie!

And interesting to get ahold of the zero-alcohol stuff: now we know what it tastes like. Or…uhm…doesn’t taste like. 😀

 

Time to Exit, Stage Left?

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Hmmm…  The last couple days’ Incidents keep returning to haunt. In specific, those two social-workerish women who showed up at my door and sat around quizzing me and altogether too obviously assessing my (spotlessly clean!!!) surroundings…eeeeeee!

I’ll tellya: reflecting on those two really gives me the willies.

Who reported to them that I was being abused? Or…did anyone? Was that just a standard boilerplate answer to shut up the sucker and maybe get more out of her? Or at least to stay inside her house a few more minutes and to ask more nunna-your-business questions?

It was incredibly lucky that Luz the Wonder-Cleaning Lady had been there that day. No, I don’t live in squalor. But I do a lot of loafing and leaving the newspaper laying on the sofa and not making the bed first thing in the morning…. Thanks to Luz, the Funny Farm was tidy and sparkling clean.

They must’ve been impressed, eh? :-d

Seriously: in my experience, when women are depressed or overloaded, they tend to let the housework go to Hell. Consequently, yes: a woman who is at risk may be living in a pigpen. Same is true of a woman who is neglecting herself, over her head with work or with personal problems, maxed out with bratty kids. So having the house look meticulously clean helped to send a message: nothing to see here, ladies. 

Nevertheless, I do hafta say: that whole episode gives me the willies. 

Who would sic those broads on me?

Why?

How? What excuse would they pump up to let them invade my privacy like that?

Frankly, I’m thinking maybe…just maybe…it’s time to get outta here. Time to find some new sylvan place to live.

Where would I go?

Ohhhhhh….where wouldn’t I go? 😀

Seriously: one can think of a whole slew of cool alternatives to lovely 110-degree crime-ridden uptown Phoenix.

The little town in Colorado whence Dear Ex-Husband emanated, for example: Grand Junction. That is a cool li’l city. Because it was developed largely by well educated mining engineers, the ambient culture is pretty sophisticated. It gets snow in the winter — some, but not a lot — and is hot enough in the summer, but overall the climate is temperate. It’s way to Hell and Gone out in the middle of nowhere, yet within striking distance of Denver.

I certainly would consider that.

In California: my friends La Bethulia and La Maya have retired to a mobile home (!) on the coast near Monterey. TO DIE FOR. I’d go there in a minute, if my son weren’t here.

Alternatively, somehow I could force myself to live in Berkeley, where my mother’s family lived.

If I would feel safe living in Arizona (probably not, under the present circumstances), there’s Payson. Prescott. Yarnell. Suburbs of Tucson. Nogales. Fountain Hills. One could go on and on, actually: this state is a gold mine of cool places to settle.

Well. If 110 degrees in the shade is “cool.” 😀

I don’t know. It really was a creepy episode. And if I had any sense at all, I’d be looking seriously at gettin’ on the road.

But instead of sense, I have lazy. 

Nay, verily! I do not WANT to get off my duff and move. Who, me? Overcome inertia? Are you kidding???