Coffee heat rising

Automobiles

Round and Round She Goes…

by

And where she stops, nobody cares… 

😀

My son alleges that he managed to get my driver’s license invalidated. Which is to say, it is now illegal for me to drive. (Thus his excuse for hijacking my car, right?)

Well. Ohhhhkayyyy. 

Who can tell us whether that’s true? Who can say whether this little plastic-coated document is good for anything other than decoration?

Well: the Department of Motor Vehicles, of course.

I can’t easily get myself down to DMV in this unholy heat: certainly not without a car of my own to navigate the insane traffic.

Ohhhhkayyyy….

So I got the bright idea to go into a store or business that COULD check whether a document that you use as ID for check-cashing and the like is actually valid. Seems like that oughta work, right?

😀

It gets better and better. 

First store I went into, they didn’t know how to call up your driver’s license and confirm it.

Got that? They were accepting checks, but they didn’t know how to tell whether the checks were valid! Or even whether you’re the person whose name is on the damn check!!

Hmmmmm….

Moving on: Didn’t get much further with the other places in that shopping center.

None of them said my driver’s license was invalid. That was good. I guess.

But none of them could really confirm that my driver’s license could safely be used as ID for check-cashing. Or not. 

Sooooo….. I still don’t know a damn thing. To confirm or deconfirm, somehow I’ll have to get out to the credit union where my banking account resides: on the Arizona State University West Campus, a half-hour drive on the other side of the freeway from here!!

My son has grabbed my car, and so getting over there is darned near impossible. Tomorrow I’ll try calling them on the phone…but doubt that I’ll get far with that.

Otherwise..I’ll either have to hire an Uber to drive me out there and back, or try to mooch a ride with a friend.

{chortle!}

Entertaining as Hell, isn’t it?

Didnja just know Hell is endlessly hilarious?

***

Phoenix is an LA-style city, meaning that you need a car to get around — whether it’s across the city or a few blocks up to the local grocery store.

This, I can cope with by hiring the Uber driver who lives across the street. But really…that IS a PITA, and I’d sure rather not be bothered with it.

***

What if I rent or buy a car, park it in a rented space in a nearby garage (where my kid can’t find it), and go on about my business? Remember: my driver’s license is hidden in my own car, where I normally store it so I don’t have to carry a purse with me everyplace I go. 

Conundrum: That notwithstanding, I haven’t asked whether that license is still valid, or whether the kid has contrived to quash it. To do that, I’ll have to traipse to the DMV office and stand in line till every cow in Arizona comes home. So…it could be that even if I get it back or get another copy, it may be worthless.

LOL! This is getting so ridiculous that even I think it’s kinda funny.

So, y’know what I think is the best thing to do?

Nothing. 

Yeah: nothing. 

Let him keep the damn car. He can pay the insurance and the taxes on it. (These, lemme tellya, are freakin’exorbitant!)

Between Uber, regular taxicabs, and public transit, it’s not that hard to get around this city car-free. In fact, if and when I get the car back, I may sell it: just to be rid of it and all its panorama of expenses. Now that I’ve learned to get around without it, why the hell do I need it?

Ahhhh to be in Berkeley, where you can live comfortably without a car!

No kidding! My great-grandmother and her daughter, my great-aunt, lived on a hillside in Berkeley, about a block below where the train from San Francisco passed through a tunnel into Kensington, the suburb where my cousins lived. But you could clamber up a concrete staircase to the top of that tunnel, where you’d find yourself on the neighborhood street that led to the cousins’ house. Great-Grandmother and Great-Aunt lived in Berkeley for year after year after year…and never owned a car! 

Can you imagine?

Well. You couldn’t do that here; not and retain any grip on your sanity. You’d melt into the pavement. 😀

***

Mumbling on in that precinct: y’know… I suspect it would not cost much more to drive a rental car than it does to own a car and pay the taxes, insurance, and maintenance.

DXH and I did that: he preferred to rent a car rather than own it. Accordingly, for year after year, the car at our house was NOT our car: it belonged to a rental company. If there was a logic behind that preference, I never understood it. Probably it had to do with the fact that he was deducting it from his taxes for his law practice. It was, in theory, a business expense, not a personal vehicle.

I think. But couldn’t swear to that. All I know is that we didn’t actually own the car parked in our driveway.

Sooo…do I need to “actually own” the car parked in my garage? Would it be more advantageous to rent it?

Something to look into. 

Hotter Than the Hubs…Crabbier Than a Dungeness Crab

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Man! It is passing cozy out there! Four in the afternoon and 110 in the shade of the back porch…augh!!!

A modest bank of clouds lurks to the north…this would add humidity to the mix. How much, I wonder?

Humidity: 16%
Chance of rain: 24%

Yech!  And we live here…why?

Totally not in the mood to fix dinner, but…well… Figure I’d better get out to that ‘cue, because — don’tcha just know it? — if I wait until a decent hour, those towering white cloud things in the sky to the north of us will invite themselves to home and dump all over us.

But…do I care? 
Nya nya nya! No, I don’t!

I ain’t goin’ anywhere. Ain’t about to go anywhere. Rain makes me no nevver-mind. Same for the heat.

Seriously: my son’s machinations of a few weeks ago resulted in his stashing the car elsewhere. 

My reaction to that was hah! BFD! I’ll just rent a car!!!! 

*****

But it was, shall we say, an enfeebled reaction. Because…I don’t need to rent a car. By dayum, I don’t need a car at all. 

😮

A guy who drives for Uber lives right across the street. Several others live here in the’ Hood. So if I want to go anywhere that’s outside of walking distance, all I have to do is call one of those folks.

But DO I wanna go anywhere outside of walking distance? Truth to tell: not often. We have three  major supermarkets within steps of the Funny Farm. A veterinarian. A storefront “emergency”clinic.

Hmmmm…. WHY spend a lot of money on a car, on insurance, on licensing, on whatnot…when you really don’t NEED one? When you can rent a car if you just must have one right this minute?

What an insight!

Seriously: it never entered my mind, before this, that I could get by here without a car. That a car is a superfluous, pointless expense… But y’know what?

At least where I’m living, it’s true: a car is a superfluous, pointless expense. 

So here’s my plan, to the extent that a plan is applicable:

* Trot on down to the DMV and be sure, in person, that my present driver’s license will cover me in a rental or borrowed vehicle.

* Trot on up (about three or four blocks) to the rental place and ask how much it would cost to rent a chariot, and for how long.

* Talk to my financial guy about the advisability of selling the Dog Chariot, and ask how to go about that most efficiently and safely.

* Move forward with that, as advised.

* Make friends with staff at the car rental place. Be sure my insurance will cover a rented vehicle.

* Discuss the plan with my neighbor, the Uber driver. Find out how to get an Uber (or other rental) on short notice, if needed, and what else I need to know about renting cars.

* Figure out what to do with the garage. One idea is to turn it into a studio for wanna-be artist friends. Get an art teacher to meet with a group, and use the space for art tables and supplies.

* And finally, if dispensing with the car altogether actually works, sell the damn thing — or give it to my son, if he wants it.

Probably this scheme is not going to save vast amounts of money. My car is paid for, and it doesn’t cost much to maintain and insure. But…who knows? Maybe the idea will save something. And it’s…well, it’s sooo very 21st-century, eh? 😀

If I need to get from Point A to Point B: ride a bus or the railway, or mooch a ride from my son.

If I need a car to take me to an appointment — distance here to distance there, on time — hire an Uber.

If the dog needs to be schlepped to a vet: impose on my son or a neighbor to help haul her there.

**********

LOL!

And probably this scheme is not going to prod my memory to post a post when I finish writing the post!  😀  😀  😀

/////

So here ’tis, a day late and many a dollar short.  Summarizing its message (such as it is…):

My son’s purloining my car (out of concern my safety) has opened the door to a number of big-city possibilities. Among them: the fact that my neighborhood is over-run with Uber drivers. One of these worthies lives right across the street! 

That’s in addition to the very busy train and bus traffic running up and down Main Drag West.

When my mother and I lived in San Francisco — lo! these many years ago — we did own a nice car. We thought of it as my father’s, though of course she drove it more than he did…because he went to sea. He was a Merchant Marine officer, and traveled far more on the ocean than he ever did on land.

He loved his spiffy Chrysler, though. And so my mother inclined to avoid driving it, in order to keep it safe from the City’s rambunctious traffic. She’d take it out and drive to a grocery store maybe once a month, but otherwise we walked or took the public transportation.

Welp…y’know what? A what that hadn’t dawned on me until the present altercation with Mijito? I don’t need a car here any more than she did when we were in San Francisco! 

Whaaa???????

It’s true! Living in my neighborhood, I really don’t need a car. Especially with an Uber driver living across the street and willing to schlep me to destinations like the dentist’s office or the Mayo Clinic.

No kidding. Everything else is within easy strolling distance. Right off the top of my head, for example, I can list a mob of routine destinations…ones that I can walk to without having to pay a dime.

  • 3 large supermarkets
  • A Trader Joe’s
  • A Walgreen’s
  • A delightful Mexican supermarket
  • A large bookstore
  • A computer store with a repair service
  •  My son’s house (a bit out of the way, but not an unreasonable walk)
  • A stop for a bus that goes straight down to the church
  • The same bus proceeds on down the road to the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Gourmet Grocery Store
  • A storefront doctor’s office
  • And if I’m not mistaken, there’s a veterinary office within walking distance.

See what I mean? In the time I’ve spent loafing in my car (a matter of years, it’s true…), Phoenix has morphed from a large small town into a real city.

Soooo…. Why not make use of the amenities of a real city?

The Evolution of Car-Freedom

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Another (un)lovely day in Phoenix. Leave us all FLEE it…

LOL! That’s a take-off on the daily pitch of a guy who, back in the Day, was probably Phoenix’s all-time greatest morning talk-show host.

He’s long gone now. But anyone who’s  been in the Valley for a lifetime or so remembers his daily greeting:

It’s a beautiful day in Arizona…
Leave us all enjoy it!

Yeah. Arizonans were that illiterate, back in the day. 😀 He was much beloved, though…and frankly, much missed.

Truth to tell, it’s hotter than a by-gawd out there just now.

“A beautiful day,” it ain’t.

So far, quite to the contrary.

Oh…really, though…. Look at it through the right lens, and it’s funnier than a crutch.

****

My son has decided that I should get off the sauce. My terrifying drinking habits have led him to believe I’m a lush!  And he wants me to swear off.

What are those terrifying habits?

-> Swilling down a couple of glasses of wine with the large meal of the day. “Dinner,” most Americans would call it, except that I partake of this pile of chow at noon, when most of us are eating what we would call “Lunch.”

This latter feast, as you no doubt know if you live on this half of the globe, is taken at mid-day and is usually a light meal.

Okay. Being a little weird (and having grown up in an entirely different country…), I stoke up the barbecue along about noon and sizzle myself a portion of meat (steak, lamb, pork chop, fish filet, or the like), a starch (potato, pasta, beans, whatnot), and a green or yellow vegetable (broccoli, asparagus, green beans, carrots, corn, etc.). This makes a large meal: large enough to soak up whatever wine I decide to lap down with it.

A few hours later, at what most FaM readers would call “dinner time,” I have a much smaller, lighter meal, usually without benefit of booze.

Well.

Observing me chow down on what I call “the big meal of the day” (i.e., lunch in your jargon), and seeing me swill down a glass of wine with it, Wonder Cleaning-Lady concluded that I am a lush.

Yes. She decided that because I was drinking an alcoholic beverage at mid-day — along about noon — I must be a drunk. 

{Understand: a “glass” of wine in my house is a wine glass…one of those bubbles atop a stem. Filled to the top, it holds about a third of what a standard US-style glass holds…and it’s never filled to the top.)

To make things worse…ooooohhhh gawd! Get this:

She was here on a day after I’d been awake the better part of an insomniac night.

I’d had almost no sleep the night before she showed up here. And all the time she was banging and roaring around the house, what I most craved was just to go back to bed. 

Not an option, of course.

So…stupidly…ooooh HOW stupidly!… I put my noon meal on the table. Sat down to eat it, accompanied by the usual partial glass of red wine. And feeling soooooooooo tired that I pushed the plate aside, laid my head in my arms on the table, and promptly FELL ASLEEP.

No kidding.

So what does she do?

She whips out her little camera (we all carry a camera with us, everyplace we go, right?) and snaps photos of me with my head in my arms on the table, a half-full glass of red wine sitting there next to my noggin.. 

These, she soon displays to my son, telling him that I was so drunk I fell asleep at the dinner table while she was here.

Yes. I did fall asleep.
No. I did not pass out in a drunken stupor.

But o’course, he couldn’t tell that from a snapshot. And nothing I could say would persuade him of what really happened.

So now the Kid is on High Alert at all times. He thinks I’m a drunk, and he thinks I’m pirating wine to swizzle at every opportunity.

I know: it would be funny if it weren’t so damn stupid!

Funny or stupid — or even serious, if you prefer — it has created a shopping-bag full of trouble for me.

At this point, I can’t persuade M’hijito that I’m not a lush and that I do not loaf around the house all day swilling booze.

So convinced is he that he raided my kitchen and stole the two bottles of sinful wine it contained: a bottle of red and a bottle of white. He also made off with my car, because he imagines I cruise around the city three sheets to the wind!

Hm.

I really SHOULD fire the cleaning lady, shouldn’t I? The woman has created a gigantic kettle full of trouble for me. How to get out of that kettle escapes me at the moment.

But that poses its own little headaches:

* Good cleaning ladies are notoriously hard to come by. And you may be real sure I don’t want to clean this four-bedroom palace myself.

* If I can her, will that not just damn me by my own actions? It will look like I’m firing her because she knows I guzzle down the vast kegs of wine at noon that she reported to my son.

* And yeah: I do hate cleaning house! So much so that I’m inclined to let this stupid flap go, just to hang onto the woman.

The latter is itself probably pretty stupid, eh? 

I mean, after all: If she’s going to squeal on me to my son because I dared to swill a glass of wine with lunch, what other trouble will she make for me? 

* People in a given trade tend to know each other. So let’s say I do can her and hire a new cleaning lady: next thing we know New CL will also think I’m a lush, having been told so by the present incumbent.

****

{sigh} I’m brought back to my periodically recurring thought: that I should sell this house and move out of Phoenix.

Just. 

Get. 

Away.

From.

Here.

But y’know…I don’t wanna!

* I love my house.
* I like my neighbors.
* Even the Romanian Landlord and I are acting like friends of late.
* The house is paid for.
* I could walk to my son’s house from here.
* I don’t wanna move away! 

So here we are: I’m living in a lovely house with a huge, EMPTY garage. My son has absconded with my car. I’m not about to get into a fight with him over that damn thing.

And we have an army of Uber drivers in this neighborhood…

We have a busy and efficient light-rail system running right up the west side of the ‘Hood…

The neighbors and I are getting along fine of late…

It’s (relatively!) safe here…

And, gilding all those lilies, just about all of the grocery stores and household marketers are within reasonable walking distance.

So no: I don’t wanna move away from here!!!!

And I ain’t a-gonna. 

Eeeps! Sell Car? Get Free? Whaaaaa!

by

O…M…G…  Contemplating the idea of selling the car, as I was throwing myself around fixing dinner, suddenly gave me SUCH an emotional overload that, briefly, I thought I was gonna pass out.

Such is the power of cultural tradition, eh? 😀

Told M’hijito about this idea. To my amazement, he didn’t seem especially exercised about it.

But he’s kind of a calm guy, in a lot of ways. Maybe he figured this is not something to make a big deal about.

Hell, maybe he figured I wasn’t serious.

We’ll see about that…

Meanwhile, the kitchen has stopped spinning, for the nonce. Hope it stays put awhile longer!

********

And…uhm…used Toyota Venzas are selling in the vicinity of 20 grand!  And UP!

Yow!!!!  Can you imagine? That would buy one helluva lot of Uber rides!!!

And Yet ANOTHER Wild-Eyed Radical Idea…

by

Hmmmm…. If you read my past few posts, you’ll get the distinct impression that I’m in the middle of some kind of life-changing revelation. Changes to the left of me, changes to the right of me, wack-shit ideas pouring in from all directions. 

Well, it’s not quite that radical. But something has happened that presents the potential to make some major changes. And to save big, BIG bucks.

What happened?

My honored son pilfered my car out of my garage. Drove it off and locked it up in his garage. This apparently resulted from a) anger at me and b) some sincere concern that enough of my marbles have rolled out my ears that really…maybe I shouldn’t be driving.

Upshot: for the past two or three weeks, I’ve been doing without a car. In the 115-degree heat, we might add.

And y’know what’s happened?

Nothing. 

Got that?

Nothing. NOTHING, nary a disaster, nary even a noticeable inconvenience has happened. That’s what’s happened.

And…why hasn’t my world ended? Well…

It turns out that if you live in a sufficiently urbanized area, you very well may not need a car.

And why not????

BECAUSE… here in the city you have busses. You have taxicabs. You have trains. And you have reasonably safe streets leading to the nearest grocery and drugstores.

No kidding. Within easy walking distance, I have…

* A Sprouts
* A Walgreen’s
* An Albertson’s
* A Fry’s
* and an El Rancho

Got that? FOUR SUPERMARKETS(!!!!) and a drugstore within six blocks or less of the Funny Farm. Mostly less. Significantly less.

Furthermore, directly across the street from the Funny Farm, we have a guy who’s driving an Uber!

So if I don’t feel like walking a few hundred feet to the nearest store, I can hire the guy to haul me over there, and carry the groceries back here in his car!

My son probably thought he was inflicting some kind of disaster on me, in the moment that led up to this scheme.

But no.

What he was doing was creating a revelation. 

To wit: in a large city saturated with public transit AND with private taxi services, you don’t need a car!

Think o’ that.

And think  how much you spend on the damn car(s) in your garage and driveway, hm?

You could rent a LOT of Uber rides just for the insurance premiums on those tanks. Add in the car payments (if you’re still coughing them up), the gasoline, and the regular servicing and…hoooleeee mackerel!

Get rid of the rolling hole-in-the-ground-into-which-to-pour-money and you will save a TON of change!!!

You want a swell ride to go someplace special or take a vacation trip? Forgodsake, RENT one. There’s a car rental place less than three blocks from my house.

So. There’s the Question of the Day:

WHY HAVE WE BEEN SPENDING ALL THIS CASH ON A CAR PARKED IN OUR GARAGE OR DRIVEWAY?????

Why, indeed?

My car has been parked at M’hijito’s place for the past ten days or so. And y’know what?  I haven’t missed it!

So a New Plan is shaping up:

  • Have him sell the tank for me.
  • Bank the proceeds.
  • Convert the garage into an arts-and-craft workspace, and
  • Invite friends over to paint, draw, model clay, or whatever other artsy thing suits their fancy.

I might even rent the garage to an arts teacher to use as an artist’s studio.

From a hole in the ground into which to pour money
to
A money-making asset…
Mwa ha ha! 

Think o’ that!

Now that I’ve cleverly figured all this out (it only took…how many years??), I’m reminded that when DXH and I spent several months in London, we never bought or rented a car. We got around on foot or by public transit. Never did we feel especially inconvenienced.

Actually, that’s wrong: a couple of times we rented a car to go sight-seeing in the countryside. Never for longer than a day, though.

Why d’you suppose Americans feel we all must have cars?

Well: advertising and marketing, of course. But the truth is, going car-free may prove to be a hugely liberating experience. We shall soon see, eh?

Hotter than a three-dollar cookstove…

by

…as my father used to say about the lovely weather in the garden spot that was Saudi Arabia.

As we scribble, the back-porch thermometer claims the temperature is 108 in the shade.

Yeah. That’s degrees Fahrenheit.

Ye gawds! It makes Arabia look balmy.

But…but…seriously: it’s 12:30 in the afternoon. Earlier in the day — shortly after the local grocers and farmacias opened, our li’l thermometer was already registering 102.

And yes, that does make Arabia look pretty balmy.

Fortunately, we have actual air-conditioning, rather than the gummy swamp-cooling that Aramco installed in its residents’ homes in Ras Tanura. Even then, it’s damn hot and sticky in here.

Nevertheless, the brain continues to run on overdrive. 

All sorts of original, clever, and…uhm..weird ideas are drifting through my overheated little mind. And in particular, the most significant ones have to do with my son’s adventurous liberation of my car.

Yes.

The garage remains empty.

And y’know what?

I’m finding I just…don’t…give…a…damn. 

This neighborhood is overrun with guys who wanna get rich quick driving for Uber. A nearly brand-new train runs down Main Drag West, one that would drop me off six safe and quiet residential blocks from my son’s house, if I chose to ride it. And the city busses cruise right past the intersection of the nearest feeder street and Central Avenue, which would take me to the front door of the beloved AJ’s market. Or let me off a block from the kid’s house.

Personally, I’d choose Uber if I knew they would show up reliably.

That doesn’t appear to be the case…but…but…yeah. I haven’t tested any such thesis. I will, in the future…probably the slightly cooler future. But if I do find they show up when they say they will, then…well…

Wanna buy a nice used Toyota Venza?

Yeah. Y’know what I think about this caper? That kid did me a huge favor. He’s helping me to get rid of a tank that needs to be serviced (expensively) every six months, that needs to have $3.00/gallon gas pumped into it every time you turn around, that takes up space in a garage that could be used for any number of better purposes, that pollutes the air, that….

Uhm…and how am I gonna get the dog to the vet, in an emergency?

Uber.

Or the kid. He still has his car. If Ruby has to be rushed to a veterinarian, he can come up here and collect her.

Or on foot. A 24-hour veterinary hospital is right down the road: about six or eight blocks, on foot. She weighs all of 25 pounds: I can easily pick her up and carry her there.

Meanwhile, check out these contraptions! I happen to have one of these. As we scribble, it’s now all tricked out with cardboard panels, the easier to haul stuff without dropping anything.

Here in the ‘Hood, we’ve got not one, not two, but three major supermarkets within walking distance: a Fry’s, a Sprouts, and an Albertson’s. I can do most or all of my grocery shopping on foot, without ever leaving the neighborhood. And right across the street dwells an Uber driver. Matter of fact, we’re told the ‘Hood is over-run with Uber drivers.

Heh! I haven’t tested that hypothesis. But it wouldn’t take a mob of wannabe cab drivers to provide plenty of transportation to the nearby shopping.