Coffee heat rising

Angst

Another Balmy Arizona Summer Day…

by

I.e., you have to be balmy to keep on living here!!!  Just now it’s 106 in the shade of the back porch, 20% humidity. Clouds built up to the north, tantalizing with a vague promise of rain…but as we scribble, they’re burning off.

Arizona…what a garden spot!

Man, I’ll take San Francisco fog over burning heat, any day.

Speaking of the which: spent half the afternoon doing battle with the pool. The current Pool Dude seems to have f*cked things up royally.

Had to buy a big heavy bucket of chlorine tablets (none remained out there at the pool or in the pool shed). Dosed the drink with that stuff.

Next: decide whether to backwash…decided it’s toooo damn hot to wrestle with that task. Get the vacuum system to work properly: see that it’s picking up most of the debris. Think gotta clean out that filter NOW. Decide it’ll hafta wait.

ohhhhh gawd, tell me I don’t have to track down and hire a new Pool Dude.

See, the problem with these guys is a substantial proportion of them are jailbirds. If they’re on probation and they get into trouble — apparently that includes so much as a traffic ticket! — they end up back in the slam. This, as you can imagine, does not help to keep the algae outta the pool.

😀

Maybe what I should do is install some cages in the backyard where the Authorities could store the Pool Dudes. Then I’d always have one of the critters around to contend with the drink. And maybe I could even get the state to pay me for putting up the resident convicts….

Arrrrggghhhhh! What a place we live in!

Teeth hurt. Don’t know whether it’s from aggravated clenching or whether there’s an infection or some other such nightmarish pending dental bill. We shall see over the next few days, no doubt.

If I were a grown-up, I’d stumble out to the kitchen and bolt down an aspirin or an ibuprofen.

But I’m not a grown-up. Consequently, I’m bolting down a glass of wine. Oddly, that does nothing for the sore tooth.

Ohhh well. It sure tastes better than ibuprofen, though!

😀  😀

Driving around this afternoon eyeballing real estate.

Yknow, my mother was a real estate agent. Like me, she felt some strange magnetic attraction to Reel Estate. What it is, I do not know. But the whole business fascinates me.

I used to write about real estate for Phoenix Ragazine and for the weekly Phoenix Business Journal. Sometimes I think I should try to wriggle back onto a local publication’s staff — actually for awhile I wrote for a national real estate trade rag, but the truth is, I find the local market a lot more fun.

Yesterday I stopped by an open house and met a lovely young Realtor. Ohhh how ambition blooms forever… Well, I wish her well and hope she gets rich…or at least finds a nice rich man to support her. 😉 Real estate is one of those endeavors that looks like it should make you rich, but that at best maybe won’t make you poor.

***

Dog’s conkered out. I should conker out, too…dawgs having better sense than humans…

This, That, & the Other

by

Hotter than the Hubs out there...and wetter than the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.

Seriously: it is SO hot and SO humid, you step out your (soggy) front door into a corner of Hell. Or…more likely, into a corner of Lovely Saudi Arabia.

Today and yesterday have been weirdly reminiscent of the balmy old days beside the Persian Gulf.

There, the air would get so wet that sometimes rain would start to fall out of a clear blue sky. We’re not that bad…yet. And I sincerely hope we don’t get there.

Ugh! Gotta go to the store. Get stuff for me and the hound: stuff that can’t wait. Then another errand…while I’m running around, I prob’ly SHOULD run by the mid-town Best Buy and get another power cord for this li’l computer.

Because…AS YOU AND I BOTH KNOW….wherever you are, you can’t get there from here. Whatever room I happen to be in, when the power runs low on the MacBook, the power cord is on the other end of the house!

😀

Ogling real estate in Moon Valley, a sprawling Mittel-America tract where my friends La Bethulia and La Maya moved. Look at this shack, for example. It’s on the high side of houses out there: not the best available, but far from the tackiest. I’d say it’s comparable to my current hovel, in style and size and maintenance.

Guess if I wanted to run away from the Romanian Landlord, that would be a likely candidate. It’s not quite as large as my house…but truth to tell, my shack is one bedroom too much.

Relatively pretty, as tract houses go.

But…y’know…so is mine. And my house is closer to M’hijito’s, by some miles. And click through the photos to see that thing next door to it. That’s a weird lash-up, isn’t it? It looks, for all the world, like a commercial structure with an underground garage.

?????

Not likely, in a suburban middle-class tract. But…weird, isn’t it?

Dunno that I could live in Moon Valley: too much emotional baggage.

A dear friend of mine: her husband died out there. He had cancer, and he died excruciatingly. And…well…her behavior left something to be desired. So did mine, come to think of it. We should never have been socializing in the kitchen while he was dying in the bedroom.

Horrible.

After he passed, I never heard another thing from her. She sold the house in Moon Valley; moved to Scottsdale. Then, apparently as she herself sank into decrepitude, she moved back to the Midwest, where her adult kids lived. And that was the last I knew.

Moon Valley is a bland tract of bland, throw-’em-together stick-and-drywall huts. For my purpose, it’s kind of a sentimental journey, cruising the Web and eyeballing the overpriced ticky-tacky. But in fact, my house is far nicer: block construction, real walls that keep out the burglars.

Seriously: a good-sized man could break right in through a wall out there, simply by delivering a good-sized kick. When my friends moved into that house, I went out to help her paint and fancify the place. You would not have BELIEVED the ticky-tacky construction!

No kidding: you could break in with swift kick to an exterior wall. The walls, which were pretty much all stick-and-plaster, were so poorly insulated that as I stood on the tile floors painting the living-room (she had the whole house tiled before they moved in!), I could feel the HOT heat under my feet. You don’t even wanna know what their power bills must have been.

***

Here I am at the neighborhood doc’s office. Waiting. And Waiting. And Waiting.

What I wanna do is ask him if he’ll refer me to the Alzheimer’s facility at Good Samaritan Hospital, in downtown Phoenix. That’s about a 10-minute drive from my house…as opposed to an hour’s trudge to get out to the Mayo.

Also, quite frankly, I want a second opinion. The Mayo is halfway to Payson from my house. Good Sam is straight down 7th Street: outside of rush hour, an easy shot. Soooo….we’re talkin’ two advantages here:

  • If the staff at Good Sam do indeed appear to be competent, then we have excellent doctors within easy reach; and
  • Good Sam is right on the route to my son’s house and to a dear friend’s house! Thereby producing an excuse for visiting. 😀

*****

Didn’t get far with that scheme. Oh well: I’ll have to keep at it.  A little peripheral neuropathy isn’t gonna kill me. Soon. And if my brain has turned to Swiss cheese, there ain’t much anyone can do about it.

 

 

 

Wednesday

by

Seven-thirty in the morning: 90 degrees in the shade of the back porch, humidity 44%.

Back from a mile-long walk with the Hound. Hotter than the hubs out there, and soggy. Ruby doesn’t seem to notice. She rockets along the whole route like she was shot out of a cannon.

The irrigation system is crapping out. Gotta try to track down the installer (if he’s still in business!) or find a new one. Probably will have to replace a fair amount of that fine plastic piping. Ugh! Not to say $$$!!!

At the park: not too many dogs to have to dodge around this morning, probably because the weather is constraining most of the strolling dog-lovers. That’s a relief: some of those folks are stupid beyond belief, when it comes to dogs.

I find it impossible to understand how you could conflate a dog with a  kid. Wake up, folks! It’s not your “fur-baby”! It’s a highly evolved wolf that has developed a co-dependent relationship with humans. It doesn’t want to “pw-a-a-ay” with your neighbor’s dog. It wants to EAT your neighbor’s dog.

LOL! Hafta say, at the time I moved into this house, I never would’ve thought that I would be here long enough to need to replace the irrigation system I paid heftily to install during my first weeks of residency. Rebuilding it does NOT sound like a great idea. But…if I’m going to stay here (am I???), the watering system has gotta work.

Personally, I’d like to move into a high-rise on North Central, thereby mooting the whole yard and watering-system issue. However, my son WANTS this house. and accordingly he wants me to stay here until I’m carted off to the nursing home. At that point he’ll sell his place and move in here. Sooo…one could regard the proposed new plumbing as a gift to him.

Besides which: despite the proximity to Crime Central, I do like this house and this neighborhood. LOVE having the pool to topple into on a hot day. Love the trees and the shade. Love the yard that lets me have a dog of just about any size.

***

7:30 p.m.

And here we are, twelve hours later! Another day…not a single ‘nother dollar.

Weather progress: it’s a hundred degrees in the backyard just now, under a light film of high clouds. Nine percent chance of precip.

In Arizona, that’s what we call “humid.” 😀

No, I did NOT get my dainty little self enough off the dime to call the irrigation dude, or even to try to track him down. This laziness thing is becoming…uhm…a thing.

It’s too damn hot to do an evening doggy-walk — the pavement would burn Ruby’s feet. So we loaf.

Loafing is our specialty. Ruby is stretched out on her doggy-blanket atop the bed. The human is stretched out on her human-bedding atop the bed. We rule!

Hotter Than the Hubs…

by

Places I’m glad I’m not:

No. 1: Butte County, California

Egad! This is not all that far from where La Bethulia and La Maya live. CAN you imagine????

Makes 100 degrees in the shade and no tinder within reach look pretty good, eh?

And yep: 110 is just we have out on the back porch just now.

Truth to tell, I’ve always loved central and northern California and would’ve loved to retire there. But Dear XH would have none o’ that. He being no fool…

If it’s blindingly hot here (as you may be sure it is!), it’s excruciatingly hot over there, too. But a 110-degree day ain’t likely to burn your house down, or trap you at the end of a country road.

No. 2: Central California

This is the general area where La Maya’s folks come from. I gather they’re more farm folks than anything else, so it’s to be hoped that most or all are out of harm’s way. But still: eeeek!

Ohhhh man! Those Santa Ana’s…I remember them well! Awful time of year. And when we lived there, they weren’t blowing conflagrations across the landscape;.

A-n-n-n-d…how glad AM I that I don’t live in the Middle East anymore? It was a species of Hell then, and it doesn’t seem to have gotten much better. What a bunch!

 

 

 

Marble-Loss Update

by

Well, I found some stuff at Sprouts that contains the stuff called inulin, which supposedly staves off marble-loss to some degree.

Heh! We’ll believe that when we see it, eh?

Other than sometimes causing collywobbles or constipation, it apparently isn’t especially harmful. So I guess I’m gonna try it, just to see if it helps. How exactly I’ll know whether it helps kinda escapes me. But…nothing ventured.

M’hijito is furious with me because I’ve gotten stubborn about traipsing all the way across the Valley to sit in a half-baked support group at the Mayo Clinic. Members sit there all afternoon and tell each other what they can’t remember, for the love of God!

I know, already, that I can’t remember where I put my shoes. Dammit, what good is it supposed to do me that hear that a bunch of other old buzzards who are losing their marbles can’t remember where they put their shoes??

Less and less time remains to me as each hour goes by. And of the hours that do remain, fewer and fewer are going to be of much use. So…what good does it do me to listen to people who are also losing their marbles natter on about how their brains are going to Hell on a broken-down handcart? Forgodsake, let’s fill up the hours that remain with some quality time!

Much as my mother suffered with the cancer that carried her away, frankly…I think she may have been dealt a better hand than I seem to have collected. At least she died fairly quickly, and she retained her consciousness of those who were around her. Her passing was, I suspect, far more difficult for my father (who cared for her up until the end) than it was for her.

This business of turning into a mental vegetable but staying nominally alive for some indefinite period — probably imprisoned in an institution — looks far more horrible to me.

And, speaking of indefinite periods: I have no one to take care of me forever and aye. My father was retired by the time my mother fell ill. But…my son — my only surviving relative — has a JOB.

Remember those?

He can’t take weeks or maybe months off to care for a vegetable. Nor, I think, will Medicare cover the cost of the gardening tasks. All the assets I’ve accumulated to leave to my son may be consumed by this fine horror.

It may be time to start thinking about the Final Exit.

You have to be told this? REALLY?????

by

It looks like my son has conceded the Battle of the Mayo Clinic Old Folks’ Chatfest.

This is a weekly meeting in which we all sit around a table and agonize about how we can’t remember our names, much less where we put our shoes. This morning I’m told it’s OK if we don’t make the 40-minute trudge out there for that eye-glazing purpose.

What a bore! And what a waste of time: 80 minutes of driving time, plus two or three hours diddled away listening to a tribe of elders recite how they couldn’t remember to eat their breakfast. If it were not excruciatingly boring, it would still be excruciating. And so far, I have not heard one thing — not a single strategy! — that would help one remember the crucial trivia of everyday life. You know: when are the bills due, did you water the roses, did you buy whole-bean coffee or ground coffee: the daily ditz of a world dominated by trivia.

And I do need to cling to the skill or mental functioning that helps one remember where the car is parked in an underground garage.

The simplest strategy is absurdly simple: WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN ON A NOTEPAD OR WHITEBOARD.

Duh!

Most of the time that’s exactly what I do. Occasionally, I do neglect to scribble down a to-do or a to-buy or a to-call or a to-pay.

Yes. 😀 Yesterday I did lose my car in the Mayo’s underground garage. And frankly, it never would have occurred to me to write down where it was parked. I’ve never forgotten any such thing in my life!

On the other hand, yesterday’s exploit had a particularly shiny silver lining: the campus cop who helped me find the tank was just about THE cutest and most charming critter I’ve ever met.

😀

Must remember to drive out there and lose the car again….

Today I’m supposed to schlep to the dermatologist’s, wayyyyy on the OTHER side of the Valley. I can’t remember (yep!) why I made this appointment. It may be a routine visit, but I doubt that. There’s a patch on one arm that has become de-pigmented: the normally brown skin is white as a piece of typing paper.

Apparently this phenomenon is called vitiligo. It seems not to be precancerous, not to be life- or health-threatening, and…not to be especially treatable.

:-0

aaaaaaaaah SHIT! Just spilled coffee all over my computer and slopped it on the arms of the leather chair where I was loafing. And all over me.

The damn stuff has soaked into the chair. Can’t wipe it off. Can’t dab it up.

So….ohhh goodie. Looks like I’ll be buying a new family-room chair.

The place where I bought this one has closed. That means traipsing all over the Valley searching for a store that carries similar (now no doubt very unfashionable) furniture.

Ugh ugh ugh ughity ugh!!

Well, with that mess dabbed up, now there’s no time left to scribble here. Better get up, get dressed, and start driving driving driving…

…nope! WRONG! … It’s only 8:40 a.m.

😀  Not to say :-0

or

{GASP!}

LOL! I thought the present time was an hour later than it is.

Which is not a good sign, I suppose.

On the other hand, it’s not something I can change. And — conveniently — it also means I don’t have to get up and charge around to get dressed and paint the face.

But in the Quitcher Bellyachin’ Department: a MIRACLE!! The spilled coffee did NOT stain the chair’s (already brown) leather! YAHOOO!

Now all I need to make my day is another ride around the Mayo’s parking garage with that gorgeous young security guard…

😀