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Common sense

What Happened to Her?

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Yknow… Sometimes in idle moments I wonder what happened to my mother to make her SO SCARED.

Something must have happened. You wouldn’t be that terrorized of ordinary daily living unless something had happened to you.

When DXH and I lived downtown, we had a beautiful old classic rich person’s house in the historic part of the city. It really WAS beautiful. And the people who had it before us added on to it, creating a little mansion with a huge living room, huge dining room, large breakfast room, vast kitchen, large laundry room, separate TV room, and four bedrooms.

The house was first-rate. The neighborhood left something to be desired, though. Like…basic safety. The place swarmed with scammers, rapists, and burglars.

DXH traveled off and on for his job and his civic volunteerism. When he would leave town, my mother would get all upset.

No kidding: she would be nigh unto frantic when he absented himself.

She lived, with my father, in Sun City, a mausoleum-like retirement tract that stood a 30- or 40-minute drive from our house, through unpleasant traffic.

But whenever DXH would leave town, she would volunteer to drive into the city and stay with me while he was gone. What on earth she thought she was going to do if the dread burglar/mad rapist actually did enter the house escapes me. But there she was.

What she thought she would do is shoot the ba*tard. She would always show up with a nice little revolver, which she would set on a TV table next to the fold-out bed where she slept. This would give me the willies — she did not have formal self-defense training, and I don’t even know if she had formal training in the use of a pistol. But my father did: he was a licensed firearms instructor. So…I expect she knew how to pull the trigger.

The question, o’course, was whether she knew when to pull the trigger.

And when not…

Most of all, though, what worried me was that she was so scared. 

Now, in those days, women were scared. I was, too, when left alone in a house that any passing sh!thead could easily enter. And occasionally did enter…  But…but…why was she SO damn scared she thought she needed a deadly weapon at her side, even when a large dog was sitting there guarding her?

Yes. “Scared” was why we owned a German shepherd…

I figured something must have happened to her. You surely couldn’t imagine yourself into a state of fear so elevated. She must have had something real to cause that terror.

If so, she never told me what it was. (Thank goodness: if she had, I would have been just as terrorized.)

One of the reasons my parents retired to Sun City was that people believed those stodgy realms were safer than safe. What could happen? Who would want to rape a wrinkled, gray old bat? Who would waste their time burgling the home of some wretch trying to live on Social Security?

Well. Stuff happened all the time. Overall, the public imagined that Sun Citizens were fairly affluent. They weren’t, but compared to someone living on welfare in South Phoenix, they appeared to be. So burglaries did happen. Stick-ups did happen. And the occasional bizarre rape did happen.

So the truth was, our house and neighborhood were at no more risk — or not much more — than their little retirement dream house out in the far western suburbs. But I didn’t know anyone else who felt called upon to keep a revolver at the side of their bed.

Here, where Ruby and I live now, is…safety-wise? About the same. Certainly no safer than anywhere else. Certainly not as safe as a place in a gated community or a high-rise with a security guard posted in the lobby.

But hereabouts I don’t feel at anything like the risk we sensed downtown. We have deadbolts on every outside-facing door and on every security screen door. Alarms on every window. And a dog that barks like a banshee. You couldn’t get in here without giving me plenty of warning to get out a different door or to lock myself and the dawg behind a solid-core interior door and call the cops.

{sigh}

But really: what a place we live in, eh? The Land of the Free and the Home of the Terrorized.

When I was a kid, my mother was wary…but we didn’t live inside a barricaded fortress. What do you suppose has changed? And how?

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Remembering Paul P., my college boyfriend. How my parents hated him!!!  Mostly, I think, because of his ethnicity.

It would have made more sense to hate him because he introduced me to alcohol and sex when I was about 17 or 18. This was in my junior year, which would have been about 1964.

Paul was white, but he was Eastern European.

For reasons (if any) that escape me, my parents disapproved of Eastern Europeans. If you weren’t white and British or Western European – or a white American — you did not make the cut, in their world.

I was madly in love with Paul, who was handsome, fairly smart, and reasonably ambitious. His morals left something to be desired: fuc!ing an underage girl was questionable, as was his enthusiastic approval of his best buddy’s laying a barmaid because the buddy’s wife was so advanced in pregnancy that she couldn’t accommodate his dong.

If that latter episode hadn’t happened, I probably would have married Paul. It was just a little(!!) too revolting for my taste, though… Talk about your narrow escapes!!

But he seems to have turned out OK. He became a university administrator. And online there are pictures of him surrounded by his loving family (absent any barmaids). So I assume his life went reasonably well.

Hope he’s living happily ever after…

And speakin’ of real estate…

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…as we were saying yesterday, briefly, Zillow claims my li’l middle-class house is worth (hang onto your hat) $563,000!  And change.

What????????

Over half a million dollars for an aging tract house within walking distance (easy walking distance) of a dangerous slum? Seriously????

And horrors!

****

I return to the idle thought that maybe I ought to think about moving out to Scottsdale — more specifically, to the district known as McCormick Ranch. Once a very fancy-Dan tract, McCormick ranch is now a mid- to upper-middle-class suburb, filled with ticky-tacky construction set in seas of Bermuda grass. The area is relatively safe. Of course, no place in a big city is “safe,” but McCormick Ranch is far more so than the swaths of North Phoenix that border the alarming Sunnyslope tract, where I live now.

This proposition presents its challenges. The main one: I very much doubt I could get anywhere near that much for this house. And houses out in Scottsdale are pricier by far than the ones here in North Central on the edge of Sunnyslop.

To get into Scottsdale housing, I’d probably have to move into an apartment. And I don’t wanna.  I love my house and all its roominess. I love my swimming pool — my pool and no one else’s. I love the trash pickup service from the alleys. None of these appertain to apartment living.

And another important adjunct to this issue:  unless there’s something I’m misunderstanding, it doesn’t look like it would be worth moving unless I could get into a better area.

McCormick Ranch is not a better area than North Central Phoenix. The two districts are about on a par. Fairly affluent. Relatively low in crime. Close to upscale shopping. Attractively built middle-class homes. Decent schools. Sooo….

Why would I want to live there? 

* It’s ten minutes from the endlessly importuning Mayo Clinic. The gawdawful drives to see MayoDoc would go away, once and for all.

* Shopping is excellent, ranging from the high side of middle class to the high side of very much upper middle class.

* Proximity to lots of great restaurants.

But…but…waitminit here. 

* I don’t go to restaurants. I can cook lots better than that…for lots less change!

* These days I do about 75% of my clothes shopping online.

* I should base where I’m gonna live on the proximity of a doctor’s office? Uhhhh… don’t think so…

* The Ranch is a long way from my son’s neighborhood. If I moved out there, I’d hardly ever see him!

* I dunno if the Cleaning Lady from Heaven would be willing to drive way to Hell & Gone to clean the Funny Farm if it were in North Scottsdale.

***

Hmmmmm….  To my mind, the “Waitaminits” outweigh the benefits by about ten to one. Seriously: there aren’t enough positives to convince me that I should pull up (expensive!) stakes and move to the far side of Scottsdale.

So…one is led to apply that Fine Old Saw: When in doubt, don’t!

  • Doubt, indeed. There’s just not enough there to persuade me that I would benefit from moving. Benefit: in any way…
  • Socially (I know one! person who lives out there.)
  • Financially (Any benefit from moving to a tonier area will be outweighed by the costs of selling, buying, fix-up, and moving.)
  • Comfort-wise (My house is a luxurious palace; noplace on McCormick Ranch is any better, and most are not as good.)
  • Gasoline and mileage savings (I probably drive out to the Mayo Clinic no more than once a month. That’s hardly a motive to pull up stakes!)

So unless my son decides to move someplace else — say, he gets a job in another city — there’s really no reason for me to even consider buying a place in McCormick Ranch.

If he did move out of North Central Phoenix, I might move out, too. Either to follow him or to put some distance between me and the gangs. But as long as he’s in these parts…well, so am I!

Lazy Hazy Crazy Day of Summer…

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LOL! Twenty after 9:oo in the morning — Sunday  — and the Human & the Hound are back from our daily perambulation of the neighborhood park.

It’s a nice, grassy spread, surrounded by rows of upper-middle-class homes. Very pretty, nice and quiet: Dawg Hevvin!

Today, though, is hot, stuffy, and overcast.

To perfect that scenario, somehow my son arranged a flickin’appointment with the flickin’ Mayo Clinic…for TODAY. Yeah. Sunday. 

Why escapes me. Just now, nothing is ailing me (except a sore hip, no doubt acquired by sleeping cattywampus).

Whatever the reason for this scheduled visit, I sure as hell could do without it. I’ve come to truly hate traipsing to the Mayo, clear across the north Valley, halfway to freakin’ Payson. It’s almost an hour’s drive out there, through homicidal traffic (you ain’t seen a homicidal driver till you’ve seen a Phoenix driver!). So…half the day is gonna be blown away for…what?

Far as I can tell: for nothing.

Besides the drive, of late another thing that has concerned me has been apparent misdiagnoses. The last few oh gawd! oh dear! diagnoses that have emanated from there turned out to have altogether different causes than the Mayodocs claimed.  Given some tests, the Mayodocs’ frantic claims turned out to be…wrong…wrong…and dead wrong.

So…I get less and less comfortable with these journeys to the East Side of Eden. And increasingly wary about diagnoses that may or may not be right.

Movin’ Movin’ Movin’….

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LOL! This morning I happened to find myself contemplating my lifetime on the move. In the years since I was born to life on this planet, I have moved house twenty-five times. 

That’s just the places I can remember. Without a doubt, several others occurred when I was too little to know or remember much of anything.

My parents and I lived in…where?

* Richmond, California
* Long Beach, California
* San Francisco, California (several places, several times!)
* Long Beach, California (again, years later)
* Down by the docks near Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia
* In Ras Tanura (a company town), Saudi Arabia (2 houses)
* Sun City, Arizona
* Tucson, Arizona
* Phoenix, Arizona (several places!)

Jeeeminy! At least 13 or 14 different houses and apartments before I came of age. Then, after I grew up , left my parents’ home, and got married:

* Tucson, Arizona (4 years; 4 different domiciles
* Phoenix, Arizona (my own li’l apartment, ALL MINE!)
* Phoenix, Arizona (first place with hubby)
* Phoenix, Arizona (downtown: gorgeous historic home)
* Phoenix, Arizona (uptown: move to get away from the crime) (har har!)
* Phoenix, Arizona (leave marriage; move into apt.)
* Phoenix, Arizona (move into apt. where boyfriend lived)
* Phoenix, Arizona (escape apt.; buy house)
* Phoenix, Arizona (move to a quieter house, further from main drag)

And here I am. Hmmmmm…. That would be twenty-two different homes — 22 moves!) in one piddly little lifetime.

And that doesn’t count the number of times my mother had to move, following my father, before I was born. Ball-park guess: at least four places. Probably more.

This rumination came about after I had visited a friend and his wife’s home in Scottsdale — in a tony suburb called McCormick Ranch. VERY nice place in a pleasant, upper-middle-class tract that has that low-on-crime look. 😀

But…but…

Well, but… It’s TINY. Small but decent kitchen. One living/dining room. One small master bedroom upstairs. And a guest bedroom/study. Cramped, walled-in patio in place of a real yard.

Still: one could live with that. Ever so much less space to have to clean, right?

Well, but…  It’s WAYYYY far away from my son. He lives in North Central Phoenix, and he ain’t about to move away from his dad’s outpost. Nor is he about to sell his pretty little brick house, within walking distance of the beloved AJ’s Incredible Gourmet Grocery Store, to move to the crassly bourgeois precincts of North Scottsdale.

So. Nope. Ain’t trading my son’s company for a set of steps. 😀

There, of course, is the decisive element. The kid, that is; not the steps.

But even if Young Caligula weren’t living in my present parts, still…I don’t see the prospect of moving as worth the cost. 

As you know, moving house is a financially bracing proposition. And…what would I be getting in exchange for several tens of thousands of dollars?

* Supposedly a better neighborhood. {Though I have yet to see proof of that: North Central, where the Funny Farm resides, is about as good as it gets in the Valley.}

* Proximity to hordes of excellent restaurants in several price ranges. (Uhm...but I rarely eat out, because I prefer my own pretty damn excellent cooking…)

* Relative proximity to Arizona State University. (BFD: I ain’t teachin’ there any more…and I’m not about to go back!)

* Proximity to the Mayo Clinic. (What could be more cheering than living right down the street from your doctor’s offices? :-o)

Ohhhhh well.  Movin’ on (as it were):

***

Last night I had the weirdest dream. 

In this wacky somnolent universe, SDXB  and I had a fight and I stalked out of the house. The setting was right here in the neighborhood, so I marched out onto handsomely paved streets that run past our homes and past our friends’ houses.

That notwithstanding, I wandered into one of the alleys. And there…oh, yah: I got lost. 

Understand: this is even more somnolently wacky, because a) the alleys here run in parallel rows, so you can’t get lost in them — certainly not if you’re even vaguely sober. And I’ve lived here so long that I know the layout of the neighborhood — its yards and its trees and its sidewalks and its alleys and its fences — even more neatly than I know the layout of the back of my hand.

Well. That notwithstanding: in the Dream Universe I can’t find my way home…or even out of the alley that I’ve wandered into.

Stumbling up that alley in a state of weird confusion, I come across two (handsome!!) cops in a cop car. Ohhhhhhboy!!! And hot diggety!

Turns out the neighbors have noticed me roaming up and down the alleys and, all worried, have called the cops. Meanwhile, SDXB has also called them, since I haven’t come back after our squabble.

So the cops and I chat for awhile. They, recognizing a random nut case when they see one, desist from any plan they might have had about running me in. Au contraire, they drive me to SDXB’s house, where he acts all happy to see me and I just sit there obediently.

Eventually the officers give up and go on about their business. SDXB and I take up our lives as usual.

WTF???????

Do I have a clue what that l’il nightmare was about?

Well. No. Other than embroidery of memories from a decade ago. Essentially, it was a re-run of a long-ago episode.

Hafta say: I really doubt that I could find a better neighborhood than this one. Certainly not one that I could afford — or would want to afford. And most certainly not one that’s centrally located.

Yeah.

I like this neighborhood. And love my house. And yes, I very much do want to leave the house to my son.

How exactly to make that happen kinda escapes me. It’s going to depend, I’m afraid, on raw luck + a healthy dose of genetics.

Women in my family — those who didn’t f*ck themselves to death — lived deep into ripe old age. Ninety to ninety-five was typical of those who lived what you and I would think of as “clean” lives: hold the alcohol, hold the promiscuity.

I do drink, no question of it. Though not much lately, because without a car on hand, it’s too much of a PITA to haul bottles of wine or beer back to the house…and you may be sure I’m too much of a cheapskate to have that stuff delivered.

Still: over the decades I surely have swizzled down enough to do me in. No question of it. So far, no symptoms. But we can expect they’ll show up sooner or later.

At any rate and nevertheless, the probability that I’ll live into my late 90s remains high.

And that notwithstanding: I really do want M’Hijito to have this house. Or at least the proceeds from its sale.

So…that kinda militates against moving into an old-folkerie, or into a resort-like condo.

San Francisco: Take Me Home

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…To the place
I belong…

Parkmerced. That’s where I belong.

Oh, my: what a lovely development, down near the shore of Lake Merced, on the southerly end of San Francisco.

My mother got us in there when we came back from Arabia: before my father came back to the States. We left the Hell-Hole ahead of him, about three or four months before he retired.

He must have had the sh!t-f!t from Hell when he found out how much those high-rise apartments cost! You don’t even wanna think about it!

After he went back to Ras Tanura, our lease ran out and she got us into one of the garden apartments. They weren’t especially fancy — nothing like the gorgeous spaces in the towers — but they weren’t at all bad. If anything, I think I liked ours better than the tower. It had its own little garden. And some kids lived across the street from us.

Oh, well. There we were.

Walking around the ‘Hood this morning: ohhhhh gawd! HOT!  HUMID!! And it’s barely dawn. Can’t say I hate this place…but I sure would rather be in San Francisco!

Passed by the vacant, run-down house once occupied by the couple whose son went to jail. That’ll bankrupt you: be sure of that!

Apparently he fucked some girl who was under the age of consent — and got caught in the act. OFF TO THE SLAM WITH HIM! 

This misadventure cost the parents everything they had. They went belly-up. Lost the house.

Who owns it now (if anyone, other than a bank) I do not know. But it is a WRECK.

Ya hafta say this about the ‘Hood, though: Overall it’s well kept up, tidy, tony-looking. A couple of sections are highly up-scale; indeed. the rest of the place is solidly upper-middle-class.

Sooo…. My house should keep its value. If my son inherits it, he’ll have a nice, debt-free place to live or, if he prefers, a salable piece of property that should land half a million bucks in his bank account.

That’s assuming I don’t have to go into the old-folkerie called the Beatitudes, which he has in mind for me. He may not realize: Those places take everything you have. If I can’t stay out of that place, that’s what will happen. Nothing will be left to pass along to my son.

Probably it would be cheaper — and surely more cost-effective — to hire someone to come in to take care of me in my home through the last months or years of my life. I hope he’ll go along with that… Partly for my sake (nothing makes me cringe more than the mere thought of institutional living) and partly for hi$.

At any rate, as this rumination implies: I ain’t a-gunna get home to San Francisco anytime soon. Surely not in this lifetime. Well… unless — Heaven forfend! — something happened to him before it happens to me. If he predeceased me, I probably would move back to the Bay Area. There really isn’t anyplace else I’d rather live.

My cousin found a lovely resort-like old-folkerie in the East Bay, where he deposited his mother for her last years. I’d be lookin’ for something like that.

Meanwhile, with this house paid off and the Cleaning Lady from Heaven in the offing, I probably will stay here as long as I possibly can — with any luck, for the rest of my life. CL from H has worked as a caretaker for the elderly and the infirm, and so maybe she can be hired full-time to baby-sit me during the final leg of my journey to the Next World. But if not, we know there are lots of folks like her, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone to come in to care for me.

I hope.