Coffee heat rising

Common sense

Ruminations on Ruination

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Egad! Get up and close that damn back door…NOW!

Seriously: the Dawg and the Human just sat down to take in the morning slack — coffee mug in hand, computer atop lap — and it dawns on the Human: Do not sit there with the back door hanging open, dammit!!!  Nay verily, not even if the screen door is closed and locked.

‘Cause, as we know, any clown and his/her little brother can kick or yank that screen open.

Sounds paranoid, eh? But I do hafta say: it feels more and more unsafe to me, living here in lovely Arizona. Especially in its (un)lovely cities.

Day or two ago, a Tucson woman was murdered at her home, apparently by a nut case. So…sitting around your house or patio taking in the morning air is decidedly NOT advised. Surely not around here.

So many of our fellow citizens are off the rails here in this crazy-making 21st Century — and it’s so easy for them (and us) to stock up on firearms — that really: You’d be nuts to loaf in your family room with the back door hanging open.

I never used to feel especially unsafe in my home, certainly not in the daylight hours. But lately that has changed…and I don’t think the change is a function of age.

No. It’s a function of the steadily growing insanity and violence around us. Not that humans haven’t always been crazy…but really, it does seem a lot more pronounced than it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago.

Sometimes I think I should move out of uptown Phoenix — surely the suburbs would be safer. When I mentioned that to a cop during the great home invasion adventure, he remarked that there aren’t any places in the Phoenix metropolitan area that can be regarded as safe.

Really…when you re-read the post I put up at Funny after that little adventure, you hafta ask yourself: Why am I still living here???

What the HELL is the matter with me that I haven’t moved somewhere else? Somewhere far, far from here! Really: this house should have been on the market the next day after that episode…

But…but…WHERE would I go that’s any better?

Sun City, that fine mausoleum on the west side? 

Well, no: this kind of stuff happens out there. My mother lived in white-lipped terror all the time she and my father owned their Sun City manse. And I’m not interested in living in a ghetto for the aged and the cranky. No, thanks.

A box in the sky? One of the high-rise apartments along Central Avenue or in Scottsdale?

Well…I’ve lived in such a place. And…no thanks. Don’t wanna do that again. I’m just not in to communal living.

No communal living, eh? Well, then: how about back out to the ranch, just outside the wide spot in the road called Yarnell? Right up on the Rim…cool weather, lots of cows and sheep, plenty of room for the burglars to spread out comfortably?

Hm. Yeah, I did love the ranch. BUT: we didn’t live there 24/7. It was more of a weekend retreat for us. And y’know: I don’t think I would want to live out in the middle of nowhere 24/7. Besides, if a burglar/rapist/murderer can visit you in your city subdivision, what’s to keep him from visiting you on your remote ranch?

Basically…where there be humans, you be not safe.

Yeah: I’m afraid that’s a fact.

Or, alternatively:  I’m afraid. That’s a fact.

😀

 

 

Ah hah! Back IN!

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Thought WordPress had locked me out of Funny about Money. But nay! Here we are!!

Actually, M’hijito is probably the one who got me back in. He’s in the study right now, wrestling with the computer and the Internet. Must say: you have to own a LOT more IQ points than I do in order to make this online stuff work. The frustration level is bracing.

Oh well…we’re back online. Fully.

Also bracing, in the Department of Frustration, is trying to work with doctors when you’re chronically ill. And that, alas, is the predicament in which I find myself.

One runs into any number of roadblocks, here in this predicament:

* Doctors often only half-listen to you. Consequently, they miss much of what you say.

* They are right and you are wrong. No argument, you!

* If you are a woman, you are by nature stupid.

* If you are a woman, you are  by nature wrong.

* Often they will prescribe an OTC drug — or even a prescription drug — without being fully aware of all its potential side effects. These side effects can be highly unpleasant, and some are even dangerous.

You see: this is WHY, over the years, I’ve developed an aversion to medical care. And to doctors. It also is why, whenever a doctor prescribes a drug, I look it up in the PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference) before I gulp it down!  

When you do this regularly, often you realize that your doctor has not looked up a given prescription drug, does not know its potential side effects, and even — incredibly enough! — does not realize it should not be given for your specific ailment.

And that’s the issue: Too often, doctors don’t fully understand what they’re giving you. Not because they’re incompetent. But because they’re busy; they’re overworked; they’re going by what they’ve heard from a colleague or at some conference; and because they assume they know better than you. Especially if you’re a woman.

So, as you can imagine, I’ve about had it. 

One Ringie-Dingie…Two Ringie…

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Not even 8:00 in the morning and I’ve already had three hustling phone calls and hung up on the plumber, who was calling to see if I was here and would let him in.

Because I didn’t answer the phone — or rather, slammed it down in his ear, one of my favorite tricks for damned solicitors — he went on down the road. So who knows when the plumbing will get unclogged.

My fault, of course, for not being more patient with the unending deluge of hustling. Telephone soliciting is a prison industry — who could be better as a phone hustler than somebody who’s already a crook, right? And apparently their warders turn them out of the sack as dawn cracks, so they might as well start calling…

****

Ohhh ADORABLE plumber!!!!  The guy just showed up at the door. Tested the terlets…and found them both working just fine.

The one in the master bathroom damn near overflowed this a.m., which was why I called him. Guess it must have had a water-soluble clog, because by the time he got here, the thing was working just fine.

Sooo…Handsome as he was, that was a less than perfect opener to a day that promises to be..trying.

The plan for today is to…well, start laying plans. Plans to lay me out, that is: or to lay out my pile of ashes.

Anyway…not a very promising start to the day.

Anyway, today I’ve gotta confirm that I indeed do have a niche reserved in the church close. That should be the case — I’ve paid for it.

Then decide if I want to try to kipe my parents’ remains from the Sun City House of Gloom. No, I am NOT gonna be buried under the flight path of Luke Air Force Base’s jet planes, nor am I going to be memorialized forever in a box on a countertop.

By 8 a.m., the phone was already jangling with nuisance telephone solicitors. They start calling early, because they figure old people get up with the sun. And yeah: they do have telephone lists organized by age.

{GRONK!}  I should get off my duff and take the dawg for a walk.

But…

It’s kinda chilly out this morning, even tho’ it’s after 8 o’clock. Don’t much feel like stumbling out by dawn’s not-very-early light.

One of the grand things about this neighborhood is its amazingly central location. This house is within easy walking distance of not one, not two, but three excellent grocery stores, one of which is a Sprouts. What more could one ask, eh?

Well…we don’t have to ask: we have two excellent computer stores, a Walgreen’s, a bicycle store(!), a Walmart, a…on and on and on. So, luckily for me (under the current annoying circumstances), I don’t need a car to live here very comfortably.

Okay, back to the morning’s Subject at Hand: Do I want to purloin my parents’ ashes from the Sun City mortuary and place them in the churchyard?

As questions go, it’s not as easily answered as one might guess. My father just REVILED organized religion. His mother was ripped off by a bunch of religious crooks — they got most of a large inheritance she had received from her father. And so he came to think of religion as the House of Crooks. And he absolutely positively would not want to be memorialized through predictable history in a niche at All Saints Episcopal Church.

Of that, you may be sure.

However, I do not wish to be laid to non-rest beneath the never-ending roar of fighter jets racing in and out of an air base.

Now…yes, I do grasp the concept that my father will never know, not at any time throughout coming eternity, that I snatched his ashes out of Sun City. Or that very probably no matter how much my ashes vibrate to the tune of passing F-16s, I will never know it.

But still…something about that plan seems kinda disrespectful. He and my mother dearly loved Sun City. So where their ashes vibrate beneath the engine noise of America’s fighting force, that’s where the dear parents wanted to be.

On the other hand, is it respectful to me to decide that my remains must be stashed in a place where I hated living and where, because of my age at the time, I was decidedly and vociferously not welcome? I just loathed living in Sun City after my parents dragged me there. You couldn’t get me to buy a place there now, not on a bet!

Good grief! Let’s get real here: When you’re dead, you’re DEAD. No part of you lingers after, floating around the mausoleum under the war planes’ flight path, socializing with your even longer-dead parents’ spooks. WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Right?

So I guess if I’m gonna make “pre-need arrangements,” I might as well make them at All Saints.

That could be more appropriate for my son, too, in the long run: assuming he stays in Phoenix for the rest of his adult life. He went to school at All Saints (they have a very tony private academy). Most of his friends went there, too. So it’s not unreasonable to guess that he might want to be interred there, some day. And totally reasonable to assume that he would have no desire whatsover to spend eternity in a box in Sun City.

Glorioski!

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What a GORGEOUS morning!!!  High, thin clouds gently floating overhead. The blue sky peering through them. And splendidly temperate, inviting you to park yourself on the back porch, crunch a cookie, and guzzle black coffee.

Truth to tell, for all its eccentricities Arizona really IS a splendid place to live. Don’t know how my father found out about Sun City, but somehow he did…and forthwith he and my mother retired to those stodgy environs.

They hadn’t been there more than a year or two when a monster recession hit. My father, who had invested all his savings in the stock market, lost his proverbial shirt.

So, he had to pack up and go back to sea, the poor guy. Shipped out as first mate for a company that ran oil tankers out of southern California.

In the interim, my mother sat in front of the TV and smoked…and smoked…and smoked…and smoked herself into a fine case of cancer.

It didn’t make itself obvious until after he had swung his second retirement, and to his infinite delight had quit his job (again!) and gone back to Sun City to spend what he expected to be the rest of his years with the Love of His Life.

Staunch right-wingers, neither of them believed any of the maunderings that came out of the federal government. So, they were kinda blindsided when my mother’s non-stop smoking habit did indeed lead to an inoperable case of cancer, just as Big Brother said it would. As she died horribly, he never left her bedside, but took care of her, the house, the car, the shopping, the cooking, the finances…and the doctoring.

After she died, he couldn’t bear to stay in the place they’d dreamed would be their retirement haven and happy home. So he sold it and moved to an old-folkerie in Phoenix. And…a sad story attaches to that….

In short, though: that she killed herself with cancer sticks meant that she killed any chance for a contented retirement for him. If I’d been him, I’d have taken a long leap off the side of the Golden Gate Bridge. But…he was made of stronger stuff than I am.

He was an exceptionally handsome man…and the instant he walked into the old-folkerie’s dining room, he was, shall we say, noticed.

Forthwith, one of the inmates ambushed him. He was flattered — this was a guy who never looked twice at any woman other than his wife. That meeting led to an exceptionally unhappy marriage — one he refused to dissolve because he imagined “she’ll get all my money.”

And also because he had a daughter who was too stupid and too naive to say “But Daddy: your son-in-law is one of the most powerful lawyers in the Southwest. She’s not gonna get all your precious money!”

So…he was stupid and I was remiss and the new wife was a witch. Between the three of us, we concocted a fine unhappy passage through the end of his life.

If there’s anything to learn from that escapade, it’s…what?

When you experience a major life change (such as the death of a spouse), don’t make any sudden moves. 

If he’d waited just six months before jumping into marital “bliss” with the Dragon Lady, he no doubt would never have married her. He would still be lonely, but he would not have been freaking miserable.

When you plan ahead for the major passages of your life — retirement, for example, or marriage, or the rearing of children — think of and plan for ALL the contingencies. Not just the things you imagine will happen or hope will happen. But for the catastrophes and the fu*k-ups, too.

If money or major commitments are part of a “major passage” of your life, consult a lawyer and a financial advisor before jumping into anything.

******
arrrrghhhh!!!

Here’s the Cleaning Lady from Heaven, at the front door. It’s MUCH later in the morning than I imagined!!  LOL! I thought it was about 9 a.m.

Uhhhm…welllll… No. It’s damn near 11:30! She’s already cleaned the WonderAccountants’ house, straight across the street. And now here she is, ready to work her magic on the Funny Farm.

Seriously: this lady is about the most wonderful human being you could ever have working for you. If I ever took it into my feeble little mind to start a cleaning service (what, me? work???), she would be the one I’d hire as its manager.

Well…let’s wrap this up… ONWARD!

BANG! BANG!! BANG-A-DA-BANG!!!

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Eight-thirty of a New’s Eve! And everyone within (and beyond) earshot is celebrating: BANG! BANG!! BANGA-DA-BANG!!! 

Amazingly, Ruby the Corgi is taking it all in…very relaxed stride. Really: I would have expected her to be all nervous and jumpy and spooked.

But nay! She seems to realize all that racket is coming from somewhere else: somewhere a fair distance from the Funny Farm. Not only is she NOT spooked, just now she’s flopped on the foot of the bed, loafing!

How weird is that, I hafta ask you?

LOL! This evening the brain-pan filled with memories of a very weird experience...one I never really have been able to make much sense of.

My father, you need to understand first-off, was a very macho sort of guy. Anything that smacked of “queer” would set off his rage genes. He hated queers (so he said), and would launch into paroxysms of disgust on the subject if given half a chance.

Sooooo….  It struck me as VERY weird when one time in a balmy Arizona season, he took it into his head to gather a bunch of Boy Scouts to go out on the desert and shoot at stuff. Target shooting.

Not too weird, until you learned that — hang onto your hat — he proposed to stay out there overnight with the passel of teenaged boys. All of them ejaculatedly revved up by shooting guns into the night air.

Yeah.

Whaaaaa???????

To my astonishment, my mother said nothing to try to derail this plan. Probably, I imagine, because she couldn’t think of anything…or maybe she just didn’t want to get into a quarrel with him.

So he rounds up a troop of senior Boy Scouts, and off they go into the desert night.

No other adults with them: just my father and a half-dozen or so teenage boys.

Uhhmmm…..

Since I wished to continue living, I, too, said nothing about this…but thought any number of unmentionable thoughts.

Well. OK….

Off they went, into the desert and the dark. Far as I know, nothing much transpired — or if it did, you may sure none of them mentioned it.  They drove off, set up camp somewhere, and spent the night shooting their bang-bangs and sittin’ around the campfire.

You understand: my father wasn’t given to that kind of thing. By and large, he didn’t much like kids — these were not kids, though, but teenagers. And this was the ONLY time in my life that I’d ever heard of him or seen him go camping. Not that he couldn’t: he grew up out in the Texas boondocks. But he didn’t subject me or my mother to it.

So…when I hear the BANG BANG BANG of fireworks or firearms echoing through the night, that’s what I think of: my father out on the desert with a passel of teenage boys, shooting off their guns into the dark.

Or whatever.

And that makes these firework-accented holidays feel…weird, to me. Very, very weird. 

***** GODAMMIT!*****

Now we’ve got idiots out there shooting off fireworks over the tops of the palm trees.

I’ll have to go out there and keep an eye to be sure the damn trees don’t catch fire.

WHY ARE WE SURROUNDED BY MORONS?

Pool Dude, Beloved Pool Dude

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HOW ON EARTH does this dawg know when it’s Pool Dude Day???  Do dogs have internal calendars?

That wonderful man comes around regularly to shovel out the leaves, the dust, and the whatnot, to update the chemicals, and to keep the pump equipment running. If it weren’t for him, by now I’d have had to do what my neighbor does: shut down the pool, drain it, and use it as a nest in which to breed mosquitos. (You can’t fully drain it: even with the drain open, a little puddle gathers at the deep end.)

Her neighbor on the other side is a lady who likes to sleep with her windows open. (Yeah, I know. But she’s from Europe and knows not about the risks posed by the local criminal set). So…European Lady naively goes to bed with the windows hanging open and apparently with no functional screens covering the empty space.

And…SURPRISE!!!!! She gets all bit up by the mosquitos breeding on the bottom of our neighbor’s pool, and this leads to a fine, roaring infection that damn near kills her. In fact, at one point the doctors told her dad she wouldn’t live through the night.

But she’s a tough lady, and so she surprised them. She’s back and going strong. And our neighbor’s mosquito pond still sits in that backyard, with a nice little puddle at the bottom.

I suggested to European Lady’s dad — who happens to be the famed Tony the Romanian Landlord — that he quietly toss some insecticide over the wall into the puddle. And…well…he must have done that, because we no longer get mosquito raids here.

What a place!

And to put the crown on that: this is one of the better “places” in Phoenix.

Wherever there are humans, there be morons.