Coffee heat rising

Automobiles

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. 

And all these years I’ve been paying…for WHAT?

by

Thanks to my son’s recent sh!tfit, I’ve made a huge discovery:

For lo! these many years, I’ve been paying through the schnozola for that damn car sitting out there in the garage, little guessing that in truth, I can get wherever I want to go in lovely uptown Phoenix for less than it costs to own a car… No, make that For one HELLUVA lot less than it costs to own a car!

Owning a car ain’t cheap, here in the Big City. Especially if you’re a person who does not know how to service your own car: change its oil, charge its battery, rotate its tires, whatnot whatnot and whatnot.

What if…yeah, what if? 

You rent a car only when you need it? Take it back to the rental agency when you’re done with it, and they change the oil and fill the gas tank and see that the windshield wipers work and test and fill the tires and…on and freakin’ ON. They pay for the licensing. They pay for the annual inspection…

Hmmmmmm…. What HAVE we been missing in this picture?

A lot. A whole lot, my friends. And the Kid’s recent revenge maneuver — kiping my car and locking it into his garage — has suddenly made those missing details blindingly clear.

Suddenly, if I want to go someplace right this minute, all I’ve got to do is tell the Uber driver who lives across the street that I need a ride. If he can’t take me where I need to go, he sure can make a ride materialize.

Huh. Think o’ that. Imagine not having to pony up a chunk of dough to have the car serviced. Or to register it with the state. Or to run it through the car wash. Or whatEVER.

I knew that kid was brilliant, but this is ridiculous!

😀

Seriously: What he’s done points in a VERY interesting direction.

What if you stopped driving your car and rode the bus or streetcar instead? Would that not leave you plenty of spare change to afford a taxicab for occasions when you need to be someplace reliably at a specific time? Like…PLENTY of spare change!

Yea verily: how much money have we wasted, you & I, on buying, owning, and running cars? 

How much more does a tank of gas cost than an Uber ride across the city, from (say) the ASU campus in Glendale, Arizona, to the main university campus in Tempe?

And…can a city kid get by without owning a car?

***

My mother and I lived in San Francisco for two or three years after we came back from Arabia. She rented us a place in an apartment development called Parkmerced.

My father would never have been without a car — it was one of the things the man lived for. But he went to sea: was regularly gone for weeks at a time. And…hmmmm…WHERE was his vaunted Chrysler?

Yeah. On the sixth floor of Parkmerced’s underground garage, that’s where.

About the only things we used that car for were to drive to the docks to pick up my father when his ship was in, and to drive across the Bay Bridge to visit my mother’s family in Berkeley or Sausalito.

So…I think this history brings up the same question that M’hijito has raised:

  • DO you really need a car when you live in an urban setting?

And that question poses a whole slew of other interesting queries…

  • Could you not do just as well riding in Uber cabs or on busses and trains?
  • Do you really need to ride any conveyance when you’re going to a store three or four blocks from your front door? Why?
  • Over the course of, say, a month, how much does it cost to walk to a store or ride a bus, compared to maintaining a car during the same period?
  • How much are you paying in taxes to keep that rolling tin can in your garage?
  • And how much in insurance bills?
  • And in gasoline?

Maybe, just maybe, the kid has got something. Eh?

7:00 a.m.: The Moron Hour

by

Why IS it that every  moron on the planet turns out of their house at 7 in the morning? With their dog, o’course!

Just back from the morning DoggyWalk. Nasty morning: hot, overcast, and wet. Back porch thermometer registers a mere 85 degrees.

Days like this, sometimes rain just coalesces out of the air. Don’t even need clouds to make it rain!

Welp, that doesn’t seem to be happening today…not yet, anyway. Wunderground predicts a 15% chance of rain and just now registers an ambient temperature of 85 degrees. Not very hot. But yeah: damp, that’s for sure.

Ruby never seems fazed by a soggy atmosphere. Maybe the thick furry coat protects her, to some degree from the elements: whether cold and wet or hot and wet.

At this hour, everybody and their little brother, sister,, and grandmother is out tromping around with their dawg. And they just don’t seem to get it that “they just want to pwaaaayyy” doesn’t apply to your dog. No, stupid… my dog just wants to rip their dog’s throat out. 

After you tell them to please keep their dog back and they refuse to do so, they get all peeved when your dog goes in for the kill.

Speaking of dogs, M’hijito bought a puppy yesterday, to replace his beloved old white golden retriever who croaked over a few days ago.

Oh, my, what a little cutie! And the parents were also white retrievers, so this one will grow up to look a lot like the Late, Great Jake.

I should call him — the kid, that is, not the dawg — and see if he’d like me to bring something over for lunch from the AJ’s deli. That would be pleasant…and an excuse to see the new pup. 😉

***

Meanwhile: ugh!  My hip is spavined and hurts like Hell.

Years ago, the Late, Great Dr. Daley — one of the finest GPs ever to walk the surface of the Earth — told me that someday I’d have to get surgery on that hip. Looks like the Someday has arrived.

Just what I need: surgery, and then weeks in the hospital recuperating and going through endless physical therapy. Whee…I can hardly wait.

Could I even walk from AJ’s to M’jito’s just now? Probably: once I get going, the gait seems to move along OK. The problem, I think, would be trapping a bus, getting down to Central & Camelback, and then hiking to the Kid’s place.

Dunno. A guy across the street has taken up the Uber business. I may ask him to drive me down to the store…and maybe for a few extra bucks he could be persuaded to stick around long enough to schlep me from the AJ’s to the Kid’s house.

The Uber thing looks like quite the little Godsend. I’ve only tried it once, but it really was The Business! The guy showed up at my house right away, schlepped me across the city, and then showed up again at the dentist’s office to schlep me home.

Truth to tell, it really may be that Phoenix has turned into enough of a Big City that you could live here without owning a car. M’hijito would like to get rid of mine — apparently he thinks that at 80 I’ve reached such a state of decrepitude I’m not safe to be driving. And I’ll tellya: if I knew for sure that a car would show up when I call for it — and show up in a timely manner — I’d agree with him.

But…well…that is something that I don’t know. Actually, to the contrary: I do know…a cab is not gonna show up on time when you need it. Period. This ain’t San Francisco, folks: this is Phoenix.

And no: dyed-in-the-wool Phoenicians do not ride cabs.

 

by

Back home right at 7:30 a.m. from a dog-and-human walk around the neighborhood: circumnavigating the park, roaming through the ritzy-titzy part of the ‘Hood, trotting past a major grocery store, past a 24-hour clinic, past the Sprouts, past the Walgreen’s…and…

..And WHY, again, have I been driving my car from the smallest pillar to the tallest post — with its pricey licenses and its expensive regular maintenance and its $3.48/gallon gasoline???

When my parents and I came back from our ten-year stint in Saudi Arabia, we took up residence in San Francisco, in a Fancy-Dan apartment development called Parkmerced. I dearly loved that place, and if I had the money (hah!!) would go back in an instant. It was a handsome place, and it was designed for residents to get around on foot. I rode the bus to school(!!!), and my mother and I rode busses and streetcars into downtown SF for our (altogether too frequent!) shopping trips.

Later, my father changed jobs and we moved to Southern California — to dowdy Long Beach, where I had been born and not far from where my father’s ships came in to dock. Unlike the Bay Area, southern California was not designed for pedestrians. My Northern California relatives didn’t even own a car. In Long Beach, you couldn’t begin to get by without one.

Remembering our walks around Parkmerced; and that walking was not practical in SoCal…probably because the place was not designed for pedestrians, as San Francisco was. Neither Gree nor Gertrude — my great-grandmother and great-aunt in Berkeley ever owned a car.

Just imagine having access to your job, to one of the world’s most magnificent cities, and to all the shopping you liked (and then some) without a car!

Well. I wonder if one could engineer something long those lines here in (un)lovely uptown Phoenix. Seriously…with a guy driving for Uber across the street, a light-rail train and a fleet of busses running up and down the main drags…why do I need to own a car at all?

Could I get rid of the Tank? That seems all the more feasible with a car rental place some three blocks up the road from my house. If something comes up that I really need a car for some episode, all I’d need to do is walk up the road and rent one.

I may give the Tank to Ian…let him pay the insurance and taxes and maintenance on the damn thing!

It is a nice enough vehicle, and it came in handy when one of its riders was a German shepherd. But a 35-pound corgi does not need a gasoline-powered covered wagon!

And to pay for an occasional taxicab surely isn’t going to cost what a van with its attendant taxes, maintenance and repair bills and gasoline bills costs.

How would I get the dog to the vet? M’hijito would have to drive us.

************
Arrrgha! I’m gunna have to crash out of this post. Can’t get it to do anything and do not know if it will survive. My apologies for the weirdness!!!!!

 

WHAT IF…you didn’t need a car?

by

What if, here in the Great Newnited States of America, here in the ninth-largest city in the nation, on the tenth day of the seventh month of the 25th year of the 20th century, one discovered that…hang onto your hat…that one really didn’t need a car?

Got that?

Holeee shee-ut. What if a person living in one of the largest cities in the nation, one of the least enlightened and most politically conservative states in the nation, did not need to own a car at all? 

Imagine. 

Imagine what that would do to commerce here… To the automotive industry… To the taxicab and hired ride businesses? To busses and trains?

Welp…it’s beginning to occur to me that just such a thing may be the case. 

The other day, my dear son kiped my car.

Yes. My car is locked in his garage and my garage is empty.

The stupid quarrel at the basis of this fine state of affairs aside, the present predicament — if predicament it is — casts light on a whole series of matters. 

* In a city where it never snows and rarely rains, you can get around…and around and around and around…without a car of your own.

* Many of the neighbors are driving for Uber. Consequently, you can get a car-for-hire to show up at your door in five minutes.

* Now that the city has installed train lines on about half the main drags, a train or a bus shows up at the end of your block about every ten minutes.

* A daily train ride or three costs one HELLUVALOT less than a car sitting in your garage.

* Car insurance in Arizona costs, on average, $2,771 a year (!!!). That’s assuming you haven’t gotten a traffic ticket any time in recent years. Add a zillion bucks to that if you got nabbed indulging in any mischief behind the wheel.

So, my friends, what I’m just about discovering is that here in second quarter of the 21st century, it is entirely possible that one does NOT need a car in lovely ungodly Phoenix.

* It may take you no longer to get from Point A to Point B by train, bus, or cab than it does to trudge through the traffic in your own chariot and then park and unpark the thing.

* When you take into account the cost of insurance, storage space, and vehicle maintenance, it may cost no more to travel by cab, bus, or taxi…and in fact may cost significantly less.

* Yea, verily: every minute that tank of yours is parked in the garage or in front of your house, you’re paying some insurance company for the privilege. And it is eternally at risk of theft and vandalism.

Take a look at that damn thing out in the garage or driveway. Do you REALLY need it????

Car Hijinks: Is this even possible?

by

Y’know…   It’s kinda embarrassing to have a son (even a magnificently grown one) who’s a lot smarter than you are. Eeps!

The other day, my son purloined my car out of my garage. He refuses to bring it back. So here I am: carless in Gaza, having to do errands on foot and hire an Uber driver for more involved appointments.  I thought the car-grabbing maneuver was just a moment of nastiness, or else the kid was trying to pull some sort of demented power play.

Uhmmm…. Not too swift on the uptake, am I???  :-

In fact, what he has been doing is demonstrating that he’s about 50 times smarter than his agèd muther!

Here’s what has happened since we took that car out of my garage:
* Not a dime has been diddled away on gasoline, car servicing, or anything else of a vehicular nature.
* The guy who lives catty-corner across the street revealed himself as an Uber driver.
> No kidding!!!! He uses his personal car as a taxicab…and he lives all of 30 seconds away.
> Took a ride with him: He appears to be a good, safe driver, and the inside of his chariot is spotlessly clean.
* I have not tried to kill a single one of my Fellow Homicidal Drivers.
* I did NOT, as had been planned, schlep the tank to the Ford dealer for updated maintenance work. $$$
* With the car locked up my son’s house, I’ve no concern about the passing burglars visiting my garage.
* The garage has been incredibly easy to keep clean (who knew???)
* Walking to the Albertson’s, Sprouts, or El Rancho provides a highly satisfactory amount of mild exercise.
Who knew, indeed? In a highly urban environment, the benefits of going car-free outweigh the benefits of owning a car.
That’s assuming you don’t use your car for regular commuting and you don’t have to drive to any destination every day.
Y’know what? I’m thinking we should get rid of that car altogether. Sell it and bank the money. Then I get M’jito or the Uber dude to drive me to the (relatively few) destinations I need to go to these days.
Whaddaya think? Am I crazy?