Coffee heat rising

Annals of the Floored & Flabbergasted

…and Again… Still Hotter than Hades!

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Quickie circumnavigation of the block, by way of running off some neurotic frustration. Come 2:30 in the afternoon, the pavement out there is WAY too hot for Ruby the Corgi’s little feet. So, to her disgust, she got left home while her human sweltered its way down the road.

HOLEE mackerel, it’s hot out there! Back porch thermometer reads 109 degrees: fully in the shade! 

Ugh!  WHY do I stay in this godawful place?

Well: there’s a question…one that drives the next question: WHERE would I go other than this godawful place?

My son is here, and I have no desire to move away from him. Nor do I have any desire to move TO the alternatives.

  • San Francisco Bay Area: love it, but can’t afford it
  • Southern California: and how is that any better than here?
  • San Diego: don’t know anyone there anymore; don’t wanna start all over
  • Ft. Worth, Texas: All my relatives have moved or croaked over; don’t know anyone left there

On and on…really, there isn’t anyplace where I’d rather live than here.

Actually, Arizona has a lot to recommend it, surprisingly enough.

Phoenix is an actual big city, with big-city amenities.

When I was teaching, Arizona State University (on the other side of the Valley) paid a decent salary and hired me full-time.

This place does have a cultural life, believe it or not: two excellent museums in Phoenix alone, plus a couple of theater troupes and historical museums and three universities — one of them nationally prominent — and a plethora of historic sites, and…on and on. It’s a pretty nice and reasonably interesting place to live, to tell the truth.

And it has slews of decent restaurants — including some that exceed decent. I no longer eat out, but when Dear Husband was in the offing, we raided the local eateries a couple times a week.

****

And now it’s coming on to 6:00 p.m. Cleaning Lady from Heaven is still blasting around, bless her. Outside: 108 degrees, or so we’re told by Wunderground. Could be: it’s hotter than the hubs out there.

Talk about jobs you’d druther not have! Cleaning people’s houses: eek! 

She does an excellent job…well, actually, she’s a Godsend. This place is beyond spotless by the time she goes out the door.

And what that means, in the current short run, is that the next time the government busybodies come over here to inspect my lifestyle, they’ll think I run around cleaning my house every day.

Yes. Somebody sends busybodies to check on me. They come from some office in the State of Arizona. So far they’ve been  no worse than a passing nuisance — largely, I suspect, because of this fine woman’s work. Yes: I do clean my house…but nothing like as magnificently as she does. Last time the State’s spies dropped by, she had just been here…and so they saw…

* no dust anywhere
* freshly vacuumed and mopped tile floors throughout (the shack has no carpets)
* sparkling clean kitchen counters and appliances
* sparkling clean bathrooms
* a freshly made bed
* shiny clean windows

She’s just finishing up right now…and once again the place is as clean and organized as a museum.

I do hope Big Brother’s last inspection actually will be the last. That surprise descent upon my home was truly infuriating! Who they HELL do they think they are, nosing through my house? Out of the blue, without my invitation or permission!

Anyway, if we’ve gotten rid of those busybodies, it will be solely because of CL from H’s excellent work. 

Hotter Than the Hubs!

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Seriously: It must be a jillion degrees in the shade out there in the back yard.

Okay, okay: hold the melodrama. Let’s see what Wunderground says the temp really is:

Brrrrr! A chilly 103 degrees in the shade!

Who’d’ve thunk it was that crisp out there? Predicted high for today: 105 degrees. Tomorrow: 107.

Lovely. Garden spot!

WHY do I stay in this place????

Oh yeah: because the Kid lives here.

Be assured: if my fine son weren’t parked in this berg, I wouldn’t be, either!

LOL! Truth to tell, I’m coming to hate living in Phoenix — L.A. East. Too hot, too Los Angelized, too grody, too damn bourgeois.

{sigh}

Given that my son is parked here, though, I guess I’m not moving away. Ain’t movin’ away from where that kid lives!

His presence, though, doesn’t make me like living here any more than I already hate it.

Ohhh well: no point in belly-aching…doesn’t do any good, does it?

Hafta say: I ain’t fond of Phoenix.

Where would I go, if I could escape?

Not Sun City, that’s for damn sure!!  😀

Actually, if I were gonna stay in Arizona, one of my residence spots of choice would be the Oro Valley, a suburb on the north side of Tucson. A little wide spot situated beneath the Santa Catalina Mountains, it’s moderately upscale, reasonably safe, and very pretty. Certainly cooler during the summer.

In the absence of my son, I’d move down there in an instant.

But…he’s here. So I’m here.

And that’s that! 😀

 

Morning in Lovely(?) Arizona

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The Corgi is out back, sniffing every corner of the yard — her daily task, right? The Human loafs, feet on the hassock, computer on the lap. All is quiet…for the nonce.

Not looking forward to this morning, though. M’Hijito has hired a babysitter to come in and supervise me, forgodsake. Today, as I understand it, is to be her first day on the job.

It’s only a little after seven, and so we presumably have an hour or two before she surfaces.

Once the poor soul is welcomed into the Funny Farm and has a chance to look around, we’ll have to try to get to know each other. And since Funny is in fact One Weird Chick, …heh!!  We’ll see how long she lasts!

😀

Seriously: I am a strange little broad and always have been, since I was a little kid. As a child, I had hardly any friends, because I did not and could not fit in with the crowd.

Over half a century of life on this earth indeed has taught me to keep my mouth shut. But that’s easy enough when the victim…uh…companion isn’t living with you. When you’ve got someone in your face all day long…well…that’s a whole ‘nother story.

So, truth to tell, even though I’m interested to meet this new person, I’m sure not looking forward to it.

By now Ruby and I would have circumambulated the ‘Hood on our morning walk. Instead, we’ve had to sit here and wait for the babysitter to show up. Of course, she has not done so, and because June is one of the hotter months in lovely central Arizona, our chance for a doggy-walk is already lost.

Since it’s unreasonable to ask some poor underpaid soul to surface before 7 in the morning, I’ll have to go over to the locksmith’s shop and have him make another key, to give to this lady. That will allow her to get into the house while Ruby and I are out junketing around the neighborhood.

Just what I wanna do: hand out front-door keys to all and sundry…

Meanwhile, my office looks like a bomb dropped in there. WHAT a mess! Instead of loafing here playing with the computer, I should be back there shoveling out that room.

Ugh! Grand way to start the day, eh?

This is part of what makes my character weird: I don’t like people telling me what to do with my life or what to do with my time. 

Ever has it been thus. So…school was a PITA. Organized sports: PITA. Church activities: PITA.

Huh….  What happened over the years to incline me to dislike other people so?

Hmmmm…

Well: my earliest memory is of the time I was playing in a sandbox with a neighbor’s two brats. I was under three years old, because this happened before we left for Arabia…and we arrived in that sylvan realm a day before I turned three.

We’re sitting there in a sandbox in front of the house my mother had rented in Berkeley, California. The neighbor’s two brats are there, too, playing with me.

I imagine we’re all having a good time, when the brat girl picks up a load of sand in her little kiddie shovel and SLAMS IT INTO MY FACE. 

Slams it into my EYES.

Oh, my god! Never has anything hurt so much, before or since.

And there you are, folks:

That is how I learned to dislike and to distrust other people. That lesson, we might add, has never been forgotten.

And that’s why I don’t want strangers in my home. It’s why I don’t want the babysitter my son has hired in my home. It’s why just now I do not want to sit here waiting for the woman to show up; but instead I crave to be striding around the park behind a bouncing corgi.

Humanity: God’s gift to Satan.

Hotter & Hotter

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Another balmy day in Arizona: “only” 111 degrees in the shade of the back porch.

Got that right: a hundred and eleven in the shade. 

Ain’t goin’ out into the sunlight…wouldn’t matter, because I don’t have a portable thermometer.

Greater horrors await, though. 

Horrifically, indeed: the beloved WonderAccountants have just announced that they’re retiring! Of all the outrages!!!

This is a disaster for me, because I am innumerate. No: really and truly innumerate. It’s a kind of learning disability: haven’t ever been able to do basic  arithmetic. I understand the principles, but the process is just…blinding.

My father used to try to beat arithmetic into me, when I was a little girl. No kidding: he’d whip the bejayzuz out of me when I got things wrong…which was about every 30 seconds. This did nothing to enamor me of mathematical calculation. Today I can’t add up a column of figures without an electronic calculator

My son does understand about tax accounting, at least on a superficial level. So I may be able to foist the job on him…at the cost of a vast guilt trip on my part.

Truth to tell, though, I’m gonna have to find someone else to take on the noxious tax calculation task.

Well, the WonderAccountants have done this year’s tax job. That gives me a year to find some other victim to lure into the net. Sure not looking forward to it!!

So…mwa ha ha! I guess we could say things are heating up all the way around: on a literal level and on a metaphorical level.

“Another Beautiful Day in Arizona”

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Okay, it’s “only” 96 degrees out there, at 8 o’clock in the morning. So saith Wunderground. Whatever: it’s HOT and it’s MUGGY. Ruby and I just staggered in from an hour’s walk…one of those excursions that leaves you wondering why on earth anyone would ever choose to live in this place.

Well. No snow in the winter. I guess.

But I’ll tellya: we used to live in San Francisco. And I’ll take fog and cold air over air so soggy at 8:00 in the morning that you can barely breathe. If my son weren’t here, I’d have shot out of here the minute my father died: yea, those many years ago.

Weather like this brings to mind the Good Ole Days in Saudi Arabia. You wanna talk about chez pitz? Jeez!!!! You’d wake up in the morning to a clear blue sky and see water dripping off the eaves, like it had just rained. HIDEOUS place!

After we left that garden spot — my father sent me and my mother home after she came down with a roaring case of amoebic dysentery and damn near died from it — we landed in San Francisco, where I went to junior high school.

Would that we could have stayed there! But ohhhhh nooo… After a few years my father landed a job shipping tankers out of Southern California. So it was off to lovely /s/ Long Beach.

I had been born in Long Beach, so my mother was familiar with the place. She was never a complainer: always looked at the positive side of things. But…ugh!!! Compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, it was chez pitz with a vengeance.

Oh, well. That’s there, not here. 😀 Here, it’s hot, it’s wet, it’s bourgeois, it’s icky. If I could move outta here today, I’d be on the road right now.

But alas, that ain’t gonna happen.

My son is established here. His dad and New Wife are living happily ever after here. I’m retired and would like never to see another university campus again. And so…here is where we are. 

 

Hotter Than the Hubs!

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5:20 p.m., Tuesday, January 16
Temperature in the deepest shade of the back porch: 111°

Holeeee Maquerel! Just stumbled in the house from (stupidly!) walking around the neighborhood.

If the unholy heat weren’t bad enough, I’ve managed to inflict a whole lot of equally dangerous behavior on myself: beer after beer after beer, every goddamn day!

Yes. My swizzling habit has returned. Not — mercifully — with a vengeance…but enough that I’ve been swilling two or three alcoholic drinks a day.

Holee shee-ut!  WAKE UP, ya dumb broad!

Staggering through yesterday’s heat, one clear thought finally struck me: GOTTA GET OFF THE SAUCE! 

Once.
and.
For All.  

So here we are, stone cold sober, sitting in a living-room chair emanating gawdawful heat from this afternoon’s (very stupid!) walk through the neighborhood heat.

Yeah. Wunderground claims it’s 105 degrees out there. But the thermometer in the shade of my back porch indeed does read 111 degrees. 

Floating in from the north and the east are banks and blankets of soggy-looking clouds. Ugh!! 

Well…I’ve managed to get into the air-conditioning while clinging to life. If I survive long enough, I’ll jump into the bathtub. But later. Not now.

New cleaning-lady surfaced today. Very nice woman! Smart and interesting. She worked very hard…oh gawd! Talk about jobs you’re glad you don’t have!  At any rate, I hope she’ll be back, so I can hire her on a permanent basis.

If not…these woods are full of cleaning ladies: in less than two weeks, I’ll have someone permanent in here.

Meanwhile, though, the WonderAccountants have taken it into their heads to retire. 

Gawd help us!!!!

So now I’ve got to find a new accountant/bookkeeper. That’ll be a challenge.

One to take on tomorrow. Not now!