Coffee heat rising

Annals of the Floored & Flabbergasted

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…

😀

THIS Is Life in the 21st Century?

by

Holeeee shee-ut! I have been left SO FAR BEHIND in our fine 21st-century culture that I can’t even speak to today’s fine moderns.

Today, I sat in a Mayo Clinic doctor’s office while she explained to me, in words of one syllable, how to use a paper calendar!

No joke. Apparently their clients have become so accustomed to using electronic devices to track time and appointments that they no longer know HOW to use hard copy!

Understand: I’m an old lady. I’ve used paper calendars for the past SEVENTY YEARS. I do not need to be instructed in the use of a hard-copy calendar formatted as a booklet that you can carry in your purse.

So…I was just astonished when she launched into an explanation of how to use a paper pocket calendar to keep track of the current ailment. Incredibly, she assumed that I would not know how to use it.

It was a tiny sliver in the woodwork of a nightmare day. By the time we left, my son (who drove me out there) was not speaking to me. We made the entire hour-plus trip home in silence. That was jolly.

Clearly, I’ve outstayed my time on this planet. When the time finally comes to exit, stage left, I will not regret it. Of that, you may be sure.

Don’t get all panicked, please. I’m not ready to jump off the North Rim. Yet…

But consider: it’s true, we are living in a dystopic culture. It makes Brave New World look tame. All you’ve gotta do is look at the news of the day to know that. But…just passing day by day on the ground in America also will go a long way toward convincing you of it.

Soggy Doggy Day

by

Just back from a morning doggy-walk, waiting for the water to heat up enough to make coffee. Wunderground says it’s 93 degrees out there; 15% humidity; expected high: 113.

Wouldn’tcha know it: M’hijito and I have to traipse to the FAR SIDE of north Scottsdale to go to another brain-numbing, BOOOORING get-together of the mentally challenged. Since everyone but me has decided that I’m now non compos mentis, I have to drag out there and listen to these people go on about how they forgot to pull up their underwear or forgot to eat their breakfast…on and on and endlessly on.

What an agonizing waste of time. Two hours trudging back and forth, and then a good three hours listening to old buzzards tell us what they forgot. Forgodsake. I know, already, that I forget things!

  • I know, already, that it’s normal for old people to forget stuff that they never would have spaced ten years ago.
  • I know, already, that there’s precious little anyone can do about it.
  • I know, already, to keep lists of upcoming appointments and to-do’s.
  • I know, already, to make notes on important tasks and meetings and events.
  • I KNOW, ALREADY, GODDAMMIT!!!!!!!

And I do NOT need to kill five hours traipsing back and forth to listen to a bunch of old folks complain about being old. That’s five hours of time I need to spend on a client’s current book project.

Well, speaking of killing time: I’d better quit bellyaching and fix some food and coffee, so as to be fortified before the kid gets here. Ugh!

This is gonna be a bi!ch of a day!

112 degrees and…and…

by

FOGGY?????

Great Galloping Gods! No kidding: it’s 112 in the shade of the back porch, and lurking to north of us is a low cloud bank that looks for all the world like fog.

W?

T?

F?

Just got back from galloping around town in the heat. Dropped by the mechanic’s to describe the car’s latest eccentricity. She (yep: she ) wasn’t unduly concerned. She described what to watch for. Explained if and when to come back.

Over to Sprouts. Of COURSE they didn’t have what I wanted.

Through the heat to the Albertson’s. If the air is 112, what is the temperature of a parking lot’s asphalt?

Wunderground says the ambient air is 114º; predicted low tonight: 92º. Balmy.

This would not be an out-of-the-ordinary summer temperature…except…the real problem is, it’s humid out there. Hence: the fog-like stuff. It feels like effing Saudi Arabia.

How on earth my harbor-pilot father managed to work 8-hour shifts on those docks just mystifies me. How did ANY of those guys survive?

Frazzling up some chicken and some French fries on the grill. Hope the damn thing cools off enough to throw the plastic cover over it before that storm comes rolling in.

Must feed dog, so she’ll be wrung out (with any luck) before said storm comes rolling in.

 

Such Good Pay…

by

Ah, yes. I remember it well: My mother landing a job at the business office of the apartment development where we lived in San Francisco: Park Merced. It was a pretty place to live — even a beautiful place: upper-middle class, with handsome, modernistic high-rise apartments and sweet little garden apartments. Priced on the high side of San Francisco’s ever-pricey middle range. My father agreed to let us live there while he went back to sea, pretty much as a reward to my mother for spending ten years in the Hell-hole that was Saudi Arabia.

He was a cheapskate of the first water, though. Resented having to spend any of his (truly!) hard-earned cash on much of anything. And so, though I never heard them arguing about it (they didn’t argue in front of the brat), I’m sure he objected to the cost of the rent there.

No doubt feeling guilty (if not bored), my mother took a job in the development’s rental office, as a receptionist.

She earned $300 a month…and was downright awed! “Such good pay for a woman!” she crowed.

My father was less impressed. As a sea captain, he earned a living wage and then some. There really was no need for her to go to work, and the peanuts they paid her made little or no difference to our living standard. That, in general, was true of what most women were paid, back in the Day.

But y’know…this afternoon I had cause to reflect that even today I would have serious trouble living on what I could earn, with a Ph.D., a string of published books, and a track record of university-level academic jobs.

I happened to peruse real estate ads in our neighborhood. And…

hooooleee shee-ut!

Prices have gone through the proverbial roof!

The first place I bought here, about a block to the north and a block to the west of the present Funny Farm, cost a hundred grand. That amount equaled the my father’s lifetime goal for the savings he figured he would need to retire on. Just for the house alone!

  • Not for a car.
  • Not for living expenses.
  • Not for taxes.
  • Not for locking myself away in a nursing home when I get too decrepit to take care of myself.

My house is now paid off, over my financial advisor’s objections. And I think there’s enough left in savings to support me until they cart me off to a nursing home.

But…

But…….

Meanwhile, the alleged value of this house has gone SOOOO high that frankly, I’m not sure I can pay the taxes on it. Real estate prices have Californicated madly. Realtor.com thinks my house is worth $528,700. Redfin begs to differ, pegging the reasonable price at $629,873.

You understand: I paid an even $100,000 to get into this neighborhood — in a house that is the same model as this one. And thought that was ridiculous. It’s less than 1900 square feet. It’s magnificently crime-ridden, thanks to the slums just to the north of us. And if you give a damn about your  kids’ education — and would just as soon not have them tripping over a dead body on way into the local school (yes!!) — you would put your kid in a private or parochial school.

And supposedly this place is worth almost SIX TIMES what I paid for it????

SDXB moved to Sun City partly to get away from Tony the Romanian Landlord (a threat who lived right next-door to him at the time), but partly to escape the soaring property taxes in this area.

Prices have shot up over in Sun City, too, but not into the stratosphere….largely, I think, because most people in our generation don’t relish living in a ghetto for old folks. Plus it’s pretty remote from the central part of the city, where those things that are of interest in these parts take place.

If in fact this house is worth what the real estate sites claim, when I croak over my son will inherit assets totaling well over a million dollars. And that doesn’t count the value of his house. Or the amount his dad will leave him.

If he sells both places, he can move to Colorado and live like a king — secretly, he’d like to retire to Grand Junction, whence his grandparents came. He not only will get the value of my house and his, he also will get whatever remains in my investment accounts. Plus whatever his dad leaves him.

{chortle!} The kid will be a freakin’ millionaire.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean what it used to. It may not mean very much, come to think of it. But…better than a hit on the head, I guess.

Real estate values in Grand Junction aren’t much less than they are here. In fact, some of them by comparison are outright crazy. Right: to live out in the middle of fu**in’ nowhere!

Come to think of it, though…. Given a choice between Sun City and Grand Junction, I’d take Grand Junction any day.

Mercifully, that is not I choice I have to make. Not at the time being, anyway.

*****

Another Day, Another Little Cri$i$

by

Homeownership: The Continuing Adventure. What a joy!

Tuesday, June 18

Today’s frolic is a busted door lock. A new workman. A pile of new bills.

Yes. The back door lock jammed. Got it unjammed, but in the process busted the door knob. This made it impossible to secure the door closed.

Fortunately, all the house’s exterior doors are double-secured with heavy-duty steel security doors, locked with heavy-duty monster locks. So: no problem with the local burglars.

The  problem is getting the damn thing fixed.

Called my favorite lock company. Along about mid-afternoon, their guy showed up. Dorked around a bit with the mess: the whole doorknob set had fallen off in the course of my fiddling with it.

So. Yeah. Now he’s ordered a new lockset. He’ll be back to install it whenever the hell it comes in. Ducky.

Good thing, eh, that this neighborhood is such a sh!t-show that all exterior doors need to be graced with them thar heavy-duty steel doors. Otherwise the dawg and I would have to go somewhere else to spend the night. Yes, Virginia: that IS how unsafe it would be to spend a night here without lockable steel screen doors.

Isn’t this cute? WordPress seems to have dropped the feature that lets you enter a color for passages of your font. So that does a number on my habit of using red type as an accent for FaM posts. Ducky.

*********

Wednesday, June 19

Jeez. Never did get this posted. But I did (re-)figure out how to enter colored type. That’s somethin’. I guess.

A fine series of catastrophes has ensued since last I scribbled here.

Just now my car sits in the garage, basically undriveable. I think I can get it started (haven’t tried). If so, it goes straight to the Goodyear garage. If not, I’ll have to walk up there, a 15-minute hike through the humid heat, dodging creeps every inch of the way.

boyoboy, i can hardly wait.

Welp, one nice thing about it is that this pre-empts the proposed journey to Sun City, there to do battle over my parents’ ashes.

Under the best of circumstances, that would be something I do NOT wanna do. With a car that may just barely be limping along, that journey is officially out of the question.

****

The most colorful of our adventures struck in the middle of the night. Along about two or three in the morning, the car’s horn started to blare.

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

ON AND BLASTINGLY ON…

…and I couldn’t turn it off!

My garage is right next to my neighbor’s bedroom. So that meant this serenade was slamming her awake even more colorfully than it was blowing me out of the sack.

Finally, after about 45 minutes of this, I managed to shut it down. How, I do not know. No clue why it finally went off…unless it broke the horn altogether.

Evidently, it’s some kind of vandalism. But how the midnight creeps did it, I do not know. This morning I took it by the Goodyear garage up on the corner.

They didn’t have a clue.

Took it over to the Toyota place this noon. They didn’t know, either.

No way could anybody have gotten into the garage. So whatever they did, they accomplished it remotely.

Hope it doesn’t happen again tonight. If it does, I dunno what I’ll do.

There is a police station up in Sunnyslop — not one that’s easy to access. And there’s a fire station down south on one of the main drags. If it starts again tonight, I guess I’ll have to drive to one of those places and see if a manly type there can shut it off.

And now to our moment at hand…

One ringie-dingie

Two ringie-dingies

Three ringie-dingies

Caller ID: “Spam”

Pick up the effing phone.

* And what would you want, Spam?

* Uhhhh…heh….

* GET OFF MY F***ING PHONE AND STAY OFF MY F***ING PHONE!

Man! Am I sick of the goddamned phone solicitors!!!!

Seriously: phone solicitation ought to be against the law. What a f***in’ NUISANCE!

****

…and…

GAAAAAHHHHH!

****

Wonder-Cleaning Lady has apparently — once again — deep-sixed the window squeegee.

She seems to have hand-washed (call that “hand-smeared”) the west-facing Arcadia door. What a mess!

So I go to get some paper towels and the squeegeee and the window cleaner and…

and…

and…

NOPE!

No squeegee, anyplace to be found!

DAMMIT! This is the second time she’s done that.

But WHY does she do it? Why not just tell me that the damned squeegee wore out?

Tried to clean the window with Windex and paper towels. Got approximately 10 feet x 12 feet of smeared glass.

{sigh}

I should get off my duff and go get another squeegee right now, shouldn’t I?

Wonder if Albertson’s carries them…

DARN it, I don’t want to go out into the traffic (again!) in a no doubt futile trip to buy a squeegee. Guess I should order it from Amazon, eh?

Hmmmm… Six bucks, plus delivery charges.

On the other hand, come to think of it…the last thing I ordered from Amazon — a bottle opener — has never showed up.

I think what’s happening is they’re delivering packages to the wrong address. We have two streets by the same name here, running parallel: Erewhon LANE and Erewhon WAY. Delivery and service folks get them confused all the time. For Amazon, I add to my address in ALL CAPS “Erewhon WAY, not Lane!”

Guess if you could read, you’d have a better job than trundling around delivering packages.

Actually, that’s not fair. The porch pirates here actually follow delivery trucks. Stop in front of the mark’s house. Jump out of their car. Run up to the door. Grab the package. Run back to their car. Drive off after the truck.

One of the neighbors, a techie guy who delights in gadgetry, set up cameras at his front door and caught this caper in action. So…that’s probably what happened here.

Well, I’d better get off my duff. Now I need both a squeegee AND a bottle opener.

And so…{grrowwwllll} AWAYYYYY!