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Annals of the Floored & Flabbergasted

Outta Here?

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Hmmmm…. IS it time to get outta here?

I’m thinking, the more I contemplate events of the past week or so, that it surely is time: that I need to get on the road NOW, not later. Hire a Realtor to unload the palace. Pack up the chariot. Toss the dawg in and jump in after her. And take off in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes.

This situation is NOT good. At best, we’re looking at weeks or months or — gawd forfend, more(!) — of harassment and hassle from the Authorities. Having to hire a lawyer. Putting up a fight while pretending to be on my best behavior.

At worst, we’re looking at my son being prosecuted, me being adjudicated, my home being lost to pay lawyers’ fees…holeeee shit!

Dayum.

Where would I go?

I dunno. La Maya and La Bethulia took up residence in a trailer on the Pacific Coast. I might make my way to their trailer park and try to buy a place there.

Colorado, maybe? I rather like DXH’s home town, Grand Junction. It’s a little hickish for my taste. But still…it does have its rustic appeal. With any luck, maybe it’s too far out in the sticks to attract nosy social workers.

Where else?

Mexico. Low cost of living. Balmy (often hot) weather. Awesome Mexican food! 😀

Deeper into Latin America?  Hmmm…a bit more of a Learning Experience than I care to take on at this age. But…ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I guess.

Great Britain?  Been there, done that. Not fond of being that cold. Or damp.

Moving: it really doesn’t appeal to me. Especially not moving out of the country. So that leaves, as a choice, hanging in here and taking my chances with Big Brother and his social workers.

And that DOES leave me not knowing which way to jump. Common sense tells me to get the Hell out of here while I can. But inertia tells me to lean back, prop my feet on the hassock, and relax.

 

Weird-weather Day

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Just back from marching thru the ‘Hood with Ruby the Corgi. 

ICK! What a weird morning. It’s overcast…and hot! Doubt if it will rain — that would cool it off, eh? None o’ that nonsense in these sylvan pastures!

😀

We strolled down into Lower Richistan, an affluent neighborhood to the south of the ‘Hood. The houses are older and, oddly, not very interesting. Not an area that I would choose to live in, if I had that kinda money.

While strolling: Contemplate the latest weird predicament. 

Yesterday a pair of women showed up at my front door, identifying themselves as state social workers. Somebody had reported me as a victim of abuse!

Yeah…right: admire this black eye, eh?  /s/

Holeeee shee-ut! 

Apparently some “friend” of mine — which one it is, I think I know — decided out of the blue that my son is being abusive to me.

Got that?

My son: the guy who drives me from pillar to post, who helps with the paperwork, who arranges appointments for me at the Mayo and drives me way to hell & gone out there, who runs interference with the bank when I screw up my books….on and ever-so-abusively on. /eyeroll/

So I had to fend off that pair of fruitcakes. Whether I succeeded in getting rid of them, I do not know…but very much doubt it.

I probably need to call a lawyer and get him or her lined up and armed for battle. Problem is, mine croaked over a few weeks ago…and I don’t have anyone to take his place.

WhatEVER could have possessed my “friend” to pull a damnfool stunt like that?

The sheer hassle factor…oh gawd! It makes me cringe!

Well, she’s not my “friend” any more. I won’t have another thing to say to her after this.

And…after this I won’t answer the door, not unless I’m expecting someone and I can see that the desired “someone” is out there.

Tired of Stupid!!!!!!!

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So a few minutes before 8 a.m., Ruby the Corgi and I get back to the house after an hour’s trudge through unholy heat and humidity. ALL I WANT is to get back in the house, back in the air-conditioning, and sit down with a glass of water in my paw.

But nooooooo….NOT A CHANCE!

As we approach the front yard, we find a dog-loving moron standing there, with her own overheated hound. She awaits our approach, simpering inanely.

Dammit. If you’ve lived with a dog longer than six months you should know: Dogs are NOT your little “furbabies”! They’re CARNIVORES. Tribal carnivores, whose instinct is to defend themselves and their fellow pack members against all comers.

No matter how pea-brained the comer!

Problem is, city folk tend to confuse dogs with kids. They think their dog is on a par with their eight-year-old. And they imagine you think the same. Gawdlmighty, these people are stupid!

So we try to go around the front-yard visitor. This doesn’t work. She and her dog come to greet us.

GO! AWAY! YOU IDIOT!

No amount of attempted mental telepathy or body language helps. She comes bounding over to us. And yeah…right off, the two dogs go at it!

Jayzuz, am I tired of stupid!!!!!

We — Ruby and I — manage to get inside the gate without bloodshed. But it was close. Very close.

Can’t say this kind of stupid stuff happens every time Ruby and I go out for a walk. If it did, we wouldn’t go walking. But it surely does happen enough to annoy the Hell outta you.

Actually, it happens enough to lead me to think maybe I shouldn’t go out walking with Ruby. At all.

Hate to do that! Ruby needs the exercise. And so do I.

But jeez. One of these days, somebody — canine or human — is gonna get hurt!

Another Beautiful Day in Arizona…

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“Leave us all enjoy it,” as one long-gone local radio personality used to intone, every morning.

Ugh! I’d like to leave it, all right. 

But with M’hijito living here in town, I’m ain’t about to go anywhere.

Leave us all enjoy it. Sure. Right now it’s a chilly 95 in the shade of the back porch overhang. That’s at 8:05 in the morning.

Ruby and I just got back from circumambulating the park: an hour’s walk through the swampy morning. Ugh!!!

Oh well. At least we both got exercised.

Speaking of sons (as M’hijito happens to be, of mine), we walked (again) past the house where the couple’s son got caught in some sort of hijinks and was shipped off to the state prison.

They lost their home. The sleazy investors who glommed it have never tried to rent or sell it. It just sits there, deteriorating: falling apart. Neighbors must have complained, because now they’ve beat back the weeds and they keep the rotting wood picked up. More recently they did some repairs and painted.

But it’s still an eyesore.

In a fancy neighborhood of million-dollar homes. Right on the park.

Ruby-doo is still COOKED. She sitting here on the tiles, panting.

One of the advantages, I reckon, of not being covered in a coat of thick fur is that the fans in the house can cool you off.

Just now, though, I’m feeling kind of advantageless.

Those terrifying “social workers” who showed up here yesterday and gave me the third degree left me very scared. And by damn, I’m still scared.

Whatever they wanted, whatever they were up to: it couldn’t have been good for me.

This morning I tried to call a lawyer…and discovered my guys have evaporated into the fog! One has died. One no longer practices where he used to, and that place is not handing out his new phone number…if he even has one.

And..well…  I must say, I am SO alarmed by the “social worker” visit, wherein a couple of officious types tried to quiz me and extract a bunch of private information from me, that I seriously do think I should pack up my car, throw the dog in it, and drive away.

Now, not later.

Frankly, if I had someplace to drive to, that’s exactly what I would do.

But…WHERE?

My California relatives are all either dead or gone. No refuge in those parts.

Reasonable out-of-state venues are in New Mexico, parts of California, Colorado, and maybe Texas. But…the Texas relatives are dead. I can’t afford so much as to camp out in California. And New Mexico? What would I do there and where would I go???

************
Later

Well…for one thing, calm the hysteria. 😀

No, I’m not real pleased with the visit from the “social workers,” or whatever-the-hell they were. And I’m concerned that they’ll descend on my son in the middle of his very busy workday.

He does work out of his home — on his employer’s dime, which fits out a nice office and electronics and phones. So if they show up there and start pestering him, they’ll chomp big bites of paid time out of his day.

Hm. If he tells them to get lost, that no doubt will be counted against him. So he’s in the damned-if-do/damned-if-don’t trap.

****

Lately, I’ve found my daydreaming moments haunted by my late mother.  She smoked herself to death, y’know.

No kidding: the poor woman hardly passed a conscious moment without a cancer stick in her mouth. The first thing she’d do in the morning, the instant she woke up, is light a cigarette. The last thing she’d do in the evening, as she was turning out the light by her bed, is smoke a cigarette.

In between, she puffed away pretty much nonstop.

She must have been so dependent on the nicotine that she had to have a fix before any period that was likely to pass without a cigarette. And the damn things killed her.

Not a pleasant way to go, we might add.

***

In even flakier precincts, I find myself irresistibly wondering WHO sicced those flakey social workers on me.

If social workers they were. I suppose they could’ve been some kind of private snoops that someone sent over to poke into my business.

But I don’t think so. Probably they really were what they said they were: state workers sent to snoop.  But WHY? And sent by WHOM?

Those are the nervous-making questions.

****

Welp…no point in obsessing about it. But…I’ll tellya, if I could afford to pack up and move outta here, I’d be on my way to Colorado as we scribble.

 

 

 

In the Land of Looney Toons…

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Welp, speaking of Looney: I’ve lost the post I was writing. In it, I went on at length about an alarming incident: a surprise visit from a pair of social workers, who apparently were trying to elicit evidence that some of my marbles have rolled out my ears.

Luckily, Wonder Cleaning-Lady had just been here, so the house was spotless. Presumably, then, they did not conclude from a slovenly mess that I’m too marble-free to take care of myself. 😀

At least…I hope not.

Lemme tellya: these folks are REALLY scary. A significant part of their job appears to involve deciding whether you’re well enough to live in your home and take care of yourself. From what I can tell, when they show up, you’re at some risk — very possibly significant risk — of being declared non compos mentis and locked up in a facility.

One of the alarming characteristics of such folks is that they have no sense of humor. They seriously can not distinguish between something you say in jest and something you really mean seriously.

One of my schticks, for example, is the very silly proposition that I’m a-gunna throw myself off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

I have to ask you: How silly is that? And…if a person were really going to do such a thing, do you seriously believe they’d babble on about it in a casual conversation? Holy sh!t. Obviously, if I were going to kill myself by leaping into the air and plunging several thousand feet down a cliff, I wouldn’t tell you about it first. Would I?

So without thinking, I let part of this joke out, and HOLEEEE SHEE-UT! You’d have thought I took out a pistol and stuck its barrel in my ear.

Okay, after I calm the two down a bit, the conversation devolves into a discussion of a silly incident that followed on a quarrel SDXB and I had while he still lived in the ’Hood — years ago!

I don’t even recall what we squabbled about. But in a fit of pique, I stalked out of his house and charged off down the road, figuring to take a walk and burn off some rage.

For reasons that I also do not recall, I took it into my pea brain to walk up an alley. I think the deal was that this alley went straight from the residential street where I was walking to the street just south of my house, effectively creating a short-cut home. In stomping up this alley in the dark, I got turned around, and….eeeps! I got lost! I couldn’t tell which way was north and which way west, the directions I needed to know to get back home.

A party was going in one of the back yards, so I stopped there and asked if they could tell me which way I needed to go to reach Main Drag West. For reasons I do not know, this bunch now calls the cops, telling them a disoriented woman is wandering loose in the alley.

When the cops arrive, they quite reasonably think I’ve lost a few marbles.

You can see which way this is going, right?

I got them to take me back to SDXB’s place, where together we were able to persuade the cops that I was not stoned and not crazy, and that SDXB would take care of me for the rest of the evening.

And so it went: he drove me home; I went to bed; and that (I imagined….) was the end of that.

BUT… Apparently this escapade went into my permanent record. 

Yes. Did you know you have a record, whether or not you’re a criminal type? Be aware that whatever shenanigans you get into, even the most innocent, go into this record…

Now — several years later! — when these social workers show up in my living room, they know all about this long-ago escapade, and they suspect it’s evidence that my marbles are loose.

No kidding. 

  • Have I ever been arrested?
  • Have I ever gotten into any trouble with the cops, with my employer, at the church, with my fellow crazed drivers?
  • Am I stone cold sober at the time?
  • Do I act like I’m crazy with these women?
  • Am I coherent and level-headed?

Forgodsake: the correct answers to these questions are no, no, yes, no, and yes. I emit all of these correct answers, and prove those answers by my behavior.

Nevertheless, they decide I’m nuts and file a report with their agency to that effect. So now I have an official record as a nut case, and as far as I can tell there is NO way to change that.

Hafta tell you: I don’t know what to do about this episode. Obviously, I need to call a lawyer. But my lawyer recently died! I called his office and got no answer there. So I have no idea which way to jump.

Monday, I’m gonna have to get on the phone and start calling lawyers, at random, until I can get someone to talk with me. And hope I can get them to position themselves between me and the Authorities.

Really. This is scary enough that if my son didn’t live here, I’d pack up my house and leave the state, right now. But he is here. So I’m staying…very possibly to end up in some institution.

Quite some society we live in these days, eh? Orwell set 1984 about 41 years too soon. 

Why?

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I do believe that she knew what she was doing.

She knew smoking causes cancer. That revelation was in every print and broadcast medium in the English language.

She knew what dying of cancer was about. She had watched her mother die of it as she attended the woman on her deathbed.

She knew her sidestream smoke was making her little girl sick. And sick. And sicker.

She knew her effing cigarettes infested every air-conditioning system, from the car’s to their apartment’s to her new home’s. She knew the car stank and her home stank to high heaven because of her smoking habit.

If you knew your toxic habit was making your kid sick…if you knew it was stinking up your home and your car…if you knew it was killing you…WHY would you keep on with it?

Seriously: no matter how much your smelly habit pleased you, no matter how much it distracted you from the petty miseries of everyday life, no matter how much you loved the stink of burning tobacco…WHY would you stick with it when you knew it was poisoning your child? The child you wanted so much that you went through three failed pregnancies to get her?

That just mystifies me. She couldn’t NOT have known. And so the only conclusion you can draw is that at some level she was doing it on purpose. She wanted to die.

She smoked herself into the grave because she welcomed the grave. 

She welcomed it so much she didn’t care whether her daughter went there with her. Hey—maybe so much the better, eh? She wouldn’t be lonely there…

Seriously: I was sick all the time I was growing up, living in the stinky houses where she poisoned the air with her stench.

There really is no other explanation than that, at some level, she welcomed death — the death she knew those fukkin’ cancer sticks would bring her. Why she would put her beloved daughter and her fine husband at risk, too: that mystifies me. Suicide is one thing; murder is another.

She did succeed in killing herself. She died of a tobacco-induced cancer.

She seems to have failed at doing me in, too. So far, I haven’t developed a terminal cancer. That we know of…

***

I never could understand the stupidity of it. But I never did well at understanding stupidity in general.

Seriously: she wasn’t a stupid woman. She knew her habit would kill her and, at best, make her child sick. So…why??????

What on earth possessed her?

Yeah, I know: addiction.

But she was amply endowed with psychological resources. She was smart — you can be sure she knew what she was doing to herself. She was capable of making up her mind to accomplish something and then doing that something. She doted on her child and surely didn’t want to make the kid sick on purpose.

She was aware that I was sick all the time with chronic respiratory ailments. The connection between the mom’s cancer sticks and the kid’s constant coughing was obvious.

We live in a society that criminalizes self-harm by addiction to various drugs. Why do we tolerate self-harm by nicotine addiction? Why do deliberately harming children by choking them with toxic smoke?

Oh yeah. Why did I need to ask?

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