Coffee heat rising

Angst

Merry Xmas!!

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Waiting to hear from M’hijito to see if he’s coming over for dinner, or if the’s been hijacked by his dad. 😀

One way or the ‘tother will be fine. We have some nice steaks defrosting. If he doesn’t want to surface here, he can come over on the weekend to tear into them.

Meanwhile, Ruby and I loaf. If it turns out the Kid is not coming over here this Christmas Day, that’s fine. The Dawg and the Human now have plenty of fine food, plus a gorgeous afternoon in which to circumnavigate the neighborhood.

And it is a spectacular day for a long, lazy walk through the ‘Hood.

The more I see of days like this, the more I wonder what nutty worm got into my head as I was looking (almost seriously!) at shacks in surrounding neighborhoods.  And the more I think…uhhh…NO, thankee! 

Seriously: I have no desire to move out of the Funny Farm. This is a handsome, solidly built block house, with classy tile floors and nice paint jobs and tony windows and up-to-date appliances… WHY on earth would I want to move someplace else?

Truth to tell, with a firmer grip on my marbles just now, I most certainly do not. 

None of the places we saw over the past few days are any better than this one, and the neighborhoods have drawbacks (like noise and access to strangers and rackety main drags) that this one does not. So…I reckon Ruby and I will be hanging out here for the next several whiles.

A serious advantage to the Funny Farm that these other places lack is that with its outrageous four bedrooms, the FF has plenty of room to accommodate a babysitter for the elderly.

Yes: if I need someone to come in and be here to oversee me 24 hours a day, I can offer the person her own bedroom and bathroom. All hers. No sharing. No nuisance. This should (I hope) put off the dread day when I will need to be consigned to an old-folkerie: with any luck, by some weeks… with more luck, by several months. Or maybe even years: who knows?

No sign of my son or word from him this Christmas Day. Presumably he’s at his dad’s.

Would’ve been nice to know if he’s planning on dinner here. However, we’re amply supplied: a gorgous T-bone big enough to feed Napoleon’s troops, which we can toss on the grill when he gets here. If he chooses not to be here… 😀 …Then we have enough steak to feed the FatLady a good three or four dinners.

So the Big Question just  now is… Are Ruby and I going for a walk this afternoon — sans kid? Or are we gonna loaf around and see if he shows up?

Well, he has a key, so if and when he gets here, he can let himself in. And if he doesn’t get here? Ruby and I can throw ourselves on the chow!

LOL!  See why I just luuuuv Christmas so damn much?
😮 

Ugh!

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Quarter to Four….in the morning. The dog is sick.

She’s got sh!t stuck all over her rear end. Cleaned her up as best as I could…which ain’t very. If and when it warms up this morning…if and when morning ever comes…I’ll have to haul her into the bathtub, scrub her down, haul her out, dry her off…a good half-hour or forty minutes of dog-and-human struggle.

Yay. I can hardly wait.

Human is starved. Bolting down some bread and cheese.

Dog is now giving the Human the famous fork it over, you! look.

Oh, good, saith the Human Why don’t I arm you with bread & cheese so you can barf it all over the bed?

Craparoonies! Now she’s laying there moaning softly with each breath.

Puff…ook
Puff…ook
Puff…ook

Please, please dear doggie! DON’T barf on the bed at 3:53 in the effin’ morning!

Of course it’s Sunday, running up to Christmas. Name a vet that’s gonna be open…

THIS is gonna be One…of…Those…Days, isn’t it?

Free!! (??) I hope….

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Woo HOOO! It looks suspiciously like this is NOT cleaning-lady day!

The wonderful Luz (Cleaning Lady from Heaven) is not parked in front of my neighbor’s house (she visits those neighbors before descending on me). It’s almost noon!  So…unless that dear woman picked up another client and has enjoyed scrubbing yet another shack before coming here, I’m FREEEEEE from having to pick up the pig-pen.

Mwa ha hah! Sure do hope so…

Isn’t that awful?  SOOOO lazy that I don’t want to be bothered to shovel aside the litter so she can get at a surface or three to clean!

The other day some obnoxious and nosy financial dudes visited the Funny Farm. This, supposedly for a bland chat…and…yeah. Transparently to nose around in my house and see how I live and probably to see if they can get me committed to an old-folkerie if I dwell in stacks of litter.

Fortunately, because the ineffable Luz was slated to come by in the near future, I had picked up the place and put all the dishes in the washer and stuffed the dirty clothes in the laundry and…voilà! It looked almost like someone civilized lived here.

That was lucky!

{whew!}

If I’m going to be spied upon like that, presumably by my son’s hired help, after this I’m gonna have to make the bed and pick up the clutter the minute I roll out of the sack.

Not that it’s a bad thing to tidy up the place the minute your feet hit the bedroom floor. But that it’s a damn nuisance…and an invasion of one’s privacy.

And it makes me wonder, seriously, if I should pack up and move out of the city.

But….where? 

That mystifies me 

First, because this neighborhood is about as ideal a neighborhood as I can imagine. The house is within easy walking distance of not one, not two, but THREE major (gourmet-style!!) grocery stores, a veterinary, a computer store, a hair stylist, and a Target.

Seriously: I don’t have to travel more than about five or six blocks to get everything needed for day-to-day living here. Truth to tell, I don’t even need to own a car to live here comfortably and conveniently.

Second, because the neighbors are very nice, very friendly. Even Tony the Romanian Landlord has mellowed out! This makes it a pleasant place to live.

Third, because a major regional hospital is about a four-minute ambulance ride from here. Dial 911, and the rescue guys (and gals) show up forthwith.

Fourth: because the crime level — not nil, of course — is surprisingly low for an urban neighborhood. Yes, of course I have fierce burglar-resistant screen doors on all the entrances, and of course they’re kept locked. But I don’t feel especially at risk, sitting here in the Funny Farm. In another neighborhood where we lived, I surely did.

Hmmmm……

Having those two clowns show up here and nose around was…disturbing, to say the least. I may have to hire the cleaning lady to come by once a week. Right now, I surely don’t do that…can’t afford it.

But…let’s think about that: I can afford weekly cleaning help one whole helluva lot better than I can afford to be locked up in a prison for old folks. That would make it easier for Luz to keep the place spotless, and also I could probably put her up to driving me to various retail stores.

So….

I think I should make a few minor changes to my routine: ones that would create the effect of major changes in my day-to-day lazy lifestyle:

  • Forgodsake MAKE THE GODDAM BED the minute Ruby and I roll out of the sack. Be sure the bedroom and bathroom are all tidied up.
  • Pick up the kitchen and stash the dirty dishes in the washer the minute I finish breakfast. Never leave stuff laying around the kitchen or dining room. {How lazy am I? Let us count the ways…}
  • Get in the habit of picking up the house before going to bed, rather than in the morning.

Hm. That probably would do the job, since I do not habitually lay around like a total slob. If some namby-pamby showed up here, assigned with the task of inspecting my living arrangements, they’d think I live like a cleaning lady. 😀  😀  😀

Seriously: pick up the clutter first thing in the morning, and no one who shows up later in the day will get any ideas about senility affecting my lifestyle.

Is it an invasion of my privacy?

Damn right! But nothing like the invasion of (nonexistent!) privacy that would be inflicted on me in one of those prisons for old folks.

And now it’s night-time….

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No longer colder than a by-gawd out in the back yard...but not much fun, come 10:00 p.m., as a venue to stand around waiting for the dawg to do her Thing.

And waiting…and waiting…waiting..

Aarrrrgh!!!!

Traffic is roaring back and forth to the north of us. The ridiculous light-rail train is bong-bong-bonging up and down Main Drag West. And here’s a cop copter, sailing over the house.

Looks like Ruby did her Thing just in time to get us back inside before the party begins. We’re in. The doors are locked. Let us hope that will suffice, for the human & the dog.

Pretty night, though. Would be mighty nice in the absence of a few burglars, car thieves, wannabe rapists, and whatnot.

Blech!!! Begins to make Sun City look good….

 

LOL! NOW what new neurosis???

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Just don’t get old, especially if you’re female. It’s a recipe for escaped marbles! 😀

Seriously (…well…almost…) !  Just roamed out into the backyard, on the trail of the Dawg. So there we are out in back, puttering around. Nice and quiet. Clear sky. Balmy afternoon…

Balmy is right!  😀

Suddenly, weirdly: I’m horrifically scared!  

WHAT the DICKENS brought that on? 

  • Nary a coyote in evidence. (Coyotes don’t especially scare me, anyway.)
  • Nice, clear sky.
  • Dawg in attendance is calm, sniffing around cheerfully.
  • Distant kids are playing and laughing.

Ghosts, right? That’s gotta be the only explanation!

Dart inside with the hound on my heels. Find all is calm and quiet inside the Funny Farm. Dog seems not to have noticed that a marble or two slipped out my ears.

WHAT ON EARTH was THAT about??????

She killed herself. Why, why, WHY the Hell????

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I fail to understand how she could have done anything so stupid. 

It was as though she deliberately incubated the cancer growing in her gut so as to inflict as much suffering as possible not only on herself but on those around her.

She knew.

She knew because she had been through the same horror with her own mother.

She had watched her wild-assed mother fuck her way into a terminal reproductive cancer. And, half a lifetime later, she drank her way and smoked her way into the same damned thing, calculated so as to cause as much suffering as possible for her husband and for her only child. And for herself, while she was at it.

Because she clearly knew what she was doing. I would suggest that what she did was not stupid. It was calculated. She knew she was gonna kill herself. She knew it would cause as much pain and suffering as possible to those around her. And that was her strategy.

So…well…I have to say that what she did was not stupid. It was malign, maybe. Because it was deliberate. Purposeful: she knew.

My poor father! He attended her through just about every moment of her hideous terminal illness, caring for her, feeding her, washing her, medicating her, dragging her to (useless!) doctors…God help him.

No question in my mind: she knew what she was doing.

We had known since the late 1950s that smoking causes cancer. She died while I was pregnant with my son: in the middle 1970s. A good 20 years after the cause and effect were identified. The more she heard of the science, the more she puffed away. I do think she truly believed those reports were Big Brother trying to control her life.

Why, why, why are people so stupid???? 

Oh well. Can’t fix stupid, can you? And you sure can’t undo its results.

The horror of it, though, is pretty straightforward: one’s sense is that what she did was not stupid. It was deliberate. 

She knew what she was doing would kill her, and she engineered the process to create as much suffering and as much stress as could possibly be inflicted on herself and on those around her.

Just. Plain. Evil.