Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

Another Balmy Day in Arizona…

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“…Leave us all enjoy it,” as one beloved radio announcer (now extinct) used to croon.

Yeah. It’s 5:25 in the afternoon and A HUNDRED AND NINE DEGREES in the balmy shade of the back porch.

To gild that thermometer, a layer of overcast is drifting in from the east. So…it’s hotter than the hubs out there — and humid. 

Lovely. Feels like Saudi Arabia.

Anyhow…if there was ever a chance that Ruby and I could do an evening walk after the sun goes down, it’s rapidly melting away!

😀

What DO you suppose got into my parents, to drag us here to this balmy spot? Wouldn’t you think 10 years of 110-degree heat and sand by the Persian Gulf would have warmed the cockles of their souls enough?

ohhhhh well….  At least we don’t get hurricanes. Horrors!

Think I was supposed to go to the dentist this afternoon. That would have been impossible, as M’jihito still has my car. Just as well…I’m past my heat-and-hassle limit!!!

***

Ruby goes outside. Where is she? 

Call the dog.

No sign of her.

But also no sign that any of the PARCHED, FRICASEED TREES AND PLANTS in the backyard have been watered.

Call the dog.

Tear around trying to get the watering system to come on. Drag a hose to one especially fried tree.

Call the dog.

Set the water to running on the backyard orange trees.

Call the dog.

Bat my way back into the house.

Call the dog.

Finally find her: loafing in the bedroom.

Hot, hot, hot, hot, HOTTER THAN HOT. Air-conditioner is set to 79 degrees, and it’s pounding away.

Phone jangles. 

Leap up, run to the office, grab handset.

It’s M’hijito, calling to check that I’m OK in this unholy heat, and asking if I’d like him to take me to the grocery store.

<3

Hafta ask you: how nice is that??? <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Nothing needed here this evening. But tomorrow I may ask him to schlep me to the Sprouts or some such. No hurry, thank goodness!!

Arizona:
Garden spot

Muse Me No Muzak!

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Daaayum, but I hate Muzak. Do you know anyone who actually likes to sit on the phone interminably listening to bing-bing-BONG-bing/bong bong BING bing pumped into their ear?

Tried to call Young Dr. Kildare’s new office, way to hell and gone out in Sun City, by way of canceling today’s appointment. Ring ’em up and get bing-bing-BONG-bing/bong bong BING bing blasting into the phone. Finally, after about five minutes of this annoyance, some poor office worker came on the line, just as I was about to slam down the phone.

Y’know, one of the problems with this endlessly annoying “system” is that by the time an employee answers the phone, your customer is in SUCH A RAGE that it’s almost impossible to muster a shard of politeness.

Another problem: since Dr. Kildare makes his (dis)respect for his patients/customers so obvious, you can be SURE this one will never show up in his environs again.

Y’know, I think the Mayo is just great. Love my doc out there, though sometimes question her opinions. But the problem is…their offices are WAAAAYYYYY over on the far side of north Scottsdale, halfway to freakin’ Payson. A drive over there takes upwards of 40 minutes — one way. So you’re on the road for 80 minutes to spend maybe 10 minutes with MayoDoc.

Annoying.

At the time I knew him here, YDK’s office was right up the street from my house. Literally: I could walk there, if I felt so ambitious. That and the fact that he’s reasonably smart and competent led me to schedule visits with him for any medical issue that looked fairly tame. Saved the Mayo safari for ailments that looked downright terrifying.

And when you get old, you DO get enough of those to help pay a doctor’s overhead…

At any rate…probably in search of an older, more ailing clientele, YDK closed his office in Moon Valley, a suburb just up the road from the Funny Farm, and decamped to Sun City.

A long drive from here. A long, crowded, unpleasant drive.

But…I like him so much that I decided I would follow him…westward, ever westward.

***
Uh huh. Tried that. Ain’t tryin’ it again. 
***

My parents lived in Sun City. My mother died there, under the care of the most UNcaring doctors I ever met. So, I determined that I would never, ever let a Sun City doctor have at me.

Needless to say, YDK’s move out there led to some agonizing second thoughts. 

A huge, brand-new, fancy hospital has sprung up in Sun City. One guesses that YDK and his partners decided to go out there so they could get in on the ground floor of that thing…and have access to some swell new office digs. All very nice.

But if I’m going to drive half my lifetime to see a doctor, I guess — oh, make that I know I’d rather go east than west. ANY day I’d rather go to a Mayo Clinic doctor than to Albert Schweitzer in Sun City! Hafta say: the experiences we had out there — in Sun City — while my mother was dying were just horrific. I swore I’d never go near another Sun City doctor or hospital…and…well… I reckon now is the time to honor that oath.

‘Bye, YDK…you will be missed!

<3

Augh! SPARE Me, Lord!

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Well, we’ve got about 2.5 hours before my son shows up to drag me back out to the Mayo Clinic — on the far side of Scottsdale, halfway to freakin’ Payson — for another time-wasting yack-fest.

These supposedly therapeutic sessions consist of gathering about two dozen old farts around a large conference table, where we spend three hours nattering on about how we can’t remember where we put our shoes.

No kidding! That WAS the subject of one chatterfest.

UNbelievable waste of time!

Did one person — either one of the freshly air-headed or one of the staff members — ever suggest that the way to not have to worry about forgetting where you put your shoes is simply to ALWAYS PUT THEM IN THE SAME PLACE every time you take them off?

Nope. Not one person came anywhere near suggesting that. It was all whine! whine! whine! I can’t remember my name! 

Seriously: Wouldn’t it be better simply to recognize that as you age, your memory will weaken (that’s normal…) and take steps to address that problem? How hard IS it to…

…have a to-do list. Tape it to the back door or the bathroom mirror if you can’t remember where you put it.
…set alarm clocks or timers to ring when you have an appointment or something that needs to be done at a certain time.
…put your relatives or hired help up to reminding you that you need to do X, Y, or Z.

You see the problem…  

Anyway, the last time we trudged out there for one of these get-togethers, it was two and a half or three hours of utter, COMPLETE wasted time. 

And since I personally feel my time should be mine to waste, not someone else’s, I highly resented that event. And even more highly resent having to traipse out to the east side to waste another whole goddamn afternoon.

Understand: it’s almost an hour’s drive out there from here. That doesn’t count getting parked and navigating your way, on foot, through the clinic’s maze to get to the day’s conference room.

Which is to say that by the time you’ve traipsed out to the far side of Scottsdale and come back home, you’ve blown away two hours…and that doesn’t count the three hours blown away listening to old buzzards whine about losing their shoes. So in fact, you’re going to waste a good half-day.

Thought you had something better to do with your time? Hey…don’t be silly! You’re OLD…you don’t have anything to do with your time.

Right?

How’m I Gonna Get it???

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Well. I ain’t a gonna get it. 

Wine, that is. From the nearest fancy yuppy grocery store. Because I can’t get to said store without risking my life. And I ain’t a-gonna risk my life for a bottle of Sauvignon blanc.

No kidding: As we scribble, the temperature in the deepest shade of the back porch registers 108 degrees. Humidity is 19 percent.

My son has kiped my car, so I can’t drive the five blocks or so to the Sprouts or the Albertson’s to snab a bottle of wine.

And just now I would like nothing much more than a nice cold glass of white wine.

Could call Uber and have my neighbor Uber driver schlep me across the street, through the unholy heat, to snab a bottle at the Sprouts. But…seriously?????? 

Nope. I’m desperate, but I’m not so desperate as to hire a cab to drive me four blocks to a local grocery store.

Man!!  It is hotter than the hubs of Hades here this afternoon, even though 108 just isn’t that hot. It must be a bit humid out there, making the heat feel more intense than it is.

So I reckon tomorrow morning I’ll turn out of the sack early and show up at the store as the opening bell jangles. Yea verily: They all open at 7:00 a.m. So if I’m at their door at seven, I should be able to snab a bottle or two of booze and get back here before it gets dangerously hot.

{chortle!} You couldn’t do that in Sun City. Leastwise, I don’t recall that one can. Not unless you lived right next door to the shopping center. The place is VAST.

Lately I’ve considered following SDXB out to that indeed vast, monotone retirement city. It would have a few advantages: lots of other old bats; probably less traffic and fewer screaming ambulances; no kids yowling. But…

Well…been there, done that. Don’t think Sun City is my Thing.

****

SDXB just called from Seattle, where he’s visiting his sister and brother-in-law. They have a lovely home there, up north where the weather is cool at this time of year.

His sister is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Heaven help her. That’s about the saddest news I’ve had in life: she’s an active, vivacious woman, very outdoorsy, very lively. To be crippled up with an ailment like that must be seven kinds of torture.

Well. Rather few of us are gonna get out of this place without some kind of torture, I guess. About the best we can hope for is that it will be relatively brief.

****

OMG!!!

M’ijito just showed up at the door. He went by the grocery store and surfaced with bag after bag of loot — even including a bottle of white wine!

Gosh. Now I won’t have to make a grocery run for the better part of a week. And I won’t have to sneak off to my favorite secret wine shop to snab a bottle of addictive slosh.

Wow!

Tried to get him to stay for dinner, but he took off like a cannonball.

See? That there would never happen if I were parked in Sun City!

😀

OMG. Not to say ha ha ha hee hee ha hah! 

He brought me a bottle of — hang onto your hat — zero alcohol white wine!

Zero flavor, too. It’s billed as Sauvignon blanc…and it has about as much flavor as tap water.

It was very thoughtful, though. What a sweetie!

And interesting to get ahold of the zero-alcohol stuff: now we know what it tastes like. Or…uhm…doesn’t taste like. 😀

 

ohhhh well….

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11:20 Friday night:  And dayum! 

Here I thought this vicious ailment was getting a little better…but ohhhhh no! It’s back with a burning, tingling, hurting vengeance.

LOL! Do not annoy the Gods of Pain, whatever ya do!

Seriously, by evening I (stupidly) did think it was slacking off. Getting a little better. Becoming tolerable. Har har har! 

Not. So. Much.

Sure am tired of hurting. Wish this thing would go away…or I would go away. Whichever is necessary to make it stop.

The little dawg turned out of the sack a little early for her wee-hours perambulation of the backyard. It’s only about 11:30. She usually lasts till 4:00 a.m., give or take.

Because the ‘Hood is infested with coyotes — any one of whom would enjoy a delicious 20-pound dog as a midnight snack — I have to go outside with her and stand around until she does her Thing. Then lure her back into the house. That’s not a terrible thing to have to do, really. One could do without the background music of constant ear-whistling. But ten minutes or so in the backyard of a pleasant night….that’s OK enough. I guess.

Ugh! Still wonder what those two officious social workers — ostensibly from the State of Arizona — wanted when they descended on me. And still marvel at the incredible luck that Luz the Wonder-Cleaning-Lady happened to have visited early enough to have shoveled out the pig-pen before the nuisance women showed up. That was a bizarre visitation — from the two officials, that is. What the Hell were those to up to?

Whatever it was…wasn’t good, of that you can be pretty sure.

***

That dose of ibuprofen I dropped seems to have helped a little. Let us try to get back to sleep!

😀

 

Weird-weather Day

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Just back from marching thru the ‘Hood with Ruby the Corgi. 

ICK! What a weird morning. It’s overcast…and hot! Doubt if it will rain — that would cool it off, eh? None o’ that nonsense in these sylvan pastures!

😀

We strolled down into Lower Richistan, an affluent neighborhood to the south of the ‘Hood. The houses are older and, oddly, not very interesting. Not an area that I would choose to live in, if I had that kinda money.

While strolling: Contemplate the latest weird predicament. 

Yesterday a pair of women showed up at my front door, identifying themselves as state social workers. Somebody had reported me as a victim of abuse!

Yeah…right: admire this black eye, eh?  /s/

Holeeee shee-ut! 

Apparently some “friend” of mine — which one it is, I think I know — decided out of the blue that my son is being abusive to me.

Got that?

My son: the guy who drives me from pillar to post, who helps with the paperwork, who arranges appointments for me at the Mayo and drives me way to hell & gone out there, who runs interference with the bank when I screw up my books….on and ever-so-abusively on. /eyeroll/

So I had to fend off that pair of fruitcakes. Whether I succeeded in getting rid of them, I do not know…but very much doubt it.

I probably need to call a lawyer and get him or her lined up and armed for battle. Problem is, mine croaked over a few weeks ago…and I don’t have anyone to take his place.

WhatEVER could have possessed my “friend” to pull a damnfool stunt like that?

The sheer hassle factor…oh gawd! It makes me cringe!

Well, she’s not my “friend” any more. I won’t have another thing to say to her after this.

And…after this I won’t answer the door, not unless I’m expecting someone and I can see that the desired “someone” is out there.