Coffee heat rising

Angst

Re-Watering Project, continued

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Don’t get old: Ya can’t remember yer name!!

Much less that you needed to get out in the 110-degree heat and turn the hoses on the backyard plants.

This, to make up for some A**-hole TURNING OFF the irrigation in my yard, thereby killing everything in sight. 

Sheeee-ut!

Fortunately, I noticed before all the backyard trees were dead. These, mostly citrus, need to be watered regularly and deeply.

So…now I’m running around in 110-degree heat, dragging hoses and trying to deep-water the trees and plants back there.

As infuriating as this is…amazingly I failed to remember this fiasco until about 5:00 this afternoon. God. DAM. It. 

So I missed today’s project to try to re-irrigate the vegetation back there.

Just darted back in the house — at 5:00 p.m. — having started to lay out hoses and run sprinklers.

Dammit. Now this will take until about 9:00 tonight. Just what I wanted to do with a roasting-hot evening!

Jayzuz! What the HELL would possess some clown to turn off all the water in my yard? We’re talking a full-fledged irrigation system that drenches the trees and soaks the ornamental vines: front, side, and back.

Because, in my dotage, I forgot about this as the cleaning lady was charging around in the house, now it will be well into the night-time hours before all the hose-dragging is done.

Matter of fact, it probably won’t get done tonight. I’ll have to go out there tomorrow and wrestle with hoses in the morning.

Day Is (Barely!!!) Dawning….

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Yep. Barely dawn and all Hell is already breaking loose. Jeez!  WHY does all the sh!t happen at once?

Latest antic: I go to flush the toilet and the thing goes SSSWWWWSHHHHHHHHHHHH and sprays water all over the goddam bathroom!

Sheee-ut!  and oh well: now all the fixtures and counters are nice and clean in there.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotta get someone over here to fix Harvey the Hayward Pool Cleaner, so thoughtfully trashed by yesterday’s workman.

This means, presumably, I have to approach some other pool company, since I suspect that “trashing” was a deliberate act. Because…it appears the pool dude stole several lengths of hose.

Dammit!!!!!!! 

Now I’ll have to call a bunch of neighbors to find out who they’re hiring, and then call around and call around and call around until I find someone to come fix this stuff.

*********

Grrr grrr grrrrrrrrrrrrr…..

Okay, I capitulated and called my regular pool company. Told them “someone” (har har) made off with several lengths of pool hose…and blah blah blah.

They’re supposedly gonna send someone over to try to fix that. Which means I get to sit here and sit here and sit here and sit here until the guy shows up. If he ever does. Then try to explain what’s happened….and good luck with that.

Dammmit!!!!!!!!!

I’m beginning to understand why my neighbor drained her pool several years ago and leaves it dry.

There surely is something to be said for that.

Problem is, when  you go to sell the house after leaving a pool empty for Gawd only knows how long, you’re looking at a WAD of EXPENSIVE repair bills.

Plus your back yard is graced by an ugly hole in the ground.

Better to keep the thing up from day to day, than to have hundreds or thousands in bills just as you’re ready to move out.

****

Ugh!! This deluge of crapola is beginning to make the prospect of moving into a old-folkerie like the Beatitudes almost look good. At least there, someone else has to ride herd on the repairs.

But…sheee-ut.  Just look at the joys promised by that link. Ain’t that just ducky?  You, too, can shed your household headaches by locking yourself up in a prison for old duffers.

You get to shed your cash, too. Those places grab every penny you’ve got in exchange for shepherding you into the next world. Such was the case with my father. Seriously: his old-folkerie glommed virtually all of his life savings. AND….he made a good living as a sea captain, plus he was one of the great tightwads of the Western World. So he had a sh!tload of money for them to snatch away from him.

*****

Dayum! But I’m MAD AS A CAT over that stolen pool equipment.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I guess if I’m gonna drain the damn pool, I’ll need to have some sort of platform built over it.

The next-door neighbor hasn’t done that. She just has an empty hole in the ground back there. Looks like HELL, and for my taste renders the back porch/yard essentially unusable.

You can bet she hasn’t covered it with a platform because any such thing will cost a goddam arm and a leg.  So I should spend hundreds or more likely thousands of dollars to cover the hole in ground with a wooden deck?

goddammit i don’t wanna do that.

Helle’s belles. Maybe I’d do better to jury-rig repairs to the dam thing now, then put the house on the market, sell up, and move into the horrifying Beatitudes.

But..to coin a phrase:

goddammit i don’t wanna do that.

I just LOATHE congregate living. And I do NOT want to live in a dormitory for old buzzards.

GAAAAAAAHHH!  STOP THE WORLD! I WANNA GET OFF!!!!!

WTF?????????

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How in the name of GOD do these clowns get their jobs????? And when a company hires some jerk, do they NEVER test them to see if the jerk knows what he’s doing???????

ARRRGHHHHH!

So….I go out to the pool and start to mess with the pump equipment, by way of cleaning out the filter’s strainer — which by now should be jammed with leaves and stuff, by now, right? Because Pool Dude was here several days ago.

And yeah, no question about it: I SHOULD have gone out there two or three days ago and checked the equipment. But no. I didn’t Because I was too damn lazy. And because, after all, that’s what I pay THEM to do, right?

Arrrghhhh! You’d think by now I’d know better, eh?

So I wander past the pump this afternoon and notice…uhhhh….waitaminit.

The pump’s strainer basket is sitting on the step stool.

Huh?

It’s not inside the pump, where it’s supposed to be. Some moron has taken it out of the pump and LEFT IT SITTING OUT. So all the leaves and crap can get sucked inside the equipment!

Ohhhh F****ck!

Shut everything down.

Take everything apart.

Clean everything out.

Swear, cuss, and swear some more.

Put the parts back together.

Seal the unit back up.

Pray to the Swimming Pool Gods…

Turn the unit back on…

SHHHHHHWWWWWWIIIIIIIIISHHH…..

A miracle!

Looks like the damn thing is working. And there’s even a chance it’s working right.

Well…Helle’s belles. We’ll know along about this time tomorrow afternoon if it actually IS running right. Because by this time tomorrow we’ll have a pool guy out here, to the tune of a pretty penny.

We can pretty much bet that the thing is busted or, at best, cattywampus.. Can’t hurt to hope, though.

But….in fact…. No. It looks like Harvey is probably busted. He’s just going around and around in little circles. That means tomorrow I’ll have to take him to the pool store…which will be quite the trick without a car!

Waitaminit…. Let’s take that back: It looks like Harvey is working but his hose has been shortened to the point where he can’t travel all the way across the bottom of the pool, shallow end to deep end and back. Hence: the elegant circles… Lo! the Explanation: Somebody stole several lengths of pool hose! Then disguised the theft by reconnecting the remaining hose to Harvey.

Goddammit! 

WHY DOES EVERY MORON ON THE PLANET HAVE TO GET IN FRONT OF ME?????????

If  they’re a moron, they’re guaranteed to come my way!

Man! Am I ever sick of STUPID STUFF. 

Who’s That Knockin’ at My Door?

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Just realized…. These days, I never answer the door when somebody comes a-knocking. Or a-doorbell ringing, either.

Seriously: it used to be — back in the Dark Ages — that when you went to someone’s house and rang the bell or knocked on the door, they answered by opening the door(!!) and greeting you. Today, I won’t open the door unless I know who’s out there.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. My front door is secured by a heavy-duty prison-like screen door, on the outside of the usual decoratively wooden door. So, the exterior door — the real one — has a set of bars and outside that, a thick sheet of solid metal screen. Getting through that would not be easy!

My next-door neighbor has a camera installed above the front door. It relays an image of any caller to a screen inside the door. And no, she won’t answer the door unless she knows who you are and why you’re there.

Awful that we have to be that scared, isn’t it?

One might say times have changed and so our door-answering customs have changed…the implication being that in the good ole’ days you didn’t have to worry about who or what was out on the doorstep.

But no. I don’t think the folks who show up at your door are any different than they used to be. If they’re not a friend or neighbor, then they’re trying to sell you something or (of late) they’re census takers, surveying the locals. It’s a rare bird that poses a real threat.

That notwithstanding: These days I peer out a window before I go to the door. If I don’t recognize the person, I don’t answer. Or else I holler through the window to ask them what they want — and nine times out of ten, send them away.

Now I will say: I don’t want to be hustled by some door-to-door seller. Period. So one reason that door doesn’t get answered is to make it easier to repel those jerks. As for census takers and the like: they need to show me a mighty authentic-looking ID to get me to the door.

Fine times we live in, eh?

If You Have the Right of Way…

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…Then forgodsake TAKE IT!!!!!

Do NOT stop in the intersection and sit there looking stupid!

WHY, for Godsake, do idiots insist on doing that???

NO, it’s NOT “polite” to sit there going duuuuhhhhh when a pedestrian who does not have the right-of-way is standing on the curb waiting for you to get the f*** out of the road!!!!!!!

Then there are the morons who see you walking along a sidewalk as you approach the curb to an intersection. They’re already IN the damn intersection, and they stop and…yeah: stop the car and sit there looking stupid!

Whenever I come across one of these chuckleheads, I actually have to TURN AROUND AND WALK BACK IN THE DIRECTION I CAME FROM to get the nitwit to take his or her right-of-way. And NO, I’m NOT gonna walk out in front of some idiot who already has the right-of-way in an intersection.

WHY are people such blooming DIMWITS?

Stupidity is annoying enough under the best of conditions. But forgodsake. When it’s 110° in the shade and the nitwit is standing there holding you up while he’s trying to be “polite,” it’s freaking infuriating. 

Sheee-ut!  READ THE RULES OF THE ROAD in your state. Learn them. Then — please!— ABIDE BY THEM. 

…and WHERE did my marbles go????

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If there was ever any question of whether I’m nuttier than a fruitcake, we just resolved it.

For the love of GAWD! I just stumbled in the house after walking home from the shops down on the corner of Main Drag South and Lunatic Road West. Whatever was the MATTER with me that I betook myself on a safari like that????? In the freakin’ middle of the afternoon???!?

Whatever marbles I might have awakened with this morning apparently rolled out my ears by the time I took off on that expedition. When we say “stupid,” we mean STUPID.

Hey. All I wanted to do was go into my favorite cheap liquor store and buy a bottle of more-or-less palatable cheap white wine.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

Even on a hot afternoon… Forgodsake, it’s only 105 out there just now. And for lovely uptown Arizona, that ain’t very hot.

Thought I was gunna DIE by the time I staggered in the front door!!! HOLEEE mackerel, is it hot out there!

Wunderground tells us it’s NOT that hot: only 102º….and no, for Arizona, that ain’t very hot. BUT….we’re also informed that we have 15% precipitation. And yeah…that is fairly damp for lovely uptown Phoenix.

Y’know….  If my son weren’t here, I’d be in San Francisco — where I belong — right this very minute.

And really: when my idiot parents decided to move to Sun City — dragging me into Arizona with them — I should have had enough sense to say Hell No I Won’t Go!!!!  And if I’d had that much brainpower, chances are very high that yes, I’d still be home in the Bay Area, whither my maternal relatives emanated.

But no. I didn’t have that much sense. And so now I’m paying the Stupidity Tariff. 

So…yeah. Where did my marbles go?

I dunno.

If I knew where they went, I would dig them out from under the bed…or wherever they rolled. But…they don’t seem to be there. 😮

Marbles….marbles…  Well, with them or without them: I hate Arizona!!! And if I could find a way — any way, anyhow — to get away from this place, by damn!  I surely would!